Month: June 2023

According to a recent release by the 2020 Census, demographic change has accelerated in the United States in the past 10 years. Especially the group of those aged 65 years and older has grown more quickly, the data shows.

While in the year 2010, 12.8 percent of Americans were 65 years or older, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes that had jumped up by 4 percentage points to 16.8 percent as of 2020.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In previous decades, the relative size of the age group had remained more stable.

At the same time, the share of Americans under the age of 25 took a bigger dip than usual, decreasing by 2.8 percentage points to 31.5 percent of the population. Previously, changes in the cohort size had stayed below 1 percentage point per decade.

Major changes to age groups are not unprecedented in the U.S. as numbers from the 1990 Census (compared to the 1980 Census) show. Between the two installments of the count, the last big cohorts of the Baby Boomer generation, which were born around the year 1960, aged out of the under-25 demographic, resulting in a major drop of of young people in the country by more than 5 percentage points. At the same time, the number of those 65 years or older increased. This was due to the larger pre-war age groups born before 1925 having hit their retirement age by 1990. However, the increase was smaller at 1.3 percentage points, even then showcasing the immense demographic power of the Baby Boomers that is now again being felt.

United States is only at the beginning of its journey towards demographic change.

The world’s most prominent aging society, Japan, already counted a 28.5 percent share of residents who were 65 or older in 2020, while Italy, Greece, Germany and Finland were looking at more than 22 percent each for this metric.

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Disney-owned National Geographic magazine has laid off the last of its staff writers and replaced them with freelancers, according to reports, making it the latest media outlet to slash jobs amid an uncertain economic environment.

Following job cuts earlier this year, just 19 members of the editorial department had remained at the publication, according to The Washington Post. The remaining staff members were reportedly notified of the upcoming terminations back in April.

The latest layoffs are the second within months as parent company Disney looks to cut costs. Back in September, the award-winning Washington-based magazine also reportedly laid off six top editors who specialized in an array of popular topics such as travel, science, and the environment.

A spokesperson for the publication confirmed the latest departures in a statement to TheWrap but stopped short of stating exactly how many staffers were let go.

“National Geographic will continue to publish a monthly magazine that is dedicated to exceptional multi-platform storytelling with cultural impact,” the spokesperson said.

“Staffing changes will not change our ability to do this work, but rather give us more flexibility to tell different stories and meet our audiences where they are across our many platforms. Any insinuation that the recent changes will negatively impact the magazine, or the quality of our storytelling, is simply incorrect,” they continued.

Multiple writers also confirmed their departure from the publication on Twitter, including Senior writer Craig Welch, who tweeted that National Geographic is “laying off all of its staff writers.”

Gilbert M. Grosvenor managed National Geographic magazine that offered windows to the world from explorations of space to ocean depths. (Ralf Liebhold/Shutterstock)

Staffers Confirm Departures

Welch confirmed he is among those to depart.

“I’ve been so lucky. I got to work with incredible journalists and tell important, global stories. It’s been an honor,” he wrote.

Elsewhere, former writer Nina Strochlic tweeted that it had been an “epic run,” adding that she and her colleagues had been “unbelievably lucky to be the last-ever class of staff writers.”

Douglas Main, a senior writer and editor at the publication, also took to Twitter to share about his departure from the publication.

“National Geographic is laying off its staff writers, including me. It’s been a wonderful five years—an honor and a joy. Very proud of the work that my colleagues and I have done here,” he wrote, adding “We were informed about this a while ago.”

Going forward, assignments will be contracted by freelancers or pieced together by the remaining editors, The Washington Post reports. The latest job cuts also eliminated the magazine’s small audio department, the publication said.

Additionally, National Geographic will no longer be sold on newsstands throughout the United States starting next year as part of further cost-cutting measures, according to the Washington Post.

The Epoch Times has contacted National Geographic for further comment.

National Geographic had just under 1.8 million subscribers at the end of 2022, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

The CNN center is seen in downtown Atlanta, Ga., on Oct. 16, 2021. (Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images)

More Media Layoffs

The magazine is predominantly owned by Disney, which acquired a majority stake in the publication in 2019 as part of a $71 billion deal to purchase 21st Century Fox assets.

Back in November, the publication’s new editor-in-chief Nathan Lump told Axios that the company had no plans to slash its monthly print magazine publishing schedule but would be investing more in social media— sharing more short-form videos across platforms like TikTok and Instagram—in an effort to modernize.

“We feel good about our monthly cadence,” Lump said at the time. “Our incredible social reach is largely based on our strength on Instagram, which is based on our strength in photography, which is great,” he said.

“But obviously, we know that video is driving a lot of engagement in social, and that’s where a lot of growth is in terms of engagement and users and social platforms. And so we need to put a lot more emphasis there,” Lump added.

The latest job cuts at the award-winning magazine come amid a string of layoffs in the media industry.

In November, CNN launched a second round of layoffs, and a month later in December, Buzzfeed said that it planned to cut 15 percent of its workforce. Most recently, Buzzfeed revealed it is shutting down its news division entirely as part of those cost-cutting efforts.

The VICE Media Group (VMG) has also laid off more than 100 employees and canceled its flagship “Vice News Tonight” program. In May, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

A string of other publications, including Bloomberg, Gannett, Insider Inc., NPR, The Hollywood Reporter, The Washington Post, and Fox, have also announced job cuts in an effort to save costs as digital advertising revenue has plummeted and operating costs have surged.

The 2023 edition of the Global Peace Index released by The Institute for Economics and Peace has found that global peacefulness has declined for the 13th time in the last 15 years.

It ranks peace levels using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators across 163 independent states and territories, covering 99.7 percent of the world’s population. This time around, peace has deteriorated in 79 countries while the situation has improved in 84.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, Iceland was once again the top-ranked country for peace in 2023, a position it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the index by New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Austria and Singapore. By contrast, the United States only managed to land in spot 131. Afghanistan was at the very bottom of the index, preceded by Yemen and Syria.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Kazakhstan, Oman and Cote d’Ivore gained the most ranks this year compared to 2022. Kazakhstan had been on the most deteriorated list last year after violent unrest, but gained back its losses. Eswatini, on the other hand, appeared among the biggest losers for the second year in a row among violence that is accompanying anti-monarchy protests. While not among the biggest risers, India appeared in the “medium” category after having previously been listed as “low”.

The current conflict in Ukraine had the country fall 17 spots into rank 153 in 2022 and further into rank 157 in 2023.

As Ukraine had been ranked poorly for years due to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine that preceeded the Russian invasion, other countries deteriorated more on the index.

The nations losing the most ranks in 2023 were Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea and Sri Lanka.

The latter country lost its status as one of 2022’s fast climbers as an successful security and anti-terrorism agenda was followed by economic decline, violent protests and the ouster of the government last July.

Authored by Ben Weingarten via RealClear Wire,

Randi Weingarten, the powerful president of the American Federation of Teachers, hasn’t been a working teacher in more than a quarter of a century. 

Of the six years she spent teaching social studies, half of them appear to have been as a substitute. Yet despite the long absence from her short tenure in the classroom, the union leader described herself during a recent congressional hearing as being on leave from Brooklyn’s Clara Barton High School. 

Through her decades of union activism, Weingarten has clocked service time as a public school teacher, enabling her to accrue an educators’ pension on top of the more than $500,000 in annual salary and benefits she earns as a labor executive, according to records obtained by the Freedom Foundation. She would receive about $230,000 total over her first 15 years of retirement, according to the public sector union watchdog’s analysis. 

Weingarten has called that analysis “completely wrong,” without explaining why. She did not respond to RealClearInvestigations’ request, via the American Federation of Teachers’ press office, to clarify where the Freedom Foundation erred. 

Weingarten’s work arrangement is not uncommon among public sector employees, thanks to a little-scrutinized feature often found in collective bargaining agreements: so-called “official time” or “release time” provisions. Such clauses enable employees to engage in union-related activities full- or part-time during their working hours, while sometimes continuing to earn salary and/or accrue benefits. 

The practice is also common in the private sector, where many companies pay employees doing union business, according to Peter A. List, editor of LaborUnionNews.com. 

But critics argue release time for public employees is different for two main reasons. First, it is taxpayers, rather than shareholders, who are picking up the cost. Second, because unions don’t have to pay many representatives, this frees up money for political activities which some taxpayers do not support. 

Across the federal government, official time diverts more than $100 million in public funds toward union work annually. Combining the cost of release time at the state and local levels, one estimate puts the total bill for public sector union activities as high as $1 billion.

Proponents of these arrangements say they provide bang for the taxpayers’ buck. 

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest public sector union, argues that by fostering labor-management collaboration, official time “reduces employee turnover, improves customer service, [and] prevents costly litigation,” contributing to “[g]ains in quality, productivity, and efficiency –year after year, in department after department.” 

In congressional testimony, Darrell M. West, a senior fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution, said that by “establishing vehicles for communications, grievance-airing, and conflict resolution, this paid time … aid[s] in agency operations.” 

Critics contend these provisions create a costly and potentially unconstitutional publicly funded benefit for unions – without providing any labor “peace dividend.” James Sherk, a labor expert in the Trump administration who helped lead its efforts to curtail federal official time, told RCI that the practice creates an “enormous taxpayer subsidy to government unions,” forcing the public to “pick up a large share of the unions’ basic operating expenses,” while “freeing up resources for them to spend on politics and lobbying.” 

Sherk disputes the idea that official time makes for more harmonious government, claiming that on the contrary “it encourages unions to drag out negotiations and file frivolous grievances because they don’t have to pay for it.”  

A Trump administrative executive order taking aim at official time noted that “many agencies and collective bargaining representatives spend years renegotiating CBAs [collective bargaining agreements].” 

Federal Costs of Official Time 

Until 1962, federal workers were forbidden to join unions, for fear any strike would threaten essential services and national security. In the years since President John F. Kennedy issued executive order 10988 permitting them to unionize, the public sector would come to be disproportionately organized relative to the private sector. 

In 1978 Congress granted federal employees performing representational functions official time, enabling them to engage in non-internal union activities like collective bargaining negotiations or dispute resolution processes, while earning their salaries, provided the time so dedicated is “reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest.” 

Federal workers spent 2.6 million hours on union activities while “on the clock” at a cost of $135 million in taxpayer-funded salary and benefits in fiscal year 2019, the last year for which such data is available. This represented a slight decrease from historical figures, typically totaling three million hours in official time, at a cost of well over $150 million annually. 

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which reported these figures, directs agencies to classify official time in four buckets covering time used to: collectively bargain; bargain during the life of a collective bargaining agreement; process grievances and appeals, and; engage in other representational functions. The federal human resources agency found that more than three-quarters of the union-devoted time federal agencies recorded in 2019 covered activities other than negotiating or dispute resolution, falling into this fourth bucket officially dubbed “general labor-management relations” work. 

Such work might include meeting with management on employment conditions, lobbying Congress, or participating in formal meetings and investigative interviews. 

The Office of Personnel Management noted in its fiscal year 2019 official time report that it “had no means of confirming” that the data it received from agencies “was a full and accurate representation of official time actually utilized.” Republican lawmakers and appointees have expressed skepticism about the practice, fearing it may be abused, and suggesting that at minimum the lack of detail and transparency about official time usage makes it hard to conduct oversight that would reveal any such issues. 

House Democrats claim the bulk of official time stems from meetings called for by agency management, and for which “agency management is the primary beneficiary.” 

A congressional survey of 24 agencies covering 840,174 employees represented by unions found that more than 12,500 such employees used official time in some capacity during fiscal year 2017. Just under 1,000 of these employees spent at least half of their working hours as union representatives. Hundreds, many of whom earned salaries of more than $100,000 per year, were on 100% official time – solely doing union work – ranging from a social worker and pharmacist at the Department of Veterans Affairs to air traffic controllers at the Department of Transportation. Republicans said such employees were “being paid for work they were not hired to do without doing the work they were hired to do.” 

Local Costs Harder to Deduce 

Generally, state and local employees like their federal counterparts may also take “release time” to execute union-related work.  

Unlike at the federal level however, there is not necessarily an Office of Personnel Management collecting and reporting related data. Labor experts say that measuring the full extent of release time across the states is difficult, in part because doing so would require obtaining data not just from state governments, but from more than 36,000 jurisdictions nationwide ranging from cities to school districts, each with specific policies regarding unions and release time. 

Compiling relevant figures often requires soliciting records from authorities by bargaining unit, a tedious and time-consuming process providing no guarantee of success given not all jurisdictions diligently track release time metrics. Freedom Foundation’s Maxford Nelson, author of the report on Randi Weingarten’s teacher’s pension, said it took him “the better part of a year, mostly waiting on FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests,” just to piece together the story about the single prominent union leader. 

Weingarten’s union leave arrangement – whereby she accrued time towards her pension but was not receiving salary – is itself the product of a specific collective bargaining agreement. Teachers on leave in other locales may do so subject to different conditions, and for different benefits. Despite these nuances, analyses conducted in recent years do provide an indication as to the prevalence of the practice and the associated costs in at least some locales. 

A 2017 study of the 77 largest municipalities in the U.S., covering 231 collective bargaining agreements of police, firefighter, and other public employee unions, found that 72% of such unions receive some kind of release time – usually paid for by the city or through cost-sharing arrangements. 

States and think tanks have performed analyses that provide an incomplete but still telling picture of the nature and extent of these arrangements. For example: 

• New Jersey’s Commission of Investigation found that over a six-year period from 2006-2011, taxpayers shelled out $30 million in salaries and medical benefits to public sector employees on leave. During a single-year period, 88 government employees operated on full-time union leave, at a cost of over $7 million to the state. The report shows several public employees on long-term union leave who, like Weingarten, nevertheless were set to receive substantial state pensions. 

• The free market-oriented Yankee Institute found that in 2015, Connecticut employees spent 121,000 hours on union time, at a cost of $4 million to taxpayers. 

• The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute found that, based on record requests covering fiscal years 2014-2016, three Florida municipalities – Miami-Dade County, the City of Tampa, and City of Jacksonville – totaled annual release time over 100,000 hours, at a cost of $3.5 million to taxpayers. None of the authorities recorded the activity engaged in by those public employees – many of whom spent 100% of their work hours performing union business.  

• The think tank argues this lack of transparency is troubling because of its findings for example in Missouri that government unions have used release time to lobby public officials for legislation including that antithetical to “employee free choice,” and in Texas that employees spent release time attending barbeques and other recreational events.  

A 2020 study by the Goldwater Institute which queried agencies in all 50 states found that union officials on release time “routinely engage in partisan electioneering through union endorsements, fundraising, and get-out-the-vote efforts,” as well as “lobby[ing] … on issues that often put them at odds with the governments paying their salaries.” Like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, it too noted that some have been found using release time for recreational purposes, including going on vacation. 

Jonathan Riches, the Goldwater Institute’s national litigation director, concluded that “there are few arrangements where taxpayer resources, or the resources of nonunion employees, are so clearly outside the control of the public, or so clearly earmarked for purely private activities.” 

RCI asked both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, two of the largest and most powerful unions nationally, whether there should be transparency for taxpayers regarding public employees’ release time usage, by cost and activity. Neither union responded. 

Nor did the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, an AFL-CIO affiliate representing more than 1.6 million active and retiree members – the largest and fastest growing public service employees union in the country. 

The issue of official or release time has taken on a partisan hue as these and most other public sector unions overwhelmingly contribute at the federal level to Democrat causes. In the 2020 election cycle alone, public sector unions contributed $93 million to federal candidates, parties, and outside groups, according to OpenSecrets. More than 97% of those funds went to Democrats or liberal organizations. 

Stiff Resistance to GOP Opposition 

Efforts to combat taxpayer-funded union work have enjoyed limited success. President Trump issued an executive order in May 2018 intended to cut official time spending by nearly two-thirds. That order drew the hackles of organized labor, one of several orders that the American Federation for Government Employees said “aimed to kill our union and harm our members.” 

President Biden rescinded Trump’s official time-limiting executive order on the third day of his presidency. At least one related legislative proposal during the Trump years floundered. 

On the state level, GOP strongholds including Florida, Montana, Ohio, and Utah all considered bills to limit release time this year. Those bills, however, either did not become law, or the relevant release time provisions did not make it through the legislative process, suggesting the power unions have even in red states.  

Nelson told RCI that “conservative lawmakers on the whole tend to have less experience and expertise related to labor unions, which can mean that government union reforms face a longer road to passage.” He added that “attempts to limit or regulate release time are fairly new,” suggesting it is common for it to take several legislation sessions for such novel policies to advance. 

Arizona is an exception. In 2022, its legislature passed into law Senate Bill 1166, barring public employers from spending public funds on union activities, defined as those “advocating for the election or defeat of any political candidate” or “lobbying … to influence the passage or defeat of federal or state legislation, local ordinances or any ballot measure.”  

The first-of-its-kind legislation was modeled on a bill drafted by the libertarian Goldwater Institute. 

While several states reassess official time agreements, the Phoenix-based think tank and other conservative legal groups have in recent years been seeking to overturn the practice in the courts.  

The Goldwater Institute has brought cases in Arizona, New Jersey, and Texas under state constitutional “gift clauses” or “anti-aid clauses,” which prohibit the use of public funds to advance private interests – like those of unions. The landmark Janus 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which ruled it a First Amendment violation for public sector unions to mandate that non-union members pay union fees, has further fueled such litigation, under the theory that if non-union members are forced to fund the release time of their unionized colleagues – as the Goldwater Institute argues occurs in Phoenix, Arizona – this too would constitute a First Amendment violation. 

Several courts have struck down release time practices as unconstitutional or unlawful, only for decisions to be reversed at the state supreme court level. 

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative public interest litigator, sued Milwaukee Public Schools in 2021. It alleged that Milwaukee’s release policy violated various aspects of Wisconsin’s constitution in allowing public funds to be used for a private entity’s private purposes – including union political activities. Milwaukee would amend its release policy to ensure that permissible activities include solely those that are “politically and ideologically ‘view-point neutral.’” 

Despite public sector unions, and particularly teachers’ unions like Weingarten’s American Federation for Teachers, facing mounting scrutiny for their role in school closures and broader left-wing political activism, the practice of release time has garnered little attention. 

Lucas Vebber of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty told RCI that when his group brought the Milwaukee case, “I was surprised as to how few people were aware of this policy and just how little was known about it. There seemed to be very little oversight or records available on it. It seemed to be flying under the radar.” 

Thom Reilly, a professor at Arizona State University and co-author of the 2017 study showing the prevalence of release time practices in America’s major cities, surmises that the opacity is by design. “I think many governments intentionally don’t want to track it because then it would be highlighting a cost that they perhaps don’t want to discuss in public,” Reilly has said.

Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An Arizona county elections director resigned from her position on Tuesday after accusing officials of politicizing elections and creating a harmful work environment.

The Pinal County government announced the resignation of Elections Director Geraldine Roll, who stepped into the position to oversee the recount process after the 2022 midterm election.

In a scathing email sent on Tuesday, Roll announced her resignation, expressing her dissatisfaction with County Manager Leo Lew and the toxic work environment she claimed to experience.

“With no regrets, I quit,” Roll wrote, highlighting her decision as a result of losing respect for her superiors and their failure to support her during times of attack and criticism.

“When you no longer respect those you work for, it is time to leave. I have watched as you idly stood by when I was attacked,” Roll wrote in the email obtained by AZCentral. “I cannot work for an individual who does not support me. The environment fostered by your team and the Board of Supervisors is toxic.”

Roll emphasized her belief that the Elections Department “should not be politicized.” She further accused the county manager and the Board of Supervisors of prioritizing “irrational, extremist political party views and rhetoric” over “impartiality, common sense, and dedicated work.”

“It is a far reach to see how you will deliver clean elections when you bend to a faction of the Republican party,” Roll wrote in the email. “Clearly, politics are the value this administration desires in a place where politics have no place: elections administration.”

Throughout her career, Roll claimed she had never faced the level of ridicule, disrespect, intimidation, and “attacks on my reputation and ethics” she had endured in recent months, since starting her role less than a year ago.

County Manager Responds

Roll’s resignation comes amid ongoing scrutiny and partisan tension surrounding election administration in several counties across Arizona.

Roll signed her email, “Really, not respectfully.” In further comments to Pincal Central, she claimed she did nothing wrong and clarified that she didn’t resign, she quit. “I think there’s a very big difference,” she said.

After news of her resignation, Lew, the county manager, issued a statement thanking Roll for her service.

“I want to thank Geri for her service during very challenging times and for the improvements that she identified and began to implement in the Elections Department,” he said in a statement. “Although I disagree with her assessment, she has been an impactful public servant, and I wish her the best and know that she will continue to do great things in her career.”

Roll, who had been a part of Pinal County since 2013 and previously served as a deputy county attorney, had not yet overseen any elections in her role after being appointed as the elections director in Pinal County in late 2022.

During her tenure as a deputy county attorney, she provided legal counsel and guidance to various departments within the county, including the Recorder’s Office and Elections Department. Additionally, Roll had also worked in the Public Fiduciary Office.

Elections Scrutiny

Roll took over as Pinal County’s elections director, replacing Virginia Ross, who was transferred to the role in August after a problematic primary election. The primary saw ballot errors and ballot shortages in two dozen polling sites, resulting in the firing of the former director.

Officials in Pinal County said there was a shortage of ballots at more than 20 voting sites during the primary election in August 2022, which left some voters without the ability to cast votes. County officials attributed the problem to an “unprecedented demand for in-person ballots.” The county’s election agency suggested that people use an “express vote device” instead.

Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer and Jeffrey McClure, chair of the Board of Supervisors, issued a joint statement to FOX10 saying it was a “major screw-up,” but McClure claimed he has “not seen evidence of a nefarious act.” Instead, he attributed it to “mistakes made on a grand scale.”

The incident drew the scrutiny of major Republican organizations, the Republican National Committee (RNC), and its chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel.

McDaniel said at the time that the RNC and Republican Party of Arizona’s poll observer program had documented and reported several “failures” by Pinal County’s elections administrator. This included “63,000 mail-in ballots delivered to the wrong voters and multiple Republican-heavy precinct locations running out of ballots.”

“This is a comprehensive failure that disenfranchises Arizonans and exemplifies why Republican-led efforts for transparency at the ballot box are so important. Pinal County Elections Director David Frisk should resign immediately,” McDaniel said.

However, during a general election recount, more errors were discovered under Ross’s oversight, but she had already left the position after receiving a bonus for a seemingly smooth election.

Roll, who previously worked as a deputy county attorney in Maricopa and Graham counties, and as an assistant attorney general for Arizona, became the county’s elections director.

Every member of the Board of Supervisors in Pinal County, including County Attorney Kent Volkmer, who was also included in Roll’s email, belongs to the Republican Party.

Roll was a registered Republican until recently. In a phone interview with PinalCentral, Roll expressed her changed sentiments toward her Republican colleagues, saying, “I can’t be associated with these people.”

Central bank digital currencies are controlled by governments like traditional currencies are and therefore represent the polar opposite of the idea of decentralized, self-sovereign bitcoins.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, several small nations and – since October 2021, Nigeria – have launched central bank digital currencies, and several more populous countries are getting ready to jump aboard a different crypto hype train.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The European Union today is proposing a legal framework for its planned launch of the digital euro. According to the Central Bank Digital Currency Tracker by Atlantic Council, concrete plans to launch a CBDC were also recorded in Canada, Brazil and the United States, among others.

Countries which are already in a CBDC pilot phase include Russia, Thailand, India, South Korea, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, according to the source. It is unclear, however, which of these programs could see a proper launch next.

CBDCs were introduced even earlier than in Nigeria in Caribbean countries, for example in the Bahamas and nations and territories that share the currency of the Eastern Caribbean dollar. The Sand Dollar of the Bahamas was the first central bank digital currency of the world upon its launch in 2019 and cleared the way for a rapid adoption around the region’s small nations.

The Chinese digital Yuan pilot made headlines in April 2019, but the project has not moved on since. Like Nigeria, China has a solid digital and mobile payment infrastructure. Large parts of the two countries’ populations leapfrogged card payments and went straight from cash to digital payment options, which became hugely popular – may they be app or text-based. In developing countries, central banks also consider the potential of digital currencies reaching the unbanked.

Another reason for some governments to champion official digital currencies is the collection of data.

Ubiquitous digital payments and tight government surveillance have led to a plethora of payment data already available to Chinese administrators. This knowledge on how people spend money will only grow with the implementation of the digital Yuan, even though the country’s central bank has said it will limit traceability and create what it calls “controllable anonymity.”

These aspects of digital currencies are viewed negatively by Europeans, who according to a survey by the European Central Bank are concerned about payment privacy in regards to the digital euro.

Authored by Eric Felten via RealClear Wire,

Curious complications come up when the attorney-client privilege is breached. When Donald Trump was arraigned in Florida on federal charges, a condition of the former president’s bail was that he not discuss the case with anyone who might be a witness. But did that mean Trump couldn’t speak with Evan Corcoran? One of Trump’s lawyers, Corcoran has already testified before the federal grand jury in Florida about his interactions with his client. The testimony was not, it appears, to his client’s benefit. A charge of obstruction was brought against Trump based on the allegation that he misled Corcoran, leading the lawyer, in turn, to make false claims to the federal government. Corcoran “memorialized” the instructions the former president gave him. That is, he took notes – notes the attorney eventually turned over to the special counsel seeking an indictment.

“One of the key witnesses that we know is still the president’s lawyer,” argued one of Trump’s attorneys, Todd Blanche. He told the federal judge that “a special condition that President Trump cannot communicate with his lawyer, obviously doesn’t work, respectfully, your honor.”

It wasn’t the first time Donald Trump has found he couldn’t rely on the attorney-client privilege, or on other expectations of confidentiality in his communications with lawyers. Michael Cohen, it will be remembered, was Trump’s long-time personal lawyer. He had a central role in the Stormy Daniels affair, which led the FBI to search not only Cohen’s office but also the hotel suite where he lived. The documents seized were in the thousands, if not more. Trump turned to Twitter to declare, “Attorney-client privilege is dead!”

Trump may not be wrong if he thinks the Department of Justice, and Democrats more broadly, have demonstrated a willingness – an eagerness – to put the screws to lawyers representing him. It’s not just Evan Corcoran who looks likely to be called as a witness against him, but also Christina Bobb, who found herself under Justice Department scrutiny within months of joining the Trump legal team last year. Like Corcoran, Bobb was required to testify before a grand jury. Trump White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin were compelled to give evidence to a grand jury not once but twice, despite Trump asserting both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege.

Corcoran reportedly did assert the attorney-client privilege in an effort not to testify regarding his client and the disposition of boxes storing documents from Trump’s presidency, but federal judge Beryl Howell ruled in favor of the government, which argued Trump had forfeited the protection of the privilege by using his lawyer to break the law, in what is known as the “crime-fraud” exception to the privilege.

The crime-fraud exception holds that a “lawyer may not counsel or assist the client in conduct the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent.” Even so, that exception is limited, according to the American Bar Association. It does not, for example, “require the lawyer to reveal the client’s misconduct” other than in certain circumstances.

The narrowness of those circumstances is a measure of the protection the privilege has traditionally been afforded, a protection needed for lawyers to do their job at all.

“A fundamental principle in the client-lawyer relationship is that, in the absence of the client’s informed consent, the lawyer must not reveal information relating to the representation … The client is thereby encouraged to seek legal assistance and to communicate fully and frankly with the lawyer even as to embarrassing or legally damaging subject matter.” The ABA maintains that a “lawyer needs this information to represent the client effectively and, if necessary, to advise the client to refrain from wrongful conduct.”

Consider the trials and travails of Paul Manafort. Back when Robert Mueller was a special counsel trying to prove members of the Trump team were playing footsie with foreign governments and government officials, Judge Beryl Howell (again) allowed Mueller to force testimony by Manafort’s former attorney. One might say that’s what happens when you forget to report to the IRS millions in foreign payments stashed in foreign bank accounts and fail to register as the agent of a foreign principal when FARA requires it. At least that’s what happens if you are a foreign lobbyist who hitches your star to Donald Trump. It has been observed that the consequences of these behaviors seem to be remarkably different if one is named Hunter Biden.

What does it mean for defendants who are not celebrities that the crime-fraud exception has been invoked successfully by the government in a case as high-profile as the prosecution of a former president? Are the exceptions to the attorney-client privilege likely to be invoked more often, as prosecutors enjoy the advantage that comes from riffling through a defendant’s legal documents and communications? Or will the government be less aggressive in cases that don’t involve Donald Trump?

Lisa G. Lerman is professor of law emerita at the Catholic University of America and author of “The Ethical Problems in the Practice of Law.” She says the federal court’s seizure of Trump’s lawyer’s notes isn’t out of the ordinary as a matter of law, but is notable for being clear-cut, and not a muddy judgment call. “The decision about Evan Corcoran’s notes may be the most vivid example I’ve ever seen of a client endeavoring to pressure a lawyer to help him to unlawfully withhold documents and to lie to the investigators,” said Lerman. “It is a textbook case that illustrates a proper application of the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege,” she told Real Clear Politics.

One experienced Washington litigator interviewed by Real Clear Politics, but who asked not to be quoted by name, is far less sanguine. He says it is all too common for prosecutors to try to get their hands on lawyer-client communications as it is. He worries the eagerness to pursue Trump is leading to the erosion of one of the most fundamental norms in Anglo-American law. “The protection of communications between lawyers and their clients is the foundation of our legal system,” he said, adding he was “shocked” by how thoroughly the privilege has been breached in the Trump case.

“It’s possible that judges have become more willing to consider whether communications fall within the exceptions,” says William H. Simon, professor of law emeritus at Columbia Law School. He told RealClearPolitics that there may not be any change going on in how the exceptions to the privilege are enforced, but the fight over lawyer confidentiality may simply be more visible because of the very public nature of Trump’s conflict with prosecutors, or because of what Simon calls “the flagrancy of his contempt for law.”

Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law, scoffs at the notion courts are setting a bad precedent in denying the former president the right to confidentiality in his conversations with his lawyers. “Application of the exception to Trump’s communications with his lawyers will not in the slightest affect the privilege,” Gillers told RealClearPolitics. “It is no different from application of the exception to communications of hundreds of other defendants with their lawyers over the decades, with no dilution of the protection of the privilege where there is no crime or fraud.”

But when it comes to clients other than Trump, legal professionals are far more zealous in arguing the importance of the privileges that come with their position.

Last year, Congress considered new limits on lawyer-client confidentiality. Lawmakers nearly passed legislation, the Enablers Act, that would have required attorneys to alert regulators and prosecutors of any fishy financial transactions by their clients. Lawyers would have been treated like bankers, required to do due diligence about their clients and report any “suspicious activities.” The legal profession went into overdrive, pushing back against what it saw as a threat to the privilege that distinguishes lawyers from other professionals, the privilege of confidentiality that makes attorneys more like priests than mere businessmen.

“The attorney-client privilege and the lawyer’s ethical duty of confidentiality are bedrock legal principles that have been developed and enforced by the courts and that lawyers are required to follow,” the ABA emphasized in a letter to senators. “Both principles enable clients to communicate with their lawyers in confidence, which is essential to preserving clients’ fundamental right to the effective assistance of counsel.”

As for the Supreme Court, it has not set these boundaries definitively. In a unanimous 1933 decision, the justices noted in passing that the “privilege takes flight if the relation is abused.” The court added, “A client who consults an attorney for advice that will serve him in the commission of a fraud will have no help from the law. He must let the truth be told.”

Yet that case, Clark v. United States, did not involve attorney-client privilege at all. It was about juror misconduct; Justice Benjamin Cardozo, who wrote the opinion, was merely using attorney-client privilege as an analogy.

More recently, the court had shored up the principle. In Upjohn v. U.S., the court noted, “The attorney-client privilege is the oldest of the privileges for confidential communications known to the common law.” Its purpose? To “encourage full and frank communication between attorneys and their clients, and thereby promote broader public interests in the observance of law and administration of justice.” The high court ruled that the attorney-client “privilege recognizes that sound legal advice or advocacy serves public ends and that such advice or advocacy depends upon the lawyer’s being fully informed by the client.”

If the trials of Trump do lead to the erosion of the attorney-client privilege, we will see yet another important legal norm damaged, not, perhaps by Trump himself, but by those determined to see him punished and ruined. Which leaves the question: If the protections traditionally afforded defendants are weakened, will the blame be Trump’s or his pursuers?

The UN’s latest Hunger Hotspots report highlights the countries where substantial parts of the population are experiencing severe food insecurity and where this is at risk of deteriorating further.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the report sees the biggest problems or the risk of their development – defined as food catastrophe or the lack of food after all coping strategies have been exhausted – in Africa’s Sahel Zone (Burkina Faso, Mali) as well as in Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Haiti and Afghanistan.

You will find more infographics at Statista

A cluster of factors, which for most countries consist of a combination of economic shocks, conflict and insecurity as well as displacement and natural catastrophes, was identified by the UN as the cause of severe food insecurity.

Food emergency and the risk thereof was found in other parts of Africa – namely in Ethiopia, Kenya, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – as well as in Syria, Pakistan and Myanmar.

It is defined as the stage of food insecurity in which households are using up their last resources, like selling belongings, to cope with gaps in their food supply. Other countries with acute food security issues that are deteriorating can be found in Central America.

On top of them, the UN has place a handful of countries on a monitoring list, mostly because of a lack of data.

These countries include several more in Africa, Venezuela and Colombia (where Venezuelan out-migration is causing issues) and also North Korea. In the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, the latter country has once more limited the movement of any people or goods across its borders to a minimum, also restricting the flow of information about the condition of its population.

There have been reports, however, about acute lack of food and starvation deaths in the country, most recently by ways of a BBC report secretly gathering interviews in North Korea.

After a devastating famine which is suspected to have killed around 3 million in the 1990s, the country had opened its borders to food and other shipments, which created the possibility of informal trade and smuggling in the tightly controlled regime and allowed people to satisfy their needs on the black market to a higher degree. With the border once again controlled very tightly, North Koreans have been reported to lack food as well as the income to buy it as avenues to gain money outside of official channels have been largely exhausted. Radio Free Asia reported based on accounts of North Korean officials that violence against police attempting to extract bribes was increasing in the country as citizens are fighting tooth and nail for scare resources.