November 30, 2012
It's My 43rd Birthday And I'm Going To Disneyland! WooHoo!!! I Am So Excited, I'm Already Waiting At My Front Door With My Jacket On. Let's GO! LOL! ;)
I personally took this picture same day in 2009! ♥
November 29, 2012
ENGLAND: Now Sick Babies Go On Death Pathway: Doctor's Haunting Testimony Reveals How Children Are Put On End-Of-Life Plan! :o Socialized Government-Run Healthcare! Sounds Like The US Medicaid Program!
The National Health Service (NHS) provides the majority of healthcare in England, including primary care, in-patient care, long-term healthcare, ophthalmology and dentistry. The National Health Service Act 1946 came into effect on 5 July 1948. Private health care has continued parallel to the NHS, paid for largely by private insurance: it is used by about 8% of the population, generally as an add-on to NHS services. In the first decade of the 21st century, the private sector started to be increasingly used by the NHS to increase capacity. According to the BMA, a large proportion of the public opposed this move.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England. It is the largest and the oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world. It is able to function in the way that it does because it is primarily funded through the general taxation system, in a similar fashion to the funding model for fire departments, police departments, and primary schools. The system provides healthcare to anyone normally legally resident in England, and also any other part of the United Kingdom (should a person from another UK area be travelling in England, for example), with almost all services free at the point of use for all such people.
The idea of the NHS being free at the point of use is contained in its core principles from the original NHS set-up, which are non-negotiable at their root but have variously been open to some interpretation over the years. In practice, "free at the point of use" normally means that anyone legitimately fully registered with the system (i.e. in possession of an NHS number), including UK citizens and legal immigrants, can access the full breadth of critical and non-critical medical care without any out-of-pocket payment of any kind. Some specific NHS services do however require a financial contribution from the patient. Since 1948, patients have been charged for some services such as eye tests, dental care, prescriptions, and aspects of long-term care. However, these charges are often lower than equivalent services provided by a private health care provider.
It has been claimed that the NHS is the third or fifth largest workforce in the world, after the Chinese Army, Indian Railways and (as argued by Jon Hibbs, the NHS's head of news, in a press release from 22 March 2005) Wal-Mart and the United States Department of Defense.
The NHS also plays a unique role in the training of new doctors in England, with approximately 8000 places for student doctors each year, all of which are attached to an NHS University Hospital trust. After completing medical school, these new doctors must go on to complete a two-year foundation training programme to become fully registered with the General Medical Council. [source: wikipedia]
The Daily Mail UK
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England. It is the largest and the oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world. It is able to function in the way that it does because it is primarily funded through the general taxation system, in a similar fashion to the funding model for fire departments, police departments, and primary schools. The system provides healthcare to anyone normally legally resident in England, and also any other part of the United Kingdom (should a person from another UK area be travelling in England, for example), with almost all services free at the point of use for all such people.
The idea of the NHS being free at the point of use is contained in its core principles from the original NHS set-up, which are non-negotiable at their root but have variously been open to some interpretation over the years. In practice, "free at the point of use" normally means that anyone legitimately fully registered with the system (i.e. in possession of an NHS number), including UK citizens and legal immigrants, can access the full breadth of critical and non-critical medical care without any out-of-pocket payment of any kind. Some specific NHS services do however require a financial contribution from the patient. Since 1948, patients have been charged for some services such as eye tests, dental care, prescriptions, and aspects of long-term care. However, these charges are often lower than equivalent services provided by a private health care provider.
It has been claimed that the NHS is the third or fifth largest workforce in the world, after the Chinese Army, Indian Railways and (as argued by Jon Hibbs, the NHS's head of news, in a press release from 22 March 2005) Wal-Mart and the United States Department of Defense.
The NHS also plays a unique role in the training of new doctors in England, with approximately 8000 places for student doctors each year, all of which are attached to an NHS University Hospital trust. After completing medical school, these new doctors must go on to complete a two-year foundation training programme to become fully registered with the General Medical Council. [source: wikipedia]
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The Daily Mail UK
written by Sue Reid and Simon Caldwell
Wednesday November 28, 2012
Sick children are being discharged from NHS hospitals to die at home or in hospices on controversial ‘death pathways’.
Until now, end of life regime the Liverpool Care Pathway was thought to have involved only elderly and terminally-ill adults.
But the Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies.
One doctor has admitted starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital alone.
Writing in a leading medical journal, the physician revealed the process can take an average of ten days during which a baby becomes ‘smaller and shrunken’.
The LCP – on which 130,000 elderly and terminally-ill adult patients die each year – is now the subject of an independent inquiry ordered by ministers.
The investigation, which will include child patients, will look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions.
Medical critics of the LCP insist it is impossible to say when a patient will die and as a result the LCP death becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They say it is a form of euthanasia, used to clear hospital beds and save the NHS money.
The use of end of life care methods on disabled newborn babies was revealed in the doctors’ bible, the British Medical Journal.
Earlier this month, an un-named doctor wrote of the agony of watching the protracted deaths of babies. The doctor described one case of a baby born with ‘a lengthy list of unexpected congenital anomalies’, whose parents agreed to put it on the pathway.
The doctor wrote: ‘They wish for their child to die quickly once the feeding and fluids are stopped. They wish for pneumonia. They wish for no suffering. They wish for no visible changes to their precious baby.
‘Their wishes, however, are not consistent with my experience. Survival is often much longer than most physicians think; reflecting on my previous patients, the median time from withdrawal of hydration to death was ten days.
‘Parents and care teams are unprepared for the sometimes severe changes that they will witness in the child’s physical appearance as severe dehydration ensues.
‘I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby.’
According to the BMJ article, the doctor involved had presided over ten such deaths in just one hospital neonatal unit.
In a response to the article, Dr Laura de Rooy, a consultant neonatologist at St George’s Hospital NHS Trust in London writing on the BMJ website, said: ‘It is a huge supposition to think they do not feel hunger or thirst.’
The LCP for children has been developed in the North West, where the LCP itself was pioneered in the 1990s. It involves the discharge to home or to a hospice of children who are given a document detailing their ‘end of life’ care.
One seen by the Mail, called ‘Liverpool Pathway for the Dying Child’ is issued by the Royal Liverpool Children’s NHS Trust in conjunction with the flagship children’s hospital Alder Hey. It includes tick boxes, filled out by hospital doctors, on medicines, nutrients and fluids to be stopped.
The LCP was devised by the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute in Liverpool for care of dying adult patients more than a decade ago. It has since been developed, with paediatric staff at Alder Hey Hospital, to cover children. Parents have to agree to their child going on the death pathway, often being told by doctors it is in the child’s ‘best interests’ because their survival is ‘futile’.
Bernadette Lloyd, a hospice paediatric nurse, has written to the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health to criticise the use of death pathways for children.
She said: ‘The parents feel coerced, at a very traumatic time, into agreeing that this is correct for their child whom they are told by doctors has only has a few days to live. It is very difficult to predict death. I have seen a “reasonable” number of children recover after being taken off the pathway.
‘I have also seen children die in terrible thirst because fluids are withdrawn from them until they die.
‘I witnessed a 14 year-old boy with cancer die with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when doctors refused to give him liquids by tube. His death was agonising for him, and for us nurses to watch. This is euthanasia by the backdoor.’
Alder Hey confirmed that children and babies are discharged for LCP end of life care ‘after all possible reversible causes for the patient’s condition are considered’.
‘There is a care pathway to enable a dying child to be supported by the local medical and nursing teams in the community, in line with the wishes of the child patients, where appropriate, and always their parents or carers.’ Alder Hey said children were not put on the LCP within the hospital itself.
Teresa Lynch, of protest group Medical Ethics Alliance, said: ‘There are big questions to be answered about how our sick children are dying.’
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘End of life care for children must meet the highest professional and clinical standards, and the specific needs of children at the end of their life.
'Staff must always communicate with the patient and the patient’s family, and involve them in all aspects of decision making.’
CHINA: China Is The World's Top Importer Of Illegal Timber That Is Stripping Forests In Africa And Asia
The Malaysian Star
written by David Fogarty, Reuters
Thursday November 29, 2012
SINGAPORE - China's insatiable appetite for timber is driving a growing illegal trade that is stripping forests in Africa and Asia and fuelling conflict, underscoring the urgency for Beijing to enact laws to crack down, an environment group said on Thursday.
China is the world's top importer of illegal timber, with the trade worth about $4 billion a year, said the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
Globally, Interpol estimates total trade in illegal timber is more than $30 billion.
The EIA released its report "Appetite for Destruction: China's Trade in Illegal Timber" in Beijing to highlight what it said was China's lack of action, in contrast to major trading partners such as the United States.
"China has built a vast wood-processing industry, reliant on imports for most of its raw materials supply. It is in effect exporting deforestation," the group said in the report.
It said China's state-owned companies played a major role in securing supplies from overseas. An EIA analysis of China's trade data for 2007 showed state-owned firms imported nearly half the volume of tropical logs that year.
The EIA, drawing on its own investigations and the work of Interpol, the World Bank and others, says China's demand for timber has fuelled conflict in Myanmar, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Africa.
China's booming economy has driven demand for timber for construction.
In addition, many of its newly wealthy are splashing out on furniture, including items such as rosewood lounge sets that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, with much of the timber sourced illegally from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand or Madagascar.
In Laos, rare rosewood logs can fetch $18,000 per cubic metre and even more in neighbouring countries, says EIA. The trade is fuelling clashes between loggers and authorities.
China's rapidly growing timber imports are underpinning huge growth in exports of furniture, flooring, mouldings and paper products. Wood product exports have increased nearly seven-fold in the past decade to $34.2 billion in 2010, says EIA.
"DIRE IMPACT"
Log imports in 2000 totalled 13.6 million cubic metres worth $1.6 billion. By 2011, imports totalled 42 million cubic metres worth $8.2 billion, with Russia the top log supplier last year, the United States second and Papua New Guinea third.
"More than half of China's current supplies of raw timber material are sourced from countries with a high risk of illegal logging and poor forest governance," the group said.
By contrast, China's forest cover has increased because of tough forest protection laws and replanting programmes.
The EIA estimates China imported at least 18.5 million cubic metres of illegal logs and sawn timber in 2011, worth $3.7 billion. The group said the estimate was conservative.
"Such rampant illegal trade is having a dire impact on the forests of Asia-Pacific and local communities. In the Solomon Islands, exports to China are seven times higher than the sustainable logging rate, with forests predicted to be emptied of commercial timber by 2015," the EIA said.
In Myanmar, illegal log exports to China's Yunnan province were 500,000 cubic metres by mid-2012, the EIA said. It quoted loggers as saying mountains in Myanmar were being stripped bare. This was despite 2006 agreements between both countries to halt illegal cross-border trade.
"China has an opportunity here to seriously respond to their illegally sourced imports," Faith Doherty, head of EIA's Forests Campaign, told Reuters.
She pointed to growing global action, with the United States, European Union and Australia enacting laws to ban illegal timber imports.
AFGHANISTAN: An Afghan 15 Year-Old Girl's Throat Slit Over Refusal To Wed! :o
Hindustan Times
written by AFP staff
Thursday November 29, 2012
Two men have been arrested for slitting the throat of a 15-year-old Afghan girl after her family refused a marriage proposal, police said Thursday. The girl was carrying water from a river to her village home in northern Kunduz province on Wednesday when she was murdered, police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini told AFP.
"The two men attacked her and slit her throat with a knife," he said. "They were arrested and are in police custody."
Hussaini said one of the suspects had proposed marriage to the girl but her family had rejected the offer.
Extreme violence against women and girls remains a major problem in the conservative Muslim nation more than a decade after US-led troops brought down the notoriously brutal Taliban Islamist regime.
According to figures by British charity organisation Oxfam, 87% of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage.
Last month a 20-year-old woman was beheaded by her husband's family in the western province of Herat after she refused to become a prostitute, police said. Four people were arrested over the brutal killing.
And in September, five people were arrested over the public flogging of a 16-year-old girl for allegedly having an affair.
The girl was whipped 100 times in front of village elders and family members in central Ghazni province. Her alleged boyfriend was fined.
Unmarried girls are often confined to the home and forbidden from maintaining any contact with men outside the immediate family.
INDIA: The Government Is Planning To Start Giving Cash Directly To Its Poorest Citizens Starting In January In A Bid To Reduce Massive Corruption. The Project Would Affect At Least 720 Million People.
The Wall Street Journal
written by Rajesh Roy and Romit Guha
Wednesday November 28, 2012
India is planning to start giving cash directly to its poorest citizens starting in January, in a bid to reduce massive corruption that prevents subsidized goods and welfare benefits from reaching those who need them.
The project would affect at least 720 million people – a population almost the size of the whole of Europe – making this the world’s biggest program of giving money directly to the poor. The program is open to families who live below or just above the government-set poverty line.
The government expects to transfer up to 40,000 rupees ($720) a year to each poor household, according to a government official.
Cash handouts would replace the money the government currently spends on subsidies on goods like fuel, fertilizer and food, which would be abolished. Critics say only a fraction of subsidized goods reach the poor as corruption and bureaucratic inefficiencies lead to wastage.
Government spending on welfare programs – ranging from subsidized fertilizers to guaranteed employment for rural dwellers – will remain overall unchanged at roughly 4 trillion rupees ($71.9 billion) a year.
With elections due in 2014, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is looking for a way to make its large welfare programs more targeted. “Direct cash transfers, which are now becoming possible through the innovative use of technology and the spread of modern banking across the country, open the doors for eliminating waste, cutting down leakages and targeting beneficiaries better,” Mr. Singh said earlier this week after meeting with ministers and bureaucrats who are part of a panel set up to develop and implement the cash transfer program.
India plans to launch the ambitious program from Jan. 1, 2013, to cover 18 states by April and the whole country by December.
To start with, only subsidies and benefits related to 29 welfare programs such as scholarships and healthcare, will be covered. These will be gradually expanded to cover subsidies on food, fertilizer and cooking gas. In some cases, like subsidized cooking gas, the cash transfers intended for that purpose will only be given to households that use it.
Some development economists say giving poor people cash rather than subsidized services cuts down corruption as there’s no opportunity for bureaucrats or businessmen to pad contracts to deliver food or other services.
Because if the poor get the money directly, they can decide how best to spend it, which means its more effective than a government functionary deciding what they need. Analysts say that if the program is successful, more cash in the hands of people could lead to a higher demand for goods, thus spurring manufacturing and eventually boosting economic growth. Government officials say it shouldn’t be inflationary.
Several countries have introduced conditional cash transfers to the poor. One of the most successful cash transfer programs has been Brazil’s Bolsa Família, which has contributed significantly to the drop in poverty in the country in the 2000s. Other countries that have implemented similar schemes include the Philippines, Turkey, Chile, Mexico, Indonesia and South Africa.
A senior official from the Prime Minister’s office told India Real Time that the roll out of direct cash subsidy will not lead to any additional burden on the government’s exchequer. “We are already bearing subsidies on welfare schemes be it for food, fertilizer, education or oil. Through the new way of cash transfer, we will eliminate middlemen, check leakages and ensure the actual beneficiaries are benefited,” he said.
The cash transfer will be enabled through Aadhaar, a numerical biometric identification that is currently being given to everyone in the country. The ID plan – officially called the Unique Identity Authority of India project– will help people access services like banking and benefits. Aadhaar card holding families who qualify for the cash transfers will get funds directly into their bank accounts.
The government expects that better targeting of beneficiaries will help prevent money intended for subsidies from being wasted.
“We expect considerable savings to the exchequer with the roll out of direct cash transfer as the Aadhaar-enabled system will put to an end any duplication and falsification,” Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters Tuesday. He didn’t specify how much the government hopes to save through this program.
The country is grappling with a wide budget deficit as revenue falters amid a global and local economic slowdown but expenditure, especially on subsidies related to fuel, food and fertilizer, remain high. New Delhi aims to restrict subsidies to under 2% of the gross domestic product in the fiscal year through March, down from 2.16% in 2011-12. The government’s intention is to keep subsidies under 1.75% of GDP in the next three years.
However, possible hurdles to the success of the program could come from the lack of penetration of Aadhaar cards, bank accounts and even bank branches. An estimated 300 million people [So you have an idea of how that looks, there are 314 million people in the United States. (emphasis mine)] in the country of 1.2 billion have no official identification documents, according to UIDAI. This prevents them from opening bank accounts or getting work. Only 210 million people have Aadhaar cards, while many poor families don’t even have bank accounts. The government has plans to guarantee simple bank accounts to the poor.
INDIA: 3 More Children Die In West Bengal, Eastern Region Of India, Death Toll Rises To 27 :(
Hindustan Times
written by Staff
Wednesday November 28, 2012
Four more children died at the Malda College and Hospital, taking the total number of crib deaths since Saturday last to 27.
While three children died this morning, another died last night, hospital sources said on Wednesday.
The cause of the death was malnourishment, underweight, and premature birth, they said, adding they were admitted to the hospital in very critical condition.
Most of the children who died in the hospital were brought to the hospital from others districts like North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and also from the neighbouring state of Jharkhand in very critical condition, they said.
Another factor that worked against the children was a sudden drop of temperature in this district in north Bengal, the sources said.
The critical patients of the Paediatric department were admitted at the 22 beds of the Sick Neonatal Care Unit. The department also has 46 other beds.
SPAIN: Doctors, Patients Protest Against Spain's Socialized Public State-Run HOSPITAL Healthcare CUTS. Well, Spain IS BROKE Because Of SOCIALISM! The Party Is OVER! You've Killed The Host!
AFP
written by Staff
Wednesday November 28, 2012
MADRID — Tens of thousands of doctors and medical staff marched in Madrid on Tuesday to protest austerity cuts squeezing the health sector, many wearing their white lab coats and carrying posters with slogans like "Health cuts kill".
Some 75,000 public health professionals in the Madrid region were called to join the protest to mark the last day of a two-day strike against deep spending cuts by the crisis-hobbled national government and plans by the regional government to privatise hospitals and health centres.
"The people should not have to pay for private health care," said paediatrician Veronica Sanchez of Severo Ochoa hospital, amid a swarm of demonstrators who defied the cold to march through the capital wielding placards with messages such as "We're selling our health" and "Health should be defended, not sold".
Geriatrics specialist Fatima Branas of soon-to-be-privatised Infanta Leonor hospital said it was rare for health professionals to stage a mass protest. But she said the privatisation plans were the last straw.
"We've undergone cuts before and that hasn't made us take to the streets," she said, calling to "put the breaks" on the Madrid regional government's plans to privatise six hospitals and 27 health centres of the 270 in the region.
Madrid public health professionals plan to strike again on December 4 and 5. Specialists have been called to stage an indefinite strike.
At the national level, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government has slashed health spending by seven billion euros ($9.1 billion) a year as part of a campaign to squeeze 102 billion euros out of the crisis-racked country's budget by 2014.
AFGHANISTAN: A Scathing New IMF Report Revealed Government Officials Investigating Kabul Bank Failed To Take Legal Action Against Those Responsible For Looting It Of More Than $900 Million After 2010 Collapse. Sounds Like Obama Adminstration!
The Washington Post
written by Pamela Constable
Wednesday November 28, 2012
KABUL — A scathing new report released Wednesday details how high-level political interference and institutional failures thwarted efforts to probe the 2010 collapse of Afghanistan’s largest bank, recover hundreds of millions of dollars from fraudulent loans and prosecute the influential Afghans who profited from a massive scheme to use depositors’ money as a private piggy bank.
Without naming names, an independent anti-corruption committee of Afghan and international experts painted a damning portrait of foot-dragging, incompetence and blatant political manipulation involving virtually every agency that was supposed to either investigate why the Kabul Bank failed or take legal action against those responsible for looting it of more than $900 million. [This sounds like the Obama Adminstration! (emphasis mine)]
The report is sure to revive widespread public and international concerns about Afghanistan’s viability as a functional democracy, just as it begins to prepare for a transition to self-sufficiency with NATO forces leaving by 2014 and presidential elections scheduled for the same year.
“Kabul Bank was nothing but a fraud perpetrated against depositors, and ultimately all Afghans,” the report says. Both the flagrant crimes and the repeated failures to pursue them, it said, reflect an array of larger, worrisome problems that permeate Afghan society and institutions, including “incapacity, nepotism, entitlement and political interference.”
Two of the bank’s former top executives have been under arrest for many months, and 20 other individuals have been indicted recently in the scandal.Much has already been written about the shady practices of the former bankers, their lavish purchases and lifestyles, and their close relationships with influential Afghans, including aides and relatives of President Hamid Karzai.
Still, some of the details in the 87-page report are eye-opening as well as exotic. It describes how large quantities of bank cash were smuggled out of the country inside airline food-tray containers, how deposits were funneled to inside beneficiaries using fake bank identifier code messages and fake corporate stamps, how two sets of books were kept to keep regulators at bay, and how funds were used to pay for luxury hotel rooms, huge bonuses and other perks for bank officials.
But what is new, and especially alarming, are the highly critical descriptions of how Afghan government agencies and officials behaved long after the bank’s collapse in 2010 created a major public panic and shook international confidence in Afghanistan’s nascent postwar democratic and financial systems.
Over and over, the report says, supposedly independent bodies such as the attorney general’s office deferred to higher political wishes. Earlier this year, about 20 bank associates were indicted on charges including money laundering and using false documents or fictitious account names.
The report quotes sources as saying that a “high-level committee,” meaning a group of powerful officials, decided which former bank associates would be charged with a crime and that prosecutors were told to “construct indictments to conform to the decisions.”
Similarly, the report says, both a major government oversight panel and a special Supreme Court tribunal have taken little action in the case, while other agencies have spun their wheels investigating the whistle-blowers instead of the culprits. [Sounds like the Obama Administration! (emphasis mine)] Always, there seemed to be an underlying fear of antagonizing or crossing powerful people, the report says.
“We found that many Afghan institutions were simply hesitant to exercise their independent mandate,” said Grant McLeod, a Canadian investigator in Kabul who was one of the lead writers of the report. “This is all about blatant political influence.”
The Karzai government has not responded publicly to the report, which does not name the president directly as having exerted pressure on the bank investigations and prosecutions. But the report is bound to cause further tensions between Karzai and his international partners, who pressed him for months to accept a forensic audit of the bank and allow criminal prosecutions to move ahead.
A spokesman for the attorney general’s office, Basir Azizi, was quoted as saying, “We strongly reject any comments that the attorney general’s office dealt with this case as a political issue.”
Still, the list of individuals who were linked to the bank or financially benefitted from its fraudulent practices is extremely high-level. According to the report, about $861 million in private loans or transfers went to 19 individuals and related companies, including the bank’s former chairman, Sherkhan Farnood; a brother of the president, Mahmoud Karzai; and a brother of the first vice president, former militia leader Mohammed Fahim.
The report was conducted to meet requirements by the International Monetary Fund to gauge progress in Afghanistan’s movement to clean up the bank scandal. Foreign aid, on which the impoverished nation is heavily dependent to run its government as well as help its people, could drop if the progress is found lacking. [This is PRECISELY WHY most poor countries REMAIN POOR! The money wealthy nations send to them NEVER goes to improve the lives of their people or fix their infrastructure. The money we send these poor nations goes into the pockets of the corrupt oppressive governments, their friends and family!!! (emphasis mine)]
CUBA: In Communist Cuba, The Tax Man Cometh. Most Cubans Have Not Paid Taxes For Half A Century, That Will Change On January 1st.
The Malaysian Star
written by Marc Frank, Reuters
Wednesday November 28, 2012
HAVANA - Most Cubans have not paid taxes for half a century, but that will change under a new code starting January 1.
The landmark regulations will change the relations of Cubans with their government and are a signal that market-oriented reforms, launched since President Raul Castro succeeded his brother, Fidel Castro, in 2008, are here to stay.
The recently published code constitutes the first comprehensive taxation in Cuba since the 1959 revolution abolished just about all taxes.
In the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country's main benefactor, the Cuban government imposed a few scattered taxes, but mostly preferred to maintain low wages so it could fund free social services.
The government's free market reforms introduced over the last two years, are designed to encourage small businesses, private farming and individual initiative, along with plans to pay state workers more. Under the new tax code the state hopes to get its share of the proceeds.
The government also envisions replacing subsidies for all with targeted welfare, meaning that the largely tax-free life under a paternalistic government is on its way out.
"This radically changes the state's relationship with the population and taxes become an irritating issue," said Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban intelligence analyst who lives in Miami and writes often about Cuba.
The new code covers 19 taxes, including such things as inheritance, environment, sales, transportation and farm land, various license fees and three contributions, including social security.
A sliding scale income tax - from 15 percent for earnings of more than 10,000 pesos (about $400) annually, to 50 percent for earnings of over 50,000 pesos, (about $2,000) - adopted in 1994, remains in the new code for the self-employed, small businesses and farms, but it also includes a series of new deductions to stimulate their work.
TAX DEDUCTIONS
For example, farmers may deduct up to 70 percent of income as costs, and small businessmen, who are taxed by income not profit, up to 40 percent, plus various fees and secondary taxes they pay.
A labor tax of 20 percent will gradually be reduced to 5 percent by 2017, and small businesses with five employees or less are exempt.
Eventually all workers will pay income taxes as well as a new 2 percent property tax, but both measures are suspended until "conditions permit" them to go into effect.
The government admits, with an average pay of about 450 pesos per month, or $19, many workers do not earn enough to make ends meet.
"They collect taxes for all these things around the world, it's normal," said Havana economist Isabel Fernandez.
"But here we face two problems. On the one hand we are not used to paying for anything and on the other our wages are so low we can't spare a single peso," she said.
Under the old system, large and small state-run companies, which accounted for more than 90 percent of economic activity, simply handed over all their revenues to the government, which then allocated resources to them.
The reforms call for large state-run businesses to be moved out of the ministries and become more autonomous.
Under the new tax system they will pay a 35 percent tax on their profits, but can take advantage of a myriad of deductions ranging from amortization and travel to sales taxes, insurance and environmental protection.
Many smaller businesses will become cooperatives or be privately leased and taxed based on income.
The state-owned Cuban National News Agency said Cuba had studied the tax systems of a number of other countries, including several with capitalist economies.
"The experiences of China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Brazil, Spain and Mexico were taken into account, but they were refined to the particularities and conditions of the island," the new agency said.
The new code is not etched in stone - it can be amended each year as part of the annual budget passed by the National Assembly, and temporarily modified for different reasons by the executive branch of government.
"Like the reforms, it is a work in progress, a work that has barely begun and will take time to put in place," said a Western businessman who has worked in Cuba for almost two decades.
But, he added, "this is of course a major step forward toward the 21st century and a modern state."
CHINA: Communist China Considers Easing Family Planning Rules. Oppressive Government Considering Allowing Urban Couples To Have A Second Child.
Reuters news
written by Michael Martina and Hui Li
Wednesday November 28, 2012
BEIJING - China is considering changes to its one-child policy, a former family planning official said, with government advisory bodies drafting proposals in the face of a rapidly ageing society in the world's most populous nation.
Proposed changes would allow for urban couples to have a second child, even if one of the parents is themselves not an only child, the China Daily cited Zhang Weiqing, the former head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, as saying on Wednesday.
Under current rules, urban couples are permitted a second child if both parents do not have siblings. Looser restrictions on rural couples means many have more than one child.
Population scholars have cited mounting demographic challenges in their calls for reform of the strict policy, introduced in 1979 to limit births in China, which now has 1.34 billion people.
Zhang said the commission and other population research institutes have submitted policy recommendations to the government.
Zhang, who serves on China's congressional advisory body, said any changes if adopted would be gradual.
"China's population policy has always taken into account demographic changes but any fine-tuning to the policy should be gradual and consider the situation in different areas," China Daily cited Zhang as saying.
The relaxed policy might be implemented first in "economically productive regions" and places that have followed closely existing regulations, the paper said.
ABORTIONS, TENSION
President Hu Jintao dropped a standard reference to maintaining low birth rates in his work report to the ruling Communist Party's five-yearly congress in early November, a break which some experts see as evidence of an imminent change to the one-child policy.
Demographers warn that the policy has led to a rapidly graying population that could hamper China's economic competitiveness.
Critics say it also has fuelled forced abortions and increased social tension stemming from an imbalance in the number of boys and girls.
Though forced abortions are illegal in China, officials have long been known to compel women to have the procedures to meet birth-rate targets.
This year, debate over the country's strict family planning rules erupted after a woman in the northwestern province of Shaanxi was forced by officials to have an abortion after seven months of pregnancy.
A growing number of experts expect a change to the policy, partly because of the demographic imbalances it is causing.
And some say the policy is no longer necessary because the cost of raising children in an increasingly prosperous society is already holding down birth rates.
BANGLADESH: Police Arrested 3 Mid-Level Managers Of Factory Where 112 Died, Accused Of Locking The Factory Doors Blocking Workers From Escaping The Fire! :o
The Wall Street Journal
written by Tom Wright
Wednesday November 28, 2012
Police in Bangladesh detained three officials from a company whose apparel factory outside Dhaka was engulfed by a fire Saturday, killing at least 112 people.
Police detained the three officials from Tazreen Fashions Ltd., which makes clothes for a number of U.S. brands, on suspicion they locked the factory doors before the fire, blocking workers from escaping the blaze.
Police officers declined to name the officials but said they were midlevel managers, not the factory's owners. It was unclear if the officials had been formally charged.
On Wednesday, thousands of garment workers took to the streets in Ashulia, the industrial suburb of Dhaka where Tazreen Fashions' factory is located, to protest safety conditions police said. It was the second large protest in the area since the fire.
Workers barricaded roads and threw stones, but there were no injuries, police said.
Bangladesh is the world's second-largest producer of apparel after China. Friction between workers and factory owners over pay and safety has led to a number of strikes in Ashulia this year.
Workers' groups say more than 500 people have died in factory fires in Bangladesh in recent years and are pushing foreign brands to enter a binding agreement to set up independent factory inspections.
In the past, these workers groups have complained about managers in Bangladesh factories locking doors to prevent employees from stealing merchandise despite regulations against this.
Workers' representatives who visited the site of Tazreen Fashions' burned out eight-story factory said they found items of clothing from a number of Western brands strewed among the debris.
They included Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s WMT +1.53% Faded Glory brand and the Enyce brand, owned by U.S. rapper Sean Combs.
Tazreen Fashions, a subsidiary of Bangladesh's Tuba Group, supplies clothes for Hong Kong-based sourcing giant Li & Fung, 0494.HK +1.94% which is a buyer for retailers such as Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart said Monday the factory was no longer authorized to make clothes for the retailer, and that it had cut ties to a supplier that subcontracted with the factory without its authorization. The company declined to name the supplier.
Sears Holdings, SHLD -3.41% responding to reports that its clothing was produced at the factory, said Tuesday that it "does not source from this factory… Any merchandise found at that factory should not have been manufactured there and we are currently investigating further."
Documents posted on Tuba Group's website included a letter purporting to be from Wal-Mart's ethical-sourcing department for the U.S. and Canada informing Tazreen Fashions that a May 2011 audit had found it to be a "high-risk" factory. The letter said that two more such findings within two years would lead to Wal-Mart suspending orders from the factory for at least a year.
Wal-Mart declined to address whether it had sent the letter that was posted on the Tuba Group website.
Enyce said in statement that Enyce Kids is licensed to Li & Fung, which operates, produces and oversees all manufacturing for the brand.
November 28, 2012
MALAYSIA: Kota Baru Non-Muslim Hairdressers Are Being Hit With Fines Because Of Kelantan's Sharia Gender Segregation Rules. Woman NOT Allowed To Cut Men's Hair.
The Malaysian Star
written by Syed Azhar
Friday November 23, 2012
KOTA BARU - Hair dressing salon operators are learning the hard way that gender segregation rules in Kelantan apply to non-Muslims as well.
They have had to pay many summonses for allowing their female workers to cut the hair of non-Muslim male patrons, which they thought was permissible.
E-Life Hair Salon manager Ong Lee Ting said she had settled 11 summonses since she opened for business in KB Mall in 2010.
The fines were imposed under Section 107(2) of the Local Council Act by-laws which prohibits a woman from cutting the hair of a man and vice versa regardless of religion.
“I have been paying fines of between RM200 and RM350,” said Ong, who was issued the latest summons on Tuesday.
“I find the by-laws confusing ... they should not apply to a non-Muslim woman cutting the hair of a non-Muslim man.”
Gender segregation is among the controversial regulations imposed by the PAS state government, which insists that the rule be also observed at supermarket check-outs.
The last time Ong went to the local council office to pay a compound, she was told that the licence for the salon would be revoked because of the many summonses issued to the operator.
However, council secretary Mohd Anis Hussein said: “As long as they (the salon owners) pay the compounds, they will be allowed to operate.”
He added that the salon owners understood the by-laws and the consequences of ignoring them.
Nice Hair Salon manager Alice Ong Lee Ruong was baffled by the rule.
“I would understand it if we were fined for allowing our women workers to cut the hair of Muslim men. But they were attending to non-Muslim men,” she said.
Ong, who had settled 10 summonses so far, wondered for how long she would have to pay fines.
“They are not cheap and we have to consider the high rental, salaries of our workers and other expenses,” she said.
Another salon manager, who declined to be named, said the council by-laws were making life difficult for hair dressers.
She had been issued four summonses so far.
Kelantan MCA information chief Tan Ken Ten said the by-laws were “not friendly” to non-Muslim business circles.
“The council, in its zest to implement Islamic principles in its by-laws, has caused hardship to the non-Muslim business community,” he added.
National PAS Supporters Congress chairman Hu Pang Chaw agreed that the by-laws should not apply to non-Muslim women cutting the hair of non-Muslim men.
He urged the council to review the ruling.
PAKISTAN: ALL Citizens Required To Register For ID Cards In Order To Remove Ghost Voters And Assist In Providing Cash Payment Aid For The Poor And Displaced.
Reuters news
written by Katharine Houreld
Friday November 23, 2012
ISLAMABAD - Elderly men wait patiently, carefully combing their hennaed beards, while a guitar-playing student entertains the long queue of Pakistanis lined-up to be photographed, fingerprinted and questioned inside a crowded office in the capital Islamabad.
This is the unlikely setting for possibly one of Pakistan's few success stories - a massive increase in citizens signing up for government identity cards.
Such things rarely top the agenda of a deeply unpopular government, crippled by daily power cuts, a Taliban insurgency and massive corruption.
But bureaucrats say the successful ID registration has dramatically cut the number of ghost voters and is assisting in the distribution of cash payments for the poor and displaced.
"The database has brought a lot of transparency. We signed up so many people," said Tariq Malik, the 44-year-old chairman of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).
During elections five years ago, less than half of Pakistani adults had a government-issued ID. Now 91 percent have the plastic green cards, said Malik, who previously worked as a county technology officer in Michigan in the United States.
It is hard to verify such a high rate of registration as Pakistan's census data is many years out of date.
Malik said registration spiked after the cards were required for poor Pakistanis to qualify for cash payments from the government.
However, some families, while grateful for the cash, say the flow of aid is sporadic.
"One year ago when I received a card, I got 2,000 rupees. They come after every two to three months and give a little bit of money. Now they come only after six to seven months and only give 3,000 rupees," said Hanifa Meer Beher, 6o, who lives in Karachi's coastal belt Kaka-pir village.
"This money is not enough and it has not made my life any better. I am a poor woman. Whenever I receive this money, I buy a little bit of flour, rice...I am grateful that I am getting something."
International donors like the World Bank, who are using the ID database for cash distributions, say they are happy with the system.
The bank helps fund a programme where around 5.5 million poor families who have registered with NADRA get $10 a month.
"More countries are using cash transfers because poor families can choose what to buy and are more likely to get the money on time than aid given in other ways," said a World Bank spokesman.
Neighbouring India helps its poor via subsidised food or fuel, but much of its aid is stolen and ends up on the black market. Recent efforts to link benefits to identity cards there have been chaotic.
GHOST VOTERS, TAX CHEATS
Pakistan's new ID registrations helped eliminate 37 million ghost voters and add around 44 million real people to electoral roles, said Malik, adding voters can now use their ID number to check their registration by text message. A date has not yet been set for the next election, due in the first half 2013.
In future, the ID database may also help in the fight against tax evasion, fraud and crime, but only if the government uses the information, say sceptics like tax expert Ikramul Haq.
In a country where less than one percent of citizens pay income tax, NADRA has identified more than 2 million rich tax cheats, Malik said.
The federal board of revenue estimates tax evasion means as much as US$50 billion is missing from the treasury, money that could be used to upgrade crumbling schools and hospitals.
But so far, Pakistan's wealthy tax cheats remain untouched, yet authorities, mindful of pressure from the International Monetary Fund, are making noises about cracking down.
"We have so many enemies. The rich, who are not accustomed to pay taxes, pension cartels, politicians who want their voters to get benefits they are not entitled to," said Malik.
Registering Pakistan's 180 million population, spread from the Indian Ocean to the Himalayas, meant sending mobile registration vans and skiers laden with bulky equipment to far-flung villages and setting up booths at fairs.
Registration drives were carried out at camps for displaced families who fled fighting along the dangerous mountain regions that border Afghanistan. But registration in the remote and troubled region has been lower than elsewhere.
In conservative towns where women in black or blue burqas scurry through ramshackle bazaars, women-only ID centres were established after the Taliban objected to men taking women's fingerprints.
ID CORRUPTION
Corruption is widespread in Pakistan and its ID database registration operation has not been immune. Local newspapers carry frequent complaints that NADRA staff ask for cash to help the poor or illiterate get their benefits.
Around half of the 20 people Reuters interviewed said that cards often contain deliberate errors and corrections are costly.
"My name is Ikram Khan and they mentioned in my ID card as Ikram Gul. It was their fault but they made me suffer," grumbled Khan as he waited in line in the frontier city of Peshawar.
In the ancient walled city of Lahore, housemaid Faiza Biti, 29, said she'd been trying for more than a year to change her place of residence but officials kept telling her to pay $50.
Several interviewees said Afghan refugees can get cards illegally by paying around $800. The daily wage for a labourer is about $2.
Malik admits corruption is a problem, but says he is working on eliminating it and has sacked corrupt employees. "We've already let more than 160 people go," he said.
This year, NADRA personnel had their basic pay raised to about $150 a month, a living wage in Pakistan, and wealthy citizens can now pay $10 extra for fast "executive" service, diverting pay-offs into government coffers.
Most citizens grudgingly say NADRA isn't too bad.
The real question is how the government will use its data. So far, there's little indication it will force through tough reforms, said Haq, citing the government's amnesty on tax cheats which starts this month.
Powerful politicians and businessmen continue to dodge the taxman. Police can theoretically use the database to gain information about suspects, but they often lack the training on how to take fingerprints.
Malik said it is up to the government to use NADRA's information to change Pakistan.
"Our job is to do data analysis," he said. "The rest of it is up to them."
IRAQ: Women Who Do Not Wear The Islamic Headscarf Face Rising Crackdown And Discrimination By Conservative Islam Trying To Impose Sharia On ALL WOMEN In Country.
Al Arabiya news
written by Dina Al-Shibeeb
Thursday November 22, 2012
Iraqi women who do not wear the Islamic headscarf, commonly known as the hijab, are increasingly coming under crackdown as conservative Islam gradually permeates the Iraqi political scene.
“Day after day, I am seeing more indicators that there is discrimination against women who choose not to wear hijab in Iraq,” Hanaa Edwar, General Secretary of the non-government organization, Iraqi Al-Amal Association, told Al Arabiya.
Edwar, also founder of Iraqi Women’s Network, sounded the alarm about attempts to force women to wear the hijab, especially in government offices.
Head of Iraq’s Ministry of Women, Ibtihal Kasid al-Zubaidi, ordered in January that women working in government offices dress “modestly.” Zubaidi axed tight pants, short skirts and colorful clothes.
Zubaidi, who segregated genders in her ministry, was lambasted as "anti-female" and her ministry described as an "anti-women ministry."
Edwar’s Iraqi Women Network, made up of 18 civil society organizations, protested against Zubaidi’s policy, describing it as seeking to curb women’s civil liberties.
More women are approaching Edwar to file their complaints about government institutions and even TV channels belonging to religious political which enforce strict dress code and gender segregation.
Edwar, a member of the High Preparatory Committee for National Congress of Iraq, said that there is an interference even with the way some women wear their scarves. She said, they were forced to cover their chin as well.
“There is no legal restraint over the power of a boss or a manager who thinks he or she can control how an employee should dress,” she said, adding “this has become exaggerated.”
Sexual harassment is on the list, Edwar warned, with widowed or divorced women being the number one target.
“How many high-ranking bosses have to resign because of this,” she said, in reference to CIA Director David Petraeus’s scandal that forced him to step down.
On Wednesday, Iraq’s Minister of Education, Ali Al-Adeeb warned university professors who “financially blackmailing male students and immorally harassing female students.”
The frustration over sexual harassment prompted some women to speak out during a Ministry of Interior conference last month.
“A number of women from the media came and boldly expressed their frustration in front of interior ministry officials about sexual harassment even from the highest of all ranks,” she said.
While the interior minister looked nuanced over the sexual harassment discussion, the issue had to be confronted, she added.
The rights activist expressed her woes about the lack of administrative and professional structure in Iraq, adding that corruption in all forms should be fought.
“We do not live in a real country. There is no real administration that feels responsible over the country …everyone has become a prince of his own.”
Even when finding employment, professionalism ceased to exist, with people bringing their background or tribal lineage to get a position, she said.
Iraq, which was one of the most progressive countries in the region, had the first female cabinet minister in the Arab World and women enjoyed the liberty to pursue their profession.
However, the myriad series of economic sanctions and wars have led to dismantling some of the social and cultural aspects in Iraq. Also, the advent of more Islamist political parties that are more Iran-oriented after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 led to the rise of conservatism and new customs in the country.
“In Iraq, we never had temporary marriage. This is clearly an imported phenomenon from Iran,” she said.
While in Shiite Islam, temporary marriage is allowed, it was rarely practiced nor was culturally accepted in Iraq as the conventional, permanent type of marriage was prevalent.
Other waves of conservatism in Iraq included the ministry of education banning music and arts in late 2010. The ban was lifted in Jan. 2011 as a more liberal new education minister took office.
Late September, human rights groups in Iraq voiced frustration at a wave of assaults on nightclubs and other alcohol-serving places.
SAUDI ARABIA: Women In Saudi Arabia Now Monitored By An Electronic System That Tracks Their Cross-Border Movements :o
The Daily Star Lebanon
written by Assaad Abboud
Thursday November 22, 2012
RIYADH - Denied the right to travel without consent from their male guardians and banned from driving, women in Saudi Arabia are now monitored by an electronic system that tracks any cross-border movements.
Since last week, Saudi women's male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together.
Manal al-Sherif, who became the symbol of a campaign launched last year urging Saudi women to defy a driving ban, began spreading the information on Twitter, after she was alerted by a couple.
The husband, who was travelling with his wife, received a text message from the immigration authorities informing him that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh.
"The authorities are using technology to monitor women," said columnist Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the "state of slavery under which women are held" in the ultra-conservative kingdom.
Women are not allowed to leave the kingdom without permission from their male guardian, who must give his consent by signing what is known as the "yellow sheet" at the airport or border.
The move by the Saudi authorities was swiftly condemned on social network Twitter -- a rare bubble of freedom for millions in the kingdom -- with critics mocking the decision.
"Hello Taliban, herewith some tips from the Saudi e-government!" read one post.
"Why don't you cuff your women with tracking ankle bracelets too?" wrote Israa.
"Why don't we just install a microchip into our women to track them around?" joked another.
"If I need an SMS to let me know my wife is leaving Saudi Arabia, then I'm either married to the wrong woman or need a psychiatrist," tweeted Hisham.
-- 'Technology serving backwardness' --
"This is technology used to serve backwardness in order to keep women imprisoned," said Bishr, the columnist.
"It would have been better for the government to busy itself with finding a solution for women subjected to domestic violence" than track their movements into and out of the country.
Saudi Arabia applies a strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, and is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive.
In June 2011, female activists launched a campaign to defy the ban, with many arrested for doing so and forced to sign a pledge they will never drive again.
No law specifically forbids women in Saudi Arabia from driving, but the interior minister formally banned them after 47 women were arrested and punished after demonstrating in cars in November 1990.
Last year, King Abdullah -- a cautious reformer -- granted women the right to vote and run in the 2015 municipal elections, a historic first for the country.
In January, the 89-year-old monarch appointed Sheikh Abdullatif Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh, a moderate, to head the notorious religious police commission, which enforces the kingdom's severe version of sharia law.
Following his appointment, Sheikh banned members of the commission from harassing Saudi women over their behaviour and attire, raising hopes a more lenient force will ease draconian social constraints in the country.
But the kingdom's "religious establishment" is still to blame for the discrimination of women in Saudi Arabia, says liberal activist Suad Shemmari.
"Saudi women are treated as minors throughout their lives even if they hold high positions," said Shemmari, who believes "there can never be reform in the kingdom without changing the status of women and treating them" as equals to men.
But that seems a very long way off.
The kingdom enforces strict rules governing mixing between the sexes, while women are forced to wear a veil and a black cloak, or abaya, that covers them from head to toe except for their hands and faces.
The many restrictions on women have led to high rates of female unemployment, officially estimated at around 30 percent.
In October, local media published a justice ministry directive allowing all women lawyers who have a law degree and who have spent at least three years working in a lawyer's office to plead cases in court.
But the ruling, which was to take effect this month, has not been implemented.
USA: Oceanside Man Pleads Not Guilty To Killing, ‘Cooking’ Wife :o
CBS news LA
written by AP staff
Wednesday November 21, 2012
VISTA — A 68-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife after police found her severed head and her body parts cooking at their Oceanside home.
U-T San Diego reports Frederick Hengl looked frail as he entered his plea Wednesday.
Police say they responded to neighbors’ complaints about a foul odor coming from the couple’s home Friday morning.
The first officer entered the home through a window and saw three pans of “meat” cooking on the stove that actually were parts of the victim, 73-year-old Anna Faris. Her head was in the freezer.
Deputy District Attorney Katherine Flaherty says there is no evidence of cannibalism at this time.
Hengl faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of all charges. He remains jailed on $5 million bail.
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