Violent unrest continues in Ethiopia’s Oromiya region, a year and a half after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office. Since the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a separatist rebel group, broke its ceasefire with the Ethiopian government in 2018, ethnic militias have proliferated in Oromiya and the wider country, sparking the displacement and deaths of thousands of people. The violence shows the challenges of trying to achieve democratic reform in a country with a complex ethnic and religious history. Oromo nationalists make up around a third of Ethiopia’s population and fought for autonomy throughout the 20th century. New York Times journalist Declan Walsh’s report draws on interviews with locals, rebels, and government officials in Oromiya, to describe how the ambitions of rival factions within Oromo have fuelled the violence. However, the lack of ethnic cooperation has also undermined efforts on the part of Ahmed’s administration to find peace. The PM has struggled to balance the demands of the independent federal state with the interests of opposition groups while trying to pull the country from chaotic and repressive governance.
The UK is imposing the largest tax hike since the 1970s with the government's decision to freeze personal tax thresholds for the next five years, thereby dragging millions of middle-income earners into the 40% tax bracket. Sunak and Hunt have locked the starting and higher-rate thresholds at £12,570 and £50,270 respectively until 2028. As such, the share of adults paying tax at 40% will soar to 14% over the next five years, according to an Institute of Fiscal Studies report released last week. The extended threshold freeze will raise £26bn a year, equivalent to hiking the basic rate of income tax from 20p to 24p in the pound. However, this extended threshold freeze will severely hinder economic growth, and few policies are more likely to discourage investment than hiking corporation tax from 19% to 25%, which will cost the Treasury money, not raise revenue.
Sask. has worst child-care deserts in Canada: report
CBC
23-05-21 10:00
Child care deserts have plagued the Saskatchewan province for years, with 92% of Saskatchewan children not attending kindergarten living in a postal code area where over three kids contend for each licensed child-care place. The recent implementation of $10-a-day child care has helped reduce the costs of child care, but the CCPA report warns that a lack of available spaces impedes any significant improvements. Saskatchewan has the worst child-care deserts in Canada, with 10% of children living in locations with severe shortages.
Saskatoon came last with regards to coverage rates for children not enrolled in kindergarten among Canadian cities, while Regina came third-last; the situation in rural Saskatchewan is even worse, economists say. The Saskatchewan government has announced wage enhancements for early childhood educators in the past two years. However, rural child-care workers have stated that some do not receive the enhancements due to their education levels, with many receiving low rates of pay compared to other jobs in the region. Nonetheless, the government said it is developing a long-term strategy for the early childhood sector that will ensure educators receive competitive wages.
Swinburne University in Melbourne is facing calls to reconsider the closure of its horticulture program, which has been operating for 35 years and has over 500 students. A request by the Office of TAFE Co-ordination and Delivery urged the university to keep the program, but it said the decision was made “after assessing the courses delivered against Swinburne’s strategic priorities, the demand for skills and commercial viability”. Horticulture courses are among those available free to students under the Australian state of Victoria's free TAFE policy, but funding cuts have led to fears about the future of vocational education and training.
Several readers have written to The Sydney Morning Herald expressing horror and outrage at the Tasering of a 95-year-old dementia patient in a nursing home by New South Wales Police, and highlighting the need for proper training of care home staff in responding to challenging behaviour, alongside adequate staffing, to avoid the need for police intervention. One reader warned of the risks of providing weapons to young men in authority positions, as they are more likely to want to use them.
Another article referred to the resignation of journalist Stan Grant from ABC’s Q+A after racial abuse online.”Criticism of the ABC and Grant’s hijacking of the event is justified. Any criticism based on race is not and is to be condemned” wrote the Chairman of the Australian Monarchist League Campaign, noting that the event had received over 1,000 complaints.
In a third article, the need for more proactive policies to address Australia’s affordable housing crisis was highlighted, with several proposals outlined, including government intervention and the termination of policies which have limited the supply of affordable housing by perpetuating the idea of a housing market.
Recruiting skilled workers in Hong Kong has become a huge challenge for businesses and organisations who are now faced with increased turnover rates of 20%. Though the focus has been on increasing salaries to attract the talent required, the CEO of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, George Leung Siu-kay, has asked the government to incentivise foreign talent and streamline the application process for the existing talent schemes, arguing this can drive Hong Kong’s economic transformation amidst an evolving geopolitical environment.
The Sydney Opera House has conducted its first review of the number, frequency and duration of projections on its sails. It comes after a record number were lit in 2022. About three-quarters of the 19 projections were government requests. The shells have come to be regularly lit for reasons of national days of significance, international festivals and in Australia’s soft diplomatic interests. The review's findings will now be considered by the Arts Minister. The Opera House currently allows for projections for artistic, cultural and community initiatives, with no commercial logos or corporate identities allowed.
Greek citizens are heading to the polls today in the first election since their country's economy stopped being monitored by international lenders after nearly a decade of financial crisis. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is Harvard-educated and a former banking executive, faces off against 48-year-old Alexis Tsipras, leader of the left-wing Syriza party who served as prime minister during Greece's tumultuous years of financial crisis. Polls suggest that Mitsotakis has a double-digit lead over Tsipras. However, the newly introduced proportional representation system will make it difficult for either candidate to obtain enough seats in Greece's 300-member parliament to hold a majority. If a coalition fails to be formed, a second election is likely to be held in July under a new electoral law, which would make it easier for a winning party to form a government. The winner of today's election will have three days to negotiate a coalition with other parties.
Market concerns over the debt ceiling standoff in the US are fading amid signs of progress in resolving the issue; analysts say that high inflation is a greater risk to investors than the remote risk of a US default; however, they add that high public debt remains a challenge for the largest economy in the world. US President Joe Biden plans to visit Australia instead of involving himself in addressing the debt crisis. Economists estimate default odds at around 1-10%, with catastrophic implications if it occurs, while markets would freak out, causing US bond yields to rise markedly.
The UK government's lack of understanding of housing market economics and cynical attempts to gain voters has led to policy failures and continued crisis. Help to Buy pushed up house prices and ownership is not a viable option for everyone. Doing nothing to increase housing supply and continued high demand will see real rents and house prices continue to rise. Labour has backed building on green belt land and last-time buyers could be offered stamp duty waivers to incentivise downsizing instead of trying to search for last-time accommodation in the current market.
New South Wales (NSW) government is set to scrap its short-lived optional land tax for first home buyers. The government will seek to convince the expanded crossbench to support its promised stamp duty exemptions while repealing one of former Coalition premier Dominic Perrottet's key legislative achievements. The new scheme will mean stamp duty exemptions for first home buyers will be lifted from AUD 650,000 ($469,000) to AUD 800,000 and stamp duty concessions from AUD 800,000 to AUD 1,000,000. The policy introduced an optional annual land tax on homes valued up to AUD 1.5m, which has proven more popular with voters compared to first envisioned by the former government.
The UK’s opposition Labour party could use stronger regulations to encourage better diets, according to the party’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting. While Streeting said he did not wish to ban products, he suggested the government needed to have increased expectations of the level of responsibility taken by food and drink companies in promoting “better choices”. Streeting said that measures including minimum pricing for alcohol and a ban on junk food advertising aimed at children by 2025 remained under consideration. He also promised stronger controls on smoking and vaping suppliers active in the children’s market.
The Online Safety Bill currently being debated in the UK would lead to government-mandated mass surveillance of the country’s smartphones, with opaque databases and potential flaws that could be exploited by hostile states and hackers, warns Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation. As written, the legislation would nullify end-to-end encryption that protects users from cyber criminals and repressive regimes. Whittaker urges the British parliament to consider other measures to protect vulnerable internet users, rather than stripping the public of fundamental privacy rights. The original objective of the bill was to protect children online.
The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) has warned that Brexit border checks will impact the UK's gardening industry, raising costs for businesses and reducing consumer choice. Plants have been subject to biosecurity checks since January to prevent the spread of pests, but the controls will move to border control points from January 2022. "The government’s draft border plan would heap unwanted costs on to plant nurseries, most of which were small businesses," said HTA Chair James Barnes. Plant imports accounted for more than half of the onion sector for flowers, seeds, trees and bulbs last year, worth £1.5bn.
US-based semiconductor company Cadence has agreed to buy UK microchip design firm Pulsic at an undisclosed price. The move comes months after the UK government blocked a bid for the British company by Chinese firm Super Orange HK Holding on national security grounds. Cadence creates electronic design automation software used to manufacture microchips. Such software has been a battleground in the US-Chinese trade war and the US has imposed export restrictions on advanced EDA tools that may impact Cadence’s business with Chinese companies.
Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pledged to back the recovery of areas in northern Italy damaged by recent floods which are estimated to have cause damage costing billions of euros and left 14 people dead. Speaking after touring areas around the city of Ravenna, Meloni, who left the G7 summit early to visit affected areas, stated that she would find the resources needed to aid recovery efforts and may call upon the European Union's Solidarity Fund. Agricultural regions, including fruit producers, have also been badly affected.
Sinn Fein, which wants Northern Ireland to unify with the Republic of Ireland, has made significant gains in Northern Ireland's local elections and repeated the success it achieved in last year's assembly elections. It is now the largest party in Northern Ireland, taking 144 of 462 local government seats, up from 105 in the previous election. The Democratic Unionist Party won 122 seats, while the centrist Alliance Party secured 67. Northern Ireland's power-sharing government, established under 1998's Good Friday peace accord, has been stalled for over a year. The DUP left the government in protest at a post-Brexit customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Sinn Fein's Vice President Michelle O'Neill said her party's success was a mandate for Northern Ireland's government to get "back to business".
Northern Irish politics has been mired in gridlock over the issue of customs checkpoints. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a border with an EU member state, and the decision to impose new trade arrangements on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK angered the DUP, which maintained that it undermined Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom. A deal was reached in February 2022, known as the Windsor Framework, to ease customs checks and other hurdles for goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
The DUP refused to accept the deal and remains outside of the power-sharing government. Sinn Fein won the largest number of seats in Northern Ireland’s assembly in May 2022, beating the DUP for the first time and signalling voter frustration at the failure of political leaders to end the political gridlock. The gains of Sinn Fein will be a new challenge for the UK government, which has been criticised for its lack of attention to Northern Ireland.
The United Kingdom Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has been accused of attempting to organise a private driving awareness course to avoid receiving penalty points on her licence after being caught speeding last year. Braverman, who is also responsible for policing, is expected to be questioned about the matter in parliament on 7 June. She has denied the allegations. Opposition politicians have argued that her actions violated the ministerial code. The Prime Minister’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, is expected to offer advice on the matter. The accusations have come amid a battle over Braverman’s efforts to curb national net migration, which is due to be published on Thursday and is expected to show record high numbers.
The UK government has indicated that a planned law designed to ensure the appearance in court of killers receiving sentences is at risk of being dropped due to comments made by Chancellor Rishi Sunak. The plan followed several cases in which offenders declined to appear in court for their sentencing, provoking public outrage. Dominic Raab, then Justice Secretary, vowed to act following such cases as the murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, but resigned following a bullying inquiry. Sunak failed to commit to the law prior to the next general election, due in 2024.
The Conservative Party has received its largest donation for more than 20 years from Egyptian-born billionaire Mohamed Mansour. The £5m gift reversed a drop in donations following Boris Johnson’s exit from the prime ministerial post and defections to Labour by previous conservative donors. Mansour highlighted his faith in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s ability to foster economic growth as a key reason for his gift. Figures from the Electoral Commission released last December indicated that between July and September, Labour donations surpassed those to the Conservatives for the first time in over a year, £5.4m to £3m.
