Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Nearly 1 in 6 Americans in poverty, Census says
The ranks of the nation's poor have swelled to a record 46.2 million — nearly 1 in 6 Americans — as the prolonged pain of the recession leaves millions still struggling and out of work. And the number without health insurance has reached 49.9 million, the most in over two decades.
The figures are in a Census Bureau report, released Tuesday, that offers a somber snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for last year when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. The rate is still 9.1 percent at the start of an election year that's sure to focus on the economy and President Barack Obama's stewardship of it.
The overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent, from 14.3 percent the previous year, and the rate from 2007-2010 rose faster than for any similar period since the early 1980s when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment. For last year, the official poverty level was an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four.
Measured by total numbers, the 46 million now living in poverty are the most on record dating back to when the census began to track in 1959. The 15.1 percent tied the level of 1993 and was the highest since 1983.
Broken down by state, Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 22.7 percent, according to calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New Mexico and Arizona. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 6.6 percent.
The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 16.1 percent to 16.3 percent — or 49.9 million people — according to Census Bureau revisions. The increase was due mostly to continued losses of employer-provided health insurance in the weakened economy.
Congress passed a health overhaul last year to address rising numbers of the uninsured. While the main provisions don't take effect until 2014, one aspect taking effect in late 2010 allowed young adults to be covered under their parents' health insurance until age 26.
The uninsured rate for adults 18 to 24 actually declined last year, from 29.3 percent to 27.2 percent, noted Brett O'Hara, chief of the Health and Disability Statistics branch at the Census Bureau. That was the only age group that posted a decrease, and he said "the law change certainly could be a factor."
For last year, the median — or midpoint — household income was $49,445, down 2.3 percent from 2009.
The poor include Nekisha Brooks, 28, of Fort Washington, Md., who lost her job as a customer service representative for AT&T several months ago in a round of layoffs. Raising five young children, she is now on food stamps and partly leaning on friends and family for help.
"It's hard on the kids," Brooks said, describing how her family has had to cut back on clothing and restaurant outings. "I've been putting in job applications every day and calling around, from housekeeping to customer service to admin or waitresses, but nobody seems to be hiring right now."
Bruce Meyer, a public policy professor at the University of Chicago, cautioned that the worst may be yet to come in poverty levels, citing in part continued rising demand for food stamps this year as well as "staggeringly high" numbers in those unemployed for more than 26 weeks. He noted that more than 6 million people are in the category of long-term unemployed and more likely to fall into poverty, accounting for more than two out of five currently out of work.
The latest numbers, which cover Obama's second year in office, offer political fodder for both parties as Obama seeks to push a new $447 billion plan for creating jobs and stimulating the economy. The plan includes a proposed Social Security payroll tax cut and an extension of unemployment benefits.
Obama is urging Congress to pay for the new spending largely by increasing taxes on the wealthy, which Republicans have emphatically rejected.
According to the report, the gap between the rich and poor widened last year, at least based on some measures. For instance, income fell for the wealthiest — down 1.2 percent to $180,810 for the top 5 percent of households. But the bottom fifth of households — those making $20,000 or less — saw incomes decline 4 percent.
Other measures pointed to a longer-term widening of income inequality but with little change in 2010.
On Tuesday, the Census Bureau also noted the impact of government safety-net programs on the poor. It estimated that new unemployment benefits passed in 2009 — which gave workers up to 99 weeks of payments after layoffs, and didn't run out for most people until this year — lifted 3.2 million above the poverty line. Social Security kept about 20.3 million — seniors as well as working-age adults receiving disability payments — out of poverty.
"If these programs are cut back in the future, poverty rates are likely to rise even more," Meyer said.
At the same time, the working-age population — ages 18 to 64 — showed some of the biggest hits in poverty, rising from 12.9 percent to 13.7 percent. Working-age Americans now represent nearly 3 out of 5 poor people and are at the highest level since the 1960s when the war on poverty was launched.
Young adults, in particular, struggled. Median income for those ages 15-24 fell 9 percent to $28,322. For those 25-34, nearly 6 million "doubled up" in households with parents and friends to save money, up 25 percent from before the recession. For that group, the poverty rate was at 8.4 percent; but the rate would have risen to 45.3 percent if their parents' incomes weren't taken into account.
"It's pretty bad for young people," said Harry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University. "They are cushioning the blow in several ways by living with others and going to school longer, but eventually they will have to enter the labor market and find a very inhospitable place."
Last year saw a third year of increases in Americans without health insurance, lifting the total number to the highest since the government began tracking the figures in 1987. The number of people covered by employment-based health plans declined from 170.8 million to 169.3 million, although those losses were partially offset by gains in government health insurance such as Medicaid and Medicare.
Other census findings:
—Poverty rose among all racial and ethnic groups except Asians. The number of Hispanics in poverty increased from 25.3 percent to 26.6 percent; for blacks it rose from 25.8 percent to 27.4 percent and for Asians it was flat at 12.1 percent. The number of whites in poverty rose from 9.4 percent to 9.9 percent.
—Child poverty rose from 20.7 percent to 22 percent.
—Poverty among people 65 and older was statistically unchanged at 9 percent, after hitting a record low of 8.9 percent in 2009.
The official poverty level is based on a government calculation that includes only income before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership.
As a result, the official poverty rate takes into account the effects of some stimulus programs passed in 2009, such as unemployment benefits, as well as jobs that were created or saved by government spending. It does not factor in noncash government aid such as tax credits and food stamps.
Next month, the government will release new supplemental poverty numbers for the first time that will factor in food stamps and tax credits as well as everyday costs such as commuting. Preliminary census estimates show a decline in child poverty based on the new measure but increases in poverty among working-age Americans as well as those 65 and older due to rising out-of-pocket medical costs.
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Online:
www.census.gov
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Israel-Palestine 's Resumption of Violence
Many Israelis are dismissing the Palestinians' efforts to win international recognition of their independence at the United Nations this month as merely symbolic.
But the Palestinians hope the high-profile maneuvering, on a grand global stage, might yield results that have eluded them through decades of peace talks, popular uprisings and violence campaigns.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is set to address the U.N. next week, planning to ask the world to recognize a Palestinian state.
The path to full membership seems blocked because it goes through the Security Council, the powerful 15-member body where the United States — still urging the Palestinians to back down — promises a veto. But the General Assembly, meeting next week in New York, seems likely to recognize Palestine as a nonmember observer state. This status, identical to that of the Vatican, requires only a simple majority of its 193 members.
Formally, General Assembly recognition would be mainly declarative. But in the Middle East, especially at this time, events could quickly spiral out of hand. The Palestinian gambit could have far-reaching consequences.
While it's impossible to predict how things will unfold, here's a look at some of the possible scenarios:
RESUMPTION OF VIOLENCE
Israelis fear a return to the violence that typified the first half of the previous decade, when Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli retaliations were the order of the day. Israeli media have warned of mass marches into Jerusalem, the besieging of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the storming of borders and attacking of army checkpoints.
The Palestinians do plan demonstrations to coincide with the diplomatic activity, but they insist all will be peaceful and dismiss Israel's fears, accusing it of heating up the atmosphere to discredit their efforts.
A senior Palestinian security official said the Palestinian president had given clear orders to prevent any friction with the Israelis at checkpoints and settlements.
The PLO has formed a special committee to oversee the "field activities" but it does not include Hamas, the militant group that since 2007 has run the Gaza Strip, a coastal strip that has been a launching pad for persistent rocket fire at Israel.
Israeli authorities also fear that unofficial activity, even a provocative act by a lone individual, could spark wider violence. Israeli security forces have been training and stockpiling riot-control equipment in anticipation of trouble.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Twin Towers and terrorism: the impact 10 years on
It was the day that changed the world for ever. Or did it? Ten years on, two leading commentators, Jason Burke and Francis Fukuyama, offer an analysis of its long-term impact, and how terrorism works
Francis Fukuyama: The legacy of that terrible time will be less significant than we then fearedIn the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, there were grand assertions that "everything was different" and that the "world had changed." We were forced to confront a bearded man in a cave spouting incomprehensible invective about crusaders and jihad, and reorient foreign policy in dramatic ways. But with 10 years' hindsight, did the world actually change on that date? And what will Osama bin Laden's historical legacy be?
The answer to both questions is: not much. It is my view that in a longer historical perspective, al-Qaida will be seen as a mere blip or diversion. Bin Laden got lucky that day and pulled off a devastating, made-for-media attack. The United States then overreacted, invading Iraq and making anti-Americanism a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But while al-Qaida's form of radical Islamism appealed to a minority of discontented individuals, it never represented a dominant social trend in the Middle East. The broader and more important story that was emerging in the past decade was the social modernisation of the Arab world that has resulted in the Arab Spring.
People could be excused for thinking that the world had changed after September 11. The World Trade Centre attacks involved the killing of innocent people for its own sake, a nihilistic act that could have claimed the lives of 10 or 100 times as many victims, had the technological means been available. The threat of weapons of mass destruction had been around for a long time, but up until that point no one seemed malevolent enough to use them in this fashion. In the days after the attacks, every thoughtful person began to realise how vulnerable modern technological societies were.
It turned out, however, that once the world's intelligence and security establishment was turned to focus on the problem of Islamist terrorism, it was possible to mount a defence. The fact that there have been no follow-up attacks on American soil was not for want of trying; but many plots were uncovered and broken up before they could be realised. The truly frightening possibility remains terrorist access to nuclear or biological weapons, but the route to these capabilities is not so easy for groups like al-Qaida and its affiliates.
The real problem was political. As the terrorism expert Brian Jenkins points out, democratic publics always overreact to the threat of terrorism. It would have been very difficult for an American administration of any stripe to tell the public the truth after September 11, namely, that western civilisation was not facing an existential threat from al-Qaida, but rather a long twilight struggle best fought by police and intelligence agencies.
The Bush administration did much the opposite, elevating the "war on terrorism" to the level of 20th-century struggles against fascism and communism, and justifying its invasion of Iraq on these grounds. By neglecting Afghanistan and occupying Iraq, it turned both countries into magnets for new terrorist recruitment, diminished its own moral stature through prisoner abuse, and tarnished the name of democracy promotion.
September 11 spawned many theories of a Muslim or Arab exception to the global trend toward democracy. After the green uprising in Iran and the Arab Spring, we can see clearly that this was one area where the Bush administration was right: there was no cultural or religious obstacle to the spread of democratic ideas in the Middle East; only, it would have to come about through the people's own agency and not as a gift of a foreign power. Even if democracy does not emerge quickly in places such as Egypt and Tunisia, the popular mobilisation we have seen signals a key social trend far more powerful than anything a Bin Laden or Zawahiri could muster.
September 11 will have legacies. Al-Qaida and its affiliates continue to operate, and may still succeed in downing an airliner or exploding a car bomb in a shopping mall. Pakistan, with its stockpile of nuclear weapons, is a very scary place, the one part of the Muslim world where trends have been going in the wrong direction. In western countries, distrust of Muslims has grown since 9/11, as evidenced by the controversy of the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque in the US or the rising of anti-immigrant populist parties in Europe. All of this will make the already difficult integration of immigrant communities much more difficult to accomplish.
Since 2001 the most important world-historical story has been the rise of China. This is a development whose impact will almost certainly be felt in 50 years' time. Whether anyone will remember Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida at that remove is a different matter.
Francis Fukuyama is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University, and author of The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (Profile).
Jason Burke: Terrorists are made by local experience, not grand ideology
In all the breathless statements by rebels over recent weeks in Libya, one in particular contained a few simple words that explained much of the violence in many conflicts over recent years. Why are you fighting, a young man outside Tripoli was asked by a reporter. Because his father and brother had been imprisoned by Gaddafi earlier this year, the rebel said, and so he was at war to set them free.
The rebel campaign in Libya is very different from many others that we have seen in recent years. Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia and the terrorism in the west and elsewhere have all had their own specific qualities. There is, however, one common element among all these conflicts. It is that those engaged in them are very rarely fighting for big ideas or ideologies.
They may invoke concepts of global jihad or talk of civilisational clashes or human rights and democracy in their propaganda but the reasons that they are holding a weapon are usually much more mundane. Those reasons are to be found in the experience of the individual, not the mass generalities of the crowd; in the particular not the general. This helps us understand not just the nature of modern militancy, but the nature of these wars and of the world that has produced them.
Interviewing militants is often a depressing experience. Frequently ignorant and uninformed, their world view is composed of a mix of repetitive stereotypes, conspiracy theories, prejudices and misunderstanding. But the stories of how they were drawn into violence are always interesting. Take Didar, a failed suicide bomber in Iraq, whom I interviewed in the summer of 2002. He had no grand explanation for why he had ended up with explosives around his waist heading into a police office. He simply said that he had followed a friend who persuaded him to go on "an adventure" to a training camp and that one thing led to another. Abit, an impressionable baker's son from a small town in Pakistan, ended up in a Taliban training camp for similar reasons.
Again and again the testimony of European militants – a group of London and Luton-based militants active in 2004, Belgians and French from 2008, a German militant who returned from Pakistan last year – stresses not ideology but small group dynamics. One spoke of the "camaraderie" of frontline fighting with the Taliban. The 9/11 hijackers were famously, and accurately, described as "a bunch of guys" by a German prosecutor. In 2005 I investigated a mass suicide attack in southern Thailand in which a dozen young men died. The only link between them was that they were all part of the same football team.
This shouldn't necessarily surprise us. Terrorism is a social activity and the path into violence is determined by social interaction as much as any political or religious programme. The question to ask about radicalisation is therefore not "who?" and still less "why?", but "how?". Security services like MI5 have now adapted profiling to focus on networks and processes, not characteristics that supposedly render an individual vulnerable. Families including existing or former militants are of a particular interest. American officials in Iraq say that the main predictor of extremism is having a brother active in extremism or in prison.
Another element, now emerging from Libya, is the importance of local specificity. There are three groups of rebels in Libya, each with their own characteristics and each from a different part of the country. The dynamic between these groups will determine how the situation evolves, not big ideas.
Indeed, over recent years, "the local" has trumped "the global" every time in terms of influence on the evolution of events. Excepting a small number of spectacular headline strikes such as the 9/11 operation itself, the vast proportion, 95% perhaps, of violent attacks have occurred within a couple of hours' travel, at most, from where the perpetrators lived or grew up. The 7/7 bombers travelled no more than a couple of hours by train. Those responsible for attacks in Madrid in March 2004 were living in a rundown district only a mile or so from the station where most of their victims died. 80% of Taliban militants killed or captured in Afghanistan are within 15 miles of their homes, at least according to US military intelligence officers I spoke to in Kabul in June.
The greatest weakness of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida and its ideology was its failure to respect cultural difference. Al-Qaida speaks Arabic. Only about a third of the world's Muslims do. Al-Qaida wants a new Muslim caliphate to replace modern states. But most people from Morocco to Malaysia are attached to their nations – as recent flag-waving protests have shown. Why did the tribes of western Iraq turn against al-Qaida in 2005 and 2006? Because they no longer thought that the foreign brand of extremism and the particularly unpleasant people who were propagating it served their communities' – and their own – interests. So they switched sides and al-Qaida in Iraq was finished.
The tension between local identities and global ideologies is most clearly seen with reactions to terrorist violence in the Islamic world over the last decade. Condoning bombings a long way away is much easier than supporting someone planting IEDs on your street.
Backing violence is easier when it stays virtual. In country after country across the Muslim world, support for Bin Laden and his tactics collapsed when attacks started close to home. In Jordan, it dropped from 57% before bloody attacks on hotels in November 2005 to under 20% in their immediate aftermath. The same phenomenon was seen elsewhere.
What is the overall lesson? The last decade has shown us that our western confidence in globalisation and the convergence of cultures and communities was vastly exaggerated. Communities everywhere are much more parochial, more limited, more resistant to outside influence than ideologues of all kinds would like. Local identities, customs, cultures, ties of blood and shared values are still much more important than any supposed convergence of lifestyles. Yes, there are global economic flows and everyone can hum the soundtrack of Titanic. Yes, there are enthusiastic demands for democracy and rights of free expression or association. But these do not determine why people take up guns. A chaotic, fast-evolving and complex world without overarching narratives generates conflicts in its own image.
Politics and war remain local. When it comes to why people take up arms, for whatever purpose, there are no global rules, only individuals.
Jason Burke's new book The 9/11 Wars is published by Penguin
A changed America: Marking 10 years since 9/11
Ten years. Of longing for loved ones lost in the worst terrorist attacks to happen on American soil. Of sending sons, daughters, fathers and mothers off to war in foreign lands. Of redefining what safety means and worrying about another 9/11 — or something even worse.
Ten years has arrived. And with it, memories. Of that September morning, when terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and a fourth plane crashed into a field in rural western Pennsylvania. Of heroism and Samaritans and unthinkable fear.
And of nearly 3,000 killed at the hands of a global terror network led by Osama bin Laden, himself now dead.
On Sunday, people across America gather to pray at cathedrals in their greatest cities and to lay roses before fire stations in their smallest towns. Around the world, many others will do something similar because so much changed for them on that day, too.Bells will toll. Americans will see new memorials in lower Manhattan, rural Pennsylvania and elsewhere, symbols of a resolve to remember and rebuild.
But much of the weight of this year's ceremonies lies in what will largely go unspoken. There's the anniversary's role in prompting Americans to consider how the attacks affected them and the larger world and the continuing struggle to understand 9/11's place in the lore of the nation.
"A lot's going on in the background," said Ken Foote, author of "Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy," examining the role that veneration of sites of death and disaster plays in modern life. "These anniversaries are particularly critical in figuring out what story to tell, in figuring out what this all means. It forces people to figure out what happened to us."
On Saturday in rural western Pennsylvania, more than 4,000 people began to tell the story again.
At the dedication of the Flight 93 National Memorial near the town of Shanksville, former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden joined the families of the 40 passengers and crew aboard the jet who fought back against their hijackers.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Turkey to complicate life for Israel, but avoid war
Turkey's threat to send warships to protect aid convoys to Gaza is unlikely to trigger conflict with Israel, but the dramatic deterioration in relations between the one-time allies could jeopardize Israeli energy ambitions.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the stakes with Israel on Thursday, saying he would dispatch the navy to escort any future flotillas to Gaza and prevent a repeat of an Israeli raid last year that killed nine Turks.
Ankara has already downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel and halted defense trade following the Jewish state's confirmation last week that it would not apologize for the deadly 2010 assault on a boat challenging its Gaza blockade.
Despite the intensifying rhetoric, it seems hard to believe that the region's two biggest military powers, both important allies of the United States, would face off over the Palestinian enclave Gaza, which is ruled by the Islamist group Hamas.
"It won't turn into a military confrontation, because the Turks aren't stupid. It's absurd to think a NATO country would get into a military confrontation with Israel," said Gad Shimron, a retired Mossad officer and defense expert.
By the same token, it seems unlikely that Erdogan will let the matter drop, with many analysts seeing his repeated criticism of Israel as a calculated bid to boost his standing in the Arab world and assume a dominant role in the Middle East.
Tellingly, he made his comments to Al Jazeera, the pan-Arabic television station, upping the ante just days before he is due to visit a trio of Arab countries, including Egypt, which has itself fallen out with Israel in recent weeks.
"Erdogan thinks the easy target is Israel, but he doesn't know if it will pay off. He is taking a gamble," said Yossi Shain, a professor at both Tel Aviv University and Georgetown University in Washington.
"He wants to be the champion of the Arab and Islamic world, but it is not clear whether he can."
DISPUTED GAS FIELDS
Turkey has a much larger navy than Israel but would have to think twice about any military brinkmanship given the imposing strength of the Israeli air force.
"Keep in mind that were Israel to initiate an interception, say against a Turkish bid to sail on Gaza, it would have the advantage of choosing the time, place and deployment strength," a former Israeli admiral told Reuters, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Indicating there is no imminent danger of a clash, the charity that organised last year's convoy to the Gaza Strip said on Friday it had no plans for now for another flotilla.
Regardless of that, Turkey has also said it will make its presence felt in the eastern Mediterranean at a time when Israel is looking to exploit recently discovered gas fields off its coasts and hook up with Cyprus to build energy facilities.
Turkey does not recognize Cyprus's Greek Cypriot government, while Lebanon has accused Israel of breaking international law by exploring for gas without an agreement between the two countries -- which are formally at war -- on their maritime border. Israel denies this.
A heavy Turkish naval presence near the disputed fields could undoubtedly cause Israel headaches, just as it thought that it had finally overcome its longstanding energy shortages.
"This is a feasible and significantly troubling prospect. I imagine it would compromise foreign investment in those fields," the former admiral said.
Israel has sought to play down the diplomatic crisis, with officials pointing out that the two countries had already overcome previous rows, such as in 1980 when Turkey curbed ties to protest at Israel's annexation of Arab East Jerusalem.
But back then, Turkey was a much poorer nation than it is today, and there were very few cultural, sporting or business links between the two countries.
The implications of a falling-out today are much more significant, with trade between Turkey and Israel worth $3.5 billion last year, helping keep thousands of people in work.
"Turkey is a very strong country today and this is very serious situation," said Alon Liel, the head of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Turkey from 1981 to 1983 and a former director general of the Foreign Ministry.
LOSING FRIENDS
Although Turkey is an undoubted regional power, it has suffered a difficult few months due to the Arab uprisings.
It has had to retool its foreign policy in Syria and Libya, losing old allies in the process, and has distanced itself with Iran. Erdogan is clearly trying to regain the initiative and will have to be careful not to push things too far.
"He has painted Turkey into a very tight corner," said Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based security analyst.
"Turkey is squandering the moral capital it had gained after the (2010 flotilla) incident, in which international public opinion sided with Turkey. But the international community will be very hostile."
Washington has stayed largely quiet over the past week, urging reconciliation between the two parties without publicly taking sides. However, much more Turkish saber-rattling is sure to fire up passions, with the U.S. Congress fiercely pro-Israel.
"(Erdogan) is about to get a tough response from Washington. They are watching him and letting him play, but the moment is coming," said Shain, who is working in the United States.
Erdogan may well be calculating that Washington cannot afford to imperil relations with Turkey at such crucial moment for the Middle East, but as with his fight with Israel, that is a risky bet to take.
Michael Kutcher : Ashton Kutcher's Twin Brother
Surprise! Ashton Kutcher Has a Twin Brother | Yahoo TV - Yahoo! TV
A number of roles come to mind when you hear the name Ashton Kutcher: "Punk'd" host, Demi Moore's 15-years-junior husband; "Dude Where's My Car?" thespian; Kelso from "That '70s Show;" former Hollywood gadabout; and now, of course, Charlie Sheen's replacement on "Two and a Half Men."
One role that might not come to mind, however, is the one Kutcher was born into: that of a twin brother.
Ashton's fraternal twin, Michael, currently lives in their home-state Iowa raising his 7-year-old son and selling retirement plans. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy from a young age, Michael's life has been a bit more difficult than his brother's.
"I was the kid with the big Coke-bottle glasses, the hearing aid," Michael Kutcher told Details magazine in 2008. "There was a lot of teasing, a lot of the normal mean stuff."
Although known for pulling elaborate, embarrassing practical jokes on celebrities, Ashton protected his twin against the bullying of other kids. Michael said he was a model brother in many ways, including seeing Michael through a heart transplant at age 13. Having suffered for some time from a heart muscle disease, one day, Michael's heart stopped.
"Ashton never left my side," Michael told People of his brother's devotion through the procedure. "He showed me the love one brother has for another."
One successful heart surgery and twenty years later, Michael isn't looking to replicate Ashton's fame. He has, however, tiptoed into the spotlight as a lobbyist for Reaching for the Stars, an organization that works on behalf of children with cerebral palsy.
"Being Ashton Kutcher's brother, it gives me the opportunity to be that voice, and I realize that I needed to use the opportunity to help others," he explained during his first trip to Washington, D.C. last year.
On terror alert for 9/11
New York on terror alert for 9/11 | Karen Greenberg | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
New Yorkers were already in a heightened state of anxiety for the anniversary, but preparedness is better than complacency
By late Thursday night, media coverage of President Obama's jobs speech was rapidly being pushed aside by the announcement of a heightened terror alert in New York City, and Washington, DC. Reportedly, federal officials are concerned about a "credible but unconfirmed" threat – a possible planned attack by terrorists to coincide with the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has announced heightened measures on the streets, in the subways, at the entrances and exits of tunnels and bridges, and elsewhere as a precaution. By contrast, over the summer, John Brennan, White House counterterrorism czar, and others have spent recent months downplaying the threat of al-Qaida to American national security, portraying the organisation as weakened by predator drone strikes, by the constant pressure on Afghanistan and by US counterterrorism law enforcement efforts worldwide.
So, what are we to think? How serious is this threat and what does it mean in terms of assessing al-Qaida's strengths a decade after the attack that changed the American political and psychological landscape in a day? While rumours of the details of this – a potential car bomb, a concern for three individuals trying to enter the country, an alleged Afghanistan tie – mount with each passing hour, it's worth taking a moment to think this through.
To begin with, it is inconceivable that this anniversary would occur without some kind of heightened state of alert in New York City (and elsewhere). Bin Ladenism, the original al-Qaida blueprint that led to 9/11, implies a fixation with the symbolism of dates, numbers and repeat attacks (as in two separate attacks on the World Trade Centre, one in 1993, one in 2001), all of which fans the imaginations of potential victims as well as, presumably, exciting the conspiratorial minds of the members of the terrorist organisation. It is a lasting imprint of the attack that will not go away.
It is also inevitable, with or without the reported "chatter" about a possible attack, that New Yorkers would approach this weekend with a sense of heightened anxiety. As a community, city dwellers cannot but have in the back of their minds the sense that a subway bomb such as Najibullah Zazi planned in 2009, or a car or truck bomb, like the one that went awry in Times Square last year – could some day go off in New York. This is true, even though the ten years without a successful attack or fatal terrorist incident has considerably quieted these fears.
Realistically speaking, the assessment of the weakened state of the al-Qaida network does not mean that there could never be another attack on New York City – although one on the scale of 9/11 is hard to imagine. As many experts have pointed out, the narrative of al-Qaida, and the willingness of individuals to mount an attack, remain, if only in skeletal form. "Chatter", like that reported today, is a frequent occurrence in jihadist cyberspace – at times more credible than at others.
It is reasonable to assume that city officials have been preparing for this moment for a long time. While reports are that the original notice of this threat came from information obtained during the search of bin Laden's premises in Pakistan at the time of his killing – giving authorities four months to ramp up defences – the NYPD and the FBI's joint terrorism task force have focused their considerable counterterrorism efforts against chatter and threats repeatedly for a decade now. The commemorations across town, culminating in Sunday's ceremony, which Presidents Obama and Bush will attend, are taking place with the knowledge that the NYPD, with its 35,000 member force, has taken the measures it can to safeguard the city, not just on 11 September, but in the week leading up to it. One need only look at the air cover and police presence being provided this weekend to note that the complacency and failure to focus on potential terrorist attacks that existed prior to 9/11 is a thing of the past.
The reality is that with or without this new report of "credible but unconfirmed chatter", the tenth anniversary was bound to result in a heightened state of anxiety among New Yorkers. This potential threat merely gives focus to the memories and fears that reside in all of us who remember that bright September day with a clarity that has not yet faded.
America's inhumane approach to labour problems will finish Obama
It was a stirring speech. President Obama promised Americans he will help them get back to work. The government will give more support for the unemployed and teachers; it will rebuild the country's decayed infrastructure; it will give tax cuts to employees and employers alike; it will tax the super-rich. It's the business of politicians to offer hope, and I wanted to believe his every word. But could he pull the magic rabbit out of the hat?
For his first three years in office, Obama neglected the problems of US workers, not because he was mean-spirited but because he was badly advised. His economic team was led by people, notably Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, focused on banking and finance; these advisers believed that restoring the fortunes of Wall Street was the key to creating jobs – eventually. The labour minister, Hilda Solis, is an excellent public servant, but she has had little influence. Recently Obama has brought in people who are more expert on labour issues, but they have to deal with deep-rooted rot in the jobs world.
Most of the president's listeners are only too aware that too many people are chasing too few jobs, especially good jobs. The recession hasn't caused this depressing fact. For over a generation, financial prosperity in Europe as in the US has not depended on a robust labour force at home; the work that global corporations need can be done cheaper and often better elsewhere.
Again, the digital revolution is finally realising an old nightmare – that machines can reduce the need for human labour; by 2006 this "replacement effect" already stood at 7% annually in the service sector. And the viability of an old-fashioned career was long over before the recession began; lifetime service to a corporation is a thing of the past. The result of all these changes is that western workers have known insecurity and the spectre of uselessness for a long time.
Obama didn't address these structural problems in his speech. How could he? These are the hard facts of modern capitalism, and the president's enemies have long accused him of being a closet socialist. Obama has instead always rightly described himself as a centrist. For this reason he faces the same dilemma as David Cameron in centrist mode: both are trying to trim government while stimulating the economy. The $447bn Obama promises to spend sounds like a lot, but there's much less actual cash being put immediately on the table; tax cuts are meant to do the heavy-lifting in job creation.
Such "cost-effective" measures don't do much to deal with the sheer scale of labour problems. Investing in construction projects achieves a big bang for the buck, and is great for skilled construction workers. But in both Britain and the US, unemployment among unskilled young people hovers at about 22%; it requires a great deal of money and remedial expertise to make them competitive in the job market. The number of people suffering from involuntary under-employment [those who formerly worked full-time now doing a single, part-time job] now stands at about 14% in both countries, workers whose wealth dramatically declines when they work less. They need income support, but this too requires lots of government cash. Neither government has thought much about how to deal with these dead-end, nor thought hard enough about automation.
America calculates unemployment in a peculiar way. Its official statistics do not include under-employment, nor are people without work for more than six months counted. These are instead classed as "discouraged workers"; non-government economists estimate their number at 3 to 5 million, and they are indeed discouraged, suffering from family crises, alcoholism and depression the longer they are unemployed.
The US remedy for their plight is similar to the idea behind Britain's "big society": leave it to churches, voluntary associations and "the community" to sort out the personal and family consequences of long-term unemployment. In practice, that means individuals are thrown back on themselves, since one real effect of the recession has been to beggar many of these civil-society institutions. Familiar as this issue is to Britons, it's only beginning to dawn on US officials that civil society is not rich.
The "special relationship" has a perverse twist in the realm of labour; our two societies harbour large numbers of insecure or vulnerable employees whose ills have been addressed timidly by centrist governments. There are real solutions, however, to the travails of work; they are found along Europe's northern rim – in Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands. These more balanced economies have avoided Anglo-American, finance-driven capitalism; their governments have protected established companies, especially small companies, providing capital for growth when banks won't lend it. On this stabilising base, Norway and Sweden have made concerted efforts to include young people in starter jobs; their youth unemployment stands at about 8%. The Germans put big resources into youth training schemes; the Dutch effectively supplement the wages of part-time employees. Factories in Europe's northern rim have long explored how to deal humanely with automation, and tried in many different ways to counteract the outsourcing of jobs. Existential Gloom may well be inherent in the northern temperament, but these prosperous countries have in everyday practical life proved good at shaping labour. Why don't we learn from them?
The Anglo-American elite deploys a "big beast" defence against acting like northern Europeans: in Norway there is no City of London, no Apple or Apple. Which produces a paradox: our big beasts think small about work and its discontents. Perhaps it's true that the US economy is so global and so complex that little can be done to remedy its ills at home. But Britain is about the same size as Germany and its cultural DNA is northern European.
Much as I admire Obama personally, I couldn't help thinking after his speech that time has run out for him.Though he's too adult to promise the public instant Nirvana, he thinks his reforms will have a real effect during the 14 months before the election. But if the past is any guide, it takes about three years for government-stimulus measures to bite in the US economy; if Obama's proposals for public works and tax were enacted tomorrow, their modest effects would be felt during the time of President Perry. This time-lag more generally holds: In Britain, the decay of public institutions caused by today's big society will be Prime Minister Miliband's problem. To short-circuit that cursed inheritance, in Britain we need to start thinking big and acting decisively about work, like our near northern neighbours.
Obama is pushing Nafta-style trade pacts he campaigns against
'21st-century' trade deals proposed by the Obama administration won't help American workers – and will hurt foreign ones
It is bad enough that President Obama is reversing his campaign pledge and supporting Bush-era trade deals with Korea, Colombia and Panama. Starting this week in Chicago, the US will be hosting the first major trade negotiations since the "Battle in Seattle" World Trade Organisation talks came here in 1999. This occasion is for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with a wide range of industrialised and developing Pacific Rim countries.
As part of his plan to revive the US economy and create jobs, Obama claims he will be unveiling "a trade agreement for the 21st century". Ironically, though, he will be pushing the same "Nafta-style" trade pacts he campaigned against, and to howls of protest from his own electoral base. Let us not forget what he said:
"I voted against Cafta, never supported Nafta, and will not support Nafta-style trade agreements in the future," Obama told Ohio voters (pdf) in 2008. "While Nafta gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection."
"Lip service" would be a good way to describe the reforms in US trade policy under Obama. As co-chairs of a three-country task force to reform Nafta, we can say that not only do the administration's TPP proposals fail to reform most of Nafta's worst provisions, they actually take several steps backward.
From an economic perspective, the TPP would be the largest US trade agreement since Nafta, since it involves not only developing countries (Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore), but also four OECD countries (Chile, the United States, Australia and New Zealand). But while some argue that this makes the TPP "the single most important US trade initiative", a UN study (pdf) points out that the economic impact of the TPP will be quite limited because most of the participants already have bilateral trade agreements with TPP counterparts.
"Lip service" would be a good way to describe the reforms in US trade policy under Obama. In 2007, congressional Democrats won some minor but important reforms to post-Nafta trade agreements, in the areas of labour enforcement, environmental protection and intellectual property rules. Obama hasn't even held onto these in current negotiations, giving up important language to allow easier access to generic medicines in the pending agreement with Korea. By all accounts, the administration won't put them in the TPP either. As one unnamed trade official told Inside US Trade, "2007 was 2007, 2011 is 2011."
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton recently gave the TPP her own lip service in Hong Kong. There, she touted the TPP as setting "a new high standard for multilateral free trade", one that could achieve "sustainable, inclusive growth". Clinton alluded to the agreed 2007 protections on labour rights, the environment and intellectual property, then added that these "21st-century" US proposals actually are all about "regulatory coherence".
If that sounds to you like a sanitised term for deregulation, you're right. The "21st-century trade agreement" will not better balance the rights of multinational firms with the needs of the majority; rather, it will grant more rights to investors.
By all accounts, the US TPP negotiators continue to push for the controversial investor-state dispute provision, which allows multinationals to directly sue a foreign government for regulatory actions – rather than have such disputes be conducted by governments, as is the case at the WTO. The US-Australia free trade agreement does not include the investor-state investment provision, and the Australian government has indicated strongly that it will not consider such a provision for the TPP. No matter. What did Obama say in 2008 about no longer "giving broad rights to investors"?
Then, with the power to sue other governments that try to regulate in hand, the US proposals would force trading partners to open their financial services sectors to the very companies that brought us the recent financial crisis. Such provisions fly in the face of recommendations on investment from a group of over 250 US and globally renowned economists, recommendations that merely echoed those from some of the members of President Obama's own state department panel named to review the US language.
At this point, US proposals for the TPP hardly break from the Nafta mold, and many weaken or eliminate the few important advances we've seen since Nafta in US trade proposals. Like Nafta, current US proposals fail to account for asymmetries among trading partners and restrict the ability of the US and its trading partners to provide the regulations that their democracies want to enable financial stability, economic growth and jobs.
Brian McCarthy of Virginia
The old saying "the rich get richer" aptly describes a recent winner of the Mega Millions jackpot. On a whim, 25-year-old Brian McCarthy of Virginia played the lottery at a grocery store for a shot at $107 million and he won! Even though he hit the jackpot fair and square, people on Twitter are up at arms. That's because McCarthy is the son of hotel mogul Robert McCarthy, who is the president of Marriott International (and who brings home about $1 million a year). Instead of receiving the cash in 26 annual payments, Brian, who recently graduated from Penn State University, opted for a lump sum of $68.4 million (after taxes). On Twitter, @tombstone sulked "Today's daily reminder that life is in no way, shape, or form even remotely fair." @shaunalberts added, "Seriously? Does he *really* need this? Thanks again universe, always looking out for the little guys?" To add salt to the wound, McCarthy plans on using the money for a BMW M3 and a golfing trip to Ireland. But don't write him off just yet. McCarthy has already donated $50,000 of his winnings to charity. What would you do with $107 million? Tell me on Facebook.com/AdrianaDiazNews and Twitter @AdrianaTweeting.
Genetic secret behind virus that turns caterpillars into zombies discovered
By Ted ThornhillLike a plot from a horror film, there’s a virus that brainwashes caterpillars, forces them to march up trees, then turns them to goo.
Now scientists at Penn State University have found the single gene that enables the virus to carry out its dark deeds.
The caterpillars would normally return to the ground to hide after feeding on leaves, but the baculovirus reprogrammes them to stay in the trees, melts them, then drips down among the remains to infect more of the creatures.
Gruesome: Beautiful monarch caterpillars are turned into zombies by a vicious virus - then melted
Researcher Kelli Hoover, writing in Science, said: ‘When gypsy moth caterpillars are healthy and happy, they go up into the trees at night to feed on leaves, and then climb back down in the morning to hide from predators during the day.
Friday, September 09, 2011
Dealing With NegativityBy Brian Houston
My Studio apartment Menara Antapani C4 No 8
Pertanyaan:
Bagaimana Cara Penerbitan Sertifikat Hak Milik Strata Title?
Bagaimana cara dan syarat penerbitan Sertifikat Hak Milik atas Satuan Rumah Susun (SHMSRS) oleh BPN? Apakah harus ada Peraturan Daerah tentang Rumah Susun terlebih dahulu? Mohon penjelasan.
LA.BAGASKARA
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Jawaban:
JECKY TENGENS, S.H.
Sebelumnya, saya akan menjelaskan sedikit mengenai kepemilikan atas satuan rumah susun terlebih dahulu. Sertifikat Hak Milik atas Rumah Susun (“SHMRS) adalah bentuk kepemilikan yang diberikan terhadap pemegang hak atas Rumah Susun. Bentuk Hak milik atas rumah susun ini harus dibedakan dengan jenis hak milik terhadap rumah dan tanah pada umumnya. SHMRS dalam dunia properti sering juga disebut strata title. Strata title sebenarnya tidak dikenal dalam hukum Indonesia. Strata title berasal dari negara Barat dan dikenal dalam konsep hunian vertikal maupun horisontal di mana hak kepemilikan atas suatu ruang dalam gedung bertingkat dibagi-bagi untuk beberapa pihak. Lebih jauh, simak jawaban Klinik Hukum sebelumnya: Strata Title. Dalam uraian selanjutnya saya akan jelaskan cara dan syarat penerbitan SHMRS.
Pihak developer/pengembang rumah susun wajib untuk menyelesaikan pemisahan terlebih dahulu atas satuan-satuan rumah susun yang meliputi bagian bersama, benda bersama dan tanah bersama (lihat Pasal 7 ayat [3] UU No. 16 Tahun 1985 tentang Rumah Susun/UURS jo Pasal 39 PP No. 4 Tahun 1988 tetang Rumah Susun/PP No. 4 Tahun 1988).
Pemisahan tersebut dilakukan dengan Akta Pemisahan, untuk lebih jelasnya dapat dilihat ketentuan Pasal 2, Pasal 3 dan Pasal 4 Peraturan Kepala Badan Pertanahan Nasional No. 2 Tahun 1989 tentang Bentuk dan Tata Cara Pengisian serta Pendaftaran Akta Pemisahan Rumah Susun (“PKBPN No. 2 Tahun 1989”):
“Pasal 2
(1) Akta pemisahan dilengkapi dengan pertelaan yang jelas dalam bentuk gambar, uraian dan batas-batas pemilikan satuan rumah susun yang mengandung nilai perbandingan proporsional.
(2) Pertelaan sebagaimana dimaksud dalam ayat (1) pasal ini ditetapkan oleh penyelenggara pembangunan rumah susun.
Pasal 3
(1) Akta pemisahan dibuat dan diisi sendiri oleh penyelenggara pembangunan rumah susun.
(2) Tata cara pengisian akta pemisahan sesuai dengan pedoman terlampir.
Pasal 4
(1) Penyelenggara pembangunan wajib meminta pengesahan isi akta pemisahan yang bersangkutan kepada Pemerintah Daerah Tingkat II Kabupaten/Kotamadya setempat atau kepada Pemerintah Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta, apabila pembangunan rumah susun terletak di wilayah Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta.
(2) Akta pemisahan setelah disahkan sebagaimana dimaksud dalam ayat (1) pasal ini harus didaftarkan oleh penyelenggara pembangunan pada Kantor Pertanahan setempat, dengan melampirkan:
a. Sertipikat hak atas tanah;
b. Izin Layak Huni;
c. Warkah-warkah lainnya yang diperlukan”
Hak milik atas satuan rumah susun terjadi sejak didaftarkannya akta pemisahan dengan dibuatnya Buku Tanah untuk setiap satuan rumah susun yang bersangkutan (Pasal 39 ayat [5] PP No. 4 Tahun 1988).
Terhadap buku tanah tersebut kemudian dapat diterbitkan Sertifikat Hak Milik Atas Rumah Susun(Pasal 7 ayat [1] Peraturan Kepala Badan Pertanahan Nasional No. 4 Tahun 1989 tentang Bentuk dan Tata Cara Pembuatan Buku Tanah serta Penerbitan Hak Milik Atas Satuan Rumah Susun/PKBPN No. 4 Tahun 1989).
SHMRS dibuat dengan cara:
a. membuat salinan dari buku tanah yang bersangkutan.
b. membuat salinan surat ukur atas tanah bersama.
c. membuat gambar daerah satuan rumah susun yang bersangkutan
Salinan-salinan tersebut kemudian dijilid menjadi sebuah dokumen yang disebut dengan Sertifikat (lihat Pasal 7 ayat [2] dan ayat [3] PKBN No. 4 Tahun 1989).
Jadi, secara singkat dapat dilihat bahwa dasar dari diterbitkannya SHMRS ini didapat dari akta pemisahan yang telah disahkan dan didaftar, kemudian dari akta pemisahan tersebut dibuatlah buku tanah sebagai dasar penerbitan SHMRS.
SHMRS yang diterbitkan tersebut merupakan tanda bukti hak milik terhadap satuan rumah susun yang dimiliki(Pasal 9 ayat (1) UURS jo. Pasal 7 ayat (4) PKBN No. 4 Tahun 1989).
Demikian yang bisa saya jelaskan, semoga dapat memberi pencerahan. Terima kasih.
Dasar hukum:
1. Undang-Undang No. 16 Tahun 1985 tentang Rumah Susun
2. Peraturan Pemerintah No. 40 Tahun 1996 tentang Hak Guna Usaha, Hak Guna Bangunan, dan Hak Pakai Atas Tanah
3. Peraturan Pemerintah No. 4 Tahun 1988 tentang Rumah Susun
4. Peraturan Kepala Badan Pertanahan Nasional No. 2 Tahun 1989 tentang Bentuk dan Tata Cara Pengisian serta Pendaftaran Akta Pemisahan Rumah Susun
5. Peraturan Kepala Badan Pertanahan Nasional No. 4 Tahun 1989 tentang Bentuk dan Tata Cara Pembuatan Buku Tanah serta Penerbitan Hak Milik Atas Satuan Rumah Sus
Thursday, September 08, 2011
American-Style Islamophobia
American-Style Islamophobia | Crossroads Arabia
The progressive American political group Center for American Progress has published an extensive report on Islamophobia Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. The 140-page report (70 double PDF pages at the link) takes a look at what Islamophobia is, who is funding it, who is serving as the ideologues and message carriers. It makes for interesting reading.
The report points to how noted American Islamophobes like Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes selectively (and often inaccurately) pick information about Islam and Shariah Law, take them out of context, and create frightful scenarios in order to drive anti-Muslim public policy. This is true. The report, however, does its own share of cherry-picking data and ad hominem attacks. Thus, the report needs to be taken with a grain of salt itself.
Robert Spencer retorts with his own heated defense here, finding the report the result of an ‘Islamic Propaganda Machine’. Spencer’s response is full of his own name-calling and casting of aspersions, but he gets his point across.
A more accurate portrayal of Islamic law in America can be found in a The New York Times commentary by Eliyahu Stern:
Don’t Fear Islamic Law in America
Eliyahu Stern
MORE than a dozen American states are considering outlawing aspects of Shariah law. Some of these efforts would curtail Muslims from settling disputes over dietary laws and marriage through religious arbitration, while others would go even further in stigmatizing Islamic life: a bill recently passed by the Tennessee General Assembly equates Shariah with a set of rules that promote “the destruction of the national existence of the United States.”
Supporters of these bills contend that such measures are needed to protect the country against homegrown terrorism and safeguard its Judeo-Christian values. The Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has said that “Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”
This is exactly wrong. The crusade against Shariah undermines American democracy, ignores our country’s successful history of religious tolerance and assimilation, and creates a dangerous divide between America and its fastest-growing religious minority.
…
Over the past years, I’ve been writing about the intersection of American secular laws and religious establishments. While the Church and State are separate in the US, American law has always ##en since the time of the writing of the Constitution ##en made room for religious law in certain corners of jurisprudence. This has generally involved matters of arbitration, with the parties being able to decide beforehand which entities would adjudicate contracts of various sorts. It has also involved ‘choice of law‘ provisions in contracts. This is not new; it is not dangerous; it is not some camel’s nose being thrust under the tent of American values.
Fear-mongering can be an effective political tool. It can be used to motivate masses and raise massive funds. It is also despicable. As we come to the 10th anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11, when Muslim extremists – including 15 Saudis – attacked targets in the US, we can expect to see more and sharper criticism of Muslims. That’s unfortunate, but perhaps to be expected. It can be ignored for its political import, but should be condemned for the way it demeans and smears the reputation of the millions of American Muslims who oppose extremism and the billion-plus Muslims around the world.
Diyyah (blood money)
Blood Money or diyya is an Shariah principle that arose to avoid feuds and independent application of lex talionis or retribution. In the case of accidental death, it may be covered by insurance, but for intentional killings, it falls upon the miscreant and his family. The value of blood money has remained static in Saudi Arabia for the past 29 years. It is now being raised to three or four times the old value to keep in line with the changes in its baseline figure: the price of a camel.
The Saudi system still values women’s lives at half that of men and of non-Muslims at only a quarter.
Proposal to raise blood money limit gets royal consent
ARAB NEWS
RIYADH: Royal consent has been given to raise the diyyah (blood money) limit for murder to SR400,000 and accidental killings to SR300,000, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The newspaper said the adjustments were requested by the Supreme Court in light of the hikes in the price of camels.
According to Shariah rules, the heirs of a murdered person should be compensated with 100 camels. The new blood money values are expected to be circulated soon.
Blood money values, currently set at SR110,000 for murder and SR100,000 for accidental killings, have been static for the last 29 years. Murdered women are paid half of the amount. The Supreme Council of Scholars had called for reviewing diyyah in light of the increasing prices of camels.In a meeting held about 40 years ago the Judicial Council set diyyah for murder at SR27,000, which was increased to 45,000 six years later before it was raised to the current level.
Judge Yasser Al-Balawi said he expected the changes in blood money levels to reduce crime in the Kingdom. It is also predicted that car insurance companies will increase their premiums in response.
Fawwaz Al-Hijji, director of business development at Tawuniya, said the company would conduct a study to decide the price of new insurance policies.