The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU securities markets regulator, has today launched a consultation on draft technical standards on crowdfunding under the European crowdfunding service providers regulation (ECSPR).
The new Regulation on crowdfunding regulates for the first time at EU level lending-based and equity-based crowdfunding services. It introduces a single set of requirements applicable to CSPs across the EU, including strict rules to protect investors.
The ECSPR requires ESMA to develop 12 technical standards – 8 regulatory technical standards (RTS) and 4 implementing technical standards (ITS) – on a variety of important topics.
This consultation paper seeks input on the draft technical standards developed by ESMA, on the following issues:
Complaint handling;
Conflicts of interest;
Business continuity plan;
Application for authorisation;
Information to client on default rate of projects;
Entry knowledge test and simulation of the ability to bear loss;
Key investment information sheet;
Reporting by crowdfunding service providers to NCAs (and NCAs to ESMA); and
Publication of national provisions concerning marketing requirements.
Next steps
ESMA will consider the responses to this consultation when developing the draft technical standards for the European Commission. The closing date for responses from stakeholders is 28 May 2021.
The majority of these technical standards are to be submitted to the European Commission for adoption before 10 November 2021. The remaining ESMA technical standards are to be delivered by 10 May 2022.
SYDNEY — Farmers as well as agricultural scientists and policy makers from Australia, Africa and North America have joined the global outcry at the unjust confiscation of lands belonging to Bahá’í farmers in Iran, as the Iranian authorities face mounting criticism over the widespread and systematic persecution of the country’s Bahá’ís.
In an open letter to Iran’s Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi and acting Minister of Agriculture Abbas Keshavarz, figures in the field of agriculture from several countries across the world—including Canada, Ethiopia, Mali, and the United States—say they are speaking out because they “are concerned about the plight of smallholder farmers throughout the world who often face injustice from arbitrary authority.
“These recent land seizures take place within the context of escalating raids on Bahá’í owned homes and businesses in Iran,” they say, expressing their alarm at the latest stage in the ongoing persecution of the Bahá’ís of Ivel who have been displaced and economically impoverished by Iranian authorities solely because of their religious beliefs.
The open letter states: “We understand that Bahá’í families have farmed land in Ivel for over 150 years and that these families have been constructive members of the local community, by, for instance, starting a school for children of all faiths and by carrying out measures to improve the hygiene and health of all community members.
“Despite their contributions to the community,” the letter continues, “they have faced a series of persecutions throughout the years, characterized by mass expulsion and displacement, and the demolition, bulldozing and confiscation of their homes.”
The signatories call on Chief Justice Raisi and Minister of Agriculture Keshavarz to end the persecution of Bahá’ís, saying, “We write as fellow agriculturists to bring attention to this instance of persecution and urge the Iranian authorities to overturn their decision with regard to the farmers of Ivel.”
A moving video message released on behalf of members of Australia’s farming community draws attention to the plight of Bahá’í families in the Iranian village of Ivel. Claire Booth, a farmer from New South Wales, speaks in the video.
Meanwhile in Australia, a moving video message released on behalf of members of the country’s farming community draws attention to the plight of Bahá’í families in the Iranian village of Ivel.
“Farming is a difficult job at the best of times,” says Claire Booth, a farmer from New South Wales, in the video message. “It’s not made any easier by the frequency of floods, droughts, fires, climate change, and most recently, the impacts of the pandemic.”
The video message describes the role of a supportive government in assisting its farming communities, drawing a sharp contrast with Iran’s harsh treatment of the country’s “peaceful Bahá’í community.”
“We stand in solidarity with our farming brothers and sisters in this country,” the farmers say, “and call on the Iranian government and judiciary to return the land and properties to their rightful owners—Bahá’í farmers in Ivel.”
CNA Staff, Feb 25, 2021 / 06:15 am MT (CNA).- Catholic bishops across Europe have criticized a European Parliament resolution on Poland’s abortion law.
In a letter released on Feb. 25, the bishops said that the resolution, passed on Nov. 26, 2020, would have “a very negative impact” on the way that the European Union (EU) is seen by member states.
The European Parliament, the EU’s law-making body, passed the resolution by 455 votes to 145 after Poland’s top court ruled that a 1993 law permitting abortion for fetal abnormalities was unconstitutional.
The resolution lamented what it called a “de facto ban on the right to abortion in Poland.”
Before the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling on Oct. 22, Polish law permitted abortion only in cases of rape or incest, a risk to the mother’s life, or fetal abnormality.
Following the publication of the ruling on Jan. 27, abortion will continue to remain legal in cases of rape or incest and risk to the mother’s life.
In their letter dated Feb. 22, the bishops said: “From a legal perspective we wish to underline that neither European Union legislation nor the European Convention on Human Rights provide for a right to abortion. This matter is left up to the legal systems of the member states.”
The letter was addressed to David Maria Sassoli, president of the European Parliament, and signed by members of the standing committee of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE).
The letter followed criticism of the resolution by Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, president of Poland’s bishops’ conference.
In a Dec. 2 statement, Gądecki said that there could be no compromise on the right to life.
He said: “The right to life is a fundamental human right. It always takes precedence over the right to choose, because no person can authoritatively allow the possibility of killing another.”
The EU bishops underlined the Catholic Church’s support for women facing difficult pregnancies as well as for the protection of unborn life.
They suggested that the resolution downplayed “a fundamental principle of European Union” known as the “principle of conferral,” which confines the EU to acting within limits agreed by member states.
“As the Parliament’s resolution rightly stresses, respect for the rule of law is essential for the functioning of the Union. That being said, the rule of law also requires respect for the competences of the member states and the choices made by them in the exercise of their exclusive competences,” the bishops wrote.
They said that the resolution also appeared to question the right to conscientious objection.
“This is particularly worrying considering that in the healthcare sector conscientious objectors are in many cases subject to discrimination. In our view, such unjust stigmatization should not be promoted,” they said.
They added: “In regard to the right to conscientious objection, the European Union Charter entails the need to respect national constitutional traditions and the development of national legislation on the issue.”
The bishops also expressed concern that the principle of “non-discrimination,” highlighted in the resolution, could be used to “stretch or blur the limits” of the EU’s authority over member states.
COMECE, founded in 1980, consists of bishops delegated by the bishops’ conferences of the 27 member states of the European Union. The letter was signed by COMECE’s president Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg; Bishop Mariano Crociata of Latina, Italy; Bishop Franz Josef Overbeck of Essen, Germany; Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor, Northern Ireland; and Bishop Jan Vokal of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic.
In the letter, the bishops alluded to mass protests in Poland in the wake of the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling. Demonstrators disrupted Masses while holding signs supporting abortion, left graffiti on Church property, vandalized statues of St. John Paul II, and chanted slogans at clergy.
The bishops said: “We also noted with sadness that no condemnation or solidarity was expressed in the text with regard to the unacceptable attacks on churches and places of worship in the context of protests related to this law in Poland.”
The document summarizes what is known so far about “long COVID” and how countries are addressing the condition, whose troubling symptoms include severe fatigue and increased damage to the heart, lungs and brain.
The policy briefwas published by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Office for Europe and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.
Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO’s Regional Director, said long COVID is an extra cause for concern amid the pandemic, which has already caused immense suffering.
“It’s important that patients reporting with symptoms of long COVID are included as part of the COVID-19 response to mitigate some of the longer-term health impacts of the pandemic”, he said.
Long COVID is not fully understood, but available data indicate that roughly a quarter of people suffer from symptoms four to five weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus, and about one in 10 still experiences symptoms after 12 weeks.
Patients, who include medical professionals, struggle to be taken seriously. They report feeling stigmatized and unable to get a diagnosis, receiving “disjointed” care, while also facing problems in accessing health and disability benefits.
Involve patients in research and response
The policy brief highlights areas for action, including through developing “new care pathways”, creating appropriate services, and tackling wider consequences such as employment rights, sick pay policies and access to disability benefits.
Patient registers and other surveillance measures should be implemented, and research into post-COVID conditions must be conducted in collaboration with patients and care providers.
“Long COVID has demonstrated the importance of involving patients in research”, said Dr. Selina Rajan, lead author of the policy brief.
“However, much remains to be understood about the long-term, multisystem consequences of COVID-19 infections in children and adults, and the interventions required to treat them.”
In “Dualism or Solidarity? Conditions for Union Success in Regulating Precarious Work,” published in December in the European Journal of Industrial Relations, the researchers surveyed academic articles to see how often they would find evidence of unions helping nonunionized workers or helping only their own members, and which conditions were associated with each outcome.
The paper was co-authored by Laura Carver, M.S. 20, and Virginia Doellgast, associate professor of international and comparative labor in the ILR School.
Unions respond to growing worker insecurity in different ways, Carver said.
In some cases, unions work with management to protect their own members while allowing management to cut pay or otherwise increase insecurity for nonunionized workers, she said. This is called dualism, because it creates a dual labor market where unionized insiders are still paid relatively well and have some job security, and nonunionized outsiders are subjected to increasing insecurity.
Unions also can act in solidarity with nonunion workers by proactively extending union protections and increasing security for precarious workers. Examples of union support include the Unite union support of the “Justice for Cleaners” protests in the United Kingdom and support by the French union CGT for the ‘sans papiers’ movement for undocumented immigrant workers in France.
A third union response is described as “failed solidarity” by Carver and Doellgast.
“Unions’ attempts at inclusivity are not always successful—in other words, attempts to stand in solidarity with nonunion workers sometimes do not actually reduce their experiences of precarity,” Carver said.
After surveying 56 case study-based articles published between 2008 and 2019, they found that:
In 46% of cases, solidarity was practiced when unions improved working conditions for the peripheral workforce. This includes cases in which the union simultaneously improved conditions for the core workforce, as well as those in which the conditions for the core workforce remained stable or even declined.
In 26% of cases, the unions practiced dualism by maintaining or improving working conditions for the core, unionized workforce, with either no attempt to address precarity for peripheral workers or increased precarity for these workers.
In 12% of the cases, solidarity failed—there was no reduction in precarity in spite of union attempts to regulate or improve conditions for peripheral workers.
In 16% of cases, there were no clear outcomes of dualism, solidarity or failed solidarity.
“The fact that successful solidarity was the most common outcome is notable,” Carver said. “This suggests there is cause for optimism, or that increased precarity is not the inevitable outcome.”
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(REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)Security in the U.S. Capitol for Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
Hundreds of evangelical Christian leaders have condemned the “heresy of Christian nationalism,” which they believe has led to political extremism and helped spur the pro-Trump insurrection against the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
White evangelicals shown as a group with slipping trust in Trump’s handling of COVID-19
Christianity Today sparks furore after saying Donald Trump ‘should be removed from office’
A letter released on Feb. 24 on saynotochristiannationalism.org describes Christian nationalism as “a version of American nationalism that is trying to camouflage itself as Christianity.”
The church leaders said it was “a heretical version of our faith,” The Hill reported as the link between Trumpism and white evangelical beliefs persist.
“As leaders in the broad evangelical community, we recognize and condemn the role Christian Nationalism played in the violent, racist, anti-American insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6,” in the attack on the building the houses the U.S. Congress..
“While we come from varied backgrounds and political stances, we stand together against the perversion of the Christian faith as we saw on January 6, 2021. We also stand against the theology and the conditions that led to the insurrection.”
Signees of the letter include some prominent megachurch leaders including David Swaim of the Highrock Covenant Church and Rev. Kevin Riggs of the Franklin Community Church, as well as Jerushah Duford, granddaughter of the late Rev. Billy Graham.
“To watch the events of January 6 unfold and to see ‘Jesus Saves’ banners and ‘Jesus 2020’ signs made me angry,” Riggs said in a statement accompanying a news release.
CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICAL PASTOR
“As a conservative evangelical pastor in the South, I wanted to add my name to this statement declaring Christian Nationalism is not only wrong, it is heretical and antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.”
Five people died when rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in the hopes of preventing the congressional certification of former President Trump’s ‘s election defeat. Dozens of Capitol Police officers were also injured in the attack.
“Our faith will not allow us to remain silent at such a time as this. We are also aware that our world needs more than a statement right now… we need action. We will do our best to be faithful to Jesus, and to those Christ called ‘the least of these,'” the letter reads.
For Trump, white evangelical Christians were a key base of support since his 2016 presidential campaign, with about eight in 10 voters from the religious demographic voting for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020, Newsweek reported.
During the Jan. 6 attack against the U.S. Capitol by a horde of Trump’s supporters, many carried Christian banners or symbols as prominent evangelical Christian leaders.
They had for weeks promoted Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud led to President Joe Biden’s electoral victory ahead of the riot.
The signers said that over the centuries, there are moments when “the Church, the trans-national Body of Christ-followers, has seen distortions of the faith that warranted a response.”
“Just as many Muslim leaders have felt the need to denounce distorted, violent versions of their faith, we feel the urgent need to denounce this violent mutation of our faith. What we saw manifest itself in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is a threat to our democracy, but it is also a threat to orthodox Christian faith,” they said.
They said the word “Christian” means “Christ-like.”
“As leaders in the Church, we do not agree on everything, but we can agree on this — Christians should live in a way that honors Jesus, and reminds the world of Him.”
They said that on Jan. 6 they “saw the flags claiming Trump’s name, calling for violence, and raising the name of Jesus.”
“We saw images of a police officer being beaten with an American flag and another being crushed in a doorway.”
The singers said they have witnessed the rise of violent acts by radicalized extremists using the name of Christ for its validity in the past, noting the deadly actions in Charlottesville in 2017.
“We join our voices to condemn it publicly and theologically.
“We recognize that evangelicalism, and white evangelicalism in particular, has been susceptible to the heresy of Christian nationalism because of a long history of faith leaders accommodating white supremacy.”
Thursday was dedicated to COVID-19 and revolved around the sluggish vaccination campaign and the ways to jumpstart it, while on Friday the council will discuss the the issues of defense and cooperation with the bloc’s Mediterranean members, and will be joined by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
On Thursday, the heads of state and governments agreed to speed up the authorization, production and distribution of vaccines against the coronavirus. The EU leaders stressed that manufacturing companies must also ensure the predictability of the production and supply of vaccines. European leaders also spoke in favor of the need to expand opportunities for the early detection and control of new variants of the coronavirus.
A woman is given a protective face mask as she waits to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at Crystal Palace Football Club Vaccination Centre, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in London, Britain February 4, 2021.
The keyword is coordination as the EU is desperately trying to get past the cacophony of repeated excuses for the inaction, delays and errors of Brussels in dealing with the pandemic.
“Our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic continues. It remains challenging due to the emergence of new variants and the need to strike the right balance between restrictions and the smooth flow of goods and services in the single market,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote in the invitation letter.
Vaccination is still a sore topic for the EU leadership, which has been promising a lot but never quite living up to its promises over the last few months. At this point when major European countries are starting to wonder if they should not look elsewhere for getting more shipments of vaccines for their failing vaccination campaigns.
One most glaring flaws in the bloc’s vaccination strategy are the speed of emergency authorization by the European Medicines Agency coupled with the speed of ordering. According to a diplomat working at the European Council services, the speed of ordering is what gave the UK “a strong lead over the EU”.
“[Prime Minister] Boris Johnson can already speak in detail of the end of the lockdown in the UK at the end of June, while Europe will still be struggling to vaccinate at that time. We can only hope that more vaccines will soon be available and that the EMA will finally have understood that they need to set up an emergency procedure,” he confirmed to Sputnik.
Another issue is the allocation of vaccines, with some countries not taking their share and creating surpluses used by others.
“Actually, member states of the European Union are or were not obliged to claim their allocated share, many did not and that creates surpluses, which other member states can then obtain. Denmark did so eagerly, it seems. Germany, the Netherlands and France have also already applied for surpluses. You want to receive more vaccines? Well, order more!” the diplomat stated.
This is confirmed by Marc Van Ranst, a virologist and professor at the KU Leuven university.
“The distribution key is based on the number of inhabitants, and yet Denmark with fewer inhabitants received over a third more vaccines per head than Belgium as revealed by the Standaard newspaper. This is because the Danes also ordered 2.5 times more vaccines than Belgians in relation to the population,” the expert told Sputnik.
Movement Restrictions and Vaccination Passports
Apart from vaccination, another pressing issue on the European Council agenda is so-called vaccine passports, as well as the problem of these uncoordinated movement restrictions.
The official EU position and recommendation is not to forbid all air and land travel, but only to “strongly discourage” citizens to travel; except for serious or emergency reasons.
French Junior Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari talks with medical workers in a COVID-19 testing centre during a visit on police measures and sanitary checks at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in Roissy near Paris as France closed borders to travelers outside European Union due to restrictions against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in France, February 5, 2021
Nevertheless, some countries, such as Germany or Belgium have gone further. Belgium, for example, outright forbids its citizens to travel, except for emergency issues. This has prompted a response from the European Commission, which earlier in the week gave Belgium 10 days to justify the measure.
“The coordination is complicated because, for the leaders, the priority is to protect their population. We expect animated discussions,” a senior European official told Sputnik.
Meanwhile, airlines have stated that they would demand from travelers on their planes to produce some kind of vaccine passport. Some member states are in favor and intend to enlarge the scope of the vaccine passport making it mandatory to enter cinemas, theaters or even restaurants, for example.
Others, such as France or Belgium declare that it is much too early to discuss that, proposing to wait until 70 percent of the adult population is vaccinated. Since these countries currently hover at about 4 percent, the vaccine passport will likely have to wait for next autumn or even winter.
As the vaccination-related issues refuse to go away the European Council members certainly have enough to talk about.
In last week’s column, I revealed the first part of my Black History Month lecture for the House of Grace was hacked by an army of racist roaches.
They interrupted frequently and really showed their stupidity and contempt for God and country whenever I introduced an unflattering—albeit truthful– fact about the founding fathers and the evolution of American apartheid.
Ironically, they drowned me out even when I provided a controversial statement supporting the theory that slavery is condoned in the bible.
Had they shown any modicum of respect for a religious service, they would have also heard me theorize how the Confederate States of America had a legal right to succeed from the union.
But being the bigoted dastardly beetles they obviously are, expecting them to be any more than I have grown accustomed to, was wishful thinking, at best.
As such, I used last week’s column to reveal what they missed during the initial lecture and after we jumped ship and established a new Zoom linkage.
Likewise, I will use this week’s column to summarize part two of my lecture.
Since I am being scrutinized and recorded, who knows, maybe these scum will learn something if I use second-grade English.
For most of my life, I was in denial. Still, I finally accepted dozens of scriptures that either condone or justify slavery, including Ephesians 6:5, Titus 2:9-20, Colossian 4:1, and 1 Peter 2:18.
However, there are also verses that either requires slave owners’ to treat their slaves humanely or call for liberation. In fact, a cornerstone of Jesus/Yeshua’s teachings was to love your neighbor (even if he lived in a hut on your plantation), aid the poor and suffering, and liberate the oppressed, starting with his first ‘sermon’ as described in Luke 4: 18,19, and Isaiah 61:1,2.
There is also scripture denouncing greed—capitalism—which is referred to as the ‘root of all evil.’
This concept appropriately applied to most slave owners, including most founding fathers and presidents serving before the 13th amendment.
While slavery may have been a ‘cultural’ reality, racism is not.
In fact, ‘race’ is never mentioned in anybody’s bible, including the one penned by Thomas Jefferson.
Nor are there references that Whites were made in the image of God (Nyame). That lie was often cited by the racist roaches who tortured, raped, and mutilated their ‘property,’ along with the insane belief that Africans had no souls.
What is factual is that (wo)mankind was created in the likeness of Nyame (God’s African reference). He/She was Negroid. The first human was born in Africa and given the name Lucy. And if there was an Eden, it was located along the Nile. Those theories must be factual since they were confirmed by White anthropologists. And as everyone knows, that makes the conclusion legitimate.
Of course, had a Black anthropologist made the discovery, Lucy would have been named Lakeshia, and the garden would have been a ghetto.
While it has never been challenged, many legal scholars believe the Confederate States of America (CSA) probably had a legal right to secede from the union.
In fact, the CSA was not the first ‘confederacy’ to consider doing so.
During the Thomas Jefferson administration, a group of New England states held the ‘Hartford Convention’ to discuss seceding from the union. Paradoxically, they sought to form a separate nation for precisely the opposite reason Southerners would do a half-century later.
These northern ‘traitors’ believed the federal government undermined state rights and specifically mentioned the Virginian politician and slave owner Jefferson’s tyrannical conduct.
One of the secession movement leaders, which would have included a half dozen northern states, including New York and New Jersey, was Rufus King. Yep, the same guy the Milwaukee School Board honored by naming a school after, a high school I attended for three years.
You can debate the predominance of slavery as the cause of the civil war. Still, a fact that can’t be disputed is that many, if not most, union soldiers believed they were fighting to preserve the union, as Abe Lincoln posited.
In fact, various accounts reveal most union soldiers said they would not have fought if the civil war was about abolishing slavery. Not only were the majority of northerners apathetic about slavery, but it can also be assumed most were racists, believing Africans were inferior.
Moreover, there were several riots, including one in New York (which was reenacted in the Martin Scorsese film, “The Gangs of New York”), to protest the draft.
And you would be hard-pressed to convince me these Northern liberals did more than tolerate the presence of Black folks. According to various accounts, many draftees hated their enlistment under any circumstance and took out their frustration on the conflict’s symbol. An undisclosed number of Black men, women, and children were tortured and lynched during several violent protests in the north, which also served to fuel racial animosities.
While it is often overlooked, numerous reports and journals provided by independent foreign observers, journalists, and abolitionists in early American society, declared that racism ran rampant in the north.
Numerous reports theorize Africans were better off in slavery than as ‘free men’ in the north, where they were confronted by a system of apartheid that would make South Africans blush.
Segregation, discrimination, and poverty were off the charts, and ‘Jane Crow’ made her presence known decades in the North before laws were implemented in the South by her brother, Jim.
White Supremacy was the norm in both the north and south.Several of the founding fathers were bigots, including Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and George Washington, which cannot be denied. Most Whites, who would be considered liberals by today’s standards, believed that Africans were inferior.
Lincoln said during a speech in 1858 that we were too ‘stupid’ to be given the vote and should be restricted to second-class citizenship.
Franklin, one of the revolutionary war architects, was quoted as saying there were “too many ‘Nigras’ (n-word) in New England,” and that America was a ‘White country!’
Jefferson, who put a different meaning to the concept of a ‘founding father,’ denied a request from Haitian revolutionaries to assist them in throwing out the French colonists on that island nation. Jefferson believed though it would be morally correct to do so, it would probably inspire Black slaves in America to seek their freedom.
Christianity took two different paths in America, with African slaves and free Colored Americans viewing the religion through different prisms than Whites. For members of our tribe, Christianity was a religion of hope, patience, and liberation.
Most White Christians’ theology spanned the gamut, from denominations that followed the New Covenant of Jesus and His call for the universal brotherhood, to a doctrine that supported White Supremacy. Ironically, most of the founding fathers were either followers of that racist philosophy or were agnostic. Several were deists.
What we would today call ‘conservative churches’ not only condoned slavery but posited it was the will of God. Congregants believed God was a White man with a flowing beard much in the image of Uncle Sam, empowering those created in His/Her image to rule the world, having power over all creatures, including the subhuman Black, Brown, and Yellow people. They similarly took that position when it came to women, who they kept powerless and subservient.
The common rationale was, as one Christian leader explained,
“[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God … it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation … it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.”
Or, as Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis noted,
“… the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.”
On the other end of that religious spectrum were the progressive denominations like the Quakers. They posited that God (Nyame) created but one race and that slavery was a sin and an afront toward God Almighty. Those who supported it and racism would eventually end up in Hell wearing gasoline drawers.
Many progressive Christians believed that America’s evil character would not be exorcised by prayer alone but should be eradicated with blood.
Although raised in a Calvinist household, John Brown proclaimed those who supported the institution of slavery were enemies of God. He said God had chosen him to be the match that would set off the TNT that would end slavery.
The dichotomy of the vastly different interpretations of the Gospel splintered America, then and now. This dichotomy was best summed up by Frederick Douglass, who once declared,
“Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as sinful, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.
“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I, therefore, hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity…”
Chances are you won’t find anything mentioned in my lecture offered in government schools.
Sadly, only His-story is taught in government indoctrination centers (also called ‘schools’) which, unfortunately explains what happened in Washington D.C. in January.
And as it has been said, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
“As an international community committed to addressing inequality and advancing sustainable development, we must put in place the very principles of transparency, sound governance, and accountability that we so often champion”, Volkan Bozkirsaid at the release of the Report of the High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda (FACTI).
In the Financial Integrity for Sustainable Development report, the FACTI Panel recommends that governments finance critical action on extreme poverty, COVID-19 and the climate crisis by recovering billions of dollars lost through tax abuse, corruption and money-laundering.
“Developing countries could not afford to lose resources during the best of times and they certainly cannot afford to now, in the midst of the COVID crisis”, attested the Assembly President.
Noting that as much as 2.7 per cent of the global GDP is laundered annually, the FACTI Panel is calling on governments to agree to a Global Pact for Financial Integrity for Sustainable Development.
Making the case
Pointing out that corporations shopping for tax-free jurisdictions cost governments up to $600 billion a year, the Panel flagged the need for stronger laws and institutions to prevent corruption and money laundering and advocated for those enabling financial crimes to face punitive sanctions.
The report also calls for greater transparency around company ownership, public spending and stronger international cooperation to prosecute bribery and to increase tax levels on giant digital corporations.
“A corrupt and failing financial system robs the poor and deprives the whole world of the resources needed to eradicate poverty, recover from COVID and tackle the climate crisis”, said FACTI co-chair and former president of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė.
Ibrahim Mayaki, FACTI co-chair and former prime minister of Niger, added that “closing loopholes that allow money laundering, corruption and tax abuse…are steps in transforming the global economy for the universal good”.
Cutting tax avoidance
At a time when billionaires’ wealth soared by 27.5 per cent and COVID-19 has pushed 131 million into poverty, the report notes that a tenth of the world’s wealth could be hidden in offshore financial assets – preventing governments from collecting their fair share of taxes.
Recovering annual loss to tax avoidance and evasion would, for example, allow Bangladesh to expand its social safety net to nine million more elderly, permit Chad to pay for 38,000 classrooms, and enable Germany to build 8,000 wind turbines, according to the report
Mr. Bozkir welcomed the Panel’s new system, which fosters financial “fairness, accountability and integrity” for sustainable development and expressed confidence that “if duly implemented” it can “advance progress towards achieving Agenda 2030”.
“None of us stand to benefit from failure to act”, he attested. “The onus is on each of us to put in place a system of financial integrity for sustainable development” to free up resources that would otherwise be lost and build “trust in our international, national and local systems of governance, demonstrating transparency, accountability and the ability to deliver on the 2030 Agenda”.
