Category Archives: Socio-economic Collapse

Osun 2018: I have the blueprint to take Osun out of economic doldrum PDP guber aspirant

A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial aspirant in Osun, Senator Segun Bamigbetan-Baju on Sunday hinted that he had developed a detailed blueprint to take the state out of the current economic disaster.

He maintained that with the present socio-economic malaise, bedeviling the state, only a thorough and strong economic policy can save Osun from becoming a failed state.

Senator Segun Bamigbetan Baju, who made this known in a personally signed press statement made available to the Nigerian Tribune in Osogbo, Osun State capital said part of the measures to explored if elected to power include the effective building of virile and steady local economy that will drive the machinery of government and bring succour to the people.

He contended that the seeming collapse of the local economy across the 33 local councils as a result of lack of financial autonomy for third tier of government had stifled social and healthy economic growth, which would have had multiplying positive impacts on the state economy and empowerment of the people.

While promising to create an interactive engagement with all the critical stakeholders to brainstorm on the solutions to myriads of problems, confronting all the strata in the society, Bamigbetan-Baju said inputs of technocrats and other professional expertise were germane to set Osun on the path of greatness.

The politician who was in the National Assembly in the aborted third Republic said the time had come to relieve the pains and suffering of the people of Osun State.

Senator Bamigbetan Baju, however, congratulated PDP and the Senator Ademola Adeleke for electoral the feat accomplished in the July 8, 2017 Osun West Senatorial by-election.

He advised the federal government to curb insecurity and implement policies that will attract investors so that the nations economy can exit recession.

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Osun 2018: I have the blueprint to take Osun out of economic doldrum PDP guber aspirant - NIGERIAN TRIBUNE (press release) (blog)

Andrs Santos Sharpe, an inquisitive and friendly doctoral candidate at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, has dedicated his fledgling career to listening to the life stories of students who drop out of the institution.

If his immediate goal is to earn his PhD, his greater wish is for universities to better serve society, especially students at risk of falling through the cracks. He describes himself as part of a tradition that links critical thinking with collective action and with a deep impatience with the status quo.

Santos Sharpe also is part of a new generation of researchers grappling with the latest iteration of an age-old problem: Social inequality, and what higher education might do to lessen it.

Right now, the academy seems more like part of the problem than the solution. Even as participation in higher education is rapidly expanding globally, the increasing stratification of both institutions and societies worldwide challenges the often-made claim that a college education is a sure path to upward mobility.

Figuring out how to crack that conundrum is what drew Santos Sharpe and 21 other emerging scholars mostly graduate students at various stages of their dissertation research to a week-long summer school in St Petersburg, Russia. As a doctoral candidate interested in understanding the influence of US higher education in a global context, I was one of them.

Over five days in June and under the tutelage of a faculty of international repute, we shared our work, discussed how to make it better, and explored how it might inform larger public policy debates.

Like Santos Sharpe, many of those of us who gathered in St Petersburg seek to improve the prospects of marginalised populations, be they Native Americans in the United States, indigenous students in Latin America or Austrians who are the first in their families to go to college.

One of us is looking at access to higher education for Roma students in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Another has found a pattern in which, over and over, working-class students in the United Kingdom blame themselves specifically, their laziness for failing to land an internship. Wealthier classmates, meanwhile, turn to family connections.

Other presenters focused on the social, political, cultural and economic contexts of their homelands and the role they play in enabling inequity. Presentations looking at reform policies in Azerbaijan, Peru and Chile, for example, touched on issues such as corruption in admissions and political crisis as catalyst for change. My focus is on how inequalities might present themselves in cross-cultural collaboration.

People come with different agendas but we still have a common theme, says Po Yang, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Peking University in China, who led a seminar on quantitative approaches to analysis. Were trying to debate at the very abstract level how you operationalise this idea of social inequality.

Summer school in its fifth year

This was the fifth year of the summer school, hosted by the Institute of Education at the Moscow-based National Research University Higher School of Economics, or HSE, and offered in collaboration with the China Institute for Educational Finance Research at Peking University. Our venue was HSE's stately campus in the town of Pushkin, a short walk to the country residence of Catherine I of Russia.

Through a series of seminars, group projects and critiques, the summer school objective is to create a space where everyone can learn, get new ideas and also feel supported academically and personally, says Anna Smolentseva, senior researcher at the Institute of Education.

Examples past and present reminded us of the many guises in which inequality exists, as well as the limits of higher education's ability to tame a societal problem.

Chirakkal Madhavan Malish, one of the few participants among us who has achieved the title of doctor, brought that home in his presentation on a research project exploring the effects of admission quotas in India.

While university enrolments of disadvantaged students soared, beneficiaries of the policy reported discrimination on campus in other shapes and sizes, including ethnic jokes and neglect by their instructors.

The increased student diversity is seen by institutional leaders and faculty there as the root cause of deteriorating academic standards and quality, said Malish, an assistant professor at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration in New Delhi.

Similarly, the former Soviet Union in the 1930s combined class- and ethnicity-based quotas to create a more diverse meritocracy in its universities but only up to a point, Isak Froumin, academic supervisor at HSE's Institute of Education, told us. And upon the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, institutions abandoned such policies altogether, ushering in what Froumin called a triumph of inequality.

A 2011 report by the institute pointed out the growing inequality in Russian education, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2012 to initiate a programme aimed at equalising education opportunities.

Affirmative action

Katharina Posch, a graduate student looking at the socio-economic composition of students in Austrian universities, called Froumin's presentation one of her "aha" moments.

"Affirmative action policies do work if executed strictly and aggressively, says Posch, a teaching and research associate at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. But [Froumin] also showed what is behind it and what further consequences there might be. What happens to the field of higher education? What happens to overall social inequality?

Many of us were struck by the power of cultural factors mentioned by Jussi Vlimaa, of the Finnish Institute for Educational Research at the University of Jyvskyl. Nordic countries, including their universities, are among the most equitable in the world, he told us, and a big reason is trust.

Such an antidote, with all of its nuance, would inform our thinking through the end of the week, when we worked in teams to come up with strategies to reduce social inequality in higher education. Alas, "We can't all be Finland", became a rallying cry for one group.

Whether we come up with more useful answers over the course of our lives remains to be seen. If the first step toward change is commitment to social equality, the discussion at the summer school offered hope. Hope, and bit of new data.

Some have passionate concerns, some see it as part of their life story, says faculty member Professor Simon Marginson, director of the Centre for Global Higher Education at University College London in the United Kingdom.

Still, the "clear message" of many papers is that the solutions to social inequity in higher education neither start nor end at the university door, he adds.

"Participants looked beyond the higher education sector to rethink its relationship with society and economy, which is where the motors of inequality are found."

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Cultural factors at work in social inequality in HE - University World ... - University World News

When the first settlers started colonizing the American West, bison were plentiful, within a hundred years their numbers had plummeted, with multiple populations hunted into extinction. Around the same time, whaling led to the collapse of several species, including the blue whale and sperm whale, whose respective populations are still reeling from the actions of the whaling era. In 1992, the Newfoundland Cod Fishery collapsed after years of continued overfishing. Overhunting and overfishing have been a trademark of human consumption for centuries, and is still happening today.

Overfishing is a simple enough concept, but one that is often times tossed to the wayside in favour of profits or to put off the death rattle of a fishing communitys livelihood. For every fish population, there is a carrying capacity, or a specific level at which fishing no longer becomes sustainable. That level represents that ability of a population to recover from population loss, such as fishing, death or disease. Essentially, a placemark that shows at which point a population can successfully replenish itself. If the population continues to lose more individuals that it can replenish, then is collapses.

In most countries, there are fisheries policies in place to ensure that their fish stocks are maintained in order to continue to fish at a sustainable level. However, cash strapped countries, like those in the Pacific or Africa have been known to sell their fishing rights to European or Asian companies, who would then overfish their stocks and move on. But overfishing doesnt just deplete fish in a given area, it can have strong repercussions on the local socio-economic dynamic.

When the Newfoundland Cod Fishery collapsed, it put a multitude of fishermen out of business and exerted a lot of pressure on the local economy. Those fishermen had to find a new source of income, and in certain countries, the available options can be less than desirable. The collapse of Somalian fisheries stocks is a prime example of this. After selling their fishing rights and losing their stocks to European fisheries, Somalian fishermen were left with no source of income and turned to high seas pirating.

That being said, the environmental impact can also not be ignored. Continued overfishing of populations can have an impact on the rest of the foodweb an ecological butterfly effect that can weaken an entire ecosystem. Should we continue to overfish, it isnt just the fish that will be impacted.

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Overfishing continues to be an issue - CosmicNovo.com (Science and Technology)

Recently, I finally finished reading a book I started last September. Entitled Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal and written by my brilliant seminar professor, Eugene Soltes, it explores everything from the law-evasions of Enron to the downfall of Bernie Madoff. However, the segment I found most interesting detailed the psychology behind big-money fraudsters, particularly their outdated intuition. Soltes explains that the modern business world presents complexities foreign to the environments in which our ancestors lived, highlighting a time gap between the current world and evolutionary behaviors. In short, the future is moving quickly, and human instinctive reactions are having a hard time keeping up.

What strikes me most about this phenomenon is how it is overlooked when discussing economic policy. In liberal economic theory specifically, there is a tendency to favor what is fair and equal over what is most efficient, with hopes to foster equality in an inherently unequal socio-economic class system. Here, the morals leading one to distinguish what is right from wrong plays a monumental role, dangerously imposing a binary. What is right might not be what is best, and what worked back then might not be what works now.

For example, it might be economically favorable to dissolve the minimum wagecorporations profit more by reducing spending and increasing profitsbut whether it would be moral or just for the working class is another question. The choices one believes to be good or bad are built upon instinct, which might just be getting in the way.

The issue is not that emotion is involved at all, but rather that it is approached in an inadequate manner. Despite the United States boasting the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous economy, our history of sudden recession and market collapse coupled with the myriad corrupt behaviors showcased in Eugenes book suggest our nation has room to do better. Most business decisions are founded upon objective, hard data, but when humans are left to decide upon more subjective economic matters, opinion and morality hold the joystick.

Another example of moralitys perhaps-too-powerful interference can be found in a recent Freakonomics podcast. The piece introduces a sort of death insurance, which allows terminally ill patients to decline further medical treatment and puts the money they would have spent on hospital bills right back in their pockets. This idea is optimal in the sense that the deceaseds family can now afford tuition, housing, travel, and previously unattainable luxuries. However, its cold-blooded, utilitarian morale renders it extremely unfavorable. The podcast concludes that though the majority of economists agreed it would create economic prosperity, its associated ethics and emotion pushed so strongly against it that it could not be put into action.

The very essence of democracy (save for the mismatch between who won the popular vote and who sits in the Oval Office) suggests that if the people dont want something, its not going to happen. But what if our inherent logic, in these cases and others, is not advanced enough for what the business world is producing right now? In which scenarios do our intuitions remain accurate, and in which are they outdated and inadequate factors in decision making? The solution is not to disregard emotion entirely, but instead to reevaluate its role in the modern economy. Technological advancements are exponentially accelerating the speed of knowledge and innovation, and our thinking, foundation, and intuition need to be evolving just as quickly.

More focus must be placed on objectivity, and less on the ways in which instinct might drive us away from it. Of course, unanimous economic decisions are rare or simply absent in issues such as tax policy or bank regulation. However, once we begin to dissect the base upon which our intuition is built and attempt to consider alternate approaches, we might uncover that the best course of action cannot be classified as either right or wrong. Perhaps there exists a third option entirely. Lets not allow human error to stop us from finding it.

It is clear that the world in which we live bears little resemblance to that of our predecessors centuries or even decades ago. The current era is abundant with movement, perpetually changing, and becoming more advanced and inventive than ever. We cannot hinder our prosperity by neglecting the lack of synchronicity between our evolutionary impulses and the present globalized world. When evaluating economic policy, we must recognize instinctive thought while simultaneously acknowledging it might be flawed. The future of economics is moving on without us and we cannot keep watching as it runs away.

Madeleine L. Lapuerta 20 lives in Leverett House. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays.

THE COBDEN CLUB MEDAL.

The Cobden Club, of England, offer a silver medal, under the auspices of the Harvard Finance Club, to any present

The Economics Society.

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for

LECTURES ON THE SINGLE TAX

The second of a series of lectures on social problems being held at the University will be given by Mr.

TO DISCUSS CURRENT EVENTS

In order to arouse undergraduate interest in momentous outside problems, a thing lamentably lacking among college men, the Speakers' Club

UNIVERSITY REPRESENTATIVES WILL ATTEND CONFERENCE

Ten or 12 men will be selected in a few days by the Christian Association of Phillips Brooks House to

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The Future of Economics is Moving On Without Us - Harvard Crimson

by Augusto Zimmermann

Evolutionary influences are especially visible in Marxist legal theory. Because Marx rejected the God of Creation, he was deeply scornful of the doctrine of human sin, and convinced that the evolution of human nature would lead to its absolute perfection. Marx also believed that laws are always the product of human will and, more specifically, the arbitrary will of the ruling social class. He sought, therefore, to displace the ideal of the rule of law and create in its place his own secular utopia on earth. The result? In every communist regime around the world, the attempt to enforce the Marxist dream of equality of wealth has led to gross inequality of power and, to be sure, to governmental oppression and deification (not to mention equality of poverty among the masses). Thus, in the twentieth century alone, Marxist-inspired governments killed at least 100 million people. Such a bloodbath is simply the by-product of a naturalistic worldview that deems the most powerful humans to be the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong.

Figure 1. Karl Marx believed not only in the evolution of the races and societies but also that history was invariably on his side. So his political adversaries were treated as reactionaries who deserved punishment for retarding the march of humanity in the direction of classless (and lawless) communism. Credit: Wikipedia.com

Marxism is primarily a social, political, and economic theory that interprets history through an evolutionary prism. Marx claimed to have discovered a progressive pattern controlling human evolution, which would lead humanity to the advent of a communist society of classless individuals. On this basis Marx defined the state and all its laws as mere instruments of class oppression, which would have to disappear when the final stage of human evolution were finally accomplished.

This article discusses Marxist legal theory and how it has been applied in communist countries that have claimed Marxism as their official ideology. It investigates whether the undercurrent of violence and lawlessness constantly exhibited by the actual behaviour of Marxist regimes may in fact be a natural consequence of Marxist theory itself. Indeed, Marx viewed laws basically in terms of guaranteeing and justifying class oppression, thus advancing the position that laws in a socialist state must be nothing more than the imposition (by a political elite) of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In order to better understand Marxism, it is necessary to explore its religious dimensions. In many respects Marxism is no less religious or dogmatic than the traditional religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As a matter of fact, Marxism contains in itself a complete worldview that includes an explanation of the origin of the universe and an eschatological theory concerning the final destiny of humankind.

In a personal letter to him, Marx actually reveals that Darwins Origin of Species was indeed very important, as it had provided him with the basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.

Theologically, Marxism declares that God does not, cannot, and must not exist. Instead, Marxism is based on the conviction (a genuine opiate of the people?) that history is constantly evolving towards a certain direction and that the proletariat is the redemptive force of humanity. Thus Marx declared: History is the judge, its executioner the proletariat.1

Since Marx believed he had discovered the secret of perfecting the human condition, politics became for him a form of secular religion, whereby the ideal of human salvation would be accomplished by the proletariats revolutionary actions in history. History was interpreted progressively by Marx, moving by means of social struggle. He believed that the final stage of human evolution actually transcends class struggle, when the eschatological consummation of global communism is at last achieved.2 Comparing such Marxist eschatology with that contained in the Bible in the Book of Revelation, David Koyzis comments:

If the god of Marxism is to be understood as an evolutionary process towards communism, then its devil is constituted by the reactionary forces that either deny or hinder this progressive ideology. These reactionaries are destined to receive their final destruction in the fires of global revolution.4 Thus in the opinion of Leonardo Boff, a leading contributor to Marxist-oriented liberation theology in Latin America, one day the world will face a final apocalyptic confrontation of the forces of good [communists] and evil [anti-communists], and then the blessed millennium.5 The violent suppression of those anti-communist reactionaries, he says, will represent the advent of Gods Kingdom on Earth, and the advent of a new society of a socialistic type.6

Curiously, in his 1987 book O Socialismo Como Desafio Teolgico (Socialism as a Theological Challenge), Boff argued that the highly oppressive former communist regimes in Eastern Europe, especially the former Soviet Union and Romania, offer[ed] the best objective possibility of living more easily in the spirit of the Gospels and of observing the Commandments.7 Returning from a visit to Romania and the former Soviet Union in 1987, just a few years before the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, Boff averred that these notorious regimes were, in his opinion, highly ethical and morally clean, and that he had not noticed any restrictions in those countries on freedom of expression.8

Marxist theologians like Boff have refused to accept any possibility of peaceful coexistence between individuals of different social classes. For Marxists like him, every religious person has the moral obligation to rouse the working class to an awareness of class struggle and the need to take part in it.9 Indeed, Boff certainly does not regard it as a sin for a person to physically attack another person from a supposedly oppressive class, since this would be committed by those who are oppressed and involved in the struggle to remove social inequalities.10 Addressing this type of thinking, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, comments:

Eschatological Marxism regards the advent of communist utopia as an end in itself. As such, communism is an ideal to be achieved at any social cost. To achieve communism, therefore, any means can be justified, including violence and deceit.12 After all, under the communist paradise there will be no more social injustice, and everybody will be treated equally. The sum of violent actions by radical Marxists is alleged to actually be a good thing, because this may potentially accelerate the advent of the great socialistic utopia. In other words, anything that a person does to advance such a noble ideal is never to be regarded as objectively wrong or even unethical. As a result, Green explains:

There is a close relation between Charles Darwins theory of biological evolution and Karl Marxs theory of revolutionary communism (figure 1). Darwins attempt to demonstrate how humans would have evolved from animals by a blind process of natural selection was deeply inspirational for Marx, who actually believed that the primacy of social classes somehow paralleled the alleged supremacy of the human races.

Whether viewed as the struggle of races or as the struggle of classes, Darwinism was the predominant form of socio-political thinking in the late nineteenth-century. As a philosopher of his time, Marx believed that the existence of God had been disproved by the inexorable forces of science, reason and progress. As such, Darwinism became an important element of Marxist theory.14 As his close friend and co-writer Friedrich Engels pointed out, just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history.15 In a personal letter to him, Marx actually reveals that Darwins Origin of Species was indeed very important, as it had provided him with the basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.16 As a sign of gratitude, Marx sent Darwin the second German edition of Capital. On the title page he inscribed, Mr. Charles Darwin/On the part of his sincere admirer/[signed] Karl Marx, London 16 June 1873.17

Curiously, Marx adopted Darwinism not just to support his own racist theories, including his undeniable anti-Semitism (although he was ethnically Jewish himself). For instance, Marx argued that it was not so difficult to establish unions in barbarous Russia, a country where, as he put it, anybody could easily build up successful unions with stupid young men and apostles.18 Marx quite often resorted to phrases like dirty Jew and Jewish Nigger in order to describe his political enemies. About the famous German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle he wrote:

In his work On the Jewish Questions, Marx shared and endorsed the anti-Semitism of Bruno Bauer, the anti-Semitic leader of the Hegelian left who had published an essay demanding that the Jews abandon Judaism completely. In Marxs opinion, the money-Jew had become the universal anti-social element of the present time. To make the Jew impossible, he argued, it was necessary to abolish the preconditions, the very possibility of the kind of money activities which produced him.20 Thus, he concluded that both the Jew and his religion should disappear if the world were finally able to abolish the Jewish attitude to money. As Marx put it, in emancipating itself from hucksterism and money, and thus from real and practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself.21

No one can deny the historical influence of the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (17701831) upon the formation of Marxs methodology. The connection lies not in their conceptions of the state, but rather in the dialectical method used by Marx to construct his own political theories of dialectical and historical materialism.22

Hegel saw the world as an evolving living organism. As such, he argued that scientific and political progress was not smooth but rather moved dialectically and in accordance with a conflicting philosophical dialogue. According to this theory, person A states some partial truth, then person B advocates the very opposite (which is also partly true), and then the combining elements of both ideas finally comes about. In applying this dialectical premise to history, Hegel contended that truth is subjective and that it is impossible to judge cultural norms by any objective standard. Furthermore, Hegels theory also maintains that the historical process is affected by an ongoing conflict and evolution of human ideas.

Marx agreed with Hegel about the inevitable progress of history. However, Marx rejected the Hegelian belief that anything intellectual is the driving force in human history. Hegels dialectics, he said, is the fundamental principle of all dialectic only after its mystical form has been sloughed off. And that is precisely what distinguishes my method.23 Believing that material or physical forces were the real forces behind human progress,24 Marx replaced Hegelian dialecticism with his own dialectical materialism, in which the forces in conflict are not ideas or principles but solely the interests of social classes in their struggle over the ownership and control of material resources.25

When history is understood in accordance with that dialectical materialism, socio-political institutions appear to always correspond to the interests of the dominant class. The legal system is therefore interpreted as a superstructure that must suit the practical needs of this dominant class.22 Accordingly, the rule of law is merely another ideological mechanism through which that class is able to eventually justify its grip on the means of production and the sources of wealth. As Marx put it,

Image Wikipedia.org

Figure 2. Soviet poster Comrade Lenin cleans the Earth from scum, November 1920. The Soviet dictator considered that Marxism subordinates the ethical standpoint to the principle of causality, in the practice it reduces to the class struggle. As such, Lenin declared thatThe revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is ruled, won, and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie rule that is unrestricted by any laws.

Darwins evolutionary theory had a profound impact on the Western conception of law. Under its influence there proceeded over the nineteenth century a thorough transformation of legal studies as well as a general assumption among the judicial elite that since humans are allegedly accidents, so are their laws.27 Following the trend of his time, Marx stood together with other social scientists in their absolute rejection of the concept of natural law that had guided and inspired the founders of modern-democratic constitutionalism in the United States.

Marxs ideas about law were expressed mainly in the Communist Manifesto, which he published in collaboration with his friend Friedrich Engels in 1848. In that paper Marx contends that law, morality, religion, are so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. Then he goes on to criticise the whole tradition of government under the rule of law as nothing more than a mere expression of bourgeois aspirations:

According to Marx, the final advent of revolutionary communism necessarily requires a period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.29 In other words, he contended that dictatorship is the only way in which the ideal of communism can be advanced. On the basis of such a radical premise, V.I. Lenin (figure 2) argued that Marxist law does not seek to protect any human right, but that Marxism regards law only as a mechanism for holding the other subordinated classes obedient to the one class.30 The obvious implication of this assumption was summed up in a famous Soviet slogan: All power belongs to the Soviets. The same assumption is also revealed in this excerpt from a book published by English-speaking communists in revolutionary Russia:

Marx believed that a regular pattern of evolution controlled the human condition, which would then also lead to a more perfect society of classless individuals. Since the destiny of humankind was considered to lie in the emergency of lawless communism, law was interpreted as not encompassing any universal values or principles, but rather representing a transitional device that merely illustrates the course of political struggles and the evolution of social formations.32 In Marxs opinion, the legal phenomenon is essentially superstructural and, therefore, invariably dependent for their form and content upon determining forces emanating from the economic basis of society.33 The legal system of each human society is regarded as a mere superstructure which is always linked with the superstructure of the state. In Marxist theory, explain David and Brieley,

Since the idea of law was interpreted by Marx as invariably an instrument of class domination, he argued that the coming of a classless society implied that all laws would have to disappear. Hence in his seminal work, The Communist Theory of Law (1955), legal philosopher Hans Kelsen contends that the anti-normative approach to social phenomena is an essential element of the Marxian theory in general and of the Marxian theory of law in particular.35 Because Marx believed that law arises from class conflicts, he concluded that the need for law would cease to exist with the advent of classless communism. Such a promise of lawlessness that leads to perfect justice was correctly interpreted by Kelsen as being a utopian prophecy.36

Since lawlessness is elevated by Marxism to represent the final stage of communismwhich according to Marx necessarily predates a period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariatit is not unreasonable to explain the undercurrent of extreme violence manifested in Marxist regimes as being little more than the projection of such political ideas. In other words, the mass killings which have constantly occurred in communist countries may actually represent a mere by-product of the foundations of lawlessness laid by Marx himself. Since the Marxist state assumes authoritarian forms and frees itself from any constitutional checks and balances, this leaves out of account very powerful impulses to state action generated from within the state by people in charge of decision-making power.37 As a result, says Freeman,

The main objective of classical Marxist jurisprudence is not to promote human rights or to support the separation of governmental powers, nor even equality before the law, but to criticise these very ideals of the rule of law and to reveal its putative structures of socio-economic domination. Thus in his Principles of Communism, Engels described such values as individual rights and equality before the law as fraudulent masks worn by the bourgeoisie for economic supremacy and exploitation. In fact, all the most cherished values of democratic societies were denounced by Engels as merely being ideological tools for legitimising an exploitive system that would serve only the dominant economic group.38

With this idea in mind, Marx argued that basic human rights are not fixed but rather are constantly evolving according to the progressive stages of class warfare. In On the Jewish Question, Marx explained that in his opinion, the so-called rights of man are simply the rights of a member of civil society, that is, of egoistic man, of man separated from other men and from the community. He saw liberty as not founded upon the relations between free and responsible individual citizens, but rather upon the separation of man from man. It is the right of such separation.39 For him, its practical application was the right to property. If power is taken on the basis of right, commented Marx and Engels in The German Ideology,

Photo by Adam Carr, wikipedia.com

Figure 3. Well over 500,000 people died during the Khmer Rouges reign in the 1970s. The extermination of political adversaries and of entire social groups is a normal practice amongst communist regimes. Such a bloodbath is the by-product of a materialistic worldview that deems the most powerful to be the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong.

Can Marxists then believe in the universality of human rights whilst remaining faithful to Marxism? After all, Marx talked about the narrow horizon of bourgeois right having to be eliminated in its entirety. What is more, Marx openly denied that any of our most important human rights possess any absolute meaning apart from their historical context. According to Marx himself, human rights exist insofar as the government creates them and allows them to exist. The idea of rights is, therefore, entirely subject to the supreme authority of the state.41

Marx strongly advocated the abolition of all legal and moral rules.42 Communism, as the fundamental good of humanity according to him, would have to eliminate the conditions of morality and circumstances of justice.43 Such a view of morality in practice amounts to a self-consistent attack on non-relativist ethics. As a matter of fact, says Freeman, Marx, and subsequent Marxists have singled out [morality] as ideological and relative to class interests and particular modes of production.44 To Marx and Engels, Freeman comments that

Since Marx advocated that morality has no transcendent justification, and as such no independence from socio-economic facts and historical contexts,

The Soviet dictator Lenin once explained that in Marxism there is actually not a single grain of ethics from beginning to end. Theoretically, he explained, it subordinates the ethical standpoint to the principle of causality, in the practice it reduces to the class struggle.47 Thus, in a lecture delivered in Moscow in 1919, Lenin also argued that that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is ruled, won, and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws.48 Indeed, as Tismaneanu points out:

Marx believed not only in the evolution of the races and societies but also that history was invariably on his side. So it was easy for him to consider his political adversaries reactionaries, who deserved no legal right and protection but instead severe punishment for retarding the march of humanity.50 Marxist theory therefore denies that anything can be properly called right unless it advances socialism. In such a manner a radical ideology can be applied with the same catastrophic results that occur when radical ideas are applied to racial issues. From the standpoint of Realpolitik, therefore, it is quite possible to suggest that the class genocide conducted by Marxist-oriented regimes bears striking resemblances with the race genocide of Nazi Germany (figure 3). According to Stphane Courtois, the editor of a seminal book on the subject,

In his famous book Dmocratie et Totalitarisme, the late French political philosopher Raymond Aron discussed ideas that inspire both Marxist-oriented regimes and Hitlers National Socialism. In one case, he said, the final result is the labour camp, in the other it is the gas chamber. As Aron pointed out, the destruction of the kulaks during the collectivization campaigns in the former Soviet Union was unquestionably analogous to the Nazi genocidal policies against ethnic groups who were deemed to be racially inferior. In fact, as Tismaneanu explains:

As the first Commissar of Justice Isaac Steinberg in the Soviet Union so candidly put it in 1920, even though the revolution was over, the terror would have to continue, because, in his opinion, this was an intrinsic feature of every Marxist regime.

History shows beyond any doubt that class genocide in Marxist regimes have been aided and abetted by a political philosophy that encourages, inadvertently if not explicitly, governmental policies that turned out to be profoundly genocidal. The problem is not so much that such a philosophy does not pay enough attention to policies that turn genocidal, but rather that such a philosophy (and those who support it) may actually bear some responsibility for what happened. Such philosophy prepared the mindset and provided the rationale for the implementation of state-directed mass murder and violence. So it happened to be precisely in the former Soviet Union, and not Nazi Germany, that the first concentration camps in Europe were established. As early as October 1923, there were 315 of these concentration camps in the Soviet Union. Some of them were described by their very few survivors as death camps, which to even in the smallest details resembles the descriptions of concentration camps in Nazi Germany. As Kaminski pointed out:

In a normative sense, all the most prominent Marxist jurists of the former Soviet Union considered the mere existence of law a theoretically inconvenient fact.54 In their analysis of legal practices of the 1920s, law was generally defined by them as a disciplining principle that helps strengthen the Soviet state and develop the socialist economy.55 This sort of definition appears to perfectly justify political repression against any person or group that in the judgement of the state authorities could harm the interests of the state or inhibit the development of the socialist economic order.

According to these Soviet jurists, once the period of transition had been completed, the socialist state and all its positive laws should just wither away, given the absence of further class conflict to activate the engine of dialectical conflict.56 Now the fact is that no society can actually exist without law. When a system of government turns out to be anti-legal, it ensures that instead of the rule of law there will be only the rule of terror and oppression. Hence all the terror and oppression in Marxist regimes are the integral part of the foundations of lawlessness laid by Marx himself. As the first Commissar of Justice Isaac Steinberg in the Soviet Union so candidly put it in 1920, even though the revolution was over, the terror would have to continue, because, in his opinion, this was an intrinsic feature of every Marxist regime.57

Marx believed that laws are the product of class oppression, and that laws would have to disappear with the advent of communism. Marxist ideas are closely associated with despotic communist regimes, since these regimes have claimed Marxism as their official ideology. Unfortunately, the Marxist dream of a lawless society has led only to gross inequality and class-oriented genocidal policies. In fact, Marxist regimes have been far more efficient in the art of killing millions of individuals than in the art of producing any concrete or perceived form of social justice.

But it appears that Marxism is still very much alive, and that it has deeply influenced a direct line of contemporary legal thinkers, who have adopted some of its ideas or picked up some aspects of this radical theory. Indeed, Marxist theory overlaps with much of the current work within critical theories of law, such as radical feminism and race legal theory.58 This may be regarded as a dangerous development, since history empirically demonstratesrather conclusivelythat whenever Marxist legal theory is applied, at least two of its most dreadful characteristics invariably appear, namely, judicial partiality and political arbitrariness.

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Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog was routed in the first round of the Labor Party leadership election Tuesday, as the political movement that led the country for years continues its struggle to regain relevance.

The primary election was won by Amir Peretz, a former Labor chairman and defense minister, with 33% of the vote. Avi Gabbay, a newcomer who defected from a center right party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus coalition, finished second with 27%. Peretz and Gabbay face a runoff vote July 10 to determine who becomes the new party chairman and opposition leader.

Herzog finished a distant third with 17% of the vote.

Though the party currently leads the opposition bloc in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, Labor is struggling with a dormant peace process, an electorate that has shifted to the right in recent years, and a seeming lack of a charismatic political leader to reinvigorate the party base and attract new supporters.

Television news opinion polls in the spring suggested the party would lose half of its seats in the current parliament, and finish in fourth or fifth place, reflecting Herzogs lackluster appeal.

The success of Peretz and Gabbay, both of whom have Moroccan roots, raises the possibility that they will be able to boost the partys appeal among Israels Middle Eastern Jewish population, which resents Labor as a party of secular European elites and prefers Netanyahus Likud party.

Stringer / Associated Press

A 2006 file photo of Amir Peretz, then Israel's defense minister.

A 2006 file photo of Amir Peretz, then Israel's defense minister. (Stringer / Associated Press)

We are not a closed club, Gabbay told supporters after the results were announced.

Ever since the Camp David peace negotiations in 2000 collapsed and gave way to a Palestinian uprising, leading to the collapse of the last Labor-led government, the party has struggled to articulate a new vision for Israels national security and peace diplomacy, analysts say.

Waves of conflict with Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian lone wolf attackers, along with regional instability, have shaken Israeli optimism about a peace deal and strengthened right wing parties in the parliament. Meanwhile, Labor voters have sacked seven party chairmen since 2001.

As hopes for a peace deal with Palestinians have dimmed, the party has shifted focus in recent elections to socio-economic issues, hoping to strike a chord with the Israeli middle and working class voters squeezed by surging housing costs.

But when voters go to the polls, its usually issues of peace and security that dominate, said Nimrod Novik, a former advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

With the collapse of the peace process, years ago, Labor lost its primary banner, Novik said. Labor has lost its security credentials in the public mind because its leaders didnt convey the same security authority as Netanyahu.

Years of joining right wing-dominated governments or flirting with joining have muddied Labors image. After Herzog vowed that he wouldnt join a coalition with Netanyahu after the election, the Israeli media revealed that he secretly discussed with Netanyahu a unity coalition government that would promote a new peace process with the Palestinians.

The problem nowadays is that Labor talks big about opposition but its not clear to Israelis what that means, said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli American public opinion expert and former campaign advisor to Labor.

Lacking any specific policy or clear ideological identity, Labor is simplistically branded leftist or old by most Israelis and dismissed, Scheindlin said.

Israelis know Labor as the descendant of Mapai, the party led by the countrys first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion. Labor is also known as the party of former Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, who concluded peace treaties with the Palestinians and Jordan.

Labor used to win significant support from diverse constituencies such as Israels Arab minority and working-class Middle Eastern Jews, and Orthodox Jews, but in recent years has shrunk to a party of secular elites of European descent, said Daniel Ben Simon, a former Labor parliament member and journalist.

Peretz is a former labor union leader who led Labor to a second place finish in the 2006 election. Peretz lost the party leadership due to disappointment with his role as defense minister during Israels inconclusive war with Hezbollah in the same year.

Before joining Labor less than a year ago, Gabbay, a former telecommunications executive, ran for parliament with the center-right Kulanu party in the 2015 election, and served as environment minister in Netanyahus government.

But despite the prospect of a fresh start with a new leader, party members at a polling station in Tel Aviv said few of the candidates seemed to inspire much excitement.

We havent succeeded in choosing a candidate who can sway the masses. We havent found a candidate that is both a security hawk, charismatic and knows how to communicate, said Keren Pesah, a 43-year-old lawyer. Though she voted for Gabbay, she admitted he doesnt seem [charismatic] either.

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Israel's Labor Party ousts chairman in leadership vote as it struggles to challenge Netanyahu - Los Angeles Times

By ZINE GEORGE and ZINGISA MVUMVU

ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe says regime-change attempts to topple the ANC government from power are not mythical but a reality instigated by western powers.

Mantashe was speaking to the Daily Dispatch on the sidelines of the ANC National Policy Conference currently underway in Nasrec.

According to him, the #FeesMustFall movement and Marikana unrest were but some of the signs pointing at regime change attempts to collapse a legitimate political authority in South Africa.

The former General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said the regome change agitators did not have to bomb the country for their agenda to be seen since they have now resorted to what he terms colour revolution.

Said Mantashe: Regime change is a widespread practise by western powers of removing legitimate political authority and replace it with a puppet political authority. So it is not a mythical concept then we say the method that is widely used is colour revolution which is the soft option of regime change because they do not go the hard route of bombing.

Were Marikana and Fees Must Fall concerns not genuine issues of students and mineworkers due to their socio-economic circumstances?

Mantashe said regime change agents in nature take advantage of valid existing concerns, adding that there will always be issues.

You pick up genuine problems and agitate for discontent by citizens. That discontent starts as protests, then it becomes a revolt and once it becomes a revolt it sweeps aside the (the governing) regime, charged Mantashe.

Mantashe believes there is no winning against regime change agitators even if government were to meet the demands of Fees Must Fall and mineworkers.

Once you meet that demand a new demand is generated to sustain the revolt, said Mantashe.

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Regime change concept not mythical: Mantashe - Daily dispatch

The world breathed a collective, but tentative sigh of relief this week as news from Iraq and Syria indicated that the terrorist group Daesh could be near collapse.

This most despicable of terrorist groups has been on the retreat in Mosul its biggest prize in Iraq as the Iraqi government continued a weeks-long offensive against it.

Daeshs supposed capital in Syria, Raqqa, has also been encircled by various forces.

This development should not come as a surprise to anyone. Daesh has brought nothing but death, destruction and misery to the peoples of Iraq and Syria. And while we should all rejoice in what seems like the inevitable defeat of Daesh as a physical entity, we must recognize that humanity will continue to grapple with the groups mindset and its many different manifestations for some time to come.

It is incumbent on all nations currently seeking to defeat Daesh militarily to redouble their efforts to address the root causes that led to the rise of the terror group and which account for radicalization.

Just as importantly, nations and peace-loving people around the world must do their part to counter narratives that seek to foment fear, hatred and division whether they are propagated by Muslims, Christians, Jews or any other group. The future peace and prosperity of mankind depends on exposing extremists of every strand.

Scholars studying the root causes of terrorism have long reached a consensus that radicalization is a complex and often lengthy process that entails a confluence of factors.

Contrary to casual observers who believe that ideology alone explains radicalization, multiple studies suggest that ideology is only one factor and often a small one on the road to radicalization. Political, ethnic and socio-economic factors all play a role.

That means that the international community must come to terms with some of the underlying causes that make youths susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations.

Political marginalization, impediments to social integration and economic deprivation are vexing issues that nations have to address to ensure that their youths do not become easy prey for terrorists.

We must recognize that humanity will continue to grapple with the terror groups mindset and its many different manifestations for some time to come.

Fahad Nazer

At the same time, the international community must also find solutions to a number of civil wars that have been raging for years and which have become a destination for militant foreign fighters from around the world, especially Syria.

I have repeatedly argued that while Daesh might have its roots in the war in Iraq, it is the brutality of the Assad regime in Syria that enabled it to grow like a malignant tumor and to become the destination of foreign fighters from all around the world.

Just as importantly, nations must be weary of voices that seek to spread hatred, fear and division. These forces are at play in the Islamic world, in the West and elsewhere. These voices of division help sustain the Daesh mindset, which views any person who does not adhere to its dark worldview as a mortal enemy that must be destroyed.

This mindset is not endemic to the Islamic world, as some maintain. Those who maintain that the Islamic world is under siege by the West and must be defended abet Daesh directly by lending credence to its false narrative. Those who argue that the West is under attack by Muslims likewise help Daesh by making Muslims in the West feel alienated and more susceptible to recruitment.

In recent weeks, this incitement in the West has also led to numerous deadly attacks against Muslims in Britain, Canada and the US.

Any reasonable person with a rudimentary understanding of history must acknowledge that terrorism and violence are not endemic to a particular religion, ethnicity or nationality. Those who believe otherwise are part of the problem, not the solution.

What the world is facing today is not a clash of civilizations but a clash of narratives. It is between two diametrically opposed views. One stresses what civilizations, nations and human beings have in common.

The other stresses our differences. Fortunately, the voices calling for peaceful coexistence, cooperation and even integration vastly outnumber those who view conflict, war, competition and disintegration as inevitable.

Daesh as a physical entity was bound to perish because its cult of death and destruction offered people no hope. Those adhering to its hateful mindset likewise have nothing to offer but fear. Time will prove that they too, were on the wrong side of history.

Fahad Nazer is an international affairs fellow with the National Council on US-Arab Relations. He is also a consultant to the Saudi embassy in Washington, but does not represent it or speak on its behalf. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN, The Hill and Newsweek, among others.

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Is this the end of Daesh? | Arab News - Arab News

New Delhi: The road ministry has completed safety audit of 1.6 lakh bridges in the country and found 147 structures in dilapidated condition.

The ministry launched the Integrated Bridge Management System (IBMS) to create data of all bridges and culverts in the country as part of steps to avert mishaps. "IBMS has completed the first phase of inventory and inspection of all types of bridges, which comes to 1,60,186. Of these, 147 bridges were found to be dilapidated and calls for immediate attention," Gadkari, the Union road transport and highways minister, said.

File image of Nitin Gadkari. PTI

He said 23 such structures were found to be of over 100 years of age. Gadkari said new technologies for monitoring of bridges in real time like nano, laser and sensor were being introduced, while radars, infra ray drones, etc. will be used for their inspection. The IBMS was launched late last year at an estimated cost of Rs 300 crore.

Before IBMS there was no system to map the bridges, many of which were constructed during the British era and were on the verge of collapse. "As of date, IBMS has a database of about 1.6 lakh structures, including 1.2 lakh culverts, and are being categorised under different categories. The system, which is an initiative under 'Make in India' drive, will have the minutest details to address all safety and security concerns," he said, after having chaired a meeting of IBMS on 30 June.

The three-year project is being implemented in 18 packages. The system has data like national identity number, longitude and latitude details, classifications and socio-economic details of the area, among others. The need for this system was triggered as the country did not have any such data, while companies like BHEL had to shell out as high as Rs 50 lakh fee to get the data, whether the bridge was compatible for its machines or not for crossing it.

In addition to the structural rating, the bridges are also being assigned socio-economic bridge rating number, which will decide the importance of the structure in relation to its contribution to daily socio-economic activity of the area.

During inventory creation each bridge is assigned a unique identification number or national identity number based on the state, RTO zone and whether it is situated on an national orstate highway, or is a district road.

The minister said that the system is such that precise location of the bridge in terms of latitude-longitude is collected through GPS and based on this, it is assigned a bridge location number. Thereafter, engineering characteristics like the design, materials, type of bridge, its age, loading, traffic lane, length, width of carriage way etc are collected and are used to assign a bridge classification number to the structure. These are then used to do a structural rating on a scale of 0 to 9, and each bridge is given a structural rating number.

The rating is done for each component of the structure like integral and non-integral deck, superstructure, substructure, bank and channel, structural evaluation, deck geometry, vertical clearance, waterway efficiency, etc.

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Korean cuisine to be taught at Vietnamese University

The Korean Cultural Center will support the cost of inviting Korean lecturers and curriculum and some ingredients of dishes during the course.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on June 27 between the Korean Cultural Center, the Thang Long University, the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corp. and the local foodstuff firm K-Market.

Accordingly, Thang Long University will be the first Vietnamese university offering a Korean cuisine course. As the MoU says, this course will be taught as an optional subject for tourism students, under the guidance of Korean teachers, at the elementary level, intermediate level and advanced level.

The Korean Cultural Center will support the cost of inviting Korean lecturers and curriculum and some ingredients of dishes during the course.

The Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corp. will also partly offer free teaching materials (ingredients of dishes), organize typical Korean cooking events as well as Korean culinary promotion events. In addition, K-market will provide ingredients at preferential prices.

Mr. Lee Dae Joong - Director of the Korean Cultural Center in Vietnam hoped that this programme will provide more opportunities for people of the two countries to exchange, cooperate and develop bilateral relations.

National conference addresses child, early marriage Foreign experts and representatives from governmental agencies and local authorities gathered in Hanoi on June 29 to discuss experiences, effective strategies and interventions and policy recommendations for Vietnam in a conference to address child and early marriage.

The national conference on Preventing and ending child and early marriage: Learning from promising strategies and good practices was held by the Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and the Irish Aid.

Opening the event, Vice Chairman of CEMA Ha Hung said that underage marriage limits girls opportunities for education and leads to early pregnancy before their bodies have matured, severely affecting their mental and physical development.

Early marriage also put them at greater risk of domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence. Overall, it directly affects socio-economic development, resulting in a vicious cycle of poverty among ethnic minority groups, Hung noted, adding that it is behind the decline in quality of human resources and sustainable development of ethnic minority communities.

Shoko Ishikawa, Country Representative of UN Women in Vietnam, highlighted that the key to breaking the cycle of child and early marriage lies in empowering and investing in girls and women.

Every girl and woman at risk of or affected by child and early marriage must have access to quality services in education and training, legal and healthcare counselling, including for sexual and reproductive health, housing and others, the UN official stated.

This requires all state bodies to ensure that planning, budgeting, policymaking and monitoring reflects the needs of girls and boys, and that investment in girls empowerment is prioritised in all aspects and areas, she added.

In Vietnam, despite the Law on Marriage and Family setting the minimum legal age for marriage at 18 for women and 20 for men, 11 percent of women aged 20-49 years were married or in a union before the age of 18, most of whom come from disadvantaged regions and ethnic minority groups.

The first socio-economic survey of the countrys 53 ethnic minority groups conducted by the CEMA and the General Statistics Office in 2015 found that the prevalence of child marriage among these groups was 26.6 percent; some groups even reported rates of 50 70 percent.

During the conference, delegates discussed the main barriers to preventing and putting an end to early marriage and outlined opportunities for multi-sector cooperation in coping with the issue. They also looked into integrating child marriage interventions into Vietnams development projects and socio-economic programmes, especially those exclusively for ethnic minority areas.

Sinkhole appears in Lai Chu Province after rain At least five households in Sng Ch Hamlet, Nm Long Commune, in northern Lai Chu Province, were evacuated on Thursday after a sinkhole with area of some 600sq.m appeared nearby.

The sinkhole caused cracks to develop in their house walls.

The sinkhole may have been caused by the collapse of underground karst caves as heavy rain has poured down in the city in the last few days. Karst topography is a landscape shaped by the breakdown of layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite, by the percolation of water.

Vice chairman of the city Peoples Committee L B Anh said relevant agencies were closely monitoring the situation and taking measures to minimise the impact of the sinkhole.

Work, including filling the sinkhole, if it is possible, will be completed within 30 days if the weather is conducive, he said.

According to the committee, Nm Long Commune has karst topography, which affects a 5,000sq.m area and earlier destroyed a road leading to a school.

In the past three days, torrential rainfall has caused losses worth VN2 billion to Lai Chu City, inundated over 260 houses and led to 10 households being evacuated to avoid landslides.

HCM City: more than 35 billion VND for rural worker training Ho Chi Minh City authorities have launched a plan worth 35 billion VND ($1.54 million) to provide vocational training to 12,000 rural workers in 2017.

Courses under three months will be provided to 11,300 rural workers, disabled and poor people. Of which, about 8,000 people will be trained in non-agricultural sectors. Meanwhile, 700 labourers will attend college and vocational schools.

The city aims to have more than 80 percent of trainees employed after trainings. It will support the procurement of equipment for four public vocational training facilities in Binh Chanh, Can Gio, Cu Chi and Hoc Mon districts.

Le Thanh Liem, Vice Standing Chairman of the HCM City Peoples Committee said the plan aims to enhance vocational training in the city and generate jobs for rural labourers, especially poor and near poor households, disabled and ethnic minority people.

The city will also review rural workers demand for vocational training in line with its agriculture restructuring and economic transition, he added.

HCM City has recently focused on sustainable and hi-tech urban agriculture in combination with tourism development, along with the supporting industry.

Documentary on Vietnamese AO victim screened at US Senate

A 35-minute documentary about a Vietnamese teenage victim of Agent Orange (AO) was screened at the US Senate headquarters in Washington DC on June 28.

The event was held by the War Legacies Project (WLP), US Senate and the Vietnamese Embassy in the US.

Senator Patrick Leahy affirmed he will continue to endorse two countries relations, including cooperation to recover war and AO consequences in Vietnam. By mobilising support from the US Senate, he hoped Vietnamese AO victims will receive more attention from the US public.

For his part, Vietnamese Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh thanked Leahy and his colleagues for backing Vietnam and helping Vietnamese war victims.

He also expressed his gratitude to the director, Courtney Marsh, for spending eight years making such a touching documentary, which was nominated for the 88th edition of the Oscars in the short documentary category.

The film conveys a humanitarian message and calls for the US and international organisations to offer more assistances to Vietnamese AO victims, Vinh said.

Meanwhile, Marsh said that the her documentary project was extended from one week to eight years, filming Vietnamese teenagers who were born with birth defects due to Agent Orange.

She pledged to call for further support for the victims and hoped to return to Vietnam soon. Chau, beyond the lines focuses on the life of Le Minh Chau, an AO victim. It depicts the teenagers struggle in realising his dream to become a professional artist and clothing designer.

Despite being told that his ambitions were unrealistic, Chau was determined to live an independent and productive life.

Nine years ago, Marsh, who was in her final year at university, arrived in Vietnam to make a documentary about street children in Ho Chi Minh City. Later, she was introduced to the Peace Village where AO victims being cared for. After that she decided to change the topic of her documentary.

Chau was no ordinary 15 year-old, forced to walk on his knees after being born with debilitating birth defects that resulted from the lingering effects of the herbicide that was widely used during wars in Vietnam.

Marsh found him to be extraordinary, specifically his persistence in his desire to become an artist.

One quarter of HCMC families yet to own private houses More than 476,000 out of some two million families in HCMC own no private houses, accounting for nearly 24% of the total.

These include 300,000 families as migrants from other provinces, 156,000 low-income families affected by urban development projects, and 20,000 families of State employees.

According to a report of the HCMC Department of Construction, the city has approved 56 social housing projects with a total of 48,000 apartments from 2006 to 2016. Social housing refers to low-cost condos partially subsidized by the Government.

However, only 14 social housing projects with some 5,100 apartments have been completed, including six projects funded by the State budget and eight others financed by private sources.

The department said that an additional 12 social housing projects will be implemented in 2017 with about 9,500 apartments, plus 16 projects with 28,500 apartments to be developed in 2018-2020. These projects will use both State and private funds.

In the past five years, preferential policies and a home credit package worth VND30 trillion (US$1.32 billion) have been provided to support enterprises to build social houses. However, the huge demand for housing in the city has not been satisfied.

The construction agency pointed out many problems hindering social housing development, such as the limited number of social housing types, the shortage of resources, late payment of site clearance compensation, slow progress of many projects and complicated investment procedures.

To speed up the progress of projects, the department proposed reducing red tape to facilitate investors, raising housing development funds and offering loans to low-income residents.

Ceremony marks Vietnam-Moldova diplomatic ties

The Vietnamese Embassy in Ukraine and Moldova held a ceremony in Moldovas capital of Chisinau to mark the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Moldova (June 11, 1992-2017).

Attending the ceremony was General Secretary of Moldovas Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Anatol Vangheli, ambassadors of countries and representatives of international organisations in Chisinau as well as the Vietnamese community in the country.

Addressing the event, Vietnamese Ambassador in Ukraine and Moldova Nguyen Minh Tri said that the establishment of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Moldova 25 years ago showed the determination of leaders and people of both sides in fostering and promoting bilateral ties in all fields when Moldova became an independent country.

He expressed his hope that with joint efforts of leaders and people of both sides, the two countries will continue tapping their cooperation potential to expand and deepen bilateral collaboration.

For his part, Anatol Vangheli noted that Moldova and Vietnam have shared a long-standing friendship. Moldova recognised Vietnams market economy in 2015, while the two sides have supported each other at international forums.

He stressed that Moldova always wishes to further bolster cooperation with Vietnam, especially in education and training, economy-trade. The two sides should also coordinate with and support each other at multilateral forums.

On the occasion, Moldovas Central Post Office has announced the publication of envelops and stamp collection with Vietnam and Moldovas symbols.

Fourth bridge to Thu Thiem in the offing The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is working with HCMC, the Ministry of Transport and other relevant agencies over a project to build a fourth bridge to Thu Thiem Peninsula which will be developed into a modern financial and commercial center.

According to a document issued by the Government Office, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung has assigned the MPI to take charge of coordinating with HCMC, the Ministry of Transport and others to evaluate the project and pass it to the Prime Minister for approval.

The 2.16-kilometer bridge would connect District 2 where Thu Thiem is located and District 7, and require a total of VND5.2 trillion (US$230 million).

Last year, HCMC sought to award a no-bid contract to an investor to construct the bridge under BT (build-operate) form in which the investor would be allocated land in exchange for the bridge it builds and transfers to the city.

The bridge will connect Saigon South and Thu Thiem New Urban Area, thus reducing traffic congestion on the roads from Binh Thanh and Thu Duc districts to districts 7, 8, Binh Chanh and Nha Be as well as in the city center.

The city plans to have four bridges to Thu Thiem by 2020. Thu Thiem 1 Bridge is now in use while the second is under construction. Thu Thiem 3 and 4 and a pedestrian bridge connecting District 1 and Thu Thiem have not got off the ground.

Before work on Thu Thiem 2 Bridge began, experts said Thu Thiem 1 Bridge and Thu Thiem Tunnel were enough to ensure smooth traffic between Thu Thiem and the rest of the city, so no new bridges would be needed.

However, the HCMC Department of Transport said the city would need four bridges to Thu Thiem New Urban Area and a pedestrian bridge to facilitate movements of 120,000 future residents and about 350,000 other people who would work in Thu Thiem.

In related news, two branches of Nguyen Van Cu Bridge will be opened to traffic on July 29, said the Saigon River Tunnel Management Center, the investor of the project.

The VND168-billion project will help facilitate traffic between districts 1 and 5 and districts 4, 7 and 8. The N1 branch connecting Vo Van Kiet Avenue in Binh Chanh District and Nguyen Van Cu Bridge is 167 meters long and 6.5 meters wide while the N2 branch with a length of 142 meters will link to Vo Van Kiet Boulevard in District 1.

The two branches of Nguyen Van Cu Bridge are complete five months earlier than expected.

Nguyen Van Cu Bridge over Ben Nghe Canal links downtown HCMC and southern urban areas.

As the bridge has no exits to Vo Van Kiet Avenue, vehicles from districts 4 and 8 must pass through Tran Hung Dao-Nguyen Van Cu Intersection to enter the avenue, thus causing traffic congestion.

IBM Institute, UBIS University cooperate in management training The Institute of International Business Management (IBM Institute) and the University of Business and International Studies (UBIS University) of Switzerland have signed a cooperation agreement on leadership and management training.

IBM Institute director Pham Quang Vinh said UBIS University will transfer European training know-how to the institute and send professors to Vietnam to provide training and advice for trainees at the institute.

Local trainees can also come to UBIS campuses in more than 40 countries for study and exchange.

The cooperation will help develop human resources for HCMC and other parts of the country, especially finance and banking managers.

The two will also jointly hold seminars on business administration, strategies and leadership, training courses on finance and banking, and enterprise management training programs, Vinh added.

Established by the HCMC Association of Science for Economy and Management and the HCMC Department of Science and Technology, IBM Institute specializes in business administration, management training and technology transfer.

The institute has trained numerous leaders for domestic and international corporations and State agencies. The institute has also teamed up with foreign partners to hold short training courses on leadership and management and those at the request of businesses.

HCMC to replace old fleets by eco-friendly buses The Public Transport Management and Operation Center will replace old buses with the CNG-powered vehicles, said center deputy director Ha Le An yesterday.

To improve the vehicle quality, 26 eco-friendly vehicles will be added to replace dilapidated ones from July 1; accordingly, the center will adjust the bus fleets which have shuttled between the Western Bus Station to Ga Crossroad Station.

The new fleets will travel from 4AM to 7PM every day.

As per the municipal Department of Transport, as of the time, 173 CNG-powered bus fleets travel in the metropolis.

For next years, the program will replace 1,680 new CNG-powered buses with gradually 3,000 old ones.

The new bus fleets will run in the route from Ben Thanh Market to Cho Lon Bus Station.

Khmer people to receive more support Khmer ethnic people in southern Vietnam are set to benefit from more support in educational, training, cultural, medical and religious affairs in the future.

The Steering Committee for the Southwestern Region and the Governments Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs held a workshop in Can Tho city on June 28 to review and set plans for Khmer-related works in the southern region until 2020. The event was attended by officials of the boards of ethnic minority affairs in Soc Trang, Tra Vinh, An Giang and Kien Giang provinces, Can Tho city and Ho Chi Minh City.

Huynh Thi Somaly, an official from the Ethnic Minority Affairs Committee said there are about 1.3 million Khmer people in the south, accounting for 7 percent of the regions population.

The Party and State have issued several policies supporting the development of the ethnic group. They include Directive 68-CT/TW on works in Khmer ethnic areas issued by the Party Central Committee Secretariat in 1991, which resulted in improvements in local economic, social, security and defence issues, she noted.

However, she also admitted shortcomings such as unsustainable poverty reduction, poor cultural and communication activities in the Khmer language and difficulties in vocational training and job provision.

At the workshop, officials said Khmer-related works should focus on solutions to develop socio-economic infrastructure, improve both material and spiritual life of Khmer people and raise the quality of cultural, educational and medical activities. They need to sustainably eliminate poverty so as to reduce the Khmer household poverty rate in the south by between 50 70 percent by 2020.

They said authorities in the southern region should promote teaching and learning quality, provide incentives for Khmer students and teachers in Khmer communities and reduce or exempt tuition fees. They also need to maintain teaching of the Khmer language at schools in areas with large Khmer populations.

Vocational schools should be built across southern localities while local residents should be given financial support to enroll in vocational training.

Provinces and cities need to raise the number and quality of Khmer-language media outlets, facilitate mass cultural and sports activities in the ethnic group and protect traditional cultural values and craft villages, participants said.

Medical services and health-related communications should be expanded in Khmer communities, they noted, underlining the necessity to maintain traditional religions, restore Khmer Buddhist pagodas, visit religious dignitaries during traditional festivals and help Khmer monks study in Vietnam and overseas.-

JICA helps build circulars on water environment management Experts from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have assisted the Vietnam Environment Administration (VEA) in building circulars on water environment management in river basins.

JICA and VEA co-organised a technical consultation workshop in Hanoi on June 29 to discuss the building of circulars defining the rivers loading capacity and waste discharge quota.

Nguyen Manh Hung, Director of the Department of Waste Management and Environment Promotion, said socio-economic development activities in key economic regions and urban areas in the lower parts of big river basins or coastal estuaries have resulted in pollution and degradation of the water environment.

He cited the serious environmental contamination on rivers flowing through urban and industrial areas and craft villages in the basins of Cau, Nhue, Day and Dong Nai rivers.

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Social News 30/6 - VietNamNet Bridge