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Health Care Is the New Front in the Fight Over Transgender Rights Under President Trump

(WASHINGTON) — Military service. Bathroom use. Job bias. And now, health care. The Trump administration is coming under fire for rewriting a federal rule that bars discrimination in health care based on “gender identity.” Critics say it’s another attempt to undercut acceptance for transgender people. The Health and Human Services Department rule dates to the Obama administration, a time when LGBT people gained political and social  recognition . But a federal judge in Texas said the rule went too far by concluding that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is a form of sex discrimination, which is forbidden by civil rights laws. Instead of appealing the judge’s injunction, the Trump administration has opted to rewrite the rule, which applies to health care providers and insurers receiving federal funds. Roger Severino, head of the department’s Office for Civil Rights, said the rewrite will address the “reasonableness, necessity and efficacy” of the Obama-era requi...
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Anti-sexual harassment message resounds in Africa

Like a baton pass in the world's most painful relay race, revelations that powerful men have - presuming a right to pleasure - sexually harassed their female colleagues have spread around the world. It started in the entertainment industry (the first allegations were against Hollywood executive  Harvey Weinstein ) and then moved to politics, the media and the not-for-profit sector. In the latter, the hashtag  #AidToo  has shown that despite its noble intentions, the development and humanitarian industry is as susceptible to abuses of power and the violence that most of its organisations campaign against. Despite this groundswell, many have remarked that the African continent seems largely silent on the topic of sexual harassment - and gender-based violence more broadly - pointing to respectability politics (the taboo of speaking out), cultural norms, shame and the digital barrier as explanations for this perceived silence. But, does that perception match reality?...
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North Korea vows to freeze nuclear weapons tests

North Korea has agreed to freeze its ongoing nuclear weapons tests, if its security can be guaranteed, South Korea's top security adviser said following his trip to the communist state. In a press briefing on Tuesday, Chung Eui-yong also announced that North Korea's Kim Jong-un and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in will hold a landmark summit in April. The summit of the two leaders will be held at the joint security area of Panmunjom, according to the official South Korean news agency, Yonhap. The announcement followed high-level talks in Pyongyang between Chung and top North Korean leaders, including Kim Jong-un. "The North side clearly affirmed its commitment to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and said it would have no reason to possess nuclear weapons should the safety of its regime be guaranteed and military threats against North Korea removed," he said. ----- My Response Audience:  Th audience of this article is clearly very w...
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Saudi Arabia fires top army chiefs in military shake-up

Saudi Arabia's  King Salman  has fired his top military commanders and reshuffled his cabinet in a shake-up of key security and government ministries, according to royal decrees. Those dismissed include the Saudi army's chief of staff, and the heads of the ground and air defence forces. First Lieutenant General Fayyad bin Hamed al-Ruwayli was appointed the new chief of staff. Tamadur bint Youssef al-Ramah was appointed as deputy labour minister in a rare senior post for a woman in the kingdom. "He [Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman] is the person who is running the country. There should not be any doubt about it," said James Dorsey, senior fellow at the S Raja Ratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. "One has to keep in mind that in effect the crown prince has changed the government structure of Saudi Arabia," he said, adding that it's a one-man rule as opposed to the past when decisions were taken by consensus. "I think we are...
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Elon Musk's huge Falcon Heavy rocket set for launch

US entrepreneur Elon Musk will attempt to fly the world's most powerful rocket later from the Kennedy Space Center. His Falcon Heavy vehicle is designed to have more than twice the lifting capacity of any existing launcher. Because of the historic high failure rate of maiden flights, the rocket will only carry a dummy payload, however. Mr Musk has decided this should be his old cherry-red Tesla sports car. A mannequin wearing a space suit will be strapped to the driving seat. The entrepreneur says David Bowie's classic hit Space Oddity will be looping on the radio in the roadster as it is hurled into an elliptical orbit that stretches out to Mars' orbit around the Sun. "[The car will] get about 400 million km away from Earth, and it'll be doing 11km/s," he told reporters in a briefing on Monday. "We estimate it will be in that orbit for several hundred million years, maybe in excess of a billion years." Three cameras attached to the car ...
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Trump signs bill to end government shutdown

President  Donald Trump  has signed into law a bill that ends the government shutdown, and provides congressional negotiators with additional time to hammer out an immigration reform package capable of passing both the House and Senate. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are expected to return to work on Tuesday morning, after spending the day Monday on furlough. The bill funds the government for 17 days, and it funds the popular CHIP children's insurance program for six years. It does not include a permanent fix for the Obama-era DACA program, which Senate Democrats had originally demanded. Negotiations over the bill took place almost entirely in the Senate, where on Friday night, Majority Leader  Mitch McConnell  had been unable to reach the 60 vote threshold required to keep the government open. But on Monday morning, the first official day of government employee furloughs, McConnell said he intends to bring DACA and other immigration issues up ...
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Freedom House: Tunisia's democracy downgraded

A new report released by the international watchdog organisation Freedom House has raised concerns about Tunisia's democratic backslide. Data analysed by the NGO from 195 countries over the past year showed that Tunisia was still the only free country in the Arab world, but the North African state saw its political rights rating decreased from two to three, the report said on Tuesday. "Municipal elections were once again postponed, leaving unelected councils in place seven years after the revolution, and figures associated with the old regime increased their influence over the vulnerable political system, for example by securing passage of a new amnesty law despite strong public opposition," said the document titled "Freedom in the World 2018". "The extension of a two-year-old state of emergency also signaled the erosion of democratic order in Tunisia." Tunisia managed to reach the status of a free country in just four years after the ...
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