NOONE LEFT BEHIND MYTH
Vets, lawmakers say Biden administration not acting fast enough to help Afghans who face death from Taliban

Dan De Luce and Richard Engel 

NBC 10/5D/2021



WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is under mounting pressure from lawmakers, veterans groups and refugee organizations to organize a large-scale evacuation of endangered Afghan interpreters and others who worked for the U.S. government before U.S. troops withdraw from the country in September.

© Erik de Castro Image: AFGHAN FIGHTERS WATCH SEVERAL EXPLOSIONS FROM US BOMBINGS IN THE TORABORA MOUNTAINS. (Erik de Castro / Reuters file)

Advocates say that the Biden administration is moving far too slowly to protect tens of thousands of Afghans whose lives are in mortal danger because of their association with the U.S. and Western organizations and that action must be taken now before the last troops pull out as scheduled in four months.

"We're very concerned about the seeming lack of urgency on the part of the administration to protect vulnerable Afghans in light of the anticipated withdrawal," said Adam Bates, policy counsel for the nonprofit International Refugee Assistance Project. "In terms of concrete plans, the information that we have gotten from them is very sparse."

Veterans organizations from across the political spectrum support a mass evacuation of Afghans, said Chris Purdy, project manager of the Veterans for American Ideals program at the advocacy nonprofit Human Rights First.

The Biden administration so far has been "noncommittal," Purdy said.

In public statements, the administration has not signaled any plans for an evacuation or other emergency measures, and officials have yet to offer details about how the government plans to ensure the safety of Afghans who risked their lives working for the U.S.

2017: How a U.S. veteran made sure no Afghan and Iraqi translator was left behind

Asked about accusations that the administration is failing to move quickly to help Afghan partners, the White House National Security Council declined to comment.

A spokesperson for the State Department declined to "discuss internal deliberations" but said the department is working to respond "as promptly as possible" to Afghans who worked for the U.S. government and who have applied for U.S. visas.

The Taliban have ratcheted up attacks on civil society activists and women in particular as U.S. and NATO troops prepare to withdraw, assassinating judges, journalists and local officials. A massive bombing Saturday at a secondary school in Kabul killed at least 60 people, most of them girls. The Afghan government blamed the Taliban; the insurgents denied responsibility.

Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., a former Green Beret who served in Afghanistan, said he has spoken to frightened Afghans who feel the walls closing in.

"I am hearing from a lot of them, and the ones I talk to, their panic and fear ... in their voices is so palpable," Waltz said

.

© Javed Tanveer IMAGE: A market area in Kandahar, Afghanistan (Javed Tanveer / AFP via Getty Images)

Waltz said Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have reassured him that they are taking the safety of Afghan partners seriously.

However, he said, "there are a number of avenues that the administration could take, but I'm just not seeing any movement."

To help Afghan interpreters and others who face retribution from the Taliban for their links to the U.S., Congress in 2009 set up the Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, program, to provide U.S. visas to Afghans who had been employed by the U.S. government. The program has a backlog years long. More than 17,000 Afghans have applied, and their paperwork is still being reviewed.

A federal court ruled in 2019 that the U.S. government had failed to abide by a law requiring it to process applications within nine months, and an inspector general's report last year described a chronic staffing shortage that had hobbled the program.

Based on the government's track record, it would take more than four years to process the backlog of SIV applicants, assuming there was sufficient staff at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to handle the cases. There is no realistic prospect that most of the Afghan applicants could get visas in time before U.S. forces leave, Bates and other experts said.

The State Department spokesperson said, "The Biden administration is committed to supporting those who have helped U.S. military and other government personnel perform their duties, often at great personal risk to themselves and their families."

"The fallout of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan"

"Everyone involved in the Special Immigrant Visa process, whether in Washington or at our embassy in Kabul, is aware of the threats our Afghan colleagues face," the spokesperson said.

The State Department, which is seeking ways to improve the visa program, has deployed more staff to the embassy in Kabul to help handle SIV cases, the spokesperson added.

Neither the State Department nor the National Security Council responded directly to questions about whether the administration supported a mass evacuation.
The Guam option

Advocates for the Afghans promote the idea of evacuating thousands of Afghans to the U.S. territory of Guam or other safe locations outside Afghanistan, including military bases in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, where U.S. officials could then vet them and review paperwork for possible resettlement.

A mass airlift of Afghans conjures up painful memories of the chaotic U.S. exit from Vietnam in 1975, when throngs of Vietnamese tried to board American helicopters at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. But supporters of the so-called Guam option say the U.S. military has successfully carried out similar evacuations.

© Bettmann Archive IMAGE: Evacuees boarding a helicopter in Vietnam in 1975 (Bettmann Archive / via Getty Images)

In 1975, about 130,000 Vietnamese refugees were flown to Guam after the fall of Saigon. In 1996-97, the U.S. military evacuated 6,600 Iraqi Kurds to the island after Saddam Hussein's regime launched attacks into Iraq's Kurdish region. The Kurds were housed at Andersen Air Force Base for three to four months; most resettled in the U.S.

"The U.S. government has proven in the past that it is capable of moving large numbers of people in short order when the situation requires it," said Bates of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Without an evacuation, tens of thousands of Afghans and their families — including those who worked for the U.S. government, as well as others who promoted democracy and women's rights at Western-backed organizations — will be at the mercy of the Taliban, said lawmakers, veterans and rights groups.

"My concern is very simple. And that is if we pull out and don't protect our Afghan partners, many of them will be killed," said Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Taliban have threatened Afghan interpreters and others with Western ties, both publicly and privately. "I take them at their word," Crow said.

Crow and other lawmakers argue that the U.S. has a moral obligation to come to the aid of its Afghan partners and a national security interest to avoid signaling to the world that Washington abandons its allies. LIKE IT DID THE KURDSIN SYRIA 

Crow, part of a bipartisan group of 10 Democratic and six Republican House members pushing for more protections for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, said evacuation is "an option that we need to be looking at seriously."

In a letter to the administration April 21, Crow and the 15 other lawmakers, including Waltz, said the U.S. "must provide a path to safety for those who loyally worked alongside U.S. troops, diplomats, and contractors, and work with our international partners to provide options for Afghans who would face a credible fear of persecution if the Taliban return to power."

Almost three weeks later, the White House has yet to respond, Crow said.

A National Security Council spokesperson said, "We have received Congressman Crow's letter and appreciate his interest in working with the administration on an issue we are prioritizing."

Asked what the military planned to do to help vulnerable Afghans who worked for U.S. forces, Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said that he had no orders at the moment and that it was a matter for the State Department to provide visas for Afghan partners.

© Reuters Image: Site of a blast in Kabul (Reuters)

"I would just tell you that from a Central Command perspective and the perspective of the U.S. military, if directed to do something like that, we could certainly do it," McKenzie at a Pentagon briefing April 22.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that it was too soon to opt for an evacuation and that a worst-case scenario in Afghanistan is not a "foregone conclusion."

"We're working through the SIV process through the State Department, but I think it's a bit early to really sound the alarm on getting everybody out just yet," Milley said Thursday at a Pentagon news conference. "That's my own personal opinion, but I think that's based on some pretty good knowledge of what's going on right now."
'We will make some special ambush for you'

In the meantime, veterans and refugee organizations are inundated with pleas for help from former interpreters.

"Right now, we are getting desperate cries daily. Our inbox fills up every day, and our Facebook Messenger fills up every day with calls from people in Afghanistan asking for help," said Purdy of Human Rights First.

"And all they want to know is: 'President Biden, you gave us your word that you were going to help us. You're leaving, so how are you going to help us?'" he said.

A former Afghan interpreter in Kabul, Hilal, who asked to be identified only by his first name to protect his safety, said the Taliban threatened him repeatedly after he accompanied U.S. Army units who detained insurgents.

© Mariam Zuhaib IMAGE: School supplies left behind after deadly bombings near a school in Kabul (Mariam Zuhaib / AP)

Hilal said he got a letter threatening his life and then a flurry of phone calls. The voice on the other end of the line "was telling me if you don't stop working with the infidels, especially with the American infidels, I swear to God we will try our best to kill you and each of your family members one by one."

The Taliban caller somehow knew that Hilal had been given the nickname "Steve" by U.S. soldiers, Hilal said. "If you are Muslim, why are you helping the U.S. forces in Afghanistan against us?" the caller asked, according to Hilal. "We will kill you. We will kill you. We will make some special ambush for you."

Hilal, 42, who is married with six children, said that if he cannot secure a U.S. visa, he will have to consider fleeing over the border and trying to make his way to Europe.

Crow, the Army veteran who represents Colorado, argued that supporters and opponents of the U.S. troop withdrawal agree that the U.S. should not turn its back on Afghans who had been loyal partners and colleagues.

"We're going to debate the politics of the Afghan war for decades to come," he said. "What is very clear and what's not debatable is that there are people who served with us side by side, at great personal risk and sacrifice, that we have obligations to. If there is honor to be had here, it's doing right by those people."

THE UK AND OTHER NATO NATIONS ARE GOING THROUGH THIS AS WELL LEAVING BEHIND THE HIRED HELP

THE SECRET ORDER THAT RULES CAPITAL
Underwriters puzzle over how to make pandemics insurable again

By Carolyn Cohn 

© Reuters/MIKE BLAKE FILE PHOTO: The iconic Hollywood sign is shown on a hillside above a neighborhood in Los Angeles

LONDON (Reuters) - When much of the global economy locked down last year, insurers, facing estimated losses of more than $100 billion globally, reached straight for their red pens to strike pandemic cover from all new business policies.

Denis Kessler, chairman and CEO of French reinsurer SCOR, summed it up when he told a recent conference that pandemic risk was like war.

"We exclude war - it's not insurable," he said.

But as industries spanning travel and hospitality to construction and manufacturing revert to a new normal, huge demand is causing insurers to figure out how they can put pandemic risk back in policies without making them prohibitively expensive.

One example is the film and television industry.

U.S. company SpottedRisk has devised a model built on years of data on the political and economic environment of film locations in 150 countries, as well as a year's COVID-19 shutdown data, to come up with a pricing mechanism to cover the risk of production stopping due to the pandemic.

"I had been told by 20-plus industry insiders that it was going to be impossible, but we found a way," said SpottedRisk chief executive Janet Comenos.

The company, which declined to name its clients, said its insurance policy has enabled 19 independent film and TV productions with budgets of between $1 and $85 million to film at locations across the globe.

The SpottedRisk policy, which typically costs between $50,000 and $80,000 for $1 million of cover, helps to fill a gap in Hollywood where independent filmmakers have bemoaned the lack of cover, and contrasts with Britain, where a government scheme to enable film and TV production to go ahead has no insurer involvement.

While the film industry's risks are relatively contained over finite time periods, industries such as airlines have much higher potential losses and may prove harder to insure, with many insurers saying extensive cover can only come back if governments provide the same kind of backstop they offer for floods or terror attacks in some countries.

REMODELLING

Insurers do not want to be caught out again, having failed to predict the extent to which economies around the world would lock up in order to suppress the virus and keep juddering health systems afloat.

"Our modelling does capture infections and mortality," said Robert Muir-Wood, chief research officer at risk modelling firm RMS.

"It didn't capture all the subtlety of how governments respond, driven by the number of vacant ICU (intensive care unit) beds." RMS is now factoring those in.

Government responses meant that, surprisingly, claims on trade credit, event cancellation and business interruption insurance were higher than for life insurance, industry sources said, because many of those who died may not have held life insurance due to their age.

"A year ago, on the non-life side we had essentially no pandemic modelling skills," said Iwan Stalder, head of accumulation management at insurer Zurich, who has since been engaged in broader scenario modelling for pandemics.

Few have returned to offering pandemic cover for non-life policies, except where events have been scheduled long in advance and insurance bought years ago, such as the Olympics.

Cancellation of the Olympics would result in a "mind-blowingly" large loss of $2-3 billion, insurance sources say.

Instead, insurers have asked governments for help.

Britain, the European Union and the United States are all looking at arrangements in which cover from commercial insurers would be backed by government reinsurance schemes. Such schemes could be less costly than business bailouts but the process of developing them is slow, as governments grapple with the problems at hand.

CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

Some say commercial insurers are capable of doing more.

"The private market has the ability to create solutions," said Rod Fox, CEO of broker TigerRisk Partners, which helped SpottedRisk find underwriters for its film and TV policy.

Another way to cover COVID-19 could be to repackage pandemic risk as debt through so-called insurance-linked securities (ILS), sharing that risk with investors such as pension funds.

"It became clear to us early in the pandemic that the models which were appropriate prior to Covid were no longer appropriate," said Scott Mitchell, portfolio manager for life ILS at fund manager Schroders.

"Covid-specific aspects simply weren’t captured...the characteristics of the disease and the response by governments, and political factors that were involved in that.”

Schroders has developed new types of life ILS which take account of factors beyond mortality rates.

Insurers are also working on so-called parametric policies. These automatically pay out a specified amount when a certain trigger is reached, such as a government shutdown.

"If you put a boundary around it, you can price the risk," said Greg Medcraft, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s director for financial and enterprise affairs.

"For low probability, high impact events like climate change, cyber, pandemics - you have to have a new way of thinking."

While pandemics as a whole are hard to cover, some insurers have managed to slice out small parts of the risk, for instance providing travel insurance for short periods, or extra medical insurance for coronavirus patients after they leave hospital.

But policyholders may have to accept more expense in future.

Businesses will likely need to show insurers they are minimising their risks, for instance by requiring a negative COVID-19 test for spectators at live events, said Paula Jarzabkowski, professor of strategic management at City University of London.

And to enable insurers to bring in enough premium to cover pandemic risk, businesses interruption insurance may need to be mandatory, like motor insurance, she added.

"That does ensure that everybody who is prone to the possible risk takes some level of responsibility towards it."

(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

CANADA
No recovery without 'she-covery': Women bear the brunt of latest jobs decline

Bianca Bharti 
POSTMEDIA 11/5/2021

The latest batch of hiring data has reignited fears that the COVID-19 crisis will impact women’s job prospects more harshly than men’s, causing the recovery to stretch on for even longer.

© Provided by Financial Post A closed sign is displayed on the door of a restaurant in Toronto during the coronavirus pandemic. Women and younger workers are feeling the brunt of job losses because they tend to dominate the industries that have been effectively closed for much of the past year.

Statistics Canada published data on May 7 that showed that women account for two-thirds of the 500,000 jobs that have yet to be reclaimed during the recovery from last year’s historic economic collapse.

Armine Yalnizyan, an economist and Atkinson fellow on the future of workers, was surprised by the degree to which women continue to trail men. Overall, the population of employed people aged 25 to 54 fell by 48,000 positions in April from March, Statistics Canada said. The majority of the losses in that group were women with full-time jobs. The participation rate of women aged 15 to 24 further exemplified the unequal nature of the recovery, as younger men are now working at roughly the same rate as they were before the crisis, whereas the participation rate of younger women remains four percentage points lower.

“Mathematically speaking, we cannot get to an (economic) recovery without a she-covery,” Yalnizyan said. “There just aren’t enough men to make up the difference.”

The numbers are a reminder of why the Bank of Canada continues to press ahead with aggressive monetary policy despite signs that inflation is heating up, and why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has spent so heavily on emergency benefits. A decade ago, the recovery from the Great Recession was frustratingly slow, in part because governments ended their stimulus efforts too soon. This time, policy-makers have pledged to err on the side of growth.

Still, low interest rates and big deficits can only do so much to offset the lockdowns and partial lockdowns that authorities have adopted to slow the spread of the virus. Women and younger workers are feeling the brunt of those measures because they tend to dominate the industries that have been effectively closed for much of the past year.

The stimulus is keeping the economy afloat, but the longer men and women remain unemployed, the harder it will be for them to get back in the labour force. A legacy of the crisis could be tens of thousands of workers who never reach their full potential, as businesses are more inclined to hire fresher prospects.

“As you fall out of the workforce, you’re not using your skills and that’s a real concern in the long-term,” said Leah Nord, the senior director of workforce strategies and inclusive growth at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Nord said women are especially at risk of being left behind because they tend to be the first to abandon paid work to care for their household’s children.

To be sure, men in vulnerable industries are struggling, too. Statistics Canada said the number of young men working either full-time or part-time jobs plummeted 4.7 per cent in April. The drop for younger women was a less severe 3.6 per cent.

Overall, women in all aged 25 to 54 worked 7.7 per cent fewer hours last month, compared to a 5.5-per-cent drop for men in the same age category.

From Yalnizyan’s perspective, one of the more pertinent ways Canada can ensure an equal recovery is for the governments to boost support for childcare, which has become excessively expensive in many of Canada’s biggest cities. If a lack of adequate childcare bars women from entering the workforce, “it will take us much longer to get back to so-called normal,” she said.

Canada sheds more than 200,000 jobs in April as third-wave lockdowns bite

New threats to an old problem: The pandemic has made ‘brain drain’ even worse

How to close the gaps in financing women-led businesses: Report

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland promised to spend $10 billion on a national childcare program in her budget last month, but she didn’t pretend all that money would make a big difference soon. The provinces govern daycare and no program will go ahead until they agree to participate. Freeland set a target of five years.

It might be faster to train women to work in the trades and other professions that struggle to find qualified labour. Nord said that it’s imperative policy and the private sector encourage women back into the workforce by way of proper retraining.

• Email: bbharti@postmedia.com | Twitter: biancabharti

CENSUSA
Early 2020 census data stir fears of possible Latino, Asian undercounts

Dartunorro Clark 

NBC 10/5/2021

The initial numbers from the Census Bureau's 2020 demographic snapshot of the country have left experts and advocacy groups worried that their worst fears have been realized — that people of color, particularly Asian Americans and Latino Americans, were undercounted.

© Provided by NBC News

"The total resident population number was at the lower end of the estimates, and several states with large Latino populations did not do as well. And unfortunately, that, to me, suggests too many coincidences," said Arturo Vargas, CEO of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

"If the census numbers are wrong, then the amount of funding going to those areas with large Latino populations" means they "are not going to get their fair share," he said. "And this is a 10-year error. It's not just next year. It's for the next decade."

Last month, the Census Bureau released the long-awaited state population totals that determine each state's number of House seats, with just seven seats moving among 13 states — the smallest shift since the current congressional apportionment model was adopted in the 1940s.

Arizona, Florida and Texas — states with large Latino populations — each ended up with one fewer House seat than had been projected. California and New York, which also have large Latino populations, each lost a seat. That Arizona did not gain a seat was one of the bigger surprises, because the state grew by more than 766,000 people since the 2010 census. It was not awarded an additional seat for the first time since 1950.

Experts and advocates closely watching the release, like Vargas, expressed deep concern about the quality and the completeness of the data so far, given the unique challenges the bureau faced in completing the critical head count, including a truncated timeline, a pandemic and a litany of legal battles stemming from President Donald Trump's unsuccessful attempts to add a citizenship question to the form.

Some groups are considering additional legal challenges and plan to press state legislatures and redistricting commissions to regard what the bureau puts out with skepticism — even as the government urges patience.

Play Video

Census lays groundwork for redistricting battle in GOP-led states

Karen Battle, chief of the Census Bureau's population division, said people should wait for more data and not jump to conclusions based on April's state population totals.

"It is too early to speculate on undercounts for any specific demographic group," she said in a statement, adding that the redistricting data scheduled to be released in August will "contain the first information on race and ethnicity" in detail. She also said the bureau's post-census survey will yield more demographic information.

The demographic data that are scheduled to be released later this year will help determine how federal money for roads, schools and other public works projects is distributed across the country.

Still, experts said, the early concerns are warranted, in part because this count was mired in controversy and because historically, the bureau hasacknowledgedthat minority groups — Native tribes, the fast-growing Latino population, Asian Americans and Black Americans — are undercounted because of language barriers and because they live in rural areas or communities with limited internet access. This was the first census that allowed people to fill out submissions online.

"The short-term issue that we face is that the apportionment numbers are just raw head counts at the state level. They don't tell us anything about the racial, ethnic characteristics of any of the people that were counted, and there are these open questions about whether even the national population total or the state [totals] told to us are accurate," said Tom Wolf, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

"But even if they were completely accurate, there would still be a need to keep a careful eye open for problems of racial and ethnic differential undercounts going forward," he said.

Varun Nikore, head of the AAPI Victory Alliance, which mobilizes Asian American and Pacific Islander voters for Democrats, said the group is closely monitoring the data as they are being released and may pursue litigation if it believes actions by the Trump administration suppressed Asian American participation.

The Asian population is the fastest-growing segment of eligible voters, according to the Pew Research Center. The population nearly doubled from 2000 to 2019 — from 11.9 million to 23.2 million — and it is projected to surpass 46 million by 2060. However, states with the largest Asian populations, California, New York and Texas, lost a House seat or gained fewer than had been projected.

He said there was a "double fear factor" among Asian Americans as hate crimes against the community rose, as white supremacy grew and as anti-immigration fervor escalated during the coronavirus pandemic. He said language barriers, particularly among Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese communities, also could have been a factor.

"You can see what kind of an effect that has," he said. "So frankly, I think our community would have been one of the most affected, maybe not in raw numbers, but because we are the fastest-growing and likely the fastest to naturalize in this country," which would have "more of a deleterious effect on AAPIs."

The release of early census data was so troubling to national racial justice and civil rights organizations, including the NAACP and the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, which represents more than 53 million people, that they sent a memo asking the Biden administration to carefully mine federal data, including census numbers, to make sure that the undercounted are not left behind and to "deliver on the president's equity goals."

Diana Elliott, a researcher at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, which has studied census undercounts in minority communities, said it is too soon to tell where any undercounts would fall, but she said they will have a lasting effect on communities and the resources they all need as the country recovers economically from Covid-19.

"I think caution is really the word of the day, because it's unclear if, for example, there could be something about how the projections were done and were misaligned with the count," she said. "I'll just say that we can't really tell from the data, but those concerns are well merited.

"If you think about the communities that tend to be undercounted, they're the communities who often need resources more," she added. "So it really sets up this question about equity and how things are distributed in our country."

BAKUNIN APPROVED

Revenue-starved governments should revisit inheritance tax - OECD

PARIS (Reuters) - Governments hungry for extra revenue as they emerge from the coronavirus crisis should revisit their inheritance and estate tax, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Tuesday.

© Reuters/Charles Platiau FILE PHOTO: Outside view of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, (OECD) headquarters in Paris

Exemptions, carve-outs and generous lifetime donations mean inheritance and estate tax is a minor source of revenue in most countries and often make inequality worse, the Paris-based organisation said.

Among the worst offenders is the United States, where only 0.2% of estates pay inheritance tax while nearly 80% of the wealth is in the hands of the top 10% richest households.

Inheritance or estate tax make up only 0.5% of overall tax revenues on average across the 24 countries in the OECD group of mostly developed countries that have such levies.

While there was room for a bigger contribution to government finances strained by the pandemic, stiff opposition to changes in what critics sometimes call a "death tax" could be expected.

"It's the middle class that opposes a tax that the middle class doesn't pay," OECD director of tax policy and administration Pascal Saint-Amans told reporters.

Many governments are looking at how to raise new revenues to help cover the costs of reviving their economies after the pandemic. The United States and Britain have plans to raise their corporate income tax.

Gallery: Fun facts about taxes (really!) (Cheapism)


The OECD said a majority of estates escaped tax altogether in some countries because of generous exemptions for close relatives and assets such as family-owned businesses.

Policies varied widely among OECD countries, with exemptions on transfers to children ranging from $17,000 in the Brussels region of Belgium to $11 million in the United States.

Heirs' tax bills could be avoided or reduced in some countries thanks to in-life gifts that often get more favourable tax treatment.

As a result, the effective tax rates paid are often significantly lower than statutory tax rates. In the United States and Britain, the wealthiest households were taxed at lower rates than other wealthy donors.

The OECD's findings echo complaints from young people who say it is impossible to buy property and get established without a big financial boost from their elders.

"If inheritance taxes are going to play an important role in the revenues of governments they are going to have to be better designed than they are in many instances," OECD head of tax policy and statistics David Bradbury said.

A more fair and effective way of taxing transfers of wealth would be to focus on what the beneficiary receives over their lifetime in both in-life gifts and inheritance, the OECD said.

It suggested taxing people above a life-time exemption, but acknowledged such an approach could pose administrative and compliance hurdles to put in place.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

The Development of Inheritance Law in the Soviet ... - JSTOR

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Nov. 9, 2006 — But you will want to know something about Bakunin if you're interested in ... With the hindsight of more than a century since Bakunin's death, it is no ... B.C. economist says proposed 1 percent tax on Canadian homes owned ...

Anarchist economics - Wikipedia

Anarchist economics is the set of theories and practices of economic activity within the political ... Anarchists support personal property (defined in terms of possession and use, i.e. ... not make their differences with collectivist anarchism explicit until after Bakunin's death. ... Proudhon also argued for the abolition of all taxes.

End of an era? Progressive mayors in Calgary and Edmonton to make their exits

Tyler Dawson  
POSTMEDIA 10/5/2021

© Provided by National Post Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi (left) and Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson speak during the Mayors' Forum in Edmonton, Alberta on Wednesday, December 7, 2016.


EDMONTON — Both of Alberta’s big city mayors are making their exits come October, leaving a void in Edmonton and Calgary and marking the end of two notably progressive leaders in a province inclining towards the right.

Naheed Nenshi , 49, announced April 6 he would not be running for another term as Calgary mayor in the October 2021 elections. He’s been mayor since 2010. And, last November, Don Iveson , 41, who sat in the Edmonton mayor’s chair since 2013, also announced he wouldn’t be seeking another term.

“Calgary, thank you, for everything,” Nenshi wrote on Twitter. “It’s been the honour of my life.”

For Iveson, who was a councillor before he became mayor, he’s done what he wanted, and says it’s time to move on.

“Fourteen years is a long time and I have accomplished most of what I came here to do,” Iveson told the National Post in an interview.

Over the past decade, both men led their cities through ups and downs, development and pandemic, growth and economic collapse. They were mayors in 2015 when the New Democrats broke the 40-year run of conservative government in Alberta; and they were there when the United Conservatives took over in 2019. Now, after years of strong progressive mayoral leadership, they won’t be around anymore — it’ll be a new era for whoever comes along next.

In both cities, candidates are already lining up, with the elections roughly six months away. Calgary has 10 people vying to replace Nenshi, and Edmonton has six hoping to replace Iveson. While neither Nenshi or Iveson were in power for as long as some others — such as Jim Watson, who’s had two separate runs as mayor of Ottawa, one in the late ’90s, and the other since 2010 or Hazel McCallion, who served as the mayor of Mississauga between 1978 and 2014 — they’ve no doubt made a mark on their cities and a new chapter will soon begin in Edmonton and Calgary.

The pair also had, in Nenshi’s words “been friends for a couple of decades,” before they got into politics, leading to a solid working relationship, even if they didn’t always agree.

“We’ve had some pretty big disagreements behind closed doors,” Nenshi said.

Kate Graham, a political scientist who teaches local government at Western and Huron University College, said it’s an “important moment” for Calgary as Nenshi leaves. His election changed international perceptions of Calgary and Alberta.

“A new mayor often comes in with a big vision for the city and it can be an opportunity for new voices to rise up and for the community to have a campaign about the future,” Graham said. “The departure of Nenshi will leave a very big hole. Nenshi broke the mold.”

Both men also had outsized effects on the rest of the country, she said.

“They’re both very skilled leaders within their own city, but also punched way above their weight, both of them have played major leadership roles in advancing federal-municipal relationships in Canada,” Graham said. “Their departure from that table definitely leaves a big hole.”

© Codie McLachlan/Edmonton Sun/Postmedia Network Then-Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, centre, is flanked by Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, left, and Edmonton mayor Don Iveson, right, after a meeting at the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton, Alta., on Nov. 18, 2015.

For many Albertans, the question of who should replace Iveson and Nenshi is also a question of what political bent the replacement might be. Like most major cities in Canada — the exceptions being Vancouver and Montreal — Edmonton and Calgary do not have parties at the municipal level. However, Nenshi and Iveson were both widely perceived as progressive mayors and they focused on issues like housing, transit infrastructure and urban development.

Now, there’s a palpable desire in Edmonton and Calgary for change — at least according to the small-government types aiming to take over at city hall.

Nenshi’s ride to the mayor’s chair was an unexpected one.

He first won in 2010, a bit of an upset victory as his “Purple Revolution” came from behind — starting out the campaign with just eight per cent support — using viral marketing and social media to win over younger voters. Nenshi’s team wrote pro-Nenshi messages in chalk at transit stations and on sidewalks, they posted signs in apartment buildings and Nenshi himself manned his Twitter account.

It was a noted victory for another reason: Nenshi became the first Muslim mayor of a major Canadian city and, he brought further international attention to Calgary in 2014 when he won the World Mayor prize.

© Stuart Gradon Naheed Nenshi speaks to supporters at his downtown headquarters after winning the mayoral seat in Calgary, Alberta on Oct. 18, 2010.

Over his time as mayor, Nenshi received plaudits for shepherding the city through devastating flooding in 2013, but also found himself a booster for the city’s failed 2018 bid to host the 2026 Olympics, which will now be in Italy. He also oversaw substantial property tax increases and expansion of city funding, and by June 2019, Nenshi’s approval rating was 39 per cent, down from a whopping 74 per cent in June 2014.

Iveson, who seemingly had a less tumultuous mayoral tenure than Nenshi, has been criticized for a focus on downtown — on bike lanes and transit, revitalization and infill housing. His career began with two terms as a city councillor, first elected in 2007, before running for mayor in 2013 with a campaign The Canadian Press described as “Kennedy-esque.”

After winning, Iveson said he thought Edmonton had a “more confident swagger,” and a “new sense of optimism,” The Canadian Press reported. Reflecting on his time as mayor, Iveson points to the city’s development plan and climate change vision as his major accomplishments.

“So, it’s time for the city to choose where it wants to go next,” Iveson said.

Still, Iveson has had his share of controversies. While it’s not entirely his fault — it began before he took over — he’s had to wear problems with the city’s Metro Line light-rail system, and there were construction delays on the Walterdale Bridge project across the North Saskatchewan River. The Valley Line — the next leg in the LRT — is already causing controversy and it, too, is likely to be a ballot question for Iveson’s replacement. One candidate, Coun. Mike Nickel, who Iveson defeated in 2007 to first become a councillor, said it should be put on hold in favour of rapid bus transit.

“People are done with, basically, my opinion is, a failed agenda,” Nickel said.

While 54 per cent of Edmontonians give Iveson, and the current council, positive reviews over the past few years, that skews wildly by age, according to Leger polling from October 2020. It shows 61 per cent of voters aged 18 to 34 give excellent reviews, while only 43 per cent of those aged 55 to 64 agree — a differential pollsters attribute to Iveson and council’s handling of social justice issues, such as Black Lives Matter rallies in 2020.


NICKEL ADVERTISES IN THE FAR RIGHT ONLINE PAPER THE WESTERN STANDARD
In both cities, there is perhaps some room for a more conservative, no nonsense mayor: Someone who will cut spending, reduce taxes and reconsider bike lanes and transit infrastructure. But the two top contenders for “conservative candidate” in each city don’t identify themselves by a partisan moniker.

Nickel’s that candidate in Edmonton.

“It’s just a common sense agenda. People are done with these 20 years of tax increases, of red tape, of these almost never-ending virtue signals and processes,” Nickel said.

Don Braid: Naheed Nenshi, who rose from unknown mayoral candidate to a symbol of Calgary, won't run again in 2021

'One of the best': Edmonton's 41-year-old, two-term mayor Don Iveson to step down next year

In Calgary, that title probably falls to Coun. Jeromy Farkas, though there are at least two other candidates who are far to the right of Farkas — and pretty much anyone else in Alberta politics — running to be Calgary mayor.

“This election isn’t about whether Calgarians want a Liberal or Conservative mayor. It’s about jobs and the economy and who’s best positioned to deliver on those things,” Farkas said.

Jared Wesley, a University of Alberta political scientist, argues there are issues on the ballot that could bring more conservative-leaning voters to the polls, a potential boon for candidates such as Farkas and Nickel.

A ballot question on equalization, championed by the United Conservative provincial government, should be one such mechanism that energizes conservative voters municipally

.

© Ed Kaiser Newly elected mayor Don Iveson celebrating with supporters during the city’s municipal election, at the Matrix Hotel in Edmonton, October 21, 2013.

But, the UCP is polling poorly. Polling from the Common Ground project at the University of Alberta shows that, in Calgary, the New Democrats lead on voter intention with 38 per cent of intended votes, compared to the United Conservatives, at 31 per cent. In Edmonton, 45 per cent of voters would cast a ballot for the New Democrats, compared to just 24 per cent for the UCP.

In particular, says Wesley, at the municipal level, school trustees are also up for re-election, and the UCP’s education curriculum rewrite has been tremendously controversial, something that may bring progressive voters to the polls.

“It’s a bit premature to (declare) the death of progressivism in civic politics in two big cities,” Wesley said. “You’re going to see, I think, these litmus tests, for both councillors and mayors on one hand and school trustees on the other: Do you support support the provincial government’s approach to anything they’re doing right now?”

* * *

There’s more to the mayoral races — and the prospective victors — than how the politics of the man or woman in the mayor’s chair happen to skew. One of the strengths of the Nenshi-Iveson years was that, given all the issues cities face that require dealing with the provincial government, the two men were able to put up a united front.

The United Conservative government has had an at-times fractious relationship with municipalities. And, with Iveson and Nenshi leaving, that power dynamic could shift a bit, said Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt.

“It’s not unusual for the big city mayors to have problems with the province, that’s an ongoing thing,” said Bratt. “But, under Nenshi and Iveson they were able to put a common front together.”

Calgary, in particular, seems to have had a tougher relationship with the UCP government than Edmonton, most notably during the 2019 municipal budget season. Premier Jason Kenney said Calgary needs “fiscal responsibility;” then-municipal affairs minister Kaycee Madu suggested the city “needs to look after its own house;” and then-justice minister (a post Madu now has) Doug Schweitzer called Nenshi “Trudeau’s mayor.”

© Jim Wells Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi speaks to media outside Council Chambers in Calgary on Tuesday, October 13, 2020.

Bratt said he’s argued the United Conservatives “see municipalities as a form of opposition to this government,” but Ric McIver, the provincial municipal affairs minister, disagreed.

“We’ve got a good relationship now, and I expect we’ll have a good relationship in the future,” McIver said. “The fact that the province and municipalities don’t agree on everything I think sometimes just means everybody’s doing their jobs well.”

Iveson describes the UCP as “hostile to all local governments in Alberta,” a trend that respects no political persuasion.

“Perhaps others will be able to reset what has been at this point a dysfunctional relationship,” Iveson said.

Nenshi takes a slightly different view, citing just two premiers — Ed Stelmach, premier between 2006 and 2011 and Dave Hancock, who was premier for several months in 2014 — as the only two easy premiers out of the five he’s dealt with.

“I long for the day when we actually have a provincial government that understands that it is possible to actually be helpful and friendly to the cities instead of seeing the city governments as their enemy,” Nenshi said.

“I don’t know why, but it’s always been hard for provincial governments to understand that the majority of their seats are in the two cities, or at least a near majority of their seats are in those two cities, and that people who live in cities are in fact Albertans who do in fact have Albertan values and who do deserve support.”

Wesley said the fractious relationship between the UCP and the municipalities is just a return to the norm, “where provincial governments want to keep municipalities under their thumb.”

“I don’t think it matters who’s going to be filling those chairs necessarily, but it certainly didn’t help that they were ideologically different from the party in power in Edmonton.”

THERE WAS ONLY ONE GOVERNMENT FOR 44  YEARS THE PC'S PREDECESORS OF UCP THE NDP CHANGED THAT FOR ONLY FOUR YEARS

NOT ENOUGH TIME FOR A RESET

* * *

For whomever comes next, there will be considerable challenges ahead in both cities.

Adam Legge, president of the Business Council of Alberta, said after the economic recession — which started in 2014 with a collapse in oil prices and has lingered and intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic — the next mayors in the Calgary and Edmonton will need a solid strategy for boosting business and investment.

Legge said “cities around the world are going to be competing for business and investment,” so ensuring Calgary and Edmonton are competitive, solid places to do business is going to need to be “job No. 1.”

“Albertans are looking for some long-term prosperity in their lives,” said Legge. “Mayoral candidates, should have a real good understanding of business, that’s important.”

Calgary and Edmonton underwent substantial changes in the years Nenshi and Iveson were in power. Calgary, in particular, has faced a daunting economic recession, and its downtown core has been gutted by layoffs in energy sector offices.

Transit has been a big issue for both men, and will continue to be for the next mayor of each city.

© SHAUGHN BUTTS Sarah Chan on her bike with her husband, then-city councillor Don Iveson, dressed up for the opera.

For both men, though, they’ll be on the sidelines, watching whatever happens next — at least for now. There’s near-constant and fairly widespread speculation that either, or both, will make an appearance in federal or provincial politics.

Iveson, asked about his future, said he hasn’t even had time to think about it. He has a wife, Sarah Chan, and two children. He does say, though, that he’s “not running for anybody at this point.”

“There’s still so much I want to tidy up and set up for success into the coming years that I haven’t really had a chance to think about that yet,” Iveson said. “But no doubt some decompression after 14 years non-stop will be welcome.”

Nenshi, who thinks of riding a horse at the head of the Calgary Stampede as one of his fondest memories, also has “no idea” what’s coming next, though he expects to remain “a part of the story of Calgary, Alberta and Canada.”

“Right now, I’ve deliberately allowed myself to be open to different ideas,” he said. “The biggest thing is that, I am told, these last 10 years have been an exceptional year for creation in the field of television so, basically, I’ve got 10 years of TV to catch up on. I hear something called Game of Thrones is worth my time.”

• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson

The unsteady future of food manufacturing in Canada

Financial Post Staff

An industrial complex sprawling across a 67-acre lot in rural Manitoba has more than 60 kilometres of pipe connecting silos, grinders and spray dryers, all devoted entirely to the pea. The plant in Portage la Prairie, Man. — an hour or so west of Winnipeg — is so singularly focused on this one crop that its optical sorting system can spot a soybean in a sea of peas and get rid of it.

© Provided by Financial Post Roqutte's $600M plant in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, is considered by many to be one of the best examples of Canada’s modern manufacturing power.

“We absolutely have a very strict specification about having no soy beans in our peas,” said Dominique Baumann, the chief executive who runs the Canadian operations of France-based food processing giant Roquette Frères SA.


The reason for such vigilance, he said, is that a genetically modified soybean would taint the plant’s non-GMO product.

Roquette chose Portage la Prairie for the more-than-$600-million plant, in part, because peas are grown in abundance in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Peas are big business, especially now that the protein extracted from them has become a main ingredient used by the burgeoning plant-based protein industry.

The pea, it turns out, is not just a mere pea. It is starch, fibre and protein, and each component has a use and a market: the starch can be used for glue in cardboard boxes; the fibre can go into livestock feed and pet food; and, of course, the protein is destined for everything from veggie burgers and dairy substitutes to nutritional bars and shakes.

As Baumann put it, nature has put the pea together and it’s the plant’s job to break it apart.

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The Portage la Prairie operation, expected to be operating at full capacity by early next year, comes up a lot in discussions on the future of how Canada feeds itself. It is considered by many to be one of the best examples of this country’s modern manufacturing power. But it’s also a rare example.

It’s rare, some in the industry believe, because over-regulation, labour shortages and heavy concentration in the grocery business have historically tamped down Canada’s ability to process what it grows, leaving the country dependent on other countries to turn crops into food. That dependence can be precarious, especially in uncertain times that send shock waves rippling through global supply lines and countries grow reluctant to share.

Much of Canada’s food processing infrastructure is aging and understaffed, due in part to a slow procession of multinational manufacturers relocating their Canadian operations to countries with less regulation and longer growing seasons.

More than half of all the crops and livestock produced in Canada are now exported to another country to be processed, according to a report last week by the parliamentary standing committee on agriculture and agri-food.

Processed food, for many, may sound like junk food — say, chicken parts blitzed with additives to form nuggets. But in the agricultural sector, processed food involves anything that adds value to a raw material. For example, crushing canola seeds into oil is processing, as is freezing corn niblets or canning beans.

For a country so rich in raw materials, untapped processing potential means untapped value. But more importantly, it can make the national food chain more vulnerable.

It’s normal for an agricultural powerhouse with a small population to export a lot of its crops. But it’s concerning that Canada then re-imports some of those commodities after they’ve been processed abroad, said Martin Scanlon, dean of agricultural and food sciences at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

“The degree of reliance on imported (processed) foods has been growing steadily for the past 15 years,” he said. “When you’ve got these plants that are rusting out, if I can call it that, we’re not seeing the degree of sophisticated processing reinvestment that you would see in a plant south of the border.”

Complications in the food chain at the beginning of the pandemic last year, including outbreaks at two meat-packing plants that process the majority of Canada’s beef, have underscored the need to have more smaller plants spread out across the country, he said.

As the pandemic crawls toward a conclusion, Scanlon said it’s time to “look at our food system and say, ‘Is it what we actually want?'”

Canada’s food manufacturing sector lost roughly 40,000 jobs to plant closures in the past decade, while adding only 20 new plants with national processing capacity compared to 4,000 added in the U.S., according to a study last week by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Halifax’s Dalhousie University, one that was commissioned by manufacturing lobby group Food, Health and Consumer Products of Canada.

Foreign direct investment in the sector grew by 125 per cent in the past 10 years, the report said, though it also found that a lack of greenfield investments had contributed to “stunted innovation” and aging infrastructure.

“I think the sector, overall, has been undermined for several decades,” said Sylvain Charlebois, the lab’s director.

One executive at a Canadian food processor said state officials from the U.S. frequently offer tax cuts or free government land if a company relocates their operations south.

“I don’t go a week without getting an offer from somewhere in the U.S. to move our facility,” said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Maple Leaf Foods Inc. told the parliamentary agriculture committee that “the cumulative effect of regulation” in Canada was a factor in why it chose Indiana to build a US$310-million facility for plant-based protein, according to the committee’s report last week.

The committee also noted that frozen vegetable processor Bonduelle Americas has “given up on projects in Canada” due to a lack of labour in the industry, which has a reported 28,000 vacancies.

Food processors in Canada have also spent much of the pandemic locked in an ugly and prolonged battle over the fees and fines that big grocers charge.

Last year, Walmart Inc. and Loblaw Cos. Ltd. riled food suppliers by charging new fees as a way to help cover investments in infrastructure and online grocery shopping, which has boomed during the pandemic

.

© Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press More than half of all the crops and livestock produced in Canada are now exported to another country to be ‘processed,’ according to a recent federal government report.

The retailers argued that suppliers would benefit from sales gains brought about by the e-commerce investments. But the fees marked a flashpoint for processors, who were already frustrated by the charges and fines they were obligated to pay in order to do business with the biggest grocery chains.

Some manufacturers, including Toronto-based dairy processing giant Lactalis Canada Inc., have threatened to stop shipping products if retailers continue to charge fines for short shipments despite pandemic-related hurdles in factories.

Processors have been pushing Ottawa to implement a code of conduct to curtail what they say are bully tactics and unfair fees in the grocery business. Late last year, the federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers group (FPT) decided to investigate the issue.

Last week, the parliamentary agriculture committee delivered another milestone in the campaign for grocery regulation when it released its report on food processing after months of studying ways to boost Canada’s ability “to process more of the food it produces domestically.”

The report endorsed a national code of conduct, calling on the federal government to work with the provinces and territories to make it happen.

“Food processors are dealing with a concentrated retail market in Canada that is dominated by a few large retailers,” the report said, adding that the top five grocery chains control 80 per cent of sales.

The office of Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, who is co-chairing the FPT working group on grocery fees, said her investigation will take the recommendation into account before making its own report in July.

The Retail Council of Canada, which represents the big grocers, said it is currently working with other food-sector trade associations in hopes of proposing their own set of “structured policies and principles” that would reflect the “needs and concerns of small, domestic companies in the supply chain,” spokesperson Michelle Wasylyshen said in an email.

Reining in bully tactics in the grocery business could help preserve the Canadian operations of multinational food processors, according to one executive.

The head of a Canadian division of a global food processor, who spoke on condition he not be named for fear of damaging sales relationships, said his business often underperforms those in other markets, putting Canada at a disadvantage when head office has to make budget decisions.

“They say, ‘Listen, you know what? We can’t invest as much money in Canada because your profit margins are lower. We can make more money in France, U.K., Germany, whatever,’” he said. “When a worldwide organization looks at Canada, they’re gonna say: ‘It’s a small country. Forget about the landmass; 38 million people?’”

The pandemic has proven to multinationals that their workforces can be remotely managed, which puts underperforming divisions with small populations in jeopardy, the executive said, since the company could feasibly manage the country from its head office elsewhere.

“As opposed to having all of the senior marketing managers, logistics managers, maybe even a president out of Canada, I can hire lower staff individuals and run it out of the United States,” he said. The question becomes: “Why do I need you guys?”

But the bigger question, the one now being asked in earnest, is what would it really take for Canada to be self-sufficient, to cut, crush and cook everything we eat? It’s a question that requires an answer before another crisis hits the food chain.

A BONUS IS ONE TIME, UI IS WEEKLY
Sasse will introduce legislation to redirect expanded unemployment benefits into signing bonuses for new hires

insider@insider.com (John L. Dorman) 1 day ago

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 Al Drago/Pool via AP Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) speaks during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, on Capitol Hill. Al Drago/Pool via AP

Sen. Sasse says that expanded unemployment benefits have prevented people from returning to work.

He will propose a bill that would redirect expanded benefits into signing bonuses for new hires.

"We've got to get America and Americans up and running," he said in a statement.

GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska on Saturday said he would introduce legislation to grant signing bonuses to new hires, as the latest jobs report on Friday fell far short of expectations.

In an email, Sasse said that the proposed National Signing Bonus Act would redirect expanded unemployment benefits, which have been a lifeline for millions of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, into signing bonus payments for new hires.

Under Sasse's plan, individuals who are hired by July 4 would receive a two-month signing bonus "equal to 101 percent of their current unemployment payment."

As part of President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, expanded federal unemployment benefits provide $300 a week as a supplemental to state unemployment checks.

Republicans have long argued for less generous unemployment benefits, saying expanded benefits only serve to disincentivize people from returning to work. They quickly seized on the April jobs report, which showed that US employers added 266,000 jobs for the month, well below the 1 million jobs that many economists were expecting to be added to the US economy.

The April unemployment rate also rose slightly - to 6.1% from 6% - according to the Department of Labor.

"The emergency UI program is now penalizing people for going back to work," Sasse said in the statement. "Now, as millions of Americans are vaccinated each day, we've got crummy job numbers - 7,400,000 jobs are available but fewer than 300,000 people returned to work last month. We've got to get America and Americans up and running."

Read more: Corporate America's response to restrictive voting laws in Georgia and Texas isn't benevolence. It's about economics and profit, experts say.

The US Chamber of Commerce, which last week criticized Biden's proposed $2 trillion infrastructure bill, called for an end to the $300-a-week federal unemployment benefits after Friday's report.

"The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market," the chamber's chief policy officer, Neal Bradley, said in a statement. "We need a comprehensive approach to dealing with our workforce issues and the very real threat unfilled positions poses to our economic recovery from the pandemic."

In February, Biden's first full month in office, the economy added 536,000 jobs. In March, 770,000 jobs were regained.

GOP Govs. Greg Gianforte of Montana and Henry McMaster of South Carolina recently announced that their states will opt-out of receiving the expanded federal unemployment benefits at the end of June.

"I hear from too many employers throughout our state who can't find workers," Gianforte said last week. "Nearly every sector in our economy faces a labor shortage ... We need to incentivize Montanans to reenter the workforce."

McMaster recently echoed a similar sentiment.

"What was intended to be a short-term financial assistance for the vulnerable and displaced during the height of the pandemic has turned into a dangerous federal entitlement, incentivizing and paying workers to stay at home rather than encouraging them to return to the workplace," he said.

Israeli police storm al-Aqsa mosque ahead of Jerusalem Day march

Israeli police have stormed the sacred Jerusalem compound that holds the Dome of the Rock amid mounting international concern over the worsening violence in the city.

Following the most serious clashes in the city since 2017, the Palestine Red Crescent reported 305 people had been injured after officers in riot gear clashed with Palestinian demonstrators in East Jerusalem.

The mounting toll from the violence came as Israel’s police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, intervened at the last moment, following appeals from the Israeli domestic security agency the Shin Bet and the Israeli military to call off a controversial annual march by Israeli nationalists through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City amid fears it could provoke a further escalation.

After Shabtai’s announcement, the approach to the Damascus Gate into the Muslim Quarter was blocked by two large trucks.

Anger had been mounting for weeks among Palestinians ahead of a now-delayed Israeli court ruling on whether authorities were able to evict dozens of Palestinians from the Old City’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and give their homes to Jewish settlers.

Hundreds of Palestinians and several dozen police officers have been hurt in recent days in clashes in and around the Old City, including the sacred compound, which is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary – or Haram al-Sharif.

The compound, which has been the trigger for rounds of Israel-Palestinian violence in the past, is Islam’s third-holiest site and considered Judaism’s holiest.

Seven of the injured from Monday’s clashes were in serious condition with local media reporting that a seven-month-old Israeli had been injured by stones thrown at her family’s car.

Monday morning’s early-morning incursion by Israeli police firing teargas and stun grenades into the Haram al-Sharif compound, site of the al-Aqsa mosque, had raised tensions significantly given the huge historical sensitivity over the site, not least during the Holy month of Ramadan.

The latest violence occurred as the UN security council scheduled closed consultations on the situation in Jerusalem on Monday. Diplomats said the meeting was requested by Tunisia, the Arab representative on the council.

The decision to cancel the part of the annual Jerusalem “flag march” that enters the Muslim Quarter Old City followed concerns from senior Israeli security officials that it could worsen the already dangerous situation.

Palestinian residents of the Old City have long complained that the flag march, to mark Israel’s capture of the Jerusalem and its Jewish holy sites in 1967 during the Six Day war, is deliberately provocative.

Confrontations continued until after dawn, when police moved in to an Old City compound housing the al-Aqsa mosque, and fired stun grenades at worshippers, who threw stones. Footage from the scene showed crowds of people running in front of the mosque through clouds of smoke.

As fears mounted of Jerusalem descending further into chaos, police published dramatic CCTV video from a road near the Old City of a white car being pelted by Palestinians with stones, before the driver reverses and rams into one of them. The downed man gets up and limps away while an armed Israeli police officer runs in to protect the driver, believed to be Israeli, who faces more rock-throwing.

The late-night skirmishes raised fears about further clashes on Monday during the Jerusalem Day celebrations, which mark the anniversary of when Israeli troops captured the city in 1967.

Related: Israeli settlement ruling delayed as Jerusalem tensions run high

Israeli police gave the go-ahead for the parade despite days of unrest.

Addressing a special cabinet meeting before Jerusalem Day, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel “will not allow any extremists to destabilise the calm in Jerusalem. We will enforce law and order decisively and responsibly”.

“We will continue to maintain freedom of worship for all faiths, but we will not allow violent disturbances,” he said, adding: “We emphatically reject the pressures not to build in Jerusalem.”

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, expressed “serious concerns” about the violent clashes in Jerusalem in a phone call on Sunday with his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, the White House said.

There were also signs the violence was spreading. Late on Sunday, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired four rockets towards Israel, setting off air raid sirens in southern city of Ashkelon and nearby areas, the Israeli military said. One rocket was intercepted, while two others exploded inside Gaza, it added. There were no reports of damage or injuries.

Earlier in the day, Israel carried out an airstrike on a Hamas military group post in response to another rocket attack. People in Gaza also launched incendiary balloons into southern Israel during the day, causing dozens of fires.

Israel has faced mounting international criticism of its heavy police response and the planned evictions. Last week a UN rights body described the expulsion of Arabs from their homes as a possible war crime.

On Sunday, Jordan, which has custodianship of Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem, called Israel’s actions against worshippers at al-Aqsa “barbaric”.

On Saturday night, 120 people were injured, including a one-year-old child, and 14 were taken to hospital. The violence came a day after more than 200 Palestinians were wounded around the al-Aqsa mosque.

Israeli police said 20 officers had been injured in recent days.

In East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City, Palestinians feel an increasing threat from settlers who have sought to expand the Jewish presence there through buying homes, constructing buildings, and court-ordered evictions, such as the case in Sheikh Jarrah.

Nabeel al-Kurd, a 77-year-old whose family faces losing their home, said the evictions were a racist attempt to “expel Palestinians and replace them with settlers”.

Under Israeli law, Jews who can prove a title from before the 1948 war that accompanied the country’s creation can claim back their Jerusalem properties. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs were displaced in the same conflict but no similar law exists for Palestinians who lost their homes in the city.

“This an attempt by the settlers, supported by the government, to seize our homes with force,” Kurd told the Guardian. “Enough is enough.”

On Sunday afternoon, in light of the tensions and after a request from the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, the supreme court agreed to delay the hearing. It said it should be held within a month.

Still, the hiatus may not be enough to end the crisis. At previous Jerusalem Day marches, participants have harassed Arab residents and banged on shuttered doors as they descended through the Muslim quarter.

Palestinians have also complained of oppressive restrictions on gatherings during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Nir Hasson, a writer for the left-leaning Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, accused Israeli authorities of making a series of bad decisions recently, “including the unrestrained freedom given to police in [Jerusalem’s] streets, where on Friday they acted as if they had been sent to fan the flames, not to extinguish them”.

He added: “In the end, half of Israel’s capital city is occupied, and 40% of its residents are non-citizens who view Israel as a foreign, oppressive regime. The police and other authorities must recognise this and act to restore calm.”

© Provided by The Guardian A Palestinian man helps a wounded fellow protester during clashes with Israeli security forces at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

Jerusalem has long been the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, with its holy sites revered by Jews and Muslims.

The Old City’s Western Wall forms part of the holiest site in Judaism – the Temple Mount. It is equally part of the al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, however, with the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque above it.

Palestinians have held nightly protests in Sheikh Jarrah. A reporter for Israeli public TV tweeted footage of a Jewish driver whose car was attacked with stones and windows shattered at the entrance to Sheikh Jarrah on Saturday.

The Islamist movement Hamas, which is in power inside Gaza, urged Palestinians to remain at al-Aqsa until Ramadan ends, saying: “The resistance is ready to defend al-Aqsa at any cost.”