Latest news with #Compact
Scoop
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Island Military Veterans Hope For US Action
, Editor, Marshall Islands Journal / RNZ Pacific correspondent United States military veterans in the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau received increased attention during the Biden administration after years of neglect by the US Veterans Administration. That progress came to a halt with the incoming Trump administration in Washington in January, when the new Veterans Administration put many programs on hold. Marshall Islands Foreign Minister and US military veteran Kalani Kaneko said he is hopeful of resuming the momentum for veterans living in the freely associated states. Two key actions during the Biden administration helped to elevate interest in veterans living in the freely associated states: The administration's appointment of a Compact of Free Association (COFA) Committee that included the ambassadors to Washington from the three nations, including Marshall Islands Ambassador Charles Paul, and US Cabinet-level officials. The US Congress passed legislation establishing an advisory committee for the Veterans Administration for Compact veterans. Kalani Kaneko was appointed as chairman to a three-year term, which expires in September. Kaneko said he submitted a report to the Veterans Administration recently on its activities and needs. The Foreign Minister said it is now up to the current administration of the Veterans Administration to take next steps to reappoint members of the advisory committee or to name a new group. Kaneko pointed out that in contrast to its virtually non-existent program in the Marshall Islands, FSM and Palau, the VA's program for veterans is "robust" in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Citizens of the three Compact nations enlist in the U.S. military at higher rates per capita than Americans. But when they leave the service and return home to their islands, they have historically received none of the benefits accorded to US veterans living in the United States. Kaneko and island leaders have been trying to change this by getting the Veterans Administration to provide on-island services and to pay for medical referrals of veterans when locally available medical services are not available. Kaneko said the 134-page report submitted in June contained five major recommendations for improved services for veterans from the US-affiliated islands: Establish a VA clinic in Majuro with an accredited doctor and nurse. Authorise use of the Marshall Islands zip code for US pharmacies to mail medicines to veterans here (a practice that is currently prohibited). If the level of healthcare in Marshall Islands cannot provide a service needed by a veteran, they should be able to be referred to hospitals in other countries. Due to the delays in obtaining appointments at VA hospitals in the US, the report recommends allowing veterans to use the Marshall Islands referral system to the Philippines to access the US Veterans Administration clinic in Manila. Support and prioritize the access of veterans to US Department of Agriculture Rural Development housing loans and grants. Kaneko said he is hopeful of engagement by high-level Veterans Administration officials at an upcoming meeting to review the report and other reports related to services for Compact nation veterans. But, he cautioned, because there is nothing about Compact veterans in President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill passed recently by the US Congress, it means fiscal year 2027 - starting October 1, 2026 - would be the earliest to see any developments for veterans in the islands.
Daily Express
6 days ago
- Business
- Daily Express
Work on Tenom dam going smoothly
Published on: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 Published on: Wed, Jul 23, 2025 Text Size: 'I have been assured there is no cause for worry and everything is progressing smoothly,' said Nizam. Kota Kinabalu: The 187.5-megawatt (MW) Ulu Padas Hydroelectric Project (UPHEP) in Tenom is proceeding smoothly and barring any unforeseen circumstances, it will be completed as scheduled. The detailed design for the UPHEP is nearing completion and several issues, especially relating to concerns initially raised by some 40 families living near the area, had already been resolved. Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Nizam Abu Bakar Titingan said he has been informed by a reliable source that officials from the company handling the project had on a number of occasions met with the families to allay their fears about the construction of the dam. The villagers are satisfied and there had been no further objections. 'I have been assured there is no cause for worry . . . and everything is progressing smoothly,' said Nizam. Work on the 125-metre high Roller Compact Concrete dam with a reservoir capacity of 25 million litres of water, is expected to begin later this year. The dam is located 9.3km away from the powerhouse where three 60MW Francis Type turbines will generate 187MW of electricity daily. Early this year, Tan Sri TC Goh had praised the State Government for coming up with long-term solutions to the existing water and electricity issues. Goh, who is a member of the Sabah Economic Advisory Council (SEAC), especially cited the UPHEP in Tenom as the answer to the long- standing problem the current GRS-PH Plus government inherited after coming to power in 2020. In fact, a number of initiatives, he said, had already been implemented earlier to address supply disruptions before the UPHEP commences production. The UPHEP is scheduled for completion in December 2030. Goh, who also heads the Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) and the Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS), said he is confident the UPHEP will proceed smoothly given the reputation and experience of the companies handling it. Meanwhile, Parti Gagasan Rakyat Sabah (Gagasan Rakyat) Tandek Chief Datuk Dr Janathan Kandok was quoted as saying the UPHEP spoke volumes of the genuine commitment to ensure long-term water and electricity availability. 'This project is not something the State Government promises in view of the upcoming state election. And it is not something you heard from the grapevine. 'It was already launched two years ago, reflecting the farsightedness of the Government in tackling issues faced by the people,' Dr Janathan said. Gamuda Berhad is the total development contractor (TDC) for the power project in partnership with Conlay Construction Sdn Bhd (Conlay). The UPHEP, when completed, is expected to generate an average of 1,052GWh of clean energy yearly - hence, increasing Sabah's current dependable capacity by some 15 per cent. It will also double the renewable energy (RE) mix, supporting Sabah's goal of achieving approximately 35pc RE share in its generation mix by 2035. The scope of work will include design, construction, testing and commissioning of the hydroelectric plant involving a roller-compacted concrete dam, a main and secondary powerhouse, water conveyance system, project access and other permanent facilities such as a 275kV switchyard, 33kV sub-transmission line and workshop, among others. At the launch of the project in 2023, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor had expressed confidence that it would also resolve Sabah's water supply issue in the longer term. The dam is able to release up to 6,000 million litres of water daily. Kota Kinabalu residents only need to use about 500 to 600 million litres of water per day. * Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel and Telegram for breaking news alerts and key updates! * Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express's Telegram channel. Daily Express Malaysia
IOL News
20-07-2025
- Business
- IOL News
It's Time for Digital Justice
The recent BRICS declaration on artificial intelligence marks a critical shift in the global digital agenda. In their joint statement, BRICS leaders reaffirmed each nation's sovereign right to develop and govern digital technologies, particularly AI, in alignment with domestic priorities and legal frameworks. They called for strengthened capacity-building, robust data governance, and technological autonomy, stating: 'We firmly support the right of all countries to harness the benefits of the digital economy… to develop capacities in AI research, foster technological autonomy and innovation, ensure data protection, and promote their own digital economy.' This affirmation is welcome and timely. Yet, in the face of growing digital inequality, platform gatekeeping, and regulatory imbalance, should we not be thinking about how to move beyond high-level diplomacy toward more tangible, enforceable measures? Perhaps the time has come to complement vision with action and to consider what digital justice might truly look like in practice. Across the Global South, from township entrepreneurs in South Africa to fintech innovators in Latin America, startup ecosystems remain stifled by structural imbalances in the digital economy. The current rules of engagement, largely dictated by dominant platform companies, are neither inclusive nor equitable. As a member of the SU20 Foundation and Alliance Task Force, I believe we must now reimagine global digital governance through a justice lens. This means embedding fairness, inclusion, and startup-led innovation at the core of every digital transformation policy and programme. South Africa has an important role to play. Not only must we advance our domestic innovation ecosystem, but we must also advocate globally on behalf of underserved regions still waiting to be seen, heard, and funded. The SU20 Digital Transformation Workstream outlines a concrete path forward. It proposes that we fund the Startup Fund at scale to enable meaningful participation in the digital economy. Emerging innovators must have access to early-stage, patient capital that prioritises inclusion and impact. It also proposes that we enforce platform compliance through regulatory agencies, ensuring dominant platforms are held accountable through effective, transparent, and independent oversight. Furthermore, the workstream recommends embedding public-private startup labs within digital transformation programmes. These labs can serve as co-creation spaces that bring together government, entrepreneurs, and civil society to solve real-world problems using local insight and scalable technology. Perhaps the most significant contribution of the SU20 agenda is the proposed Digital Competition Compact. This is a landmark framework that introduces new global standards for digital fairness. The Compact establishes that platforms must not be allowed to preference their products over third-party services. It affirms that fair and open API access must be guaranteed, ensuring interoperability and innovation. It further calls for digital procurement processes to be reformed so that startups and emerging market innovators are included as a matter of policy, not exception. This is not an anti-technology stance. It is a pro-market, pro-competition, and pro-equity proposition. When civic technologies or early-stage startups are denied platform access or squeezed out of procurement processes by legacy players, we are no longer operating in a free and fair digital marketplace. We are reinforcing monopolistic behaviour. South Africa has both the moral authority and institutional experience to lead this agenda. As a country that understands the long-term effects of systemic exclusion, we must ensure our voice is prominent in shaping global digital rules. We should be among the first to adopt and promote the Digital Competition Compact. We should build and scale our Startup Fund. And we should institutionalise startup labs as core elements of government-led digital reform. In doing so, we will not only empower our own entrepreneurs. We will inspire a shift in how the global economy values innovation from the Global South. Diplomatic engagement has laid important foundations. But as digital inequalities deepen and platform control tightens, we must now choose justice. Not as an abstract ideal, but as a measurable, enforceable, and globally aligned principle. The digital economy must serve everyone, not just the privileged few. If the next billion internet users are to thrive, they must be empowered as creators, not just consumers. The era of digital diplomacy has passed. This is the era of digital justice. Prof. Eldrid Jordaan is the Founder of GovChat and Suppple PLC, a Professor of Practice at the Johannesburg Business School, and a member of the SU20 Foundation and Alliance Task Force.
The Hill
17-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Nebraska sues Colorado over river water rights, proposed canal construction
Nebraska officials on Wednesday announced a lawsuit against Colorado, alleging that the Centennial State is allowing 'unlawful water diversions' from a transboundary resource. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) and Attorney General Mike Hilgers accuse Colorado of threatening Nebraska's water supply along the South Platte River in multiple ways. The lawsuit alleges that Colorado has 'deprived' Nebraskans of their water rights during irrigation season, while also 'obstructing' plans to construct a long-disputed conduit called the Perkins County Canal. 'Nebraska must push forward to secure our water for future generations,' Pillen said in a statement, noting that his state had 'made every reasonable effort to resolve our differences with Colorado.' The complaint in large part revolves around the enforcement of the South Platte River Compact, a deal signed by the states in 1923. The agreement limits Colorado's usage of the river and defines how much water Nebraska can receive during the summer irrigation season and the winter non-irrigation season. The headwaters of the South Platte River are located southwest of Denver near South Park, from which it generally heads northeast — through central Denver and the metropolitan region, to Fort Lipton and across the Colorado Eastern Plains, before heading into Nebraska. Because the U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction regarding disputes between the two states, the Nebraska officials argued that the court's input is required to resolve a now irreconcilable dispute. 'Today's action will ensure that Nebraska receives all the water to which it is entitled to under the Compact and that Nebraska's agriculture and economy are protected,' Hilgers said in a statement. 'Water is the essential lifeblood of Nebraska's economy, and it's my goal to protect one of the state's most important assets,' the attorney general added. The lawsuit maintains that the 1923 compact requires Colorado to disconnect certain water users whenever Nebraska is not receiving 120 cubic feet per second of flow during the irrigation season. Currently, the complaint argues, Colorado enables users with 'junior' water rights statuses to take Nebraska's share of summertime water — violating the agreement and Nebraska's 'senior' rights status. The rights in question stem from a historic U.S. West system that adheres to a 'first in time, first in right' approach to water access. This method, rooted in the mid-19th century homesteading and gold rush era, enabled farmers and miners to secure and divert water according to their arrival, rather than their geographical position along the river. The 1923 compact, per the lawsuit, also permits Nebraska to divert 500 cubic feet per second of water flow in the winter, as well as additional water when the Perkins County Canal is constructed. As it stands today, Colorado pumps water in the winter and gradually releases it into the river to compensate for summer overuse, the complaint explains. While this occurs under the theory that the water reaches Nebraska by the following irrigation season, the lawsuit criticizes this method for taking water from the state when farmers are in greatest need. To guarantee that Nebraska can fulfill its rights in the winter and regulate water flow, the state has set out to build the Perkins County Canal, the document explains. The Nebraska state legislature in 2023 approved $574.5 million in funding for the canal's constructions despite pushback from lawmakers who had sought to reduce the cost. While recognizing that Colorado has acknowledged its neighbor's entitlement to build the canal, the Nebraska officials expressed frustrations that negotiations over the project's fine print have persisted for years and ultimately reached a stalemate. 'Despite Nebraska's good faith efforts, Colorado won't agree on such basic things as the location or the size of the Canal, or how much water can flow through it,' a fact sheet issued by the attorney general argued. In response to the lawsuit, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis's (D) office issued a press release that described the complaint as 'meritless.' 'I am disappointed that the states of Colorado and Nebraska will need to waste time and money in court over this meritless challenge,' Polis said. The governor stressed that Colorado has always complied with the South Platte Compact and has met 'in good faith' with Nebraska officials, despite 'attempts to intimidate Colorado landowners.' 'This escalation by Nebraska is needless, and Colorado will take all steps necessary to aggressively defend Colorado water users, landowners, and our rural economy,' Polis added. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser echoed these sentiments in his own statement, slamming neighboring leaders for prioritizing politics over agricultural and likely setting in motion 'decades of litigation.' Describing the Perkins County Canal project as 'wasteful,' he said that the canal's operation would require Colorado to build new water infrastructure to offset the impacts of Nebraska's initiative. 'When the dust finally settles, likely over a billion dollars will have been spent—tens of millions of that on litigation alone — and no one in Nebraska or Colorado will be better off,' Weiser added.
Spectator
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Let straight white men write novels!
About 15 years ago, I tried to interest my literary agent in a state-of-the-nation novel set in 21st-century London. My model was Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe's masterpiece about New York in the 1980s. I'd read Wolfe's essay in Harper's magazine called 'Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast' in which he urges ambitious young authors to dispense with namby-pamby, post-modernist experimental nonsense and follow in the footsteps of Balzac, Zola and Dickens – write realistic novels documenting every aspect of contemporary society in granular detail. I wrote a 10,000-word proposal summarising the story, which began with a black teenage drug dealer coming to the rescue of a posh teenage girl in Shepherd's Bush by fighting off a group of roadmen trying to steal her puppy. They gradually get enmeshed in each other's lives, with predictable tragi-comic results. It was basically Romeo and Juliet but with race and class dividing the lovers. I was quite pleased with it and so was my agent. That is, until she ran it past a recent Cambridge graduate she'd just hired as an in-house sensitivity reader, who declared it an absolute 'no-no'. How dare I, as a straight white man, presume to create a young female character and – worse – a young black man? Talk about cultural appropriation! If the agency sent this proposal out to publishers and they commissioned it, it would be denying a voice to the very people I was proposing to speak on behalf of. Didn't I realise the literary phallocracy was in its death throes? The 'litbros' must make way for girlboss authors such as Zadie Smith and Rachel Cusk. I talked it over with my agent and she said this probably reflected the prevailing attitude in the publishing trade, which is largely made up of young female graduates. And so it proved to be. These days, novels written by straight white men – particularly young men – are as rare as hen's teeth. No white British man under 40 has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize since 2011. The closest is Douglas Stuart, a 49-year-old Scot, who won it in 2020. This isn't just true of the UK obviously. A recent article in Compact revealed that not a single white American man born after 1984 has published a work of literary fiction in the New Yorker. The dearth of young male novelists has reached such a pass that various literary lions are taking steps to address the problem. Unfortunately, their pleas for young men to submit manuscripts are nearly always prefaced by the usual throat-clearing about the insufferable privilege enjoyed by straight white males. For instance, a novelist and critic called Jude Cook announced in April that he was launching an independent literary press called Conduit Books that would focus on overlooked male writers. 'We believe there is ambitious, funny, political and cerebral fiction by men that is being passed by,' he said. He then spoilt it by denouncing the male-dominated literary scene of the 1980s and 1990s as 'toxic' and described the 'excitement and energy around new and adventurous fiction' by female authors like Sally Rooney as a 'timely corrective'. Not sure I'll be sending my proposal to him. Another bat signal appeared in the New York Times at the end of last year, entitled 'The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone'. The author, who teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada, urged men to start writing novels again, not because he thought they might have something to say but because it might get other men reading again and that would be therapeutic. 'Reading fiction is an excellent way to improve one's emotional IQ,' he said. That, in turn, would be good for women. Literature helped men 'transgress patriarchal boundaries', he added, and that meant the lives of women 'fundamentally changed for the better'. When will these self-appointed champions of male novelists stop apologising for being men? The literary agent Matthew Hamilton told me an anecdote that illustrated the point: 'Last week I heard a story of a prominent agent submitting a novel by a straight white male and apologising it was by a straight white male in the accompanying letter. Needless to say, he's a straight white male.' Happily, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Hachette has folded its Dialogue division, which was set up to publish more 'diverse' authors, into another subsidiary, and a literary agency set up to find 'new voices' (i.e. anyone apart from straight white men) has just closed its doors. Perhaps I should set up an imprint myself: Toxic Books. It would just publish novels by people like me for people like me. I might make a mint.
