Author: Alfred Davenport

The recent ‘Qatargate’ scandal in the European Parliament, which has seen MEPs & at least one former former MEP languishing in Belgian jail cells, has re-opened another serious issue – one that is institutionalised in Brussels – that of the “fake NGO”. The fake NGO is becoming a major problem in Brussels. Typically, such a body would purport to represent human rights interests: it is always going to be difficult for a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), for example, to say “no” to an approach by a human rights NGO – but easy for NGO to use the cover…

A Utah school district that recently pulled the King James Bible from elementary and middle school libraries has now received a request to review the Book of Mormon for removal, according to school officials. Christopher Williams, director of communications and operations at the Davis School District, said the district received a request Friday to review the Book of Mormon for “sensitive material” as well. The Book of Mormon is the religious text used in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is headquartered in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake Tribune reported the request calls for the book to…

Almaty will host the second European Union – Central Asia Economic Forum on May 18-19 to discuss ways forward on policy, programs and investment needed to develop a more integrated and interconnected regional market engagement, according to the EU Delegation to Kazakhstan. Photo credit: asiatv.kg. The forum will focus on three key priority areas – a green and digital transition, a better business environment, and trade and connectivity. The participants will also discuss measures to strengthen sustainable connectivity and promote regulatory approximation in the economic area between the EU and Central Asian countries. The forum will provide recommendations for engagement…

The U.S. state of Iowa is no stranger to privacy bills. Since its first attempt in 2020, the state’s legislature has repeatedly proposed and considered comprehensive consumer data privacy legislation. But 2023 is the year privacy took root in Iowa. On 28 March 28, Iowa became the sixth state to pass a comprehensive privacy law, joining Connecticut, Utah, Virginia, Colorado and California. The law will go into effect on 1 Jan. 2025, giving organizations 21 months to comply with the new requirements from this state with over 3 million residents. Though the new law includes many familiar elements from other state laws, organizations should note a handful of differences…

Tennis legends Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and tennis journalist Brad Gilbert condemned gun violence in the USA following the school shooting in Tennessee. The tennis fraternity took to social media to call for a ban on all assault weapons in the country. Six lives were lost in a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, three of whom were children. The shooter was identified as an ex-student of the school. This was the 13th school shooting incident in the country. American tennis legend Chris Evert took to Twitter to express her views on the matter. She shared a post featuring a Tennessee…

IT WAS A SIGHT to behold and took the wind out of the bellicose sails of the AUKUS cheer squad. Here, at the National Press Club in the Australian capital, was a Labor luminary, former Prime Minister of Australia and statesman, keen to weigh in with characteristic sharpness and dripping venom. Paul Keating’s target: the militaristic lunacy that has characterised Australia’s participation in the U.S.-led security pact that promises hellish returns and pangs of insecurity. In his March 15 address to a Canberra press gallery bewitched by the magic of nuclear-propelled submarines and the China bogeyman, Keating was unsparing about those “seriously unwise ministers in government” — notably Foreign…

That was the question at the U.S. Federal Reserve’s March 22 policy meeting. And whether it was nobler in their minds to raise interest rates a quarter point and suffer a worsening banking crisis or to pause and admit the fight to contain inflation was effectively lost. Whatever direction they went, they were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. To retain some shred of credibility, they chose their words carefully when announcing the decision to hike; both leaving the door open to further hikes but also suggesting that the recent crisis would do the job of fighting…

The US State Department supported the creation of a so-called “hybrid tribunal” to investigate the crime of Russian aggression, which Kyiv calls unacceptable. Source: Beth Van Schaack, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice of the US State Department, on 27 March, during a speech at a conference at the Catholic University of America in Washington; European Pravda, referring to Voice of America. Schaack noted that “many different models” of tribunals were under consideration. According to the representative of the State Department, after analysing all the pros and cons, the United States concluded that “the most effective way to ensure responsibility for crimes of aggression…

Water is traditionally considered one of the most important resources to which access must be guaranteed. It is directly related to food security, i.e. agriculture, but also applies to all types of industry (since water is needed for a wide variety of production cycles, from the creation of semiconductors to the operation of standard equipment) and the production of electricity. Problems with access to water sources automatically lead to negative effects such as migrations, epidemics, economic decline and conflicts. The concept of water hegemony thus arose in the context of state sovereignty ( or rather the interaction of the sovereignties of different states and…

Two people were shot at a gurdwara in the US state of California, with authorities ruling out the incident as a hate crime. The shooting took place on Sunday around 2:30 pm at the Gurdwara Sacramento Sikh Society, according to Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Amar Gandhi. The shooting took place during the gurdwara’s first Nagar Kirtan, a traditional neighbourhood celebration for Indian religions such as Sikhism. Gandhi said a fistfight had broken out between two men on the temple grounds, the Sacramento Bee newspaper reported. One of the men, Gandhi said, shot a friend of the other combatant.…