LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Friday, January 17, 2020

CBC

Mayor Naheed Nenshi says the province's 'fair deal' panel might not be so fair for Calgary.

On Thursday, the city's Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Nenshi, passed three recommendations the city will submit to the Alberta government's panel.

The city doesn't want the promise to "emulate" the legal requirements in Quebec, where municipalities must get approval from the province before entering into agreements with the federal government.

It also asks that the city is involved when it comes to changes made to secure a fair deal within the Confederation and that the province ensures any major change is also fair for Alberta's two biggest cities.

Nenshi said those proposals would negatively affect the city, like preventing the city from making deals with the federal government and preventing the city from getting federal funding.

"That would leave hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on the table, it would lead to enormous administrative inefficiencies and huge red tape," Nenshi said.

"Certainly there are things in there that could actually hurt Calgary," Nenshi said.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney created the panel in the fall to consider recommendations on how to best advance the province's economic interests within Confederation, considering nearly a dozen proposals including the creation of an Alberta pension plan, a provincial police force, a tax collection agency, a chief firearms officer and a formalized provincial constitution.

The panel travelled throughout the province over the last two months holding public forums.

Thursday's Airdrie stop was postponed due to the death of panel member Jason Goodstriker, the Alberta government announced in a press release on Friday afternoon.

The panel will be in Medicine Hat on Friday evening, which was to be its last stop, but the release stated that the Airdrie visit would be rescheduled.

In December, nearly 500 people showed up to have their say in front of the fair deal panel in northeast Calgary. Most supported the Alberta government's call for more power while others called the panel a sideshow that distracted from provincial budget cuts.

On Thursday, Coun. Druh Farrell echoed the latter sentiment that and said she questions the motivation behind the panel.

She said Calgary and the province need to come up with solutions rather than "live on anger."

"Yes we should always be trying to get a better arrangement with our federal partners as the City of Calgary should always be trying to get fairness incorporated in decision making in the province," Farrell said.

"But I wonder if this is simply a distraction."

Meanwhile, Coun. Sean Chu disagreed with his colleagues and said the city should not be taking on responsibilities outside of its jurisdiction.

"They set out the panel to do the fair deal for Alberta," Chu said. "How can the panel itself (be) a bad thing?"

The recommendations were passed on Thursday with just one small amendment — that the word 'direct' be substituted by the word 'request'.

THANK YOU DON'T COME AGAIN

Hank Azaria says he won't voice Apu on The Simpsons anymore after controversy

Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Some major changes are apparently coming to Springfield.

Hank Azaria has revealed he'll longer voice Apu on The Simpsons, telling /Film, "All we know there is I won't be doing the voice anymore, unless there's someway to transition it or something."

The Simpsons faced renewed criticism over Apu since the release of the 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu, in which comedian Hari Kondabolu and others discuss the character who Kondabolu has described as "a white guy doing an impression of a white guy making fun of my father."

The documentary sparked a conversation about whether The Simpsons should write out the character some view as an offensive Indian stereotype, though others suggested keeping Apu but recasting Azaria with an Indian voice actor. Azaria, who also voices other characters on the show like Moe and Chief Wiggum, appeared to allude to that option Friday by referencing a possible "transition." But while Azaria said it's "up to them and they haven't sorted it out yet," he made clear that "I won't do the voice anymore," also saying, "We all made the decision together."

The Simpsons previously addressed the criticism over Apu in a meta 2018 episode, in which Lisa, looking directly at the camera, says, "Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect." She then looks at a picture of Apu and asks, "What can you do?" Marge and Lisa, again addressing the audience, promise this will be "dealt with at a later date," "if at all." That later date is evidently coming up.

Azaria previously expressed his willingness to step down from the role of Apu, saying on The Late Show, "the idea that anybody who is young or old, past or present, was bullied or teased based on the character of Apu, it just really makes me sad." No official announcement about the future of the character has been made. Brendan Morrow

White House violated law by withholding Ukraine aid, watchdog concludes

The White House violated the law when it withheld aid to Ukraine, a nonpartisan government agency concluded on Thursday. The Government Accountability Office said the Office of Management and Budget's withholding of Ukraine aid that Congress had appropriated was not lawful. "Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law," the Government Accountability Office said. "Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the [Impoundment Control Act (ICA)]." The withholding of aid to Ukraine in July 2019 was at the center of President Trump's impeachment, which alleged Trump froze the aid to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation that might benefit him in the 2020 presidential election. An OMB spokesperson said "we disagree with GAO's opinion."

Source: Politico

TRUMP LIES

11 Americans were injured in recent Iran strike

Eleven Americans were injured in Iran's recent missile strike on the Al Asad Air base in Iraq, which President Trump and the Pentagon previously said resulted in no injuries. The military confirmed Thursday that 11 Americans were treated for concussions after Iran last week struck two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops; the concussion symptoms emerged several days later. "While no U.S. servicemembers were killed ... several were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed," said a United States Central Command spokesperson. The attack on the bases came in response to a U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. CNN's Jim Sciutto said the update indicated "that the Iranian missile strike was a nearer miss than advertised."

Source: The New York Times, CNN

Iran's Khamenei criticizes 'clown' Trump in rare Friday prayers sermon

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led Friday prayers at the Mosella mosque in Tehran on Friday for the first time since 2012, trying to rally support among intertwined crises facing his government. Khamenei, 80, called Iran's downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet last week a "bitter accident" and claimed "our enemies were as happy about the plane crash as we were sad" because it allowed them to criticize his government. He called President Trump a "clown" who is only pretending to support Iran's people, said the U.S. killing of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani 'cowardly" and demonstrative of America's "terrorist nature," and called Iran's retaliatory missile strikes a "slap on the face" to the U.S. that "shows the hand of God" and Iran's "power."

Source: Reuters, The Associated Press

China’s birth rate falls to lowest in communist era
Despite abandoning one-child policy Beijing has seen little success in reversing decline

THANK YOU CHINA
Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93

Nurses look after babies at an infant care centre in Yongquan, southwest China ( AFP via Getty Images )

China’s birth rate has fallen to its lowest since the founding of the communist People’s Republic 70 years ago.

Last year there were 14.6 million births, a drop of 580,000 from the year before, according to a report from the National Bureau of Statistics released on Friday.

The birth rate of 10.48 per 1,000 people marked the third consecutive year to see a decline in the overall number of births.

Despite abandoning its long-standing one-child policy in 2016, China has seen little success in reversing its declining birth rate.

The policy allowing couples to have a second child has been met with little enthusiasm amid a lack of incentives and rising costs for housing, food, health care and education.

China’s population reached 1.4 billion by the end of 2019, an overall gain of 4.67 million people, the bureau said.

However, the country’s working age population, those between 16 and 59 years old, declined by 890,000.

Meanwhile the number of people aged 60 or older grew by 4.39 million, making up 18.1 per cent of the total population.

In January last year, a Chinese government-affiliated think tank warned the population of the world’s second-biggest economy could begin shrinking as soon as 2027.

---30---

Meet the British Orthodox Jew standing up for China’s Uighur Muslims

'Nothing on this scale has ever happened before, except once, and that was the Holocaust,' protester tells Evie Breese

Andrew has been protesting outside the Chinese embassy

office in Hampstead every Tuesday and Wednesday for

nearly a year ( Evie Breese )

Standing by the side of the road, a lone protester pivots backwards and forwards to display his sign to every passing car. It reads “3 Million Muslims in Chinese Concentration Camps.”

Andrew pitches up at the Chinese Embassy office in leafy Hampstead every single Tuesday and Wednesday. Sometimes he has company, but often he is alone. He’s been coming without fail for almost a year.

In late 2018, satellite images of the camps in which Uighur Muslims are being detained for what China has termed ‘re-education’ began to emerge. Before then there had been unsubstantiated rumours of the facilities, but for Andrew, this was “undeniable proof” of concentration camps in Xinjiang.

“Because of my personal history. I didn't feel I could sit at home,” he says.

Andrew describes himself as a "typical Orthodox Jew.” He lives in Golders Green with his family, and works as a businessman. While he is protesting against one of the world’s greatest superpowers, he says he does not feel safe sharing his full name.

China has been accused of genocide by experts as reports of ethnic minority Uighur women forced to have abortions have emerged. Women who escaped the high security camps also spoke of widespread sexual torture. UN figures have put the numbers of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities forced into “political camps for indoctrination” at between one and two million, while Andrew took his statistic of three million from a UN Special Rapporteur.

More recently, China has also started to demolish Uighur graveyards.

China destroying Uighur burial grounds
Show all 6

Boris Johnson is yet to address the Uighur situation publicly, following Theresa May who, during her time as Prime Minister, remained silent on the issue. But the UK has called on Beijing to respect ‘freedom of religion or belief’ when the country led 22 other countries in condemning China’s actions at the United Nations (UN) human rights committee meeting last October.

“Something on this scale, with millions of people, women, men and children in concentration camps hasn't happened before, except once,” Andrew explains.

Members of Andrew’s family were gassed at Auschwitz concentration camp. His wife’s mother was hidden from the Nazi’s by the people of her village, risking their lives to save hers.

“We said, the world said, ‘never again.’”

Watch more

They are concentration camps. That's the whole point

The lack of international uproar is what frightens Andrew the most. He explains that Germany opened its first concentration camp in 1933, but they didn’t formally become extermination camps until nine years later. During that time the world largely looked the other way, he says.

Nazi Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics, and while athletes from around the world competed in Berlin, Jews, Romani Gypsies, and political prisoners were being held in Dachau, Berlin-Marzahn and Sachsenhausen concentration camps.

“Virtually everybody I speak to in the Jewish community, sees the parallels. You know, we were in concentration camps, and these people are,” Andrew says.

However, professor Steve Tsang, Director of the SOAS China Institute, sees this comparison with the Holocaust as “tricky.”

As many as three million people are detained in concentration camps in China's Xinjiang region (Getty)

Genocide is a deliberate act of killing a large group of people, and we are not seeing that in this case, he was keen to point out.

“The Chinese are not killing the Muslims in the gas chambers, killing them like the Third Reich did.”

“But we are seeing an attempt to fundamentally change, forcefully, the cultural and religious practices of a people.” This fits with many definitions of cultural genocide, including that used by the UN.

Tsang is sympathetic to why people of Jewish decent would make such a comparison, “they are remembering the events that led to the holocaust,” he says.

“They are raising it before it gets to a Holocaust stage.”

On this particular cold January night, Andrew has been joined by some individuals who are part of, or have seen the event advertised by the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions China Facebook group.

Jumina Qureshi, a trainee science teacher from Neasden, has come out for her first protest, and she’s brought her four young children and husband. The family has doubled tonight's numbers, and Andrew is thrilled.

“This is quite emotional actually, seeing Andrew here. Despite our history – you know, Jews and Muslims, he’s out here saying it’s not ok.”

“It just goes to show, interfaith dialogue is more important now than ever,” she says.

Uighur numbers in the UK are small compared to communities in other countries in Europe and in the US, but Rahima Mahmut, claims that almost everyone has family or friends interned in China’s camps.

China's "re-education" facilities have evoked memories of Nazi concentration camps such as Belsen (Pictured) (Getty)

The UK representative to the World Uighur Congress, Mahmut has been filled with gratitude for the support the Uighur Muslims have received from London’s Jewish community. She has been working with Jewish human rights organisation Renne Cassin, who have made “‘never again’ is happening again” their main campaign for 2020.

Mahmut has nine siblings in Ghulja, Xinjiang, the site of the 1997 Ghulja Massacre where more than 100 Uighur muslims were killed during government retaliation to protests calling for regional independence, though state media numbers the fatalities at nine.

She hasn’t heard from them since January 2017.

“I don't know what happened to my sisters, my brothers. I tried to get hold of information and indirectly by asking people to contact them, but it wasn’t possible,” she says.

Since her arrival to the UK in 2000 as a student, Mahmut has never returned to Xinjiang out of fear that she could be arrested, have her passport confiscated, or be sent to one of the camps.

Andrew is yet to have spoken to any employees of the embassy. “The staff at the embassy section in Hampstead avoid us entirely, (they) sneak out the back when we are around,” he says.

Read more

China ‘building car parks’ over Uighur Muslim burial grounds

Tsang believes that “Xi Jinping is interested in China’s image,” and it is this concern that could force China to backtrack on their Uighur policy.

“We have to speak out about it at every opportunity,” he said. Widespread condemnation, he says, could force China to react.

As the first anniversary of his protest appears on the horizon, Andrew feels only sadness. Despite some heartwarming experiences during the past year – “there was a chauffeur who stopped, gave me his card and said ‘look, for what you’re doing, I’ll take you anywhere in London for free,’” - he will not be celebrating the landmark.

“The anniversary will mean that the millions in concentration camps will have been there for another whole year, so it is a sad event, not a happy one.”

Asked what it will take for him to take a night off, or even lay down his placard, Andrew replies: “I don’t feel able to stop. Not until the camps are closed down and the people are free.”

---30---

Scientists discover wolf cubs also play fetch, behaviour thought to belong to dogs alone

Finding suggests behaviour is innate to canine species

Joe Morgan

It was thought that dogs only played fetch due to 15,000 years of domestication but scientists have now discovered that wolf cubs also play the game.

The finding suggests that this behaviour of fetching a ball may actually be somewhat innate to all canine species.

Researchers once believed that fetching games only arose when dogs were domesticated at a time when the human race still lived in caves.

Animal experts were shocked to discover this when 13 wolf puppies from three different litters were tested in a behavioural test designed to compare them to young dog puppies.

In one test, three eight-week-old wolf puppies spontaneously showed interest in a ball and returned it to a perfect stranger upon encouragement.

RSPCA reveals most unusual rescue missions of 2019
Show all 18

Behavioural ecologist Dr Christina Hansen Wheat, of Stockholm University, said: “When I saw the first wolf puppy retrieving the ball I literally got goosebumps.

“It was so unexpected, and I immediately knew that this meant that if variation in human-directed play behaviour exists in wolves, this behaviour could have been a potential target for early selective pressures exerted during dog domestication.”

Dr Hansen Wheat and her team decided to examine both wolf and dog pups in the same way across 10 days, putting them through various behavioural tests.

In one test, a stranger threw a tennis ball across the room, and without the benefit of any previous training, encouraged the puppy to get it and bring it back.

The researchers said they did not expect wolf pups to catch on, and many of them chose to ignore the ball.

But then some wolves decided to play fetch.
Watch more

Dog gives birth to ‘lime green’ puppy

Dr Hansen Wheat said: “It was very surprising that we had wolves actually retrieving the ball.

“I did not expect that. I do not think any of us did. It was especially surprising that the wolves retrieved the ball for a person they had never met before.”

The wolf expert said the similarities between the two canine species can tell us about where the behaviour we see in dogs comes from.

She said the results, although probably rare, show our ancestors may have attempted to domesticate wolves as well as dogs.

She added: “Wolf puppies showing human-directed behaviour could have had a selective advantage in early stages of dog domestication.”

Her team will now continue to work with the data they have collected over the course of three years hand-raising wolves and dogs under identical conditions to learn even more about their behavioural differences and similarities.

The study appears in the journal iScience.

SWNS

GLOBAL WOMEN'S MARCH
‘Marital rape is practically legal here’: Women around the world explain why they’re marching

From America to Zambia, millions are set to protest over the ‘alarming rollback’ of rights across the globe, writes women’s correspondent Maya Oppenheim

The event, which is the fourth Women’s March to take place

since the protests started in 2017, is centred around the

theme of 'bodily autonomy' ( Angela Christofilou/The Independent )

Armed with banners and megaphones, millions of women around the world will take to the streets on Saturday to protest against the “alarming rollback” of women’s rights and groundswell of anti-abortion policies amid the rise of the far right.

The inaugural Women’s March demonstration in 2017 saw six million people express their fury over the election of Donald Trump despite his record of demeaning, sexually aggressive comments about women.

Women’s March has been growing ever since – with 45 marches in cities and towns which cover 20 countries stretching across Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Canada and Australia planned for Saturday.

Uma Mishra-Newbery, executive director of Women’s March Global, said: “This past year, we have experienced a surge in the rollback of women’s human rights across the world. One of the most shocking developments was when the United States declared, along with 19 other member states, that there is no international right to abortion at a United Nations meeting. We are extremely concerned that this will lead to a collective retreat of women’s rights across the world.”

Women's march 2019 – global protest in pictures
Show all 30

The Independent spoke to women around the world involved in organising this year’s marches about why they are taking to the streets.

Zambia: ‘Our country is a haven for rapists’

Ann Holland, who is organising the Women’s March in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, said gender-based violence was highly prevalent in the African nation and patriarchal views are deeply entrenched.

The campaigner said their protest would be “very loud” and “very feminist” and people from more than 50 organisations are attending. They had strived to make the march more inclusive this year in an attempt to build a movement which is a safe space for marginalised groups, Ms Holland added.

She said: “We are centring trans women, sex workers, refugee women and women living with disabilities. Our theme is Leave No Woman Behind and we want to make sure of that.

Women’s March activists in Zambia

“We are using our march to lobby for many laws like the end of taxed pads to help stop period poverty and we are petitioning for strict laws when it comes to sexual assault because our country is a haven for rapists.

“If you want to understand the kind of sexism and inequality Zambian women face, imagine a smaller South Africa, with a population of 17 million, with less media coverage and a country probably stuck in the fifties. Women and girls die every day here at the hands of men. We record thousands of cases of rape every four months. Women die from gender-based violence and marital rape is practically legal here.”

The best placards from the Women's March 2019
Show all 27

The campaigner said women’s rights in the nation were currently being utilised by many companies and organisations for “political propaganda”. Feminist movements are rising in the country but such activists are arguably “the most hated and misunderstood group”, she added.

“According to patriarchs we are too bitter, have a vendetta against men and are probably lesbians who just need men to cure them,” Ms Holland said. “The women hate it too. Feminism is bigger with the younger women aged between 15 to 30. They are more aware, they understand the need for feminism and to constantly work together to smash patriarchy.”

United Kingdom: ‘We are now facing at least another four and a half years of the same old’

Aisha Ali-Khan, co-organiser of Women’s March London, said there would be a big turnout because of the Conservative landslide in the December general election and anger at the Trump administration in the US.

Protesters are set to gather in Whitehall in Central London for a rally rather than a march calling for a “fairer, more equal and sustainable future”.

Ms Ali-Khan, who is a teacher, said: “We march for the rights of women, as well as women who don’t have a voice, and for the marginalised. We march against austerity measures and the fact the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. This is especially true with universal credit.

Watch more

How the far right is costing women their human rights

“We are now facing at least another four-and-a-half years of the same old. We will now have Brexit so women’s rights are more under threat. The domestic abuse bill has fallen the wayside and was pushed further and further down the political agenda.

“Every week, two women are murdered by a partner or ex-partner in the UK. Violence against women should be a priority for Priti Patel but it isn’t. We have seen a massive rise of men using rough sex as an excuse for killing their partners. We are seeing misogyny getting worse.”

Canada: ‘There is a lot of residual sexism’

Lila Palychuk, who is helping to organise the Women’s March in Sarnia in Ontario, said there were deeply ingrained sexist views in the town.

The campaigner added: “There is a lot of residual sexism and patriarchal views here. We had a municipal election recently and we elected one woman but she is not very progressive. If you look at the femicide report, there is a fair amount of female deaths at the hands of male domestic partners but we are no worse than anywhere else.

“But reports of sexual assaults have gone up steeply in Sarnia-Lamton [an electoral district in Ontario]. Sexual assaults doubled from 2017 to 2018. People are more empowered. Police are attributing it to the #MeToo movement.”

Ms Palychuk said it was “very exciting” connecting with other marches around the world last year due to being such a “small community”. Demonstrators from a range of ethnicities and sexualities and members of the indigenous community attended, the 31-year-old accountant added.

“Last year was our first march. There were 500 people last year in a huge amount of snow. There should be at least 500 again.”

Paris: ‘Sexism is a quintessential French trait’

Honorine Boudzoumou, spokesperson for Women’s March Paris, raised concerned about the high levels of violence against women in France where there has been mounting outrage over femicides, defined as the gender-motivated killing of women, in recent months.

The campaigner said that although the government has adopted measures to tackle such violence, the measures remain insufficient.

Honorine Boudzoumou marching in Paris

She added: “It feels like there is a lot of talk and very little action. For example, after the large governmental meeting on domestic violence, a number of new measures were announced, but the money allocated to them was insultingly low.

“Women face an enormous amount of violence in their daily lives, which is influenced by their socioeconomic class, race, and identity. Femicide is the most extreme form of this violence because it seeks to erase us completely. At some point, you begin to wonder if your life even matters. You wonder what you actually would have to do for the threats that you face to be taken seriously.”

France has witnessed a fierce backlash to the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault.
Read more

Inside El Salvador’s state-sponsored persecution of vulnerable women

Protesters are holding a round table in Paris instead of a march because organisers wanted a space for “in-depth discussions”.

Ms Boudzoumou said: “The theme of our event is bodily autonomy. However, in the debate over bodily autonomy in France, certain voices are almost completely ignored, like those of people of colour, Muslims, LGBT+ people, people with disabilities, fat people, and sex workers.”

The campaigner argued sexism is a “quintessential French trait” and called for people to understand this in order to be able to “dismantle it”.

“We did have the #BalanceTonPorc [Expose Your Pig] movement, which provoked major public discussions about sexism,” she added. “Women dared to speak up unabashedly, and the shame finally switched sides. That said, there is still a lot of work to do. Our country is way behind others in dealing with these problems.”

Switzerland: ‘Swiss banks are fuelling the climate crisis’

Activists in the Swiss capital of Geneva are raising awareness of the gendered dimension of climate change in this year’s march.

Doreen Akiyo Yomoah, one of the organisers, said: “We feel that as feminists in Switzerland, we have a responsibility to draw attention locally to the way that Swiss banks are fuelling the climate crisis, which affects the most vulnerable people in the world the most. Women are 14 times more likely than men to die from climate-change related natural disasters.

Women’s March protesters in Geneva

“People with intersecting identities, like people from the Global South, rural areas, disabled people, indigenous people and LGBT+ also all face heightened risk to their lives and livelihoods.

“Although on paper women may have the same rights as men, violence in the country is still a major problem. According to the federal government, once every two weeks, someone (usually a woman) dies from domestic violence. This may not sound very high compared to some other countries, but no one should ever be victim to domestic violence. And for a country with a small population, it is significant.”

The campaigner said women’s march activists from Geneva and Zurich had joined forces and they were expecting 500 women to attend.
Read more

Raped during the Kosovo war, a woman’s life 20 years on

A new feminist movement called the Greve des Femmes demonstrated across the country in June for pay equity, an end to gender-based violence and discrimination against female migrants and women of colour, Ms Akiyo Yomoah said.

Mallorca: ‘The society is historically patriarchal’

Lesley Harris, who is involved in the Women’s March chapter in Palma de Mallorca, argued the national government in Spain is not taking sufficient action to make the definition of rape clearer and more in line with other European countries.

Rape has to involve specific acts of violence such as being threatened with a knife or dealt physical blows under Spain’s criminal code.

Ms Harris said: “There are myriad concerns about the violence against women in Spain. The society is historically patriarchal but is willing to change. Sexist and patriarchal attitudes are entrenched, but the youth are digging them out.

“I work as a teacher, and now that these issues are included in the curriculum, students often stop and question ‘Is this sexist? Is this okay? Why or why not?’ With the speed that people organise a demonstration, the sharing of stories, sympathy or outrage spreads at the speed of a click.”

Women’s March protesters in Geneva

The campaigner said they are planning a “Meet Greet Eat” which will see them produce a short video and livestream other marches – with around 30 people expected to attend.

Social media movements such as #metoo or #yotambien in Spain have served as a “catalyst to start and maintain” conversations around sexual violence and harassment, she added.

---30---

Amazon promises to create 1m jobs in India as Jeff Bezos trip descends into PR nightmare

World's richest person is dubbed an 'economic terrorist' as anti-Amazon protests and criticisms from officials overshadow three-day visit

BEZOS DOES A TRUDEAU
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, attends a company event in Delhi on Wednesday

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, attends a company event in Delhi on Wednesday ( REUTERS )

On the final day of a visit to India that is fast becoming a PR nightmare, Jeff Bezos has announced that Amazon will create one million more jobs in the Asian country by 2025.

The chief executive, who also owns the Washington Post and is ranked by Forbes and Bloomberg as the richest person in the world, has this week been meeting Indian small business owners and rubbing shoulders with Bollywood royalty at corporate events.

Dressed mostly in traditional Indian clothing, he has flown kites with children, laid a wreath at the Gandhi memorial in Delhi and took a selfie on stage during his keynote speech at a major business summit.

But his three-day trip has been overshadowed by loud anti-Amazon protests organised by a federation of bricks-and-mortar business owners, as well as critical comments by senior members of Narendra Modi’s ruling party and the launching of a probe into Amazon’s business model by the competition authority.

Friday’s statement from Bezos said the job creation would be achieved through investments in infrastructure, technology and logistics. A 2018 regulation means Amazon can no longer sell its own-brand products in India, and must instead simply provide a marketplace for local manufacturers and producers.

Bezos said the company was “excited about what lies ahead”, and has been gushing in his praise of India throughout the trip, at one point saying that “the 21st century is going to be an Indian century” and describing cooperation between the US and India as “the most important alliance in the 21st century”.

India, it seems, is not so enamoured with him. A Reuters report said that Mr Modi had rebuffed repeated requests from Amazon to meet with Bezos during his visit for a prime ministerial photo opportunity.

On Thursday, while the CEO took part in a chummy interaction with the actor Shah Rukh Khan at a Mumbai event promoting Amazon’s Prime Video, most media focused instead on the scathing comments of India's trade minister Piyush Goyal on stage at a security conference in Delhi.

Dismissing Amazon’s announcement of $1bn investment in India, made at the start of Bezos’s trip, Mr Goyal told the audience that “it’s not as if they are doing a great favour to India”. He said that Amazon had been operating at a loss of around that much over the last year, so “if they make a loss of a billion dollars every year then they jolly well have to finance that billion dollars”.

On Friday, another senior politician - Vijay Chauthaiwale, the chief of the ruling BJP’s foreign affairs department - took a swipe at Bezos’s Washington Post for its coverage of India, which he called “highly biased and agenda driven”.

Without giving any examples, Mr Chauthaiwale said there were “a lot of problems” with the Post’s reporting. “I am not opposing Amazon as a company, in fact I am a regular customer… Jeff Bezos should go home tell Washington Post what is his impression about India,” he said.

But it is the vocal protest movement against Amazon that is likely to have hurt Bezos the most, with placard-waving demonstrators attending outside the business summit he addressed.

Rallies were organised in 300 cities across the country by the powerful retail lobbying group, the Confederation of All India Traders, which claims to speak for the up to 25 per cent of the population dependent on small businesses.

The group argues that Amazon is putting people out of business with predatory pricing and other “malpractices”. Its national secretary, Sumit Agarwal, called Bezos an “economic terrorist”.

And on Monday, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) ordered an investigation into whether Amazon and the mostly Walmart-owned e-commerce site Flipkart use “exclusionary tactic[s] to foreclose competition”.

Jeff Bezos' plan for future space colonies

Amazon said it was “confident in our compliance” with marketplace regulations and would “welcome the opportunity to address allegations made about Amazon”.

India's shopkeepers have represented a core constituency for the BJP since the early days of the party, and the comments of Mr Goyal and Mr Chauthaiwale have been widely shared by the party’s vociferous supporters online.

But industry executives warned that it was a risky manoeuvre that would likely put off international investment, at a time when the country's economic growth is already projected to fall to a 11-year low this year. One unnamed leader at an American company operating in India told Reuters that Mr Goyal’s remark in particular was “clearly unbecoming, and it will hurt how the world views India as a destination”.