UNITED STATES: Lousy Mail Service? Get Used to It
If you thought that dealing with the post office was bad before, get ready for some real pain.
On March 23, Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer Louis DeJoy announced a 10 year plan for the United States Postal Service (USPS).
“The need for the U.S. Postal Service to transform to meet the needs of our customers is long overdue,” said DeJoy. “Our Plan calls for growth and investments, as well as targeted cost reductions and other strategies that will enable us to operate in a precise and efficient manner to meet future challenges, as we put the Postal Service on a path for financial sustainability and service excellence.”
“The Board challenged Postal management to devise a Plan that was firmly rooted in our public service mission to bind the nation together,” said Ron Bloom, Chairman of the United States Postal Service Board of Governors. “The Plan will achieve service excellence, adapt the Postal Service to the evolving needs of the American people and address our obligation for financial sustainability.
“Through a wide-ranging process involving numerous talented and dedicated public servants throughout the organization and insightful input from many stakeholders, they have done just that. This Plan will revitalize this American treasure and we are excited to work with our union leaders, stakeholders and newly nominated Governors, once they are confirmed, as we move it forward.”
According to the USPS, the Plan includes a combination of investments in technology, training, Post Offices and a new vehicle fleet; modernizing the Postal Service’s processing network; adopting best-in-class logistics practices across delivery and transportation operations; creating new revenue-generating offerings in the rapidly expanding e-commerce marketplace and pricing changes as authorized by the Postal Regulatory Commission.
While DeJoy touted the vision of the 10-year Plan, he did not fully emphasize the drawbacks. The Plan in question would cause an increase in postage prices as well as a reduction in retail post office hours. Last but not least, due to logistical challenges, mail delivery would take longer.
If you are thinking that President Biden should dismiss DeJoy for his questionable decisions, think again. The Officer of the Postmaster General is exempt from presidential action, in order to discourage politicians from using the post office as a political tool to influence legislation and elections.
EUROPE: Turkey Criticized For Decision
Turkey’s decision to withdraw from an important treaty on protecting women is “a very worrying step backwards,” a group of independent UN human rights experts said on March 23.
“This decision…sends a dangerous message that violence against women is not important, with the risk of encouraging perpetrators and weakening measures to prevent it,” said Dubravka Šimonović, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women.
She noted that it will only weaken laws which provide women protection and helps keep them safe, “and leaves them at further risk at a time when violence against women is surging all over the world.”
The Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention is the most recent international instrument that helps provide a roadmap for the elimination of gender-based violence against women and girls; alongside the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action.
The independent experts maintained that these accords not only recognize gender-based violence against women as a human rights violation, but also “commit States to putting in place policies and legislation to eradicate it.”
In the last few months, some conservative politicians and groups in Turkey have reportedly expressed concerns that the Convention “threatened the family” and family values, in what the experts upheld was a misinterpretation of the term ‘gender’ expressed in the language of the Convention.
“On the contrary, the Convention provides Member States with tools to better protect women and girls and their human rights,” they said.
In 2012, Turkey was the first of 35 Member States to ratify the Istanbul Convention, and on March 20, the experts noted, with no debate in Parliament or with society at large, it announced its decision to withdraw by Presidential decree.
Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Gladys Acosta Vargas, who also chairs of the CEDAW Committee, said that she “would welcome a dialogue with Turkey” to discuss the Convention’s importance in working towards the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence against women at “national, regional and international levels.”
“We call on Turkey to reconsider this decision and to conduct consultations with academia, civil society organizations, Parliament and society at large,” the experts said.
Among those displeased with Turkey’s is U.S. President Joe Biden, who said in a statement, “Turkey’s sudden and unwarranted withdrawal from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is deeply disappointing. Around the world, we are seeing increases in the number of domestic violence incidents, including reports of rising femicide in Turkey, the first nation to sign the convention. Countries should be working to strengthen and renew their commitments to ending violence against women, not rejecting international treaties designed to protect women and hold abusers accountable. This is a disheartening step backward for the international movement to end violence against women globally.
“Gender-based violence is a scourge that touches every nation in every corner of the world. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen too many examples of horrific and brutal assaults on women, including the tragic murders in Georgia. And we’ve seen the broader damage that living under the daily specter of gender-based violence does to women everywhere. It hurts all of us, and we all must do more to create societies where women are able to go about their lives free from violence.”
MIDDLE EAST: Israel Still Deadlocked
Despite a fourth election in the past two years, the balance of power in the Israeli government is still undecided.
With close to 90 percent of the vote in, the right-wing Likud Party of Benjamin Netanyahu might have the largest number of votes among any particular party in Israel’s latest election, but not enough to take 61 of the 120 seats in the Parliament for a clear majority. This will leave the country under most political duress, and no clear plan going forward.
One reason for the choices by Israeli’s citizens is that Netanyahu’s time as Prime Minister has been marred lately by numerous scandals, including charges of corruption, which he denies and is currently on trial for.
LATIN AMERICA: Baker’s Dozen Arrested
An INTERPOL-coordinated ‘EL PAcCTO’ operation (Nov. 20 – March 5) has seen a team of investigators from across Latin America locate and arrest 13 of their most wanted fugitives.
Wanted for serious and often horrific crimes, including murder, kidnapping and sexual violence against women, the fugitives were all subject to INTERPOL Red Notices – a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a wanted person.
Their names also featured on a list of priority fugitive targets established by INTERPOL’s Fugitive Investigative Support (FIS) unit and law enforcement in eight Latin American countries in late 2020.
Then, during a two-week ‘operational phase’ (Feb. 22 – March 5), INTERPOL coordinated intensive working meetings between national law enforcement aimed at locating and arresting as many of these fugitives as possible.
The operational model effectively pushes international police cooperation into ‘hyper drive’, allowing investigators to exchange actionable information in real-time.
This year, more fugitives were arrested during the operational phase than in any other INTERPOL EL PAcCTO project to date. On one occasion, multiple fugitives were arrested in a single day. Positive locations were also secured for a further two wanted persons.
A fugitive wanted by Peru for child sexual exploitation and human trafficking was arrested by Argentina’s Federal Police after several days spent tracking down family members that had provided erroneous addresses.
Inga Molina was on Ecuador’s most wanted list since 2018 for rape. Initially thought to have fled abroad, investigators exchanging information within the EL PAcCTO task force managed to locate and arrest him in Quito through open source analysis and wiretaps.
The head of an international drug trafficking ring, wanted by Brazil following a series of seizures who had brought in more than two tons of cocaine, was arrested by Bolivian police in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
“These results are only possible thanks to the permanent EL PAcCTO network that has been built up over time between national fugitive investigators,” said Stephen Kavanagh, INTERPOL’s Executive Director of Police Services.”
Law enforcement from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama and Peru took part in the EL PAcCTO operation.
EL PAcCTO is a European Union-funded cooperation program that seeks to strengthen capacities and facilitate international cooperation.
