Upper house

The government is launching a major overhaul of the country’s electoral laws, including the voting age, three-year term, party funding and the “net-tail” rule.

However, the review would not take into account changes to Maori seats, local elections, the change in the MMP system, or fundamental constitutional changes like becoming a republic or having an upper house.

Justice Minister Kris Faafoi announced that some targeted rule changes – such as transparency of political donations and changes to the Maori roster – would be made ahead of the 2023 election, while the review would consider broader changes before the 2026 elections.

The review would be led by an independent panel of experts and the government would work with parties across parliament for broad, non-partisan changes, Faafoi said.

“A lot has changed since the 1950s, but not most of our electoral rules. We want to make the electoral rules clearer and fairer to build confidence in the system and better help people exercise their right to vote.” , did he declare.

The review would focus on:

• Voting age
• Voting abroad
• Funding of political parties
• Duration of the legislature
• Recommendations of the Electoral Commission on the RPM

The Election Commission recommendations include changes to the party’s voting threshold, the one-seat electorate rule, the electorate and list seat ratio, and the overrun rule.

Donations from political parties have proven to be contentious in recent years, with people associated with Labor, National, NZ First and the Maori Party being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.

Meanwhile, there have been calls for changes to the Maori role for years, those who wish to switch between it and the general role can only do so every five or six years – according to the census – despite elections that take place every three years. .

Those on the Maori electoral roll vote for Maori electorate seats, rather than general electorate seats.

Ahead of the 2017 elections, the Election Commission recommended allowing a change every three years, to align with the elections, but National Party members opposed it.

Other changes proposed by the committee concern changes in the way seats in Parliament are allocated and the rules surrounding them.

At present, there are generally 120 seats in parliament, 72 of which are decided by voters’ votes, and the remaining 48 are “list” seats, filled proportionally according to the votes won by each party in the elections. . There are also sometimes “overhanging” seats that can be added to keep the proportion of seats correct.

A party must also get 5% of the vote or an electorate seat to be in parliament – but if it wins an electorate seat, it gets seats based on its partial vote percentage, regardless of the threshold. 5%.

Election Commission reviews have previously called for lowering the 5 percent threshold, removing redundant seats, abolishing the electorate seat threshold for seat allocation – known as name of tail-of-the-pack rule – and changing the 60:40 ratio of electorate to list seats.

Ms Pavey, who is the current Minister for Water, Property and Housing, confirmed her candidacy to Sky News Australia hours after Mr Barilaro interrupted his political career on Monday morning.

“I would love to be the leader of the Nationals and that’s why I came into your program this morning, I was clear, I contacted colleagues, I am the most experienced National Party MP in Australia”, Ms Pavey told Laura Jayes on AM Agenda.

“I think it’s time for us to have a great leader in NSW to continue the work of John Barilaro, this product differentiation, championing regions and fighting for that and I happen to be a woman too.

“It’s just about continuing to fight for our fair share, to continue to address the housing issues we now have in the NSW area.”

Ms. Pavey has served in the state parliament since 2002, first as a member of the Legislative Council before moving to the Legislative Assembly.

She won the seat at Oxley, on the north coast of New South Wales, in 2015 following the resignation of former Deputy Prime Minister Andrew Stoner.

If successful in her leadership bid, Ms Pavey would become NSW’s second female Deputy Prime Minister, after Labor Party’s Carmel Tebbutt.

Mr Barilaro, who had been deputy prime minister since November 2016, confirmed his resignation in a statement on Monday morning, just days after Gladys Berejiklian revealed she would be stepping down as prime minister.

“As we come out of lockdown, we must see this time as a new beginning for our state and welcome the opportunity it offers for a refresh,” he said.

“I decided that the time had come for me to hand over the reins to new management and to step down as Deputy Premier of NSW.

“To serve as Deputy Premier of NSW, as Leader of the NSW Nationals and as a member of Monaro has been the honor and privilege of a lifetime.”

NSW nationals will meet on Wednesday to elect a new leader who will also become deputy prime minister under the coalition deal.

Current Nationals Deputy Leader and Bathurst MP Paul Toole is also considering his leadership options.

“I am proud to work alongside John since we were elected together in 2011 and for the past three years as his deputy, and have seen the passion and ferocity he is thrown into every day.” , Mr. Toole said.

“Over the next 24 hours, I will be thinking about how best to serve our party and the people of NSW over the next period to build on the foundation he laid.”

Legislative Council member and Minister for Mental Health, Regional Youth and Women, Bronnie Taylor, said she had not ruled out the possibility of running as an MP or leader.

“I told the Upper House that the option for me to be chief was not there, but the option for me to run as deputy chief would be,” she said. at Sky News Australia.

“What happens beyond with the Monaro headquarters, with the management team, is the business of my colleagues – I owe them the respect to discuss it with them before discussing it publicly.”

Ms Taylor added: “You are not ruling anything out.”

Mr Barilaro is the third member of the coalition to resign in recent days, along with Ms Berejiklian and Transport Minister Andrew Constance.

“To treat”. this seems to be the buzzword in the Government, in Kirchnerism or in Peronism. What is it about? To try to reverse the result. Or try to reduce the differences, especially in the province of Buenos Aires. And try to lose as few senators as possible so that the vice-president Cristina Kirchner keep control of the upper house.

A priori and with the bad results of PASO on September 12, this seems to be a difficult task, even if in Argentina there is nothing defined, especially in politics.

For now, the ruling party has started to put all the cards on the table, after the cabinet changes and the crisis triggered by Alberto Fernández and his Vice. From increased social spending to the demand for door-to-door voting, as the president, his all-terrain chief of staff, has already demonstrated. Juan Manzur and the governor of Buenos Aires Axel Kicillof.

Between the two, reunion and public reconciliation and Forced by reality? of Alberto and Cristina, trying to bury the “war of the roses” version 2021.

Manzur, the one chosen to reverse history

Juan Manzur took charge of the election campaign today. A drink difficult to digest for Kirchnerism which has always seen in the governor of Tucumán on leave, representing him in a way of doing politics with which he does not share.

With Manzur, the ruling party changed its motto and went from “in Peronism, it was always garchó” to “God help us”. Quite a mystical evolution.

The problem is whether all of this will be enough to overturn an election. The figures of the economy do not help and the gestures of politics less.

Now at Casa Rosada they cling to the effects of a unsuspected opening of quarantine, where anything goes. Until the public returns to the football fields and the return of international tourism. Without forgetting the cinemas, theaters, shopping centers and restaurants functioning as in the pre-pandemic era.

And they also seek the support of the whole apparatus which has always functioned under the aegis of Peronism. Governors, legislators, mayors and even CGT. Everything serves Alberto and Cristina to add voices. Although they must mix with La Cámpora.

If it will work? God only knows. The same God that Manzur asked for help.

By Daria Litvinova | Associated press

MOSCOW – When Russians talk about the coronavirus over dinner or at hair salons, the conversation often turns to “antitela,” the Russian word for antibody – proteins produced by the body to fight infection.

Even President Vladimir Putin brought them up this week in a conversation with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, bragging about why he had avoided infection even though dozens of people around him caught the coronavirus, including someone. ‘one who spent a whole day with the head of the Kremlin.

“I have high titers,” Putin said, referring to the measurement used to describe the concentration of antibodies in the blood. When Erdogan challenged him that the number given by Putin was low, the Russian insisted, “No, it’s a high level. There are different counting methods.

But Western health experts say the antibody tests so popular in Russia are unreliable either for diagnosing COVID-19 or for assessing immunity against it. The antibodies these tests look for can only serve as evidence of a past infection, and scientists say it’s still not clear what level of antibodies indicates protection against the virus and for how long.

The United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention has said such tests should not be used to establish active infection with COVID-19 because it can take one to three weeks for the body to produce antibodies. Health experts say tests that look for the genetic material of the virus, called PCR tests, or those that look for viral proteins, called antigen tests, should be used to determine if a person is infected.

In Russia, it is common to take an antibody test and share the results. The tests are cheap, widely available, and actively marketed by private clinics nationwide, and their use appears to be a factor in the country’s low vaccination rate even as daily deaths and infections rise again.

In Moscow and the surrounding region, millions of antibody tests were performed at public clinics that offered them free of charge. Across the country, dozens of private laboratory and clinic chains also offer a wide variety of antibody tests for COVID-19, as well as tests for other medical conditions.

“In some cities where I went I had to take a PCR test and it was not possible, but I could take an antibody test – it was much easier,” said Dr Anton Barchuk, head of the epidemiology group at the European University of St. Petersburg and associate professor at the Petrov National Cancer Center there.

Antibody tests for COVID-19 were first released widely in Moscow in May 2020, shortly after Russia lifted its only national lockdown, although many restrictions remained in place. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced an ambitious program to test tens of thousands of residents for antibodies.

Many Muscovites greeted this enthusiastically. Unlike Western experts, some believed the antibodies represented immunity to the virus and viewed a positive test as a way out of the restrictions.

The test looked at two different types of antibodies: those that appear in the system soon after infection and those that take weeks to develop. To their surprise, some of those who tested positive for the first were diagnosed with COVID-19 and were placed in quarantine.

Irina Umarova, 56, spent 22 days confined to her studio, feeling no symptoms. Visiting doctors carried out six PCR tests which came back negative. But they also performed more antibody tests, which continued to show some level of antibodies.

“They kept telling me that I was infected and that I had to stay home,” she said.

Greater interest in antibody testing came this summer when Russia experienced a wave of infections. The demand for testing has grown so much that labs have been overwhelmed and some have run out of supplies.

It was at this point that dozens of regions made vaccination compulsory for certain groups of people and restricted access to various public spaces, only allowing those who were vaccinated, had had the virus or had been tested. negatives recently.

Daria Goryakina, deputy director of the Helix Laboratory Service, a large chain of testing facilities, said she believed the increased interest in antibody testing was related to vaccination mandates.

In the second half of June, Helix performed 230% more antibody tests than in the first half, and strong demand continued through the first week of July. “People want to check their antibody levels and whether they need to be vaccinated,” Goryakina told The Associated Press.

The World Health Organization and CDC recommend vaccination regardless of previous infection.

Guidelines in Russia have varied, with authorities initially saying people who test positive for antibodies were not eligible for the vaccine, but then urging everyone to get the shot regardless of their antibody level. Still, some Russians believed a positive antibody test was a reason to postpone vaccination.

Maria Bloquert recovered from the coronavirus in May, and a test she performed shortly after revealed a high number of antibodies. She has postponed her vaccination, but wants to get it eventually, once her antibody levels start to decline. “As long as my antibody titers are high, I have protection against the virus, and there is no point in getting more and more protection injected,” the 37-year-old Muscovite told AP.

High-level officials like Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house of parliament, both said they did not need to be vaccinated due to their high rate of vaccination. antibody, but they finally decided to get the vaccine. their blows.

Conflicting guidelines may have contributed to the low vaccination rate in Russia, said Dr Anastasia Vasilyeva, union leader of the Alliance of Doctors.

“People don’t understand (what to do) because they’re constantly being given different versions” of the recommendations, she said.

Even though Russia boasted of having created the world’s first vaccine, Sputnik V, only 32.5% of its 146 million people received at least one injection, and only 28% are fully vaccinated. Critics mainly blamed a botched vaccine rollout and mixed messages authorities sent about the outbreak.

Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor of cell microbiology at the University of Reading in England, said antibody testing should not influence health-related decisions.

Getting an antibody test “is for your personal satisfaction and curiosity,” he added.

Barchuk, the St. Petersburg epidemiologist, echoed his sentiment, saying there are too many gaps in understanding how antibodies work and that the tests offer little information beyond past infection. .

But some Russian regions have ignored this advice, using positive antibody tests to allow people to access restaurants, bars and other public places on par with a vaccination certificate or negative coronavirus test. Some people have an antibody test before or after vaccination to make sure the vaccine has worked or to see if they need a booster.

Dr Vasily Vlassov, epidemiologist and public health expert at the Higher School of Economics, says this attitude reflects Russians’ distrust of the public health system and their struggle to navigate confusion amid the pandemic.

“People’s attempt to find a rational way to act, to base their decision on something, for example antibodies, is understandable – the situation is difficult and confusing,” Vlassov said. “And they choose a method that is accessible to them rather than a good one. Because there is no right way to make sure you are immune.

This piece by the Daria Litvinova of Associated Press is really fascinating – there is an obsession with antibody testing in Russia even as vaccine uptake remains low – only 28% are fully vaccinated and cases are on the rise again.

Here is a slightly modified version:

When Russians talk about the coronavirus over dinner or at hair salons, the conversation often turns to “antitela,” the Russian word for antibody – proteins produced by the body to fight infection.

Even President Vladimir Putin brought them up this week in a conversation with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, bragging about why he had avoided infection even though dozens of people around him caught the coronavirus, including someone. ‘one who spent a whole day with the head of the Kremlin.

“I have high titers,” Putin said, referring to the measurement used to describe the concentration of antibodies in the blood. When Erdoğan challenged him that the number given by Putin was low, the Russian insisted: “No, it’s a high level. There are different counting methods.

But Western health experts say the antibody tests so popular in Russia are unreliable either for diagnosing Covid-19 or for assessing immunity against it.

[…]

In Russia, it is common to take an antibody test and share the results. The tests are cheap, widely available, and actively marketed by private clinics nationwide, and their use appears to be a factor in the country’s low vaccination rate even as daily deaths and infections rise again.

[..]

Greater interest in antibody testing came this summer when Russia experienced a wave of infections. The demand for testing has grown so much that labs have been overwhelmed and some have run out of supplies.

It was at this point that dozens of regions made vaccination compulsory for certain groups of people and restricted access to various public spaces, only allowing those who were vaccinated, had had the virus or had been tested. negatives recently.

Daria Goryakina, deputy director of the Helix Laboratory Service, a large chain of testing facilities, said she believed the increased interest in antibody testing was related to vaccination mandates.

In the second half of June, Helix performed 230% more antibody tests than in the first half, and strong demand continued through the first week of July. Goryakina told The Associated Press:

People want to check their antibody levels and whether they need to be vaccinated.

The World Health Organization and CDC recommend vaccination regardless of previous infection.

Guidelines in Russia have varied, with authorities initially saying people who test positive for antibodies were not eligible for the vaccine, but then urging everyone to get the shot regardless of their antibody level. Still, some Russians believed a positive antibody test was a reason to postpone vaccination.

Maria Bloquert recovered from the coronavirus in May, and a test she performed shortly after revealed a high number of antibodies. She has postponed her vaccination, but wants to get it eventually, once her antibody levels start to decline. The 37-year-old Muscovite told AP:

As long as my antibody titers are high, I have protection against the virus, and there is no point in getting an injection with more protection on top.

High-level officials like Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house of parliament, both said they did not need to be vaccinated due to their high rate of vaccination. antibody, but they finally decided to get the vaccine. their blows.

Conflicting guidelines may have contributed to the low vaccination rate in Russia, said Dr Anastasia Vasilyeva, union leader of the Alliance of Doctors. She said:

People don’t understand (what to do), because they are constantly being given different versions of the recommendations.

Even though Russia boasted of having created the world’s first vaccine, Sputnik V, only 32.5% of its 146 million people received at least one injection, and only 28% are fully vaccinated. Critics mainly blamed a botched vaccine rollout and mixed messages authorities sent about the outbreak.

Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor of cell microbiology at the University of Reading in England, said antibody testing should not influence health-related decisions.

Getting an antibody test “is for your personal satisfaction and curiosity,” he added.

Barchuk, the St. Petersburg epidemiologist, echoed his sentiment, saying there are too many gaps in understanding how antibodies work and that the tests offer little information beyond past infection. .

But some Russian regions have ignored this advice, using positive antibody tests to allow people to access restaurants, bars and other public places on par with a vaccination certificate or negative coronavirus test. Some people have an antibody test before or after vaccination to make sure the vaccine has worked or to see if they need a booster.

Dr Vasily Vlassov, epidemiologist and public health expert at the Higher School of Economics, says this attitude reflects Russians’ distrust of the public health system and their struggle to navigate confusion amid the pandemic. He said:

People’s attempt to find a rational way to act, to base their decision on something, say antibodies, is understandable – the situation is difficult and confusing. And they choose a method that is accessible to them rather than a good one. Because there is no right way to make sure you are immune.

There is no “grievance story” in Britain following Irish independence, one historian has suggested.

Professor Richard Toye said right-wing British historians and politicians who defend the Boer War could have ended up developing a grievance over the loss of most of Ireland in the same way loss of territory is treated in Hungary today.

Much of what was considered Hungarian territory was ceded to neighboring countries under the 1920 Treaty of Trianon and it is still a current issue in the country.

“They feel their country has been mutilated. One could well imagine that such a narrative under certain circumstances could have developed in Britain, ”he said.

“It came at the cost of a kind of amnesia. The treaty was not an inevitable outcome.

Professor Toye, professor of history at the University of Exeter, described the Anglo-Irish treaty as a “profound event” in British history, but it is not remembered as such.

“We don’t give it the importance it deserves. Having said that, maybe we should be careful what we wish for. If we remembered it, maybe we remembered it in a negative way, ”he said.

He stressed that the British government was keen to present the treaty as an “act of generosity” to the Irish rather than an act of humiliation on their part. Previously, they had presented the constitution of the Transvaal in 1906 as a gift to the Boers rather than a concession on their part.

Professor Toye gave the opening speech on the first day of a conference at University College Cork on the occasion of the centenary of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

British Ambassador to Ireland Paul Johnston said he had a lot of experience negotiating with other countries and getting to know other negotiators in advance was essential.

He suggested that the newspaper headlines on Britain-Ireland relations “go deeply into the past.”

He said the events of the past few weeks marking the Centennial Decade “still have great resonance and still deeply shape the political context of debates around these islands to this day.”

Trinity College Dublin historian Ian d’Alton, who specializes in studying Protestantism in the post-independence Irish state, said the plight of Southern Unionists was largely ignored during treaty negotiations.

“They might have thought that they still had some purchase, whether it was Sinn Féin or the UK government; but the troublesome truth was that once the Ulster issue was ‘settled’ they became a full number, ”he said.

He added that trade unionists in the South had shown “extraordinary levels of incompetence” in failing to pressure the British government for more concessions from the Irish.

“At critical times they did not press Lloyd George for the government, and Arthur Griffith for Sinn Féin, for specific binding commitments on the Irish military, land purchase, double taxation, l ‘compensation, maintenance of the grant for TCD and protection of ecclesiastical property, “he said.

“They got a few pieces of the treaty table: in November 1921 Griffith gave a written assurance that they would benefit from a plan to give them representation in the new parliament, especially the upper house.

“Ultimately, it was Griffith’s sensitivity to keeping minority money in the country more than Unionist pressure from the South that saw some protections enshrined in the treaty.”

It is tempting to look back pessimistically on the extraordinary MeToo movement in India that started in early October three years ago. What have women gained? An editor, accused of sexual harassment by 22 women, filed a libel claim against one of them, lost in court and exercised his legal right to appeal the decision to a higher court. His career prospects are bright.

It’s tempting to look back pessimistically on the extraordinary MeToo movement in India that started in early October three years ago. What have women gained? An editor, accused of sexual harassment by 22 women, filed a libel claim against one of them, lost in court and exercised his legal right to appeal the decision to a higher court. His career prospects are bright.

A junior judicial assistant, whose charges against the sitting Chief Justice of India (CJI), led to an internal investigation and a swift exoneration by her peers has been reinstated in her post. The former CJI finds itself in the Upper House of Parliament.

A Mumbai court has dismissed rape charges against a so-called sanskari (cultured) film actor, claiming that the possibility that he was “falsely accused” could not be excluded.

Who would have thought that breaking the silence would cost so much?

“Not all of the charges led to justice or even closure,” Justice Sujata V Manohar, one of the three Supreme Court justices who drafted the landmark Vishaka judgment that led to our laws against sexual harassment at work, in an interview in 2019. But, the movement showed, she said, that it is “at least possible for women to complain about what they cannot not in the past “.

Was the movement faulty? Indeed, it was. In a country where over 90% of employed women work in the informal sector, where were the voices of factory workers, caregivers, farm workers, women on construction sites and brick kilns? Where were the LGBTQ + voices? Dalit voices? Also, despite #BelieveAllWomen, not all of the accusations fall under the harassment section of the workplace.

But the success of the movement does not lie so much in the appeal of individual male bosses, as in its most basic demand for a new deal at work. Speaking, the women, although the privileged women, signaled that he could no longer continue as if nothing had happened. A workplace designed for men where women have to “bend over” and never complain for fear of being labeled “whiners”, not showing ambition for fear of being labeled “aggressive” ( and worse), not asking for a raise without being labeled “insistent” was untenable. For me, this is the most radical idea of ​​the MeToo movement.

Smarter workplaces have recognized this and have embarked on a course correction. Some have struggled to ensure legal compliance (maternity leave, internal complaints commissions). Others have gone further by organizing gender awareness training and ensuring greater representation. It still leaves out the vast majority of employed women, but it is a start.

MeToo also has a strong message for women, that of solidarity and a continuum. Feminist organization dates back to the reform movements of the 19th century. It was not always united, but we saw its effectiveness through the anti-rape and anti-dowry movements of the 1970s and 1980s until the anti-rape upsurge of 2012. We know that we are linked to the past. We know we are not alone.

Namita Bhandare writes on gender Opinions expressed are personal

Securities

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Useful information / links

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– Overview of the three stimulus controls adopted by Congress.

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September 30 (THEWILL) – The House of Representatives called on President Muhammadu Buhari to designate the bandits as terrorists.

THEWILL reports that the Senate in Wednesday’s plenary session asked President Buhari to declare the bandits terrorist.

However, in a unanimous plenary resolution on Thursday, members of the House of Representatives joined their counterparts in the Upper House in urging President Buhari to declare the bandits terrorists.

The resolution followed a motion of urgent public importance introduced Thursday by the chairman of the House defense committee, Babajimi Benson.

The motion urged the House to support the Senate resolution asking the president to designate the bandits as terrorists

The president, Femi Gbajabiamila, had asked those who were against the motion, but the lawmakers responded in chorus “No! “

The motion was carried unanimously by voice vote.

The bandits ravaged the northern part of Nigeria, particularly the northwest, with thousands killed and many kidnapped for ransom.

Several schoolchildren were kidnapped by bandits, held them hostage for months and released them after receiving ransom.

Bandits have also been singled out in several attacks such as the invasion of the Nigerian Defense Academy, Kaduna; the attack on Kogi Federal Prison, the shooting of a Nigerian Air Force plane, among other criminal activities.

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Democrats are racing against time to avoid a government shutdown, the first US debt default and the collapse of President Joe Biden’s ambitious spending plans.

The House voted 219-212 on Wednesday to suspend the country’s debt limit until Dec. 16, 2022. All but two Democrats approved the measure.