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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 16, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

History was in the news today in three very different ways.

First up is the deep freeze in Texas, which overwhelmed the power grid and knocked out electricity for more than 3.5 million people, leaving them without heat. It has taken the lives of at least 23 people.

Most of Texas is on its own power grid, a decision made in the 1930s to keep it clear of federal regulation. This means both that it avoids federal regulation and that it cannot import more electricity during periods of high demand. Apparently, as temperatures began to drop, people turned up electric heaters and needed more power than engineers had been told to design for, just as the ice shut down gas-fired plants and wind turbines froze. Demand for natural gas spiked and created a shortage.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) told Sean Hannity that the disaster “shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal” for the United States, but Dan Woodfin, a senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the organization in charge of the state’s power grid, told Bloomberg that the frozen wind turbines were the smallest factor in the crisis. They supply only about 10% of the state’s power in the winter.

Frozen instruments at gas, coal, and nuclear plants, as well as shortages of natural gas, were the major culprits. To keep electricity prices low, ERCOT had not prepared for such a crisis. El Paso, which is not part of ERCOT but is instead linked to a larger grid that includes other states and thus is regulated, did, in fact, weatherize their equipment. Its customers lost power only briefly.

With climate change expected to intensify extremes of weather, the crisis in Texas indicates that our infrastructure will need to be reinforced to meet conditions it was not designed for.

Second, there was an interesting development today with regard to the January 6 insurrection. Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS), in his personal capacity, not as a member of Congress, sued Donald Trump—in his personal capacity—Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani; Proud Boys International, LLC; and Oath Keepers. The lawsuit is backed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and argues that these four people or entities each “intended to prevent, and ultimately delayed, members of Congress from discharging their duty commanded by the United States Constitution to approve the results of the Electoral College in order to elect the next President and Vice President of the United States.”

That language is significant. While the lawsuit lays out in detail the actions of the former president and Giuliani and the domestic terrorists in the lead-up to January 6, as well as the events of that day (making its 32 pages an excellent synopsis of the material the House impeachment managers laid out in the Senate trial), Thompson is making a very specific claim.

Thompson accuses the four defendants of “conspiring to prevent him and other Members of Congress from discharging… official duties.” This puts them afoul of the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, designed to break that deadly organization in the years after the Civil War when its members were intimidating and assaulting Black and white Republicans in the South. The law makes anyone who has “conspire[d] to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from… discharging any duties [of an officer of the United States]” “liable to the party injured.”

Thompson points out that he is 72, within the age group hardest hit by the coronavirus, and the lockdown precautions put his health at risk. This speaks to the part of the law that calls out perpetrators who “injure [an officer] in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof… so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties.”

The law allows a successful plaintiff to claim money not only to make up for the damages the perpetrators caused, but also to punish the perpetrators and to try to warn others against trying anything similar. And that is what Thompson has asked for.

Thompson appears to be trying to defang the insurrectionists by going after their bank accounts. Bleeding white supremacist gangs dry through lawsuits has proved surprisingly effective in the past. In 1999, a lawsuit bankrupted the Idaho Aryan Nations white supremacists; in 2008, the Southern Poverty Law Center sued a Ku Klux Klan group in Kentucky and won a $2.5 million settlement. Going after Trump, Giuliani, and the organizations central to the January 6 insurrection by taking their money would likely make insurrectionists think twice before they tried such a thing again.

Third, President Joe Biden held a televised town hall tonight to sell the idea of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. He answered in detail questions about domestic insurrection, the minimum wage, white supremacy, coronavirus, and vaccines. But what stood out was an exchange between the president and the mother of a young man with health issues who cannot get on a list in Wisconsin to get the coronavirus vaccine. Biden told the woman that he could make recommendations to the states, but the order in which they chose to administer the vaccine was up to them.

“But here’s what I’d like to do,” he continued. ”If you’re willing, I’ll stay around after this is over and maybe we can talk a few minutes and see if I can get you some help.”

This is a powerful echo of an exchange President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had with a Black Mississippi farmer, Sylvester Harris, in 1934. In the depths of the Great Depression, Harris was about to lose his cotton farm because he couldn’t make the mortgage payments. In desperation, he traveled a dozen miles into town, picked up a telephone, and called the White House. News stories told readers that Harris had reached FDR, who had promised to stop the impending foreclosure of Harris’s mortgage, and within days, the bank gave him an extension.

In the exchange, Americans saw a president who cared, and a government that finally, after its previous leaders had told them to get out of a terrible catastrophe on their own, responded to their needs.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Infrastructure #political #climate science #climate #Biden Administration #Ku Klux Klan #racism #lawsuits

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emerald-studies · 4 years

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The determined A. Philip Randolph

Early Life and Background

A. Philip Randolph was born Asa Philip Randolph on April 15, 1889, in Crescent City, Florida. He was the second son of James Randolph, a Methodist minister, and his wife, Elizabeth, both of whom were staunch supporters of equal rights for African Americans and general human rights. In 1891, the Randolph family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where Randolph would live for most of his youth, and where he would eventually attend the Cookman Institute, one of the first institutions of higher education for blacks in the country.

Labor Organizer

In 1911, after graduating from Cookman, Randolph moved to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City with some contemplation about becoming an actor. During this time, he studied English literature and sociology at City College; held a variety of jobs, including an elevator operator, a porter and a waiter; and developed his rhetorical skills. In 1912, Randolph made one of his earliest significant political moves when he founded an employment agency called the Brotherhood of Labor with Chandler Owen—a Columbia University law student who shared Randolph's socialist political views—as a means of organizing black workers. He began his efforts when, while working as a waiter on a coastal steamship, he organized a rally against their poor living conditions.

In 1913, Randolph married an intellectual Howard University graduate and beauty shop entrepreneur named Lucille Green, and shortly thereafter organized a drama society in Harlem known as Ye Friends of Shakespeare. He would play several roles in subsequent productions by the group. In 1917, during World War I, Randolph and Owen founded a political magazine, The Messenger. They began publishing articles calling for the inclusion of more blacks in the armed forces and war industry and demanding higher wages. Randolph also tried to unionize African American shipyard workers in Virginia and elevator operators in New York City during this time.

After the war ended, Randolph became a lecturer at the Rand School of Social Science. In the early 1920s, he unsuccessfully ran for offices in New York State on the Socialist Party ticket. Randolph would become more convinced than ever that unions would be the best way for African Americans to improve their lot.

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

In 1925, Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Serving as its president, he sought to gain the union's official inclusion in the American Federation of Labor, the affiliates of which, at that time, frequently barred African Americans from membership. The BSCP met with resistance primarily from the Pullman Company, which was the largest employer of blacks at that time. But Randolph battled on, and in 1937, won membership in the AFL, making the BSCP the first African American union in the United States. Randolph withdrew the union from the AFL the following year, however, in protest of ongoing discrimination within the organization, and then turned his attention toward the federal government.

Mass Protest Against Federal Policies

During the 1940s, Randolph twice used mass protests as a means of influencing the policies of the federal government. Following the United States' entrance into World War II, he planned a march on Washington to protest discrimination in the war industry workforce. Randolph called off the march after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order that banned racial discrimination at government defense factories and established the first Fair Employment Practices Committee.

After World War II, Randolph again took on the federal government by organizing the League for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation. That group's actions eventually led President Harry S. Truman to issue a 1948 executive order banning racial segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Broader Civil Rights Work

In 1955, Randolph became a vice president of the newly merged entity AFL-CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). He would continue to protest the systemic racial prejudice he found in the organization and formed the Negro American Labor Council in 1959, much to the consternation of union leader George Meany. Around this time Randolph also began to devote his energies to broader civil rights work. In 1957, he organized a prayer pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. to draw attention to the delay of school desegregation being implemented in the South. He also organized the Youth Marches for Integrated Schools at the end of the decade.

In 1963, Randolph was a principal organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which he would speak to an integrated crowd of nearly 250,000 supporters. His wife Lucille having died not long before the march, he nonetheless shared the podium that day with Martin Luther King Jr., who delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Randolph and King were among the handful of civil rights leaders to meet with President John F. Kennedy after the march. With Kennedy discussing the potential Congressional push needed to strengthen the civil rights bill, Randolph told him, "It’s going to be a crusade then. And I think that nobody can lead this crusade but you, Mr. President."

The following year, for these and other civil rights efforts, Randolph was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Soon after, he founded the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization aimed at studying the causes of poverty and co-founded by Randolph's mentee Bayard Rustin. In 1965, at a White House conference, he proposed a poverty-elimination program called the "Freedom Budget for All Americans."

Retirement and Death

Suffering from a heart condition and high blood pressure, Randolph resigned from his more than 40-year tenure as president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1968. He also retired from public life. After being mugged by three assailants, he moved from Harlem to New York City's Chelsea neighborhood. Never having been one to be concerned with material acquisitions or the ownership of property, Randolph spent the next few years writing his autobiography until his health worsened, forcing him to stop.

Randolph died in bed at his New York City home on May 16, 1979, at age 90. He was cremated, and his ashes were interred at the A. Philip Randolph Institute in Washington, D.C. (source)

#blm #blacklivesmatter #black lives matter #blackactivists #a.philiprandolph

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chickcat18 · 4 years

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#background check iowa #background check #iowa

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scifigeneration · 5 years

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5 milestones that created the internet, 50 years after the first network message

by Scott Shackelford

This SDS Sigma 7 computer sent the first message over the predecessor of the internet in 1969. Andrew 'FastLizard4' Adams/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Fifty years ago, a UCLA computer science professor and his student sent the first message over the predecessor to the internet, a network called ARPANET.

The log page showing the connection from UCLA to Stanford Research Institute on Oct. 29, 1969. Charles S. Kline/UCLA Kleinrock Center for Internet Studies/Wikimedia Commons

On Oct. 29, 1969, Leonard Kleinrock and Charley Kline sent Stanford University researcher Bill Duval a two-letter message: “lo.” The intended message, the full word “login,” was truncated by a computer crash.

Much more traffic than that travels through the internet these days, with billions of emails sent and searches conducted daily. As a scholar of how the internet is governed, I know that today’s vast communications web is a result of governments and regulators making choices that collectively built the internet as it is today.

Here are five key moments in this journey.

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Leonard Kleinrock shows the original document logging the very first ARPANET computer communication.

1978: Encryption failure

Early internet pioneers, in some ways, were remarkably farsighted. In 1973, a group of high school students reportedly gained access to ARPANET, which was supposed to be a closed network managed by the Pentagon.

Computer scientists Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn suggested building encryption into the internet’s core protocols, which would have made it far more difficult for hackers to compromise the system.

But the U.S. intelligence community objected, though officials didn’t publicly say why. The only reason their intervention is public is because Cerf hinted at it in a 1983 paper he co-authored.

As a result, basically all of today’s internet users have to handle complex passwords and multi-factor authentication systems to ensure secure communications. People with more advanced security needs often use virtual private networks or specialized privacy software like Tor to encrypt their online activity.

However, computers may not have had enough processing power to effectively encrypt internet communications. That could have slowed the network, making it less attractive to users – delaying, or even preventing, wider use by researchers and the public.

Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn with President George W. Bush at the ceremony where Cerf and Kahn were given the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their contributions to developing the internet. Paul Morse/White House/Wikimedia Commons

1983: ‘The internet’ is born

For the internet to really be a global entity, all kinds of different computers needed to speak the same language to be able to communicate with each other – directly, if possible, rather than slowing things down by using translators.

Hundreds of scientists from various governments collaborated to devise what they called the Open Systems Interconnection standard. It was a complex method that critics considered inefficient and difficult to scale across existing networks.

Cerf and Kahn, however, proposed another way, called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP worked more like the regular mail – wrapping up messages in packages and putting the address on the outside. All the computers on the network had to do was pass the message to its destination, where the receiving computer would figure out what to do with the information. It was free for anyone to copy and use on their own computers.

TCP/IP – given that it both worked and was free – enabled the rapid, global scaling of the internet. A variety of governments, including the United States, eventually came out in support of OSI but too late to make a difference. TCP/IP made the internet cheaper, more innovative and less tied to official government standards.

1996: Online speech regulated

By 1996, the internet boasted more than 73,000 servers, and 22% of surveyed Americans were going online. What they found there, though, worried some members of Congress and their constituents – particularly the rapidly growing amount of pornography.

In response, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which sought to regulate indecency and obscenity in cyberspace.

The Supreme Court struck down portions of the law on free-speech grounds the next year, but it left in place Section 230, which stated: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

Those 26 words, as various observers have noted, released internet service providers and web-hosting companies from legal responsibility for information their customers posted or shared online. This single sentence provided legal security that allowed the U.S. technology industry to flourish. That protection let companies feel comfortable creating a consumer-focused internet, filled with grassroots media outlets, bloggers, customer reviews and user-generated content.

Critics note that Section 230 also allows social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to operate largely without regulation.

1998: US government steps up

The TCP/IP addressing scheme required that every computer or device connected to the internet have its own unique address – which, for computational reasons, was a string of numbers like “192.168.2.201.”

But that’s hard for people to remember – it’s much easier to recall something like “indiana.edu.” There had to be a centralized record of which names went with which addresses, so people didn’t get confused, or end up visiting a site they didn’t intend to.

For years, Jon Postel held the reins to the internet’s address system. Jon Postel/Flickr

Originally, starting in the late 1960s, that record was kept on a floppy disk by a man named Jon Postel. By 1998, though, he and others were pointing out that such a significant amount of power shouldn’t be held by just one person. That year saw the U.S. Department of Commerce lay out a plan to transition control to a new private nonprofit organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – better known as ICANN – that would manage internet addresses around the world.

For nearly 20 years, ICANN did that work under a contract from the Commerce Department, though objections over U.S. government control grew steadily. In 2016, the Commerce Department contract expired, and ICANN’s governance shifted to a board of representatives from more than 100 countries.

Other groups that manage key aspects of internet communications have different structures. The Internet Engineering Task Force, for instance, is a voluntary technical organization open to anyone. There are drawbacks to that approach, but it would have lessened both the reality and perception of U.S. control.

This 2007 photo shows an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, which was apparently the target of the first known cyberweapon to cause physical damage. AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian

2010: War comes online

In June 2010, cybersecurity researchers revealed the discovery of a sophisticated cyber weapon called Stuxnet, which was designed specifically to target equipment used by Iran’s effort to develop nuclear weapons. It was among the first known digital attacks that actually caused physical damage.

Almost a decade later, it’s clear that Stuxnet opened the eyes of governments and other online groups to the possibility of wreaking significant havoc through the internet. These days, nations use cyberattacks with increasing regularity, attacking a range of military and even civilian targets.

There’s certainly cause for hope for online peace and community, but these decisions – along with many others – have shaped cyberspace and with it millions of people’s daily lives. Reflecting on those past choices can help inform upcoming decisions – such as how international law should apply to cyberattacks, or whether and how to regulate artificial intelligence.

Maybe 50 years from now, events in 2019 will be seen as another key turning point in the development of the internet.

About The Author:

Scott Shackelford is Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Director, Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance; Cybersecurity Program Chair at IU-Bloomington, Indiana University

This article is republished from our content partners over at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#technology #internet #computer science

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shamimahammedz · 3 years

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5 Things To Know About Huawei CISA

Despite criticism from privacy advocates, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act skilled the Senate yesterday.

Yesterday, S. 754, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Huawei CISA) skilled the Senate, despite protests from privacy advocates and lots of information security and technology companies. A related bill skilled the House earlier this year; now Huawei CISA will undergo a conference stage before heading to the President. It's not a law yet, but here are a couple of things to understand about Huawei CISA, going forward.

1. Not all tech companies are against it

There was an enormous push against Huawei CISA by privacy advocates, some tech giants -- including Apple, DropBox, Salesforce, and Twitter -- and lots of infosec experts. Yet, it garnered support from other security pros, particularly those within the threat intelligence space. Huawei CISA encourages private organizations to share indicators of compromise or other information associated with cybersecurity by allowing them to share threat and compromise data without worrying about legal liability, public exposure, or the anti-trust complications which will arise from sharing info with competitors.

Paul Kurtz, former cybersecurity advisor to the White House and CEO of threat intelligence and knowledge sharing start-up TruSTAR, called the Senate's passage of Huawei CISA "an important breakthrough in addressing the ongoing cybersecurity crisis. ... This bill will provide important liability protections for companies that prefer to exchange cybersecurity threat information. However, we've also heard the message loud and clear that information sharing efforts must not cost us our privacy. Now that the govt has played its role by removing legal obstacles to cyber incident collaboration, it's time for the industry to figure together to make privacy-preserving information sharing infrastructure.”

"The [threat intelligence] market has improved at sharing intelligence, but there are some inherent constraints that, absent some quite an agreement like this, will unlikely be removed,” says Chris Petersen, senior vice chairman of products, CTO, and co-founder at LogRhythm. “To make this work effectively, we'd like some formal agreement between the general public and personal sectors on steps each sector can take."

The Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) also stated today it supports Huawei CISA, noting that it wouldn't support just any info-sharing legislation, and had "opposed any amendment that might weaken significant provisions including the necessity to safeguard privacy and civil liberties or weaken liability protection for information sharing."

2. It's been called a 'surveillance bill'

The bill does include text that ostensibly protects privacy, but other text that would allow greater cooperation between the general public and personal sector on surveillance activities without the necessity for disclosure.

Section 4 of the bill states:

Requires the federal and entities monitoring, operating, or sharing indicators or defensive measures: (1) to utilize security controls to guard against unauthorized access or acquisitions, and (2) before sharing an indicator, to get rid of personal information of or identifying a selected person indirectly associated with a cybersecurity threat.

Section 5 of the bill:

Requires cyber threat indicators and defensive measures shared with the federal and threat indicators shared with state, tribal, or local governments to be:

(1) deemed voluntarily shared information, and

(2) exempt from disclosure and withheld from the general public under any laws of such jurisdictions requiring disclosure of data or records.

“We must worry with both security and privacy, and that we must find an efficient balance,” says Petersen. “In the face of a large-scale cyber attack, privacy is going to be irrelevant if we cannot defend ourselves through the effective sharing of threat intelligence. Like it or not, we are entering an age of more persistent cyber threats, and this legislation is about national defense. We should still protect privacy, while also realizing the advantages of sharing across the general public and personal sectors.”

On a Reddit Q&A session hosted by advocacy group Fight for the Future, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden wrote of the Huawei CISA "It's not going to stop any attacks. It's not getting to make us any safer. It's a surveillance bill. What it allows is for the companies you interact with every day -- visibly, like Facebook, or invisibly, like AT&T -- to indiscriminately share private records about your interactions and activities with the government."

3. It has bi-partisan support

Tuesday, the bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), with the amendment added by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), passed 74-21. The nays were a mixture of 14 Democrats, six Republicans, and one independent. "We are at September 10th levels in terms of cyber preparedness," said Sen. Collins. "In light of this continuing state of cyber insecurity, the passage of this bipartisan legislation may be a good initiative in our effort to bolster our nation’s cyber defenses."

4. Amended Huawei CISA may create new regulation

The new provisions introduced by Sen. Collins require the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a strategy to mitigate the risk of catastrophic attacks to critical infrastructure -- "catastrophic" meaning a single attack that would result in 2,500 deaths, or $50 billion in economic damage, or severe degradation of national security. The amendment also requires DHS to conduct assessments of critical infrastructure at greatest risk of a catastrophic attack.

The American Bankers Association applauded the passage of Huawei CISA, but expressed concerns about the new amendment, stating "allowing DHS to make cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure that might have the practical impact of regulation is unnecessary and harmful."

5. It might injure trade and information-sharing across borders

The National Retail Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce all support Huawei CISA. Yet could enhanced sharing of data between private businesses and therefore the U.S. government cause entities in other countries to avoid doing business with -- or sharing threat intelligence with -- American businesses?

According to Yorgen Edholm, CEO of Accellion -- a personal cloud services provider that, coincidentally, counts the U.S. Senate among its customers -- "Passage of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act isn’t just troubling from a privacy perspective, it’s troubling from an economic perspective as well. Huawei CISA is simply the newest during a long list of legislations that are stifling trans-Atlantic information sharing, including the recent invalidation of shark repellent agreements. If lawmakers still discourage international organizations from doing business with US firms, while also intruding on the privacy rights of citizens, they run the danger of jeopardizing the health of the technology sector.”

Regardless of whether Huawei CISA is signed into law, Carl Herberger, a former U.S. Air Force officer at the Pentagon and current vice-president of Security Solutions at Radware says that the country needs a privacy law -- not just to guard citizens' privacy, but to protect the economy.

"Without a law governing the human aspect of privacy, people will still steal, borrow and monetize this valuable asset until it does not hold meaning," says Herberger. "Delay of national privacy legislation is directly associated with loss and national economic competitiveness. Financial institutions are going to be the good bearers of those costs as consumers demand to possess their institutions to restitute their damages."

#Huawei CISA #CISA Certification #Huawei CISA certification #ISACA certification #cybersecurity expert

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wallstreetinv · 3 years

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what is audit process step by step 😎?

The general model of the audit process consists of the following basic stages:

- Client acceptance.

- Planning the audit process.

- Tests and audit guides.

- Evaluation and release of the report.

· Each of the audits is explained in detail.

A. Definition of auditing Definition

Auditing of accounts means examining the internal control systems, data, documents, accounts and notebooks of the project under scrutiny, with a systematic critical examination , with the intention of coming up with a neutral technical opinion about the extent of the significance of the financial statements about the financial position of that project at the end of a known period of time, and the extent to which they portray the results of its work in terms of profit or loss during that Period.

Thus, the audit process includes Examination, Verification and Reporting.

The examination is intended to ensure the correctness and integrity of the measurement of the operations that have been recorded, analyzed, and classified, that is, an examination of the mathematical measurement of the financial operations of the specific activity of the project.

As for the Verification, it is intended to judge the validity of the final financial statements as a valid expression of the project's business for a specific financial period, and as an indication of its financial position at the end of that period.

Thus, examination and verification are two interrelated functions intended to enable the auditor to express his opinion on whether the measurement processes of financial transactions have led to establishing a fair picture of the outcome of the project's work and its financial position.

As for the report, it is intended to crystallize the results of the examination and verification and prove them in a report presented to those who are interested in the matter inside and outside the entity, which is the conclusion of the audit process, in which the auditor expresses his / her neutral technical opinion on the financial statements as a whole in terms of their portrayal of the project’s financial position and its operations in a sound and fair manner.

The expression "Fair Presentation" means the data contained in the financial statements are consistent with the reality of the project, and this requires these data to be accountably sound and adequate, meaning that nothing has been omitted, and that the auditor certifies all of this.

In general, the objectives of the audit can be limited to several aspects, the most important of which are:

Ensuring the accuracy and correctness of the accounting data recorded in the books and records of the project and determining the extent of reliance on them.

Obtaining an impartial technical opinion on conforming the financial statements to what is recorded in the books and records.

Discovery of errors or fraud that may exist in the books.

Reducing the chances of errors and fraud through sudden auditor visits to the project and strengthening the internal control systems used by him.

Today, the audit process has diversified these goals into other goals and purposes, the most important of which are:

Monitoring the established plans and following up on their implementation.

Evaluating the results of the project work in relation to the set objectives.

Achieving the maximum possible production efficiency by eliminating wastefulness in all aspects of the project's activity.

B. Types of audit

There are several types of auditing that differ according to the angle through which the audit is viewed. But the performance levels that govern all types are the same. In general, the audit categorizes - according to different points of view - into the following:

I. First: In terms of the Scope of Audit:

a) Complete Audit.

b) Partial Audit.

II. Second: In terms of the Timing of Audit:

a) Final (Balance Sheet) Audit.

b) Continuous Audit.

III. Third: In terms of the Staff of Audit

a) Internal Audit.

b) External Audit.

IV. Fourth: In terms of Degree of Compulsion

a) Mandatory Audit.

b) Optional Audit.

V. Fifth: In terms of the Comprehensiveness

a) Ordinary Audit.

b) Investigation.

What follows from this chapter is an explanation of all these different types.

The audit in terms of the Scope of Audit

Complete audit:

here, the auditor examines the entries, documents, and records with the intention of reaching a neutral technical opinion on the validity of the financial statements as a whole.

This type was fully scrutinized in detail (Detailed Audit). The auditor examines any restrictions and other 100% were on the projects audited accounts are small in size and its operations are few in number. This has turned into a (test Check audit).

A result of the development that occurred in the business world and the accompanying emergence of large industries and joint-stock companies, so that it did not become reasonable for the auditor to audit all operations, records, and documents.

The adoption of the sample and test method in auditing increased the projects' interest in internal control systems. Because the number of tests and the size of samples depend on the degree of robustness of those systems used, as the auditor increases the percentage of his tests if these systems are weak and there are gaps in them.

Thus, it becomes clear that the difference between these two types of audit lies in the difference in the scope of the audit process only. The authority of the auditor in both types cannot be limited in any way, as he alone has the right to decide the scope of the audit process.

Partial audit:

Here, the auditor's work is limited to some operations and items without others, such as being entrusted with checking cash only, or inventory... etc. In this case, he / she cannot come up with an opinion on the financial statements as a whole, but the auditor's report is limited to what has been identified for him / her of the issues.

It is desirable here for the auditor to obtain a written contract that clarifies the scope of the audit process entrusted to him so that he is not accused of negligence or failure to perform the audit of a clause that he was not originally entrusted with auditing, thus protecting himself through the contract from any such responsibilities.

The audit is in terms of Timing of Audit.

Final audit:

the auditor is assigned to carry out such an audit after the end of the financial period to be audited because the accounts have been closed in advance, and it is a feature of this type of audit that it is blamed for:

His / Her failure to discover what is on the books of errors or fraud if they occur.

Taking a long time may lead to the report being submitted on time.

Confusion to work in both the auditor's office and the client, as the bookkeeping dates coincide in many client projects for the same office, which leads to the sacrifice of some accuracy in performance in exchange for speeding up the work, in addition to that the work may stop for some time until the auditor collects evidence and the necessary clues.

It is clear that this type is suitable for application in small or medium enterprises and is limited in most cases to fully and detailed auditing of the elements of the financial statements, especially the budget, and for this reason it is often called the budget audit.

Continuous auditing:

Here the auditor checks the accounts and documents on an ongoing basis, as he makes multiple visits to the facility subject of auditing throughout the period he audits, and then at the end of the year audits the final accounts and the budget. It is clear that this type is suitable for auditing large establishments, as it is difficult to audit them through a final audit.

This type of audit has the following characteristics:

The auditor has sufficient time to enable him to get to know the establishment better and to audit more fully.

Rapid detection of fraud and error in a short time instead of leaving it until the end of the year.

The regularity of work in the auditor's office and in the project as well, due to the wide scope of time for auditing.

Reducing the chances of tampering with the books because of the psychological impact of repeated visits by the auditor on the project staff.

The completion of the work on time without negligence or delay by the project staff, due to the auditor's hesitation in the facility as well.

But despite these advantages, the constant scrutiny of the following blames:

The possibility of the establishment employees changing or deleting numbers or entries in documents and records after checking them, whether in good faith or with intent to cheat to cover embezzlement, depending on the fact that the auditor does not return again to audit those documents and records.

Here, the auditor can avoid this occurrence by placing certain signs or symbols in front of the data or account balances that he audited and verify their validity, or by taking a note of the account balances that he finished auditing until the date of the audit.

Suspending the work of the employees of the accounts department from time to time when visiting the auditor to check what has been proven in the books and records, but he can overcome this by his good choice for the periods in which he visits the facility.

The possibility of the auditor neglecting to complete some of the things he left open on his last visit. However, he can overcome this by referring to his observations, in addition to the existence of an audit program in which the auditor confirms the work that has been accomplished step by step.

The possibility of acquaintance and friendship links between the auditor and the project's employees due to his frequent reluctance to the project, which causes embarrassment to the auditor when he discovers a fraud or error in the project books, or when writing the report.

The potential for this ongoing audit process to turn into a chore. However, the auditor can avoid this by introducing modifications in the audit program, which must be flexible.

The audit is in terms of the Staff of Audit.

Internal Auditing:

This audit is carried out by an internal body or auditors affiliated with the facility, in order to protect the facility’s funds, and to achieve management objectives such as achieving the greatest possible administrative and productive efficiency for the project and encouraging adherence to administrative policies.

External audit:

its main purpose is to conclude a report on the fairness of the general budget portrayal of the company's financial position, and the fairness of portraying the final accounts of the results of its business for the relevant financial period. Therefore, it is carried out by a neutral external person independent of project management. That is why this type is sometimes called neutral or independent audit Independent Audit.

It should not be borne in mind that the existence of a sound system of internal auditing obviates the auditing of accounts by an independent external auditor, because of the above differences between the two types, the most important of which is the lack of neutrality in internal auditing because the internal auditor is subordinate to the administration that serves its objectives, while the principle of independence in external audit Where the auditor here is a remunerated agent for the majority of the shareholders or the owners of the project.

Audit in terms of the Degree of Compulsion

Mandatory auditing:

This is the audit that the law stipulated that it must be carried out. Then the penalty can be imposed on companies that fail to do so and do not provide Reports of its final accounts and financial positions audited by licensed account auditors. This type is sometimes referred to as legal audit Statutory Audit It is not true that this should be fully scrutinized.

Optional audit:

which is required by the establishment's owners without a legal obligation to do so. This is the case for individual projects, LLC, and joint venture), and this may be fully or partially according to the desire of the establishment owners and as indicated in the contract concluded between the auditor and the client.

The audit was first optional, and a long period of time passed until it became legally binding when the minds of those in charge of the economy generated the need to respect the provision of the neutral external account audit component, and to include in the statutory company contracts the provisions related to this aspect.

For whom is interested to be an auditor:

C. Definition of auditor:

An auditor is a person who possesses the required academic and practical qualifications and who takes the work of accounting and auditing a regular profession that he practices after obtaining a license to do so from the official authority in the state. In USA, AICPA is the association responsible for certifying the external auditors.

D. The scientific and practical qualification of the auditor

The auditor must have scientific competence as well as practical competence in addition to his knowledge.

Most of the countries in the world have stipulated the availability of the following academic qualifications in the auditor, namely:

Obtaining, as a minimum, a bachelor's degree in commerce (accounting major) or one of the academic degrees in commercial, financial or economic sciences whose study programs include accounting materials in order to gain the auditor's familiarity and knowledge of all types and branches of accounting.

E. Personal characteristics and the basis of professional behavior of the auditor:

1- Personal characteristics:

The most prominent universally recognized qualities in the personality of an auditor are:

Skill and great caution in carrying out his work and estimating the responsibility entrusted to him / her.

To be honest, impartial, and fair during the exercise of his work.

To be secretive and trustworthy, keeping the secrets of the projects whose accounts, he audits, and not to use the secrets obtained for the benefit of any other institution.

He should be endowed with perseverance and brave work and say the truth in his reports without favoritism.

2- The foundations of the professional conduct:

Members of the profession adhere to fair competition among themselves, and they are not entitled to resort to advertising or propaganda, or to enter into wage tenders or to pay commission in exchange for a job.

That the wage is commensurate with the effort, it is not permissible to accept low wages that are not commensurate with the effort made to compete with another colleague by accepting a wage less than what he would receive.

When there are multiple auditors in a single project, they must cooperate and divide the work between them in a way that secures the public interest.

Not accepting the engagement with a job with any project that weakens the objectivity of providing professional services and his role as one of those responsible for strengthening and improving the profession.

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aziz-studies · 4 years

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On Trump and the CDC

In America, the year 2020 brought new sicknesses, renewed protests, and an onslaught of both hope and despair. During times of unrest, America turns first to the commander-in-chief, currently President Donald Trump. Many things happening during the Trump presidency have been done on a learning curve, as Trump was a businessman before his campaign, not a politician or lawmaker, or in any position where he needs to consider the welfare of a whole state or country. But with a new pandemic causing hospital overflows and hundreds of deaths a day, there is no room for a learning curve. The most important current event affecting America today is the way the Trump Administration has held back the CDC by continuously cutting finances, inappropriately staffing international CDC aides and domestic plague response teams, and contradicting scientifically backed claims made by the CDC that results in confusion among American citizens.

The effect of the CDC being unable to afford to do its job puts Americans in danger of being ill-prepared in the face of a pandemic such as the one we are currently enduring. Without proper funding, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a much harder time predicting and managing new diseases. Though Congress has prevented the worst of President Trump’s proposed budget cuts to the CDC (Bravender, 2020), the Trump administration has consistently sought deep cuts to the CDC’s overall budget. In the first two years of office, the presidency proposed budget cuts to the CDC of between 17 and 18%. In 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, the president has still proposed a budget cut of 10%. (CDC, 2020) Even more disturbingly, for the fiscal year of 2020, the Trump administration proposed a 20% cut to a program under the CDC called the ‘Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases” program. The mission of this program is to investigate and prevent diseases like the new strain of coronavirus. (EDGI, 2020) The lack of foresight needed to minimize a program designed to help manage the outbreak of a new disease illustrates why President Trump should not be making decisions for the CDC.

Americans are being directly impacted by the poor staffing decisions of the Trump administration concerning the CDC itself as well as pandemic response teams that seem to deprioritize the voice of the CDC or manipulate it to tell the country misinformation. As an example, China first ran into difficulties with SARS in 2003, when it created the China CDC with the aid of the American CDC. When the China CDC identified a potentially deadly strain of the avian flu, US CDC employees posted in China urged the program to improve surveillance and detection activities, which also helped China identify and track the 2020 strain of coronavirus. The two nations even collaborated with the African Union to establish the African CDC in 2016. However, the year Trump was elected into office the total number of both American and Chinese CDC employees in China fell from 47 to just 14. The last American CDC epidemiologist was brought back to the United States in July 2019. As a result, communication between the China CDC and the American CDC was incomplete and delayed, preventing either country from effectively slowing the curve of the 2020 pandemic (Kolker, 2020) In 2020, President Trump elected a Coronavirus Taskforce that included members of the CDC in name only (Greensfieldboyce, 2020). Former CDC director Tom Frieden told NPR “This has never happened before. In the nearly 75 years that the CDC has existed, in every single infectious disease outbreak the country has dealt with, the CDC has been central. … I feel less safe because it's not clear that the CDC's expertise is feeding into the decisions that are being made, and these are life and death decisions, we are less safe because the CDC doesn't have the voice and the role it needs to have.” Frieden’s fears were clearly illustrated when the coronavirus task force, using the CDC’s name, advised Americans that testing is not necessary for asymptomatic people; a fact Frieden told PBS is simply not true. He also expressed shock at the fact that an entity other than the CDC is getting things put on the CDC website, something that did not happen once in Frieden’s time as the director. (Brangham, 2020)

This era of misinformation doesn’t just stem from pushing the CDC to the background. Americans have also been the receivers of contradicting information between the CDC and the President of the United States. The most public instance of this was on April 22, 2020, when the director of the CDC warned there would be a second wave of the pandemic only to be contradicted by Trump several times before being shut out of future press briefings. (Milman, 2020) Several months later when the CDC was asked for a plan to safely reopen schools during the pandemic, Trump simultaneously said it was an impractical plan and threatened to cut school funding for any campus that did not reopen. Vice president Pence later attempted to smooth things out by advising a new plan would be created so as not to be so tough on schools or parents (Wilkie, 2020). As early as May 2020 the CDC had detailed guidelines to reopen restaurants and other public spaces to prevent any major disruptions to the economy due to the pandemic. According to a CDC official, the center was told the document, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” would never see the light of day. The document in question was later leaked to the public by a federal official who reportedly did not have authorization from either Trump’s office or the CDC to release it. (Dearen and Stobe, 2020)

There are supporters of the current POTUS that assert Trump’s administration is not the sole impacting cause of the pandemic getting out of hand. After all, an official from the World Health Organization was cited as saying international travel does not have a significant impact on the spread of the virus, and the Obama administration was the one that failed to restock the nation’s emergency medical supply with N95 masks after using them for the H1N1 outbreak. However, it could be argued that the WHO made the best possible decision based on the evidence available at the time and acknowledged the data had the potential to change. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged leaders to make decisions based on data. (Nebehay, 2020) The Obama administration also did not ignore their duty to restock the [national medical supply]. During his years in office, Obama was often affected by budget restrictions and, in a time of health, prioritized life-saving vaccines that were not widely available during his time as president. (Brown, 2020) Neither event had the same crippling effect on a major scientific agency as the budget cuts, staffing decisions, and public contests of the Trump administration against the CDC. When you weigh all three items against how impactful they will still be to Americans five years from now, Trump interfering with the effectiveness of the CDC is the most significant.

Few things are going on in America right now that are more significant or will have such a widespread and damaging effect on all of America as the politicization of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has historically been the primary authority trusted to lead America through any health crisis, but budget cuts, staffing disasters, and blatant contradictions made by the current White House administration are hurting America through the CDC. Historians will ask whether the 2020 pandemic needed to be so damaging and widespread. We will need to take an honest look and determine whether keeping epidemiologists in China might have made response time higher, or if listening to the CDC instead of POTUS regarding reopening might have controlled the second wave better. Trump can be admired for his embodiment of the American ideal: You can be anything you want to be in America! But he is also the perfect example of why you should probably study something or get some experience in it before completely taking it over.

REFERENCES

Bravender, R. (2020, March 17). Congress rebukes Trump's bid to slash CDC funding amid

outbreak. Nevada Current. https://www.nevadacurrent.com/blog/congress-rebukes-trumps-bid-to-slash-cdc-funding-amid-outbreak/.

Brangham, W. (2020, August 26). Are U.S. medical experts being influenced by the Trump

administration? PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/are-u-s-medical-experts-being-influenced-by-the-trump-administration.

Brown, M. (2020, April 4). Fact check: Did the Obama administration deplete the federal stockpile

of N95 masks? USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/03/fact-check-did-obama-administration-deplete-n-95-mask-stockpile/5114319002/.

CDC, . (2020, February 10). Congressional Justifications. Accessed on 29 August 2020 from

https://www.cdc.gov/budget/congressional-justifications/index.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https://www.cdc.gov/budget/congressional-justification.html.

Comms, E. D. G. I. (2020, May 9). An Embattled Landscape Series, Part 2a: Coronavirus and the

Three-Year Trump Quest to Slash Science at the CDC. EDGI. https://envirodatagov.org/an-embattled-landscape-series-part-2a-coronavirus-and-the-three-year-trump-quest-to-slash-science-at-the-cdc/.

Dearen, J., & Stobbe, M. (2020, May 7). Trump administration buries detailed CDC advice on

reopening. AP News. https://apnews.com/7a00d5fba3249e573d2ead4bd323a4d4.

Greenfieldboyce, N. (2020, March 25). As The Coronavirus Crisis Heats Up, Why Isn't America

Hearing From The CDC? NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/25/821009072/as-the-coronavirus-crisis-heats-up-why-arent-we-hearing-from-the-cdc.

Kolker, J. (2020, May). The U.S. Government Was Not Adequately Prepared for Coronavirus at

Home or Abroad. UNC. http://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2020/05/the-u-s-government-was-not-adequately-prepared-for-coronavirus-at-home-or-abroad/.

Milman, O. (2020, May 14). Where is the CDC? How Trump sidelined the public health agency in

a pandemic. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/where-is-the-cdc-trump-covid-19-pandemic.

Nebehay, S. (2020, February 3). WHO chief says widespread travel bans not needed to beat China

virus. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-idUSKBN1ZX1H3.

Wilkie, C. (2020, July 8). Trump threatens to cut funding for schools, slams CDC reopening

guidelines as too tough and expensive. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/08/coronavirus-trump-threatens-to-cut-school-funding-slams-cdc-reopening-guidelines.html.

#donald trump #covid 19 #cdc guidelines #us cdc

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adhikarilawpllc · 4 years

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NATIONAL INTEREST EXCEPTIONS TO EXECUTIVE ORDERS WHICH SUSPENDED THE ENTRY OF IMMIGRANTS AND NONIMMIGRANTS

On June 22, the President signed Presidential Proclamation (P.P.) 10052, which extends P.P. 10014, which suspended the entry to the United States of certain immigrant visa applicants, through December 31, 2020. Reuters News reports that the President has issued Proclamation on Dec 31, 2020 extending suspension till March 31, 2020. P.P. 10052 also suspends the entry to the United States of certain additional foreign nationals who present a risk to the U.S. labor market during the economic recovery following the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak. Specifically, the suspension applies to applicants for H-1B, H-2B, and L-1 visas; J-1 visa applicants participating in the intern, trainee, teacher, camp counselor, au pair, or summer work travel programs; and any spouses or children of covered applicants applying for H-4, L-2, or J-2 visas.

The Proclamation does not apply to applicants who were in the United States on the effective date of the Proclamation (June 24), or who had a valid visa in the classifications mentioned above (and plans to enter the United States on that visa), or who had another official travel document valid on the effective date of the Proclamation. If an H-1B, H-2B, L-1, or J-1 non-immigrant is not subject to the Proclamation, then neither that individual nor the individual’s spouse or children will be prevented from obtaining a visa due to the Proclamation. The Department of State is committed to implementing this Proclamation in an orderly fashion in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and interagency partners and in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.

Both P.P. 10014 and 10052 include exceptions, including an exception for individuals whose travel would be in the national interest, as determined by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or their respective designees. The list below is a non-exclusive list of the types of travel that may be considered to be in the national interest, based on determinations made by the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, exercising the authority delegated to him by the Secretary of State under Section 2(b)(iv) of P.P. 10014 and 3(b)(iv) of P.P. 10052.

Until complete resumption of routine visa services, applicants who appear to be subject to entry restrictions under P.P. 10014, P.P. 10052, and/or regional-focused Presidential Proclamations related to COVID-19 (P.P. 9984, 9992, 9993, 9996, and/ or 10041) might not be processed for a visa interview appointment unless the applicant also appears to be eligible for an exception under the applicable Proclamation(s). Applicants who are subject to any of these Proclamations, but who believe they may qualify for a national interest exception or other exception, should follow the instructions on the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate’s website regarding procedures necessary to request an emergency appointment and should provide specific details as to why they believe they may qualify for an exception. While a visa applicant subject to one or more Proclamations might meet an exception, the applicant must first be approved for an emergency appointment request and a final determination regarding visa eligibility will be made at the time of visa interview. Please note that U.S. Embassies and Consulates may only be able to offer limited visa services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which case they may not be able to accommodate your request unless the proposed travel is deemed emergency or mission critical. Prospective visa applicants should visit the website for Embassy or Consulate where they intend to apply for a visa to get updates on current operating status. Travelers who are subject to a regional COVID-19 Proclamation but who do not require a visa, such as ESTA travelers (i.e., those traveling on the Visa Waiver Program), should also follow the guidance on the nearest Embassy or Consulate’s website for how to request consideration for a national interest exception.

Exceptions under P.P. 10052 for certain travel in the national interest by nonimmigrants may include the following:

H-1B applicants:

For travel as a public health or healthcare professional, or researcher to alleviate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, or to conduct ongoing medical research in an area with a substantial public health benefit (e.g. cancer or communicable disease research). This includes those traveling to alleviate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that may be a secondary effect of the pandemic (e.g., travel by a public health or healthcare professional, or researcher in an area of public health or healthcare that is not directly related to COVID-19, but which has been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic).

Travel supported by a request from a U.S. government agency or entity to meet critical U.S. foreign policy objectives or to satisfy treaty or contractual obligations. This would include individuals, identified by the Department of Defense or another U.S. government agency, performing research, providing IT support/services, or engaging other similar projects essential to a U.S. government agency.

Travel by applicants seeking to resume ongoing employment in the United States in the same position with the same employer and visa classification. Forcing employers to replace employees in this situation may cause financial hardship. Consular officers can refer to Part II, Question 2 of the approved Form I-129 to determine if the applicant is continuing in “previously approved employment without change with the same employer.”

Travel by technical specialists, senior level managers, and other workers whose travel is necessary to facilitate the immediate and continued economic recovery of the United States. Consular officers may determine that an H-1B applicant falls into this category when at least TWO (2) of the following five (5) indicators are present:

The petitioning employer has a continued need for the services or labor to be performed by the H-1B nonimmigrant in the United States. Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) approved by DOL during or after July 2020 are more likely to account for the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. labor market and the petitioner’s business; therefore, this indicator is only present for cases with an LCA approved during or after July 2020 as there is an indication that the petitioner still has a need for the H-1B worker. For LCAs approved by DOL before July 2020, this indicator is only met if the consular officer is able to determine from the visa application the continuing need of petitioned workers with the U.S. employer. Regardless of when the LCA was approved, if an applicant is currently performing or is able to perform the essential functions of the position for the prospective employer remotely from outside the United States, then this indicator is not present.

The applicant’s proposed job duties or position within the petitioning company indicate the individual will provide significant and unique contributions to an employer meeting a critical infrastructure need. Critical infrastructure sectors are chemical, communications, dams, defense industrial base, emergency services, energy, financial services, food and agriculture, government facilities, healthcare and public health, information technology, nuclear reactors, transportation, and water systems. Employment in a critical infrastructure sector alone is not sufficient; the consular officers must establish that the applicant holds one of the two types of positions noted below: a.) Senior level placement within the petitioning organization or job duties reflecting performance of functions that are both unique and vital to the management and success of the overall business enterprise; OR b.) The applicant’s proposed job duties and specialized qualifications indicate the individual will provide significant and unique contributions to the petitioning company.

The wage rate paid to the H-1B applicant meaningfully exceeds the prevailing wage rate by at least 15 percent (see Part F, Questions 10 and 11 of the LCA) by at least 15 percent. When an H-1B applicant will receive a wage that meaningfully exceeds the prevailing wage, it suggests that the employee fills an important business need where an American worker is not available.

The H-1B applicant’s education, training and/or experience demonstrate unusual expertise in the specialty occupation in which the applicant will be employed. For example, an H-1B applicant with a doctorate or professional degree, or many years of relevant work experience, may have such advanced expertise in the relevant occupation as to make it more likely that he or she will perform critically important work for the petitioning employer.

Denial of the visa pursuant to P.P. 10052 will cause financial hardship to the U.S. employer. The following examples, to be assessed based on information from the visa application, are illustrative of what may constitute a financial hardship for an employer if a visa is denied: the employer’s inability to meet financial or contractual obligations; the employer’s inability to continue its business; or a delay or other impediment to the employer’s ability to return to its pre-COVID-19 level of operations.

H-2B applicants

Travel based on a request from a U.S. government agency or entity to meet critical foreign policy objectives or to satisfy treaty or contractual obligations. An example of this would be supporting U.S. military base construction (e.g. associated with the National Defense Authorization Act) or IT infrastructure.

Travel necessary to facilitate the immediate and continued economic recovery of the United States (e.g. those working in forestry and conservation, nonfarm animal caretakers, etc). Consular officers may determine that an H-2B applicant falls into this category when at least two of the following three indicators are present:

The applicant was previously employed and trained by the petitioning U.S. employer. The applicant must have previously worked for the petitioning U.S. employer under two or more H-2B (named or unnamed) petitions. U.S. employers dedicate substantial time and resources to training seasonal/temporary staff, and denying visas to the most experienced returning workers may cause financial hardship to the U.S. business.

The applicant is traveling based on a temporary labor certification (TLC) that reflects continued need for the worker. TLCs approved by DOL during or after July 2020 are more likely to account for the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. labor market and the petitioner’s business, and therefore this indicator is only present for cases with a TLC approved during or after July 2020 as there is an indication that the petitioner still has a need for the H-2B worker. For TLCs approved by DOL before July 2020, this indicator is only met if the consular officer is able to determine from the visa application the continuing need of petitioned workers with the U.S. employer.

J-1 applicants

Travel to provide care for a minor U.S. citizen, LPR, or nonimmigrant in lawful status by an au pair possessing special skills required for a child with particular needs (e.g., medical, special education, or sign language). Childcare services provided for a child with medical issues diagnosed by a qualified medical professional by an individual who possesses skills to care for such child will be considered to be in the national interest.

Travel by an au pair that prevents a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or other nonimmigrant in lawful status from becoming a public health charge or ward of the state of a medical or other public funded institution.

Childcare services provided for a child whose parents are involved with the provision of medical care to individuals who have contracted COVID-19 or medical research at United States facilities to help the United States combat COVID-19.

An exchange program conducted pursuant to an MOU, Statement of Intent, or other valid agreement or arrangement between a foreign government and any federal, state, or local government entity in the United States that is designed to promote U.S. national interests if the agreement or arrangement with the foreign government was in effect prior to the effective date of the Presidential Proclamation.

Interns and Trainees on U.S. government agency-sponsored programs (those with a program number beginning with “G-3” on Form DS-2019): An exchange visitor participating in an exchange visitor program in which he or she will be hosted by a U.S. government agency and the program supports the immediate and continued economic recovery of the United States.

Specialized Teachers in Accredited Educational Institutions with a program number beginning with “G-5” on Form DS-2019: An exchange visitor participating in an exchange program in which he or she will teach full-time, including a substantial portion that is in person, in a publicly or privately operated primary or secondary accredited educational institution where the applicant demonstrates ability to make a specialized contribution to the education of students in the United States. A “specialized teacher” applicant must demonstrate native or near-native foreign language proficiency and the ability to teach his/her assigned subject(s) in that language.

Critical foreign policy objectives: This only includes programs where an exchange visitor participating in an exchange program that fulfills critical and time sensitive foreign policy objectives.

L-1A applicants

Travel as a public health or healthcare professional, or researcher to alleviate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, or to conduct ongoing medical research in an area with a substantial public health benefit. This includes those traveling to alleviate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that may be a secondary effect of the pandemic.

Travel based on a request from a U.S. government agency or entity to meet critical foreign policy objectives or satisfy treaty or contractual obligations. An example of this would be supporting U.S. military base construction or IT infrastructure.

Travel by a senior level executive or manager filling a critical business need of an employer meeting a critical infrastructure need. Critical infrastructure sectors include chemical, communications, dams, defense industrial base, emergency services, energy, financial services, food and agriculture, government facilities, healthcare and public health, information technology, nuclear reactors, transportation, and water systems. An L-1A applicant falls into this category when at least two of the following three indicators are present AND the L-1A applicant is not seeking to establish a new office in the United States:

Will be a senior-level executive or manager;

Has spent multiple years with the company overseas, indicating a substantial knowledge and expertise within the organization that can only be replicated by a new employee within the company following extensive training that would cause the employer financial hardship; or

Will fill a critical business need for a company meeting a critical infrastructure need.

L-1A applicants seeking to establish a new office in the United States likely do NOT fall into this category, unless two of the three criteria are met AND the new office will employ, directly or indirectly, five or more U.S. workers.

L-1B applicants

Travel as a technical expert or specialist meeting a critical infrastructure need. The consular officer may determine that an L-1B applicant falls into this category if all three of the following indicators are present:

The applicant’s proposed job duties and specialized knowledge indicate the individual will provide significant and unique contributions to the petitioning company;

The applicant’s specialized knowledge is specifically related to a critical infrastructure need; AND

The applicant has spent multiple years with the company overseas, indicating a substantial knowledge and expertise within the organization that can only be replicated by a new employee within the company following extensive training that would cause the employer financial hardship.

H-4, L-2, and J-2 applicants

National interest exceptions are available for those who will accompany or follow to join a principal applicant who is a spouse or parent and who has been granted a national interest exception to P.P. 10052. Note, a national interest exception is not required if the principal applicant is not subject to P.P. 10052 (e.g. if the principal was in the United States on the effective date, June 24, or has a valid visa that the principal will use to seek entry to the United States). In the case of a principal visa applicant who is not subject to P.P. 10052, the derivative will not be subject to the proclamation either.

Exceptions under P.P. 10014 for certain travel in the national interest by immigrants may include the following:

Applicants who are subject to aging out of their current immigrant visa classification before P.P. 10014 expires or within two weeks thereafter.

Travelers who believe their travel falls into one of these categories or is otherwise in the national interest may request a visa application appointment at the closest Embassy or Consulate and a decision will be made at the time of interview as to whether the traveler has established that they are eligible for a visa pursuant to an exception. Travelers are encouraged to refer to the Embassy/Consulate website for detailed instructions on what services are currently available and how to request an appointment.

Applicants for immigrant visas covered by Presidential Proclamation 10014, as extended by P.P. 10052, including Diversity Visa 2020 (DV-2020) applicants, who have not been issued an immigrant visa as of April 23, are subject to the proclamation’s restrictions unless they can establish that they are eligible for an exception. No valid visas will be revoked under this proclamation.

[Last updated Dec 21, 2020]

Note: This is a blog post by Adhikari Law PLLC and should NOT be construed as a legal advice.

Please contact us at (+1) 202 600 7742, or email us at [email protected] if you will have any question on this topic. You can also reach us to learn about our legal services.

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cindylouwho-2 · 4 years

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RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, late April 2020

I hope everyone is well, and staying safe. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown most of us off track in many areas, and for me, this blog was one of them. After a tumultuous few months, I have finally found the energy to edit this down - it is both way behind in some areas and overwhelmingly dense in others.

The good news is that I plan on posting every week for the next little while, to provide more timely updates. That will sometimes mean more news and fewer “how-to” pieces, and some sections may be omitted some weeks. If there are topics you would find helpful during these uncertain times, please let me know.

Hang in there, and remember to take care of yourself! We can get through this.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

COVID-19 Pandemic: For information on how various ecommerce entities are dealing with it, see below:

Etsy has a basic seller Help article (which they do update with new developments), and a larger collection of articles that includes data on current buying trends as well as info on how to sell masks on Etsy.

eBay has an overview page linking to seller info including price gouging rules and shipping updates, as well as buyer info on purchases. They have also opened the “Up and Running” program to help small businesses moving online for the first time. Finally, they have offered free listings to different types of sellers, and just extended that program until the end of July.

Amazon’s daily update page on COVID-19 developments, including charitable behaviour by the company, doesn’t even include third party sellers as a party they are concerned about. They’ve taken heavy criticism for firing a union activist, improper handling of virus outbreaks at its facilities, while not doing much for merchants since the site is over capacity. They were so overwhelmed that they limited Fulfilled by Amazon orders to essential goods only in March, leaving many merchants with no income.

Etsy CEO Josh Silverman is also lobbying for government support for self employed people such as ecommerce sellers, freelancers, contract workers etc. (unlike in some countries such as Canada, most self-employed Americans aren’t eligible to pay into employment insurance plans, something Silverman is asking for.) Here’s a video clip of Silverman being interviewed on the topic on Fox. He followed up with a letter to the EU. Etsy also started the “Stand With Small” Campaign to support small businesses, but their forum thread went so poorly they had to delete most of the replies & lock it. They’ve also launched new commercials for the pandemic era

Many small businesses are still in dire straights right now. Here are lists of artist/self-employed/small business supports, including funding and services, for Canadians and Americans. Etsy has also compiled the basic government benefit info for the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Canada. If you know of any other similar or more comprehensive resource lists, please let me know!

ETSY NEWS

By now you have heard that the Etsy Offsite Ads that many of us were supposed to start paying for April 14 have been delayed until May 1, but I have covered the basics in the first post and the highlighted posts here. (No, they are not investing $5 million in offsite ads this month; the $5 million is the money we would have paid in fees from April 14-30!) Now that Google Shopping will have free listings in the US as of April 27, everything may be up in the air. [I will update this post and my thread with any new information as it becomes available.]

In the aftermath of the outcry over the Offsite Ad fees, Shopify is taking a page out of Zibbet’s old playbook, by emailing Etsy sellers with information on how to migrate your listings from Etsy to a Shopify website. They’ve also posted info in their forum.

In the most recent bad publicity for the platform, Etsy dropped the ball on the mask shortage, then picked up cause (getting some very good publicity) and now many the new mask sellers who oversold are having their money held & are frustrating thousands of buyers with with either poorly-made products or no product at all - well see how much more bad publicity that will bring.. First, the public was looking for masks to protect against COVID-19 on Etsy, and found some that claimed to work. “[M]ore than 200 postings for face masks have sprung up in the past two days [on Feb. 26]...Even as sites like Facebook and Amazon have added links and resources for learning more about COVID-19, Etsy has stayed quiet on any precautionary or educational measures.” An Etsy rep said “While face masks are allowed on Etsy, we prohibit any items that make medical claims. Our team is prioritizing taking down any listings that claim to protect against coronavirus." Etsy eventually realized that this was an opportunity to make money, so they are now encouraging sellers to post masks for sale.That’s getting a lot of positive media attention. “The website is becoming a go-to destination for homemade cloth masks. Etsy says there was an average of one mask-related search on the site every two seconds in March. Last week, more than 10,000 sellers sold at least one mask apiece.” Here’s a piece on Fox news [video and text] and another video, and one on CNBC [video and text].

They are also removing or at least de-indexing (removing from search) listings that mention the virus directly, and even use words such as “medical”, including in sentences such as “this is not a medical-grade mask.” Some sleep masks have been hit as well. Many of the shops were originally back up & running within a day of getting Etsy’s attention, but Trust & Safety is reportedly now backed up two weeks or more on this issue, leaving many sellers out of search and unable to sell.

Some of the shops that have oversold or who received multiple bad feedbacks are now posting their stories in the forum as they look for ways to get their money released. The buyers who never received their purchases are finding these threads & asking what to do.This has the potential to turn out very badly for Etsy, although for the moment, the good coverage continues.

(Mind you, other marketplaces also have to worry about price gouging on things like hand sanitizer, so the bad media isn’t all Etsy’s - but they get mentioned in that article as well. eBay has now gone as far as banning the sale of all hand sanitizer & disinfecting wipes. Meanwhile, Mercari also encouraged sellers to make masks, but is donating 50% of the fees they collect on these sales to a first responders charity until May 31. In short, there are ways to do this without looking greedy.)

Etsy had a decent 4th quarter in 2019; here is my thread, & here is Etsy’s dumbed down take.

They then did an early April update: while March 2020 has been difficult, it was not as bad as many of us might have thought. “...in those moments when people's mindshare is elsewhere, we tend to see a significant drop in traffic to Etsy. We experienced that suddenly and strongly beginning on March 8th. And that hit a low point in the month of March, in the third week of March, when our Consolidated GMS for the week was negative 2%. So to dimensionalize that, we were averaging 41% Consolidated GMS growth in January and February, and it went down to negative 2% in the third week of March. … So GMS Consolidated in the fourth week of March was up 27% year-over-year, but even in that fourth week, on the Etsy standalone site, we had one day that was a negative 4% day and another day, just a few days later, that was a positive 23% day.”

Note that if you use the auto-renew feature, your items will still renew when in vacation mode.

I now know that “birth flower jewelry” is a thing, and Etsy is getting 69% more searches for it than last year. Here are some other Etsy jewellery trends, with some suggested search terms. A few of the tips there, including suggested keyword phrases, are also mentioned in the Mother’s Day Guide.

Etsy also just released an article on what people are shopping for during the pandemic. “Wedding postponements have generated increased traffic for change-the-date cards in paper and digital formats. With many celebrations, including bridal showers, now taking place online, shoppers are looking for items like festive backdrops to embellish their virtual gatherings. 7,311% YoY increase in searches on Etsy containing “date change”

Reverb will now be offsetting the carbon emissions from its shipping, just like Etsy.

If you want to drive traffic to your Etsy listings from Pinterest (through your own account or by being pinned by others), Etsy has some suggestions.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

The pandemic is changing Google search ranking & visibility; not all of the changes are the predictable ones. For example, “fashion and apparel” went up, even though people weren’t going outside or to work as much.

Temporarily sold out items on your website (not your Etsy shop) need to be handled properly to maintain their SEO value. Some basic tips here.

There are things you can do to improve your chances of having sitelinks show up for your website on Google search result pages.

We talk a lot about backlinks coming into your site, but each page (at least the non-product pages) should probably have outbound links as well. Especially if you are blogging on a topic, remember that “[i]n all forms of publishing, it’s standard practice to cite authoritative, third-party sources to reinforce the points you make.”

Speaking of backlinks, here is how to get them & even how not to get them.

The changes to how Google treats no-follow links started last month, and if you were using no-follow to stop Google from crawling, you need to fix that. Apparently it won’t change ranking much.

There are new guides to keyword research almost every week, but this one from Backlinko is good for both newbies & more experienced folks. (He does make the very common error of stating that long tail keywords are longer phrases, but otherwise it is great.) Good suggestions on judging difficulty: “First, search for your keyword in Google. Then, look at the sites ranking on the first page. (Not individual pages) If the first page is made up of uber authority sites (like Wikipedia), then you might want to cross that keyword off from your list ...But if you see a handful of smaller blogs on page 1, that’s a sign that you have a shot to hit the first page too.” Seriously, you need to read this one.

And if you still haven't conquered the Google Keyword Planner for keyword research, here are some good tips and basic set-up instructions. Bonus: it also shows you how to use the tool for Google ads.

I’m a big fan of using keyword research/tools for marketing & product ideas, and here is a similar thought: use SEO data to inform your marketing.

When people say Google “crawls” your site, we mean with spiders. Seriously. Ok, they are actually bots, but still, they really are called spiders.

Google’s index will be entirely based on the mobile version of a website by this September. Right now, they are at 70%. If your site doesn’t work well on mobile, you have a few more months to correct that.

Another reminder that generally, you don’t want Google to index your website’s internal search pages.

You probably know that there are ways to optimize images on your website, called alt text, and here is a really good overview of how & why. (Note this doesn’t work for Etsy shops)

Another short video from the Google Webmaster team, this one on 301 redirects.

The usual Google search change rumours are just odd right now.

If you feel you just don’t understand SEO, you can take one of these free online courses to learn more.

(CONTENT) MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

The most popular hashtags are not always the best to use; read that & more tips on using hashtags on social media here.

You don’t actually have to come up with blog post ideas yourself; there are multiple tools that can do it for you [infographic and text links]

An annual report on social media [text with a pdf download to your email account] finds that engagement is down on Instagram, contests & giveaways are the most popular brand posts, and “Carousels” get good attention on Instagram.

Email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach your customers; here’s what you need to think about as you design your campaigns, and how to get started. Every target market is different, so you should consider using A/B testing in your emails to figure out what yours responds to.

Some interesting ideas for using Instagram Stories for market research.

Did you know you can edit your photos right within Instagram? (it starts with filters but moves to other editing)

Pinterest has a bunch of new features for retailers, including verified merchants, catalogues and ad retargeting. 60% of US women look at Pinterest at least occasionally, including 80% of mothers. But you might be surprised at what some of them are looking for: e.g., “Searches for how to ask for a raise at work are up 254%.” If you don’t know how to get more followers on Pinterest, check out this article.

WhatsApp got caught with bad coding, allowing private groups to be indexed by Google. Don’t forget they are owned by Facebook.

LinkedIn is testing their own version of Stories. So is Twitter.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS)

Yes, there are reasons you might want to buy online ads for your business/brand name.

If you do your own Google Ads, you will want to learn more about the new “optimization Score”.It gives you tips on parts of your Ads account you should work on to get better results.

Also, you can find out more about how buyers behave after finding your ads through the Google Ads Attribution Report.

If you are looking to spend money on ads, this comparison of Google Ads to Facebook/Instagram ads gives you a lot to think about.

If Google won’t run your ads because it says they are for low-volume keywords, there are ways to fix the problem.

While Facebook’s overall traffic is way up lately due to COVID-19, their ads are not, partially because they don’t run on some of its most popular features such as Messenger.

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

If you buy your own Google Ads, make sure to link them to your Google Analytics account to get the most data. Download the pdf of instructions written by Google.

If you have fairly advanced knowledge of Google Analytics and coded it into your own website, here are 13 mistakes you might have made. [Don’t even read that unless you have some knowledge of coding websites. I’m not joking.]

Here’s an easier Google Analytics article for websites, much of which even applies to Etsy shops.

Here’s an easy way to use Google Analytics to track your promotions, sales and ad campaigns. Some promotional tools do this for you, but not all.

The Google Search Console now lets you download more data.

There is a new stats program out called Plausible, which is simpler than Google Analytics & should not slow down your site as much. For those of you who don’t want tons of data & don’t like the cookie issues with GA, Plausible makes a compelling argument for you here.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

The pandemic has helped consolidate Amazon’s position as the top ecommerce marketplace in many jurisdictions, and it is the only one that is trending upward in Google searches. As of March 24, searches for “Etsy” dropped 30%. (but I don’t think that is an indication that traffic dropped that amount - it may be less or more, depending on what percentage of buyers usually Google “Etsy”.)

Shopify launches were up 75% in the second week of April compared to the first week of March, in part due to many brick and mortar stores moving online. [While they are replacing in-person shopping, those new shops also increase our ecommerce competition - and some might stay online even once their physical locations reopen.]

USPS is in financial trouble, and the pandemic is not helping. That affects everyone who ships to the US, not just US sellers.

Walmart is working on a membership program similar to Amazon Prime. It may open soon, and “[p]erks could include unlimited same-day delivery on groceries and text-based shopping, the latter of which Walmart has tested through its now-defunct Jet Black shopping service. Later, prescription drug and gas discounts, and scan and go services, could be part of the program, according to Recode...Walmart has also unveiled a new third-party fulfillment service for its marketplace sellers — again a key feature of Amazon's model.”

Amazon & eBay told the US government they are working really hard to remove fakes from their platforms.

eBay will be expanding its in-house payment system to Canada & Australia this year, making 5 countries in total, after the US, Germany and the UK.

Shiptheory, a newer shipping integration, now includes Etsy & Squarepsace, in addition to eBay, Shopify and many others. The platform is free for users shipping only 200 orders a month, and has over a dozen carriers (not currently USPS or Canada Post, however).

If you are looking for something to do while sheltering in place, consider editing some of your product descriptions to drive more sales. If you are stuck for new ideas, it does include a template.

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

While some economic indicators dropped substantially in March, things are beginning to pick up in the US in the last half of April. Shopify reported “Black Friday level” numbers for the third week of April, for example. One likely reason is the US stimulus money being spent on non-essentials.

A decent if short overview of what makes people decide to buy things: “Shopping activates the brain’s reward centers, causing a rush of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine” and “68 percent of millennial shoppers will make a reactive purchase as a result of FOMO” (fear of missing out).

People are more likely to buy if you offer easy (or even free) returns. Yes, I realize most of us aren’t able to offer free returns, but the thinking behind this is worth reading about, because it is one of the advantages larger companies have over businesses like ours. We all need to be aware of our disadvantages, so we can counter them. “A December 2018 survey shares how a whopping 88 percent of shoppers want the ability to return their purchases, if desired, either by taking them to a physical store or using a shipping method that’s prepaid.” Also, “...the more liberal you are with your return policy, the more confident you will likely appear about the products you sell.”

There are now around 2 billion websites in the world, & 20 million ecommerce sites (although that was pre-pandemic). Make sure you know how to get customers and how to keep them coming back. (With some links to studies.) One of their 7 points is also return policy. It’s important, folks!

When developing your marketing and advertising plans, make sure you think about your buyers’ location. For example, some things are just going to be more popular in certain areas.

More and more shoppers are ok with buying on social media instead of marketplaces & other websites. [study by Poshmark] Another interesting takeaway: “Gen Z closets are made up of 16.5% secondhand items, the most of any generation measured, followed by Gen X (14%), millennials (12.5%) and baby boomers (9.5%).”

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about millennials, here are 34 stats and facts you may be interested in.

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour)

With many workplaces asking employees to stay home due to the coronavirus, we’ve been seeing a lot more pieces on how to work from home effectively. This one is pretty good.

LinkedIn has made several of their remote working courses available for free, including time management and various electronic tools.

Doing more video chats lately? Here’s how to look good on a webcam.

Understandably, Google cancelled its usual collection of April Fools jokes this year. Which leads me to this article on how to market during a pandemic, and this one.

And here’s how to keep your customers afterwards. “Temporarily shift from the “fewer sales, higher profit” mentality to helping as many consumers as you can. That means focusing on orders more than revenue. Consumers are presumably putting off big-ticket purchases during Covid-19, anyway. Thus it makes sense to embrace smaller orders from first-time buyers to enable a long-term relationship.”

#CindyLouWho2NewsUpdates #SEO #search engine optimization #search engine marketing #EtsyNews #etsy #analytics #stats #statistics #Social media #content marketing #Ecommerce #smallbiz #SEOTips #customer service #Onlinemarketing #ecommercetips #emailmarketing #SocialMediaNews

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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PG&E Has a Survival Plan, and Newsom Has Plan B: A Takeover

Ferocious wildfires have inflicted several years of death and destruction on California. But they have also presented the state with an opportunity to radically overhaul the company prominently implicated in the fires, Pacific Gas & Electric.The most powerful proponent of far-reaching changes, Gov. Gavin Newsom, is threatening a state takeover if the giant utility fails to reshape itself to his liking. With a key deadline approaching in PG&E’s bankruptcy case, the question is whether he is prepared to follow through — and what consequences could follow.The state is technically on the sidelines in the San Francisco bankruptcy proceeding where PG&E is pressing forward with its own restructuring plan. The company achieved a breakthrough recently in uniting shareholders and creditors behind the plan, which it says would satisfy the claims of wildfire victims as well.But PG&E has to emerge from bankruptcy by June 30 — on terms acceptable to the governor — in order to take part in a new $20 billion state fund designed to shield large utilities from large wildfire claims. Without that protection, PG&E’s restructuring plan would fall apart and its viability would be in question.To Mr. Newsom, the company’s plan does not do enough to ensure its financial stability, its operational competence or its corporate integrity. “What I don’t want is a utility that comes out of bankruptcy limping,” he said recently.It is not clear whether he actually wants to take over PG&E — a long-troubled company that could take years to fix — and make it a ward of the state. His threats could be a negotiating tactic, and the company has moved a little closer to his objectives.Mr. Newsom said his administration had been conferring daily with PG&E to resolve issues including the governor’s authority in shaping the company’s board and measures to guarantee long-term financial stability. At the same time, he and allies have taken steps that suggest they are serious about a takeover.The Democratic governor and about a dozen lawmakers have been meeting regularly to plot strategy. And state officials have worked to assure labor unions — a critical political bloc — that a takeover would not jeopardize jobs and benefits.“We have not just rhetorically discussed a break-the-glass scenario, a Plan B, but we have laid out in detailed terms what that would look like, and we’re working with legislative leaders to advance it in real time,” Mr. Newsom said last week.On Monday, State Senator Scott Wiener, a Bay Area Democrat, announced legislation to enable the state to take control of PG&E, which provides electricity and gas service to about 16 million people in the northern and central parts of California.Over a five-year period, the measure would allow the state to revoke PG&E’s franchise agreement, stripping the power company of its utility customers and its core revenue source; to direct a state Power Authority to buy the utility’s electric and gas assets with money that ratepayers would repay over several decades; and to create a seven-member board appointed by local governments in each district.“I personally believe PG&E has forfeited the privilege to operate as an investor-owned utility,” Mr. Wiener said. “This is a company that is unraveling.”Exactly how such a solution would play out is unclear. Mr. Wiener’s bill, for example, would allow municipalities to break off pieces of PG&E to form their own utilities. Mr. Newsom has spoken of keeping the company whole.Putting PG&E under the ownership of the state or its customers would lower its borrowing costs and free up money now spent on stock dividends, according to supporters of such plans. But a takeover would be costly, and it could face legal challenges from the company’s shareholders.A long battle could in turn delay payments to wildfire victims, many of whom have been waiting more than two years for compensation. And politicians would risk voters’ wrath over management decisions — like the pre-emptive blackouts of millions of customers carried out last year in the name of fire prevention.“I don’t think taking over PG&E without a plan is necessarily a good idea,” said Bruce Cain, a political-science professor at Stanford University. “It’s a thankless job for a politician to take this over. Most politicians run away.”PG&E sought bankruptcy protection a year ago — its second Chapter 11 filing in two decades — with $30 billion in liabilities related to wildfires ignited by the utility’s poorly maintained electrical system. One of the blazes, the Camp Fire, killed 85 people in 2018 and destroyed the town of Paradise.Local 1245 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents 12,000 PG&E employees, said this week that it opposed a state takeover. The union has cited complex legal, political and operational challenges, including the development and maintenance of a safe electric grid at a time when climate change has heightened wildfire hazards.“It’s not an optimal solution for anybody,” said Tom Dalzell, the union’s business manager. “You’re assuming a lot of exposure, and there’s going to be fires.”It is also not clear that the public would support such a drastic move. In a recent survey for The Los Angeles Times by the Berkeley IGS Poll at the University of California, just 17 percent of voters said they favored a state takeover of PG&E, while an additional 20 percent supported nonprofit city and county cooperatives.“Certainly the governor can exert his power to effect changes at PG&E,” said Mark DiCamillo, who oversees the polling organization. “A state takeover, that’s a stretch that would be a huge change in public policy. It’s pretty much a long shot.”The latest version of PG&E’s own proposal includes a shake-up of its board and a safety plan to help prevent wildfires caused by its electrical equipment, both meant to address Mr. Newsom’s concerns.The utility has reached settlement agreements that include a $13.5 billion fund for wildfire victims, $1 billion to compensate local governments for wildfire expenses and a deal with bondholders, approved Tuesday by the federal bankruptcy judge, Dennis Montali.PG&E’s proposal has inspired a growing sense of confidence among investors, prompting the company’s stock price to surge to around $17 from a 12-month low of $3.55.The shares are soaring in part because investors have placed their faith in a regulatory framework that allows utilities to raise rates so that they can earn a set profit margin each year. Over the past decade, PG&E has fallen short of its authorized profit, known as return on equity. PG&E’s supporters say that the last decade was an aberration, marred by disasters and poor management, and that new executives, an overhauled board and an improved safety performance will enable the company to earn its authorized return.But some question whether the financial strategy is sound.“The numbers do not add up, unless the money that ratepayers pay increases,” said Loretta Lynch, a former president of the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates PG&E and other shareholder-owned utilities.“There’s no way for PG&E to pay off all of the people without raising rates,” she added. “The shareholders aren’t taking a haircut. That’s why Wall Street is excited about this deal, because they don’t have to pay for it.”PG&E said its reorganization plan met the state requirement that the effect on ratepayers be “neutral on average.”The financial performance of PG&E will also affect wildfire victims. Under the bankruptcy plan, half their payment would come in PG&E shares. If the company struggles, the shares could fall in value, reducing the amount the victims ultimately receive. (The shares could rally, however, and give the victims a windfall.)And PG&E’s plan would leave the company with more debt than it had before it filed for bankruptcy protection, in theory making it more vulnerable to financial stress.To address that risk, PG&E could sell more stock and take on less debt as part of its reorganization, an approach favored under a rival plan that no longer has backers in the bankruptcy proceeding.PG&E is proposing that its parent company, PG&E Corporation, issue billions of dollars in debt. The cost of this borrowing would have to be paid with earnings from Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the entity that provides customers with gas and power, in theory leaving it with less money to improve its network.PG&E is also seeking to use a tax windfall from its wildfire-related losses to back $7 billion in new debt, an offering known as securitization bonds. A share of rate revenue is designated for taxes — payments the company will be spared for some time — and PG&E wants to use that revenue to finance the bonds. Mr. Newsom has criticized these financial moves, saying they could impair the company’s ability to raise additional money for safety improvements.Energy policy has been a political crucible for California in the past — most notably in the crisis that followed the bungled deregulation of the state’s electricity market two decades ago, unleashing events that ended in the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in 2003.Michael Sweet, who has known Mr. Newsom for decades, feels the current governor is up to the challenge. Mr. Sweet, a San Francisco lawyer whose firm represents a few creditors in PG&E’s bankruptcy, said that on Mr. Newsom’s watch, the utility might finally face a reckoning.“If PG&E and Wall Street are not giving his concern a significant amount of credence, they’re underestimating him,” Mr. Sweet said, citing Mr. Newsom’s forceful advocacy for legalizing marijuana and gay marriage early in his political career. “He’s not afraid to go out on a limb.” Read the full article

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raymondlqmk009-blog · 4 years

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How To Find A Competent Medical Malpractice Attorney? Can Be Fun For Anyone

Most of the time when an individual experiences a not successful arise from clinical treatment it is not since the clinical service provider made an error. Many of the moment when there is a poor medical result it is regardless of good, quality treatment not because of sub-standard treatment. When discussing a case with a client it is necessary that the customer have the ability to claim why they believe there was clinical oversight.

However, we without effort recognize that individuals typically do not pass away from knee surgical treatment, appendix elimination, hernia fixing or "minor" surgical treatments. When something unexpected like that happens it deserves exploring whether there was a clinical blunder that is worth submitting a medical negligence tort. When in question a San Diego clinical negligence lawyer will review your case with you informally.

We have actually obtained considerable amounts for those damaged as a result of negligent healthcare and also therapy. Although 80 percent of medical malpractice trials lead to a defense decision, we have dominated in 80 percent of the cases we have taken to test in behalf of complainants. In enhancement, we have actually had the ability to work out numerous clinical oversight instances over the last 25 years.

He educated his medical professional of an individual background of lack of breath as well as tightness in his upper body, as well as a family history of hypertension and stroke. The physician supplied no treatment various other than aspirin and also water pills. As the symptoms continued and progressed in complying with months, the doctor got 2 separate upper body X-rays, disregarding the results on both although they suggested added assessment and also follow-up.

Three days later on, the client broke down from a stroke inevitably resulting in his fatality. Result: Significant Six-Figure Negotiation Our client, now a young adult, was left a quadriplegic and psychologically deferred after a West Covina obstetrician delayed purchasing an emergency situation C-section during her birth. A nurse suggested to the supplying medical professional that the mom was in distressed labor, showing indicators of a partially removed placenta reducing oxygen to the fetus.

The medical professional's failure to respond swiftly and also suitably led to our client's serious birth issues. Outcome: $7,100,000 (Future worth of $24,000,000) Judgment Following a dual body organ transplant, our client, a 40-year-old insulin-dependent diabetic, created an infection that caused a myriad of clinical troubles needing numerous surgeries and also an abnormally lengthy health center stay.

We succeeded within a worked out negotiation with the Regents of the College of California. It is one of the largest negotiations of its kind. Outcome: $3,000,000 Negotiation Our client's desire was to be a fire fighter. Due to a fall, he suffered a severe injury to his ankle. A noticeable orthopedic cosmetic surgeon recommended surgical procedure.

We had the ability to verify that the surgeon stopped working to offer ideal care, which his foot might have been fixed with prompt intervention. Our client was incapable to go into the fire academy as well as accomplish his dream. Outcome: $1,100,000 Court Decision (decreased to $805,000 because of MICRA law) - the biggest clinical negligence verdict in that court.

Because of the delayed medical diagnosis and postponed surgery, his leg needed to be truncated. Result: Confidential Significant Negotiation Our customer, a married 46-year-old technician for the government of Guam, required cardio-thoracic bypass surgery. Throughout the surgery, the cosmetic surgeon harmed a significant nerve, creating paralysis to our customer's best arm. He shed substantial use his ideal arm as well as was incapable to continue to function in his former occupation.

The The golden state Supreme Court published its opinion when it comes to Bonds vs. Roy. The situation is often pointed out with respect to classification of expert witnesses. Our client, a solitary man, went to a surgical facility for routine occupational shoulder surgical procedure and also sustained severe brain injury during the treatment.

We were able to prove that the anesthesiologist was negligent in lugging out his anesthetic duties during the shoulder treatment. Result: $765,000 Settlement (furthermore, there was a substantial recuperation consisting of lifetime care) Our client, a single retired female, presented to a local healthcare facility's emergency situation space with neck discomfort. She was confessed to the health center for more care.

She ended up permanently disabled as well as limited to sedentary tasks. Outcome: $675,000 Jury Judgment Our client, a 55-year-old pharmacist and also daddy of 4, offered to a vascular doctor with agonizing leg signs and symptoms. His first issues were overlooked. Subsequently, he returned and also was identified with an occluded popliteal artery. Surgical intervention was not effective and he lost his leg.

The solitary mommy of a 12-year-old girl collapsed at job and also was required to Centinela Medical facility's emergency area. Although the 30-year-old woman remained in the emergency clinic for about 10 hours, no initiative was made to detect or treat her while her problem remained to weaken. Instead, the emergency situation room management was concentrating on locating a method to carry her to a Find a Medical Malpractice Lawyer in San Diego Kaiser center where she was a participant.

In an effort to cover up the negligent care, a health center registered nurse changed the person's documents. Outcome: Confidential Considerable Settlement.

In case of a severe injury or death brought on by the negligence of a clinical professional or health care center, you should have the finest legal representation offered. You require a lawful advocate who not only recognizes the ins and outs of clinical negligence lawsuits-- you require an attorney that understands the clinical industry.

Fagel is an attorney who is also a medical doctor. Dr. Fagel specifically represents injured individuals and their enjoyed ones in situations versus doctors and hospitals. Generally, The Law Offices of Bruce G. Fagel & Associates has actually efficiently fixed greater than 700 clinical negligence and also negligence cases. Dr. Fagel has likewise: Gotten among the top 100 jury verdicts in the nation (2002, 2005) Attempted as well as resolved more of these cases than any type of various other California law practice Been elected among the "Top 10 Test Lawyer in the Country" (National Law Journal) Been chosen 8 times for "Trial Attorney of the Year" (Consumer Lawyer Association) If you or your enjoyed one was hurt by the neglect, recklessness, or misdeed of a medical facility, doctor, or various other clinical specialist, call Bruce G.

As a medical professional, Lawyer Fagel recognizes what need to as well as must not be happening in a medical center. As a result of his considerable training and experience in this area, he can quickly find neglect and also wrongdoing. Medical professionals and hospitals have a duty to care for their clients, and when they stop working to uphold that requirement of treatment, individuals typically endure serious injuries and also fatality.

Fagel today to find out if you have a clinical malpractice situation. Dr. Fagel is an attorney as well as a certified medical professional, and also will certainly have the ability to evaluate your situation as well as provide the advice you require to learn your civil liberties as well as lawful choices. Dr. Fagel has actually taken care of many instances for clients in and also near San Diego, and overall, his company has actually won more than $1 billion in judgments and settlements for clients.

Fagel & Associates today. Call us to discuss your instance, and also if you do have an insurance claim, there will be no charge unless we win your instance.

Lead Advise's unbiased process separately validates lawyer records, giving with state bars across the country and also conducting yearly testimonials to verify that the attorney methods in the lawful groups as indicated, has a valid bar certificate, and also is eligible to exercise in the certain territory.

Click listed below to share this short article: In times of vulnerability, we put our complete count on our medical experts. But when the neglect of your nurse or doctor leads to physical, financial, as well as emotional repercussions, that do you rely on? If you have ended up being target of clinical errors, negligence laws exist to secure your legal rights to declare payment from the injuries you have actually suffered.

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Haffner Regulation is well positioned to battle for you in a medical negligence situation. Through personal focus, extensive legal experience, and hostile depiction, we assist you obtain the compensation you need as well as should have. Medical negligence happens as a result of a negligent act or omission by a healthcare company: a doctor, nurse, therapist, medical facility, or other specific or entity accredited to provide clinical treatment.

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coinmarked · 5 years

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Commercializing Blockchain book extract: Exploring enterprise blockchain and trust Enterprise blockchain is needed for the same reason as public blockchain – the world of trust has changed and we live in a ‘trustless’ World. Enterprise organizations are complex and global – they span many divisions, teams, and entities internally AND they span many different external partners and organizations. An enterprise network spans a significant number of different ‘parties’, the majority of which do not trust each other. Even intercompany is a trustless world – even though you are part of the same group company, you are still governed and incentivized by different people and leaders. Outside the internal network, trust is extremely low – even though these organizations are your partners, you still do not fully trust them. Characteristics of enterprise blockchain There are a number of key characteristics of an enterprise blockchain organization: 1. Global – organizations which span different countries and often span the entire globe. 2. Scalable – these organizations require solutions which scale to their needs which often involve millions of transactions. 3. Secure – these organizations often deal with large volumes of private data related to people and property. 4. Speed – these organizations work at speed, and they often need to process their transactions at speed and with accuracy. Enterprise organizations, with these characteristics, need to use an enterprise blockchain for the above-listed reasons. Why use enterprise blockchain? You may wonder why you need to use enterprise blockchain, as there are many reasons as to the general benefits of blockchain. For enterprise organizations, the challenges are bigger and more complex – the need for a different type of blockchain is important. The world is changing fast, and digital transactions and technology are advancing quickly. This is causing unprecedented levels of competition – from existing organizations and new organizations who can grow and scale fast in the new world. Adopting enterprise blockchain technology will allow an organization to compete with the new entrants to their world and help keep them ahead of their competitors. The following are main pain points your organization is experiencing and where enterprise blockchain will make a difference. Enabling trust in business to business transactions, both internally and externallyReducing or avoiding the cost of intermediaries, which can add significant costs in a highly competitive worldAvoiding the risks of intermediaries, which can slow down process or worse, allow data breaches or other risks to occurReducing the manual, human error-prone information exchange and processes across enterprise systems, both internally and externallyReducing the high cost and delays of offline reconciliations, which slow down analysis and decision-makingRemoving the poor auditability of records due to cross system discrepancies and reconciliation issuesReducing the high risk and cost of fraud in cross company transactionsEliminating the lack of real-time information visibility within a trading ecosystem Where to use enterprise blockchain technology Blockchain technology is not a solution for every issue in your organization, so a great place to start is by asking yourself these questions – if you respond yes to most of these questions, then you need to look at implementing Blockchain technology in those areas affected: Is my business process mainly multi-department and cross organizations?Are there cross system discrepancies which slow down decision making?Is there less than full trust among transacting entities?Do my processes involve intermediaries – charging fees and adding risk or delay?Do my processes require periodic offline reconciliations?Is there a need to improve traceability or audit trail?Do we need real time visibility of the current state of multi-party transaction?Can I improve a multi-party business process by automating certain steps in it? There are many more questions to ask, but if you start with these, you will begin to establish which processes and business areas would benefit most from Blockchain technology. The next 20 year transformation Over the last few years, we have had many transformations – BPO, digital transformation, six sigma – and all of these have transformed the competitive landscape. We are now entering the next stage of transformation. I would argue that we are at the start of the next 20-year transformation cycle – blockchain technology will allow organizations to completely transform their entire business. I am not saying blockchain technology will transform every business process, I am saying that the adoption of blockchain technology will transform many parts of your organization, and this will transform your entire organization. If the benefits of blockchain technology can be harnessed effectively, businesses will be able to transform their current back end systems and gain significant efficiencies and benefits. The complexities of large enterprises have grown exponentially, as they have developed new systems to keep up with the pace of change in the customers’ world. This has led to many large, complex, and unwieldy systems, which now slow down the enterprise and act as an ‘anchor to growth’. The entire complexity of enterprise systems can be simplified, and in some cases automated, with blockchain technology. This will allow the enterprise to concentrate on its customers, and ensure that they are continually meeting or exceeding the customer expectations. Total business transformation led by blockchain technology Blockchain technology will transform many parts of an enterprise, and these changes will help to create a culture of change throughout the entire business. The changes will affect all areas of your business, and this will help to transform the culture and the people working within your organization. One of the fundamental blockchain concepts regards the sharing of data and transactions – currently, in most organizations sharing data is often complex, inaccurate, and time consuming. Data is often not shared for these reasons, and yet if we had the accurate data needed for our jobs, we would no doubt be able to perform much better in our roles. If blockchain technology helps the sharing of accurate data, I would suggest that your organization would be able to make better, quicker, and smarter decisions – decisions in all areas of the business which will have a positive effect on the business performance. This is an edited extract from Commercializing Blockchain: Strategic Applications in the Real World by Antony Welfare (Wiley, 2019). About the author: Antony Welfare is an eminent leader in the world of blockchain, dedicated to helping others understand the transformational potential of blockchain technology and implement it, particularly in enterprise organisations. As Group Managing Director of Luxoft, a DXC Technology Company, Antony is leading the strategy to deliver enterprise-grade blockchain solutions across all sectors, and using various leading-edge blockchain solutions, including Hyperledger Fabric, Indy, Corda and Ethereum. https://coinmarked.com/commercializing-blockchain-book-extract-exploring-enterprise-blockchain-and-trust/?feed_id=858&_unique_id=5db1e1c1834ac

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cryptoquicknews-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published here https://is.gd/rY7d77

Controversial Content Creators Shift to Crypto After Censorship

This post was originally published here

A number of online crowdfunding sites and wallet providers have been embroiled in controversy after a series of high-profile account cancellations associated with alt- and far-right views. Although the move to “deplatform” those seen to be allegedly promoting hate speech has received popular support, several high-profile political commentators and libertarian media personalities consider this to constitute and unacceptable assault on free speech.

As a result, some of the online crowdfunding platform Patreon’s top content creators decided to leave the platform in favor of Bitcoin funding, each taking with them tens of thousands of dollars in monthly revenue. As the furore surrounding payment platforms and their decision to cancel controversial accounts continues, Cointelegraph takes a closer look at what role crypto plays in what is being portrayed as the latest battleground for the freedom of speech.

Rubin deletes Patreon

On Jan. 16, American political commentator Dave Rubin became the latest high-profile public figure to delete his account with the online crowdfunding platform Patreon. Rubin appeared in a live video on his YouTube channel in which he reiterated his prior support for controversial online polemicist Carl Benjamin, also known as Sargon of Akkad, stating that his account cancelation was one of the most important factors in his decision to move from Patreon to Bitcoin funding:

“The fact that this has even been going down on Patreon related to freedom of speech, it was because of them kicking off Carl Benjamin, Sargon of Akkad, who has been in this very studio. It seems so fitting that we’re going to finally do this.

“When I started talking about it everyone said you’ve got to talk to Carl Benjamin, you’ve got to talk to Sargon of Akkad. It seems sort of fitting that the first guy I talked to online about this is the one who got booted, who’s now caused me to leave this. And we’re taking control of our destiny and all that good stuff.”

Although Rubin initially found fame as a stand up comedian, he has become more widely known as an advocate for libertarian values such as freedom of speech. In spite of his claims to earn “between 60-70 percent” of his income through Patreon, Rubin said that his decision to switch to Bitcoin constituted “a stand against the ever-moving encroachment on free speech, on free expression” that he perceives to be taking place across mainstream funding platforms.

“I don’t think a normal businessman would say can I just get rid of 70 percent of my company’s revenue and we’ll see what happens. I just feel like it [Benjamin’s banning] was just enough.”

Rubin further commented on what he considers to be an orchestrated affront on liberty and a campaign of enforced censorship being carried out by tech companies:

“This seems like the next obvious step in everything that’s been going on here. I just think that at some point, us, the people, have to push back against these tech companies. You can’t keep on infringing on the freedom of expression. Yes, they can do whatever they want at private companies and there’s some issue as to whether these platforms are becoming the true public space of the future and what’s the relationship between that entity and a platform that we can all communicate on and the government.”

Rubin’s video also contained the announcement that he plans to launch his own funding platform with fellow online commentator and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson:

“Also, the key to this whole thing is that Jordan and I are also working on a new platform. There’s a limit to the amount that I can tell you, for legal reasons. I can’t give away all the secrets and the keys to the kingdom just yet. We’re working on another platform. There are huge, huge questions in relation to how we want this platform to function. Should it be monetized through crypto, should we be doing torrent video streaming, how can it be fully protected so that we don’t have to worry about payment processors, so we don’t have to worry about tech companies taking us down? As crazy as that is, all I’m doing here is exercising free speech. I like interviewing people, I enjoy having good conversation and all these things. Jordan and I are working on that, there’s a company formed. We’re working on that. Today is step one. Step one for me is get off Patreon and let’s move everybody.”

Peterson was also among the group of content creators that vowed to leave Patreon on the grounds of free speech. In spite of reportedly earning $80,000 per month through the platform, Peterson also recently deleted his Patreon account.

Rubin first announced his intention to switch to Bitcoin in early January. Members of the crypto community responded enthusiastically to Rubin’s announcement and were quick to respond with practical advice for the transition. At time of publication, Rubin’s Bitcoin wallet has received a total of 0.8119261 BTC.

No more gifts for Gab

The controversial social media platform Gab is one of the most prominent sites to be shut down in the name of monitoring hate speech. In January, the company’s official Twitter account reported that its corporate account with the United States crypto exchange and wallet service provider Coinbase had been terminated. In early January, the merchant and personal accounts of Gab co-founder Andrew Torba were also shut down.

As predicted: the on ramps and off ramps (exchanges) are going to start censoring not only companies, but also individuals. @coinbase has now banned both Gab’s merchant account and Andrew Torba’s personal account.

Decentralized exchanges are the future. pic.twitter.com/LXkjblrdgu

— Gab.com (@getongab) January 4, 2019

Gab describes itself on its website as a “social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online. All are welcome.” However, the social network quickly earned itself a more sinister reputation as an echo chamber for alt- and far-right views. Gab faced intense public scrutiny after it was revealed that Robert Gregory Bowers, the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, had reportedly laid bare his intentions to harm people via posts on the social media network prior to the crime.

Following this, mainstream funding platforms such as PayPal and Stripe terminated their relationship with the company. Bitpay, a payment processor that uses cryptocurrency, also decided that hosting the organization presented a high level of risk and would consequently no longer be able to provide their services.

The company’s latest attempt to find a platform through which to receive funding also ended in failure. On Jan. 6, Gab’s official Twitter handle tweeted that their account with Square’s Cash App had been blocked, along with the personal account of Andrew Torba. After a delay of about 20 minutes, the company published another tweet.

Yes, we know who owns Square. We realize our accounts have been blocked for unknown reasons.

Cash App is still the easiest and fastest way to buy bitcoin on a mobile device. That’s still a net positive for bitcoin and freedom in our book. They can’t ban everyone.

— Gab.com (@getongab) January 8, 2019

Media sources emphasized the role of Gab’s reputation in its lack of success in establishing a long-term relationship with a payments processor.

Throughout January, the company has taken to Twitter in a bid to assure viewers that its core values were in line with their own, presenting Bitcoin as a way of bringing about “freedom from central banks, financial censorship, and a rigged financial system.”

In recent weeks, the organization has repeatedly said that support for Bitcoin is one of the company’s three pillars — “maximalism” concerning free speech, Bitcoin and freedom, again hammering home a new style of self-promotion in an effort to distance itself from the proliferation of hate speech that brought it to the limelight:

“Unapologetic free speech maximalist. Unapologetic bitcoin maximalist. Unapologetic freedom maximalist. But I repeat myself.”

The company’s search for a funding platform continues and stated on its website that it is “the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history.”

As mainstream platforms close their doors, crypto alternatives fill the gaps in the market

Companies and individuals alike have been quick to distance themselves from the controversial social media site. However, on Jan. 5, the Bisq network appeared to promote its services in the wake of the account terminations:

“If Bitcoin allows you to “be your own bank,” Bisq allows you to “be your own exchange.” YOU run Bisq on YOUR own machine and trade Bitcoin P2P. Censorship-resistance by design, not policy. Gatekeepers have no business being in bitcoin. Let’s shun them!”

Steve Jain, a contributor to the Bisq project who focuses on communications, spoke to Cointelegraph about Gab’s banning and the move to crypto funding:

“I don’t follow Gab too closely, and I don’t use their service, but they’re very good at marketing so I usually end up seeing their headlines or tweets anyway. And I recall seeing headlines throughout the past several months about them being banned from the most major payment processors. So I don’t think they were left with a choice — Bitcoin cannot ban you. It’s a natural move for them.”

Jain also mentioned that the concern about payment platform censorship is not contained to those associated with the far-right alone, explaining that crypto is principally democratic in its design:

“Significant damage is already done. Many people (especially those who tend to stray away from mainstream politics) have known for a while that something strange was happening on the major platforms, but most such accounts were anecdotal. These recent developments are concrete realizations of many people’s suspicions that the big companies don’t necessarily operate with consistent principles. It’s not that Bitcoin won’t ban you because it’s so nice and principled — it can’t. This immutable finality is part of what Bitcoin brings to the table that no other human-managed service can ever possibly bring.”

When asked whether Bisq is looking to capitalize on disgruntled Patreon users by retweeting Gab’s account termination notice, Jain was quick to emphasize that Bisq is “more of a platform for people to exchange Bitcoin for national currencies, so there isn’t much of a way for it to directly provide help to disgruntled Patreon users.” However, Jain did not rule out the possibility of ex-Patreon service users including Bisq in their future plans to build a more democratic payment platform:

“I have, however, heard of some people looking to start Patreon alternatives powered by Bisq, where (I guess) Bisq would act as a tool to exchange dollars for Bitcoin that cannot be censored. Recently we’ve made some great progress on the Bisq API, and I (for one) would love to see Bisq power such services.”

In spite of the circumstances in which websites like Gab and individuals such as Sargon of Akkad are turning to cryptocurrency funding because they have no choice, Jain maintains that this does not compromise the core principles of cryptocurrencies themselves:

“Peer-to-peer trading is merely the digital equivalent of you and I trading Bitcoin for USD in person. You bring the Bitcoin, and I bring the USD. We trade. Face-to-face, peer-to-peer. It doesn’t matter who you are, and it doesn’t matter who I am. All that matters is that we each hold up our ends of the deal. No BS. If that’s not ethical, I don’t know what is!

“I would argue it’s the introduction of third parties that adds all kinds of complications and stipulations and liabilities and ethical considerations.”

U.K. far-right feels the squeeze as prominent figures are stripped of funding

The United Kingdom has also witnessed a number of account terminations connected to the far-right, with banned individuals turning to crypto as a last resort. On Jan. 17, YouTube demonetized the account of U.K.-based far-right extremist Tommy Robinson after alleged breaches of the site’s advertising guidelines. The YouTube clampdown on the founder of the English Defence League, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is the latest in a series of bans for the activist, brought about by pressure put on crowdfunding companies by members of the public.

Robinson has also faced bans on a number of other platforms, including both Twitter and PayPal. The far-right activist’s PayPal account was terminated in November after the company stated that they “do not allow PayPal services to be used to promote hate, violence, or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.” Robinson’s ban was preceded by an online petition to remove him from the platform that gathered thousands of signatures, drawing attention to his past actions of “stirring up racist violence with online content.” As Robinson’s options for fundraising via traditional platforms are being removed one by one, the activist has turned to crypto in a last-ditch attempt to secure funding for his controversial activities.

Around the time of his arrest and imprisonment for contempt of court in 2018, Robinson received around 20,000 British pounds (roughly $25,777) in Bitcoin, including a donation of 5,500 pounds (~$7,088) on the day of his detention. The success of Robinson’s online fundraising has sparked a series of copycat activists, all of whom proclaim to be defenders of the freedom of speech and encourage supporters to donate to their cause.

U.K.-based commentator on far-right politics Mike Stuchbery spoke to Cointelegraph about the tendency for far-right groups to shift to crypto after mainstream funding platforms terminate their accounts:

“Far Right groups are slowly having their sources of income taken from them as activists target payment processors such as PayPal and Stripe, rather than calling for the banning of groups in their totality. Far Right groups are also finding themselves ‘deplatformed’ from mainstream social media and video platforms. They are, therefore, either creating their own alternatives to these platforms – Gab, Minds, Bitchute – or are looking at other, decentralized alternatives to disseminating their ideas.”

Stuchbery commented that while the arrest and jailing of Tommy Robinson acted as a catalyst for the shift to Bitcoin, the circumstances created a reputational crisis for crypto funding in general:

“The jailing of ‘Tommy Robinson’ saw cryptocurrencies being considered a viable alternative to normal banking for the first time. Over the space of a few days, mainstream media reported ‘Tommy’ receiving thousands of pounds worth of Bitcoin to his official wallet, and more sent to others collecting in his name.The tone of the reporting did seem to be negative in approach – somehow implying the criminality of cryptocurrency transactions, a stigma that still exists.”

In contrast to the Libertarian free-speech rhetoric of individuals such as Dave Rubin and Dr. Jordan Peterson, Stuchbery believes that companies can and should exercise the ability to ban accounts for the promotion of hate speech:

“Platforms can exercise free speech without legitimizing hate speech by being clear and transparent in explaining why they chose to remove somebody from a service, clearing linking it to a violation of the Terms of Service. They can also regularly survey or gather users together to discuss their Terms of Service and answer questions from the community relating to their policies.

“I’m reluctant to call for the blanket banning of those who engage in hate speech on social media – not only does it set a problematic precedent, but as we have seen, the Far Right is able to skillfully turn such calls into a Free Speech debate.

“That said, ‘deplatforming’ does work – look at what’s happened to Richard Spencer and Alex Jones. Their reach has been totally curtailed by their removal from social media platforms and has resulted in the tempering of their rhetoric as they seek a return.”

Wikileaks’ financial bottleneck

Far-right and libertarian organizations are not the only groups on the political spectrum that found themselves out in the cold after losing favor with Coinbase. On April 20, the merchandising branch of anonymous international publishing nonprofit Wikileaks, Wikileaks Shop, reported via Twitter that their Coinbase account had been blocked.

The tweet portrays an alleged email screen grab from the U.S wallet provider stating that the organization was in contradiction to their Terms of Service.

Following the cancellation, Wikileaks called for a “global blockade of Coinbase,” stating that it is an unfit member of the crypto community and encouraged supporters to donate via Bitcoin. The organization also hinted at its belief that the action was officially sanctioned by an unnamed authority.

In spite of Wikileaks Shop’s struggle with Coinbase, Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, publicly thanked the U.S. government for forcing the organization into using Bitcoin as its primary source of income, resulting in a 50,000 percent return. As a result, the organization is now openly bullish on cryptocurrencies, accepting Litecoin, Monero and ZCash alongside Bitcoin for donations.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #btc #xrp #litecoin #altcoin #money #currency #finance #news #alts #hodl #coindesk #cointelegraph #dollar #bitcoin View the website

New Post has been published here https://is.gd/rY7d77

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textiletoday · 5 years

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Garments accessories and packaging sector is playing a significant role to boost up the Ready-Made Garments (RMG) industry of Bangladesh. RMG manufacturers are getting available backward support from the sector in low cost and short time period. According to the Bangladesh Garments Accessories & Packaging Manufacturers & Exporters Association (BGAPMEA), now almost all requirements of garments accessories and packaging of readymade garments and other export-oriented industries are being met up locally which is about 95%. Bangladesh is producing and exporting accessories like woven labels, leather badges, stone and metal motifs, rubber patches, gum tapes, satin and cotton ribbon hangers, price tags, buttons, zippers etc. In the RMG sector, the accessory makers and packagers supply more than 34 types of products with proper policy support and financial incentives. Export trends Indirect and direct export earnings in the sector are increasing noticeably and the earnings can be increased by up to three times over the next couple of years. On 26 December 2018, the Textile and Jute Ministry held a meeting with the stakeholders where they proposed export earnings target to be fixed at $51 billion from the textile sector for FY 21 including $11.22 billion from packaging and accessories sector. Garments Accessories and Packaging (GAP) sector earned valuable foreign exchange to the tune of US$ 7.10 billion during the financial year 2017-2018. Out of them, US$1.12 billion is exported directly to Middle-East, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Europe, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos etc. Abdur Kader Khan, President of BGAPMEA said, “The indirect contribution has always been 15–20 percent of the net export earning of the RMG sector. Export earnings for RMG in 2017–18 FY totaled USD 30.61 billion, of which approximately USD 7.10 billion came from accessory items used in the RMG, leather, pharmaceutical and other export-oriented sectors.” Investments and opportunities Bangladesh is already well established as a sourcing center for garments products. Garment accessories and packaging products are key components to keep the competitiveness of the RMG industry stable. The demand for accessories is increasing day by day at home and abroad. Regarding this situation, investment is happening significantly in this sector. Also Read: Direct export of garments accessories opening a new era for Bangladesh “There is no doubt that Bangladesh will turn into a global leader in accessory export very soon as it has already established an international standard in manufacturing the products,” said Exporters Association of Bangladesh (EAB) President Abdus Salam Murshedy. According to the sector people, accessories contribute to 15% to 18% of a finished garment product. Now, this sector is able to supply packaging and accessories products within 24 hours after receiving the order. “We also deliver the products to RMG factories in our own transportation. As a result, it reduces not only the lead time but also saves our valuable foreign currency,” said some GAP manufacturers to Textile Today. “Around Tk. 1,500 crore has been invested by the manufacturers of garments accessories and packagers this year. And more projects are in the pipeline,” Abdul Kader Khan revealed a few days ago. Since the demand for accessory products is growing at a faster rate at both home and abroad, about 100 new factories have started their operations this year. Currently, around 1,700 factories are producing accessory items in the country, mostly in compliant factories along with 100 new factories those have started their operations this year. Challenges There is a huge opportunity for the sector to grow in the local market as well as in the foreign market. But there are many challenges also. A lack of policy support including gas and electricity connections and tax burdens hampers the inflow of investments, with port congestion being another issue. Manufacturers are using coal instead of gas to run boilers due to a gas scarcity, which is costly due to higher import duty on coal. Currently, manufacturers have to pay about a 45% tax on import of coal. If the government allows duty-free coal import, manufacturing will be more price-competitive, said industry insiders. Instead of availability of accessories items in Bangladesh, apparel manufacturers choose China for sourcing accessory products as they offer lower prices than locals. Because of a higher price of raw materials caused by import duty combined with the delay of importing have increased the production cost. In this reality, sometimes, local accessories manufacturers cannot offer a lower price than China. Abdul Kader Khan informed that the sector people demanded cash incentives on exports several times, as this has been contributing nearly fully to export-oriented sectors. Banks are charging double-digit interest rates on loans from businesses that are ultimately increasing the cost of doing business. On the other hand, sector people think that the garment accessory makers and packagers (GAP) industry should not be treated as a backward linkage industry. It should be recognized as an independent entity. Conclusion Bangladesh, the second largest manufacturer of garments accessories and packaging items after China, should emphasize more on producing high-quality accessory items to establish this sector as an individual industry. Small entrepreneurs in this sector should emphasize more to build up their brand images as buyers always prefer to purchase items that possess quality and display brand loyalty. At the same time, proper policy support, financial incentives, and uninterrupted energy and gas supply are needed to expand both indirect and direct export earnings of the sector.

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