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Surely we are all reeling from a post-Coachella hangover and don’t have much musical energy left to give, right? Nope, wrong. We gathered ourselves long enough to compile our favorite tracks from April.
This month we delve deep into South America with tracks from Peruvian band TOURISTA. As well as new releases from Colombia’s Ondatrópica and Mexico’s, Natalia Lafourcade. And we also didn’t forget about LA’s own Las Cafeteras and Ozomatli, whose new material is definitely worth a listen.
The Internal Revenue Service is offering some relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy: Those who need to take a loan or “hardship distribution” from a retirement plan can do so without the red tape they might otherwise encounter—and with less damage than usual to their overall savings strategy.
Under the relief plan the IRS announced on Friday, “qualified employer plans,” including 401(k), 403(b) and 457 retirement plans, can make loans or hardship distributions to account-holders without first assembling the documentation they might normally require. Instead, the IRS is letting borrowers and plans cobble the paperwork together after the fact.
Tapping a nest egg for a hardship distribution isn’t a move to be taken lightly. Such withdrawals are generally taxable and a 10% penalty applies when the account owner is age 59 ½ or younger. For taxpayers who want to avoid that hit, the loan may be the better deal. The borrower is still making a dent in his or her savings, but provided that loan is repaid within five years, the proceeds are tax-free. After taking a hardship distribution, 401(k) and 403(b) participants are normally barred from making new contributions for six months. But for Sandy victims, the IRS is suspending the contribution ban.
The agency is also letting some plans that don’t normally allow hardship distributions make an exception for Sandy victims. In addition, while IRS rules typically restrict hardship distributions to a short list of major costs including unreimbursed medical expenses and the purchase of a home, Sandy victims can use the funds for a broader array of purposes, including buying food and paying for shelter while waiting for repairs.
A hardship distribution must be made by Feb. 1, 2013. To qualify for an expedited loan or hardship distribution, a person must live in a federally-declared disaster area or be using the money to help a child, parent, grandparent or other dependent who lives or works in the disaster area.
Encore looks at the changing nature of retirement, from new rules and guidelines for financial security to the shifting identities, needs and priorities of people saving for and living in retirement. Our lead blogger is editor Matthew Heimer, and frequent contributors include editor Amy Hoak, writer Catey Hill, and MarketWatch columnists Elizabeth O’Brien, Robert Powell and Andrea Coombes. Encore also features regular commentary from The Wall Street Journal retirement columnists Glenn Ruffenach and Anne Tergesen and the Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Alicia H. Munnell.
I feel a deep sense of compassion for Scarlett Lewis, the mother who lost her 6-year-old son in the Sandy Hook school shooting [“Compassion seen as way to eliminate ‘epidemic of anger’ in schools,” Local News, Aug. 12]. I do not however agree that teaching compassion in our schools would prevent further incidence of…
Welcome to The Seattle Times' online letters to the editor, a sampling of readers' opinions. Join the conversation by commenting on these letters or send your own letter of up to 200 words letters@seattletimes.com.
The recent Paris attack incited a broad rise in Islamophobia in the UK. Muslims from all across the country are being targeted on the street, on public transport, at work, and at educational institutes. Tell-MAMA – a national body to monitor anti-Muslim hate crime reported a 300% rise in Islamophobic incidents since the horrific attacks in Paris on November 14, 2015.
The reported anti-Muslim hate attacks range from general abuse and threats to extreme violence with victims having age range from 3 year old child to over 60. Majority of the perpetrators are middle aged white males. The anger and hate against the Muslims seem to be increasing every passing day. The most worrying element is that the prime victims of these attacks are Muslim women who are visible because of their veil and modest Islamic clothing which make them visible at the street-level. A vast majority of the cases against Muslim women are taking place on public transport, where either fellow passengers or the bus drivers abuse them. There is a common pattern of the kind of comments made against them and most of the perpetrators hold them responsible for the Paris attacks. In some cases, mothers were verbally abused and threatened in front of their children. In one of the most recent cases, the perpetrator pointed finger at the 5 month old baby of a mother in East London and said “Are you going to brainwash her to bomb people”. In another case, a Muslim female student was threatened to death on a bus by an elderly male near Liverpool.
Such attacks are not just restricted to South Asian or Arab women but the White British converts to Islam are also experiencing the same hatred targeted towards them because of their faith. Right after the Paris attack, a white female convert was approached by a white male in South London who verbally abused her because of her hijab and abaya.
Even the school children are not spared of this targeted hate campaign against the Muslim communities in the UK. There is a steady rise in attacks against the Muslim children at schools and in some extreme cases, the perpetrators were their own teachers who abused their Muslim faith and called them terrorists. Some very violent attacks have also been reported from the universities with the most recent case at the University of Edinburgh where two Muslim students (one of them was wearing a hijab) were spat at, physically and verbally abused and called ‘terrorists’.
Many attacks against the mosques and Islamic institutions have been reported as well. Recently, two mosques in Newport, South East wales, were vandalised with anti-Islamic graffiti in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
Such appalling rise of Islamophobic hate crime in Britain is not a new phenomenon. There has been a consistent trend of anti-Muslim backlash after every terrorist attack locally or internationally. Tell MAMA project recorded a 275% ‘weekly increase’ of anti-Muslim hate crime after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January this year. Similarly, there was reported to be a 286% quarterly increase in such attacks after the murder of a British soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby, in May 2013.
There is no denial of the fact that all those who carried out terrorist attacks in Paris claimed themselves to be Muslims but more important is that Majority of the Muslims all around the world condemn violence in every shape and form. Similarly, the overwhelming British Muslims always came forward and disassociated themselves with all those individuals and groups who perpetrate violence in the name of Islam. However, their efforts could barely protect them from organised hate campaigns running against them in full swing.
Islamophobia in Britain has a long history with its roots going back to pre-7/7 and 9/11 eras when a British think tank, the Runnymede Trust, popularised this term in one of their research reports in 1997. Unfortunate incidents like Paris attack act as a catalyst to anti-Muslim campaigns flourishing in the British society. Some key actors to promote Islamophobia in Britain are far right nationalist groups like Britain First and English Defence League who are proactively demonising Muslim communities in Britain by holding them responsible for all the ills of the British society.
Media is another crucial element to escalate islamophobia in the UK. Certain sections of the print and electronic media have been promoting anti-Muslim sentiments in Britain for a long time. In 2008, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies produced a research report entitled ’Images of Islam in the UK’ which suggested that two third of newspaper stories say British Muslims are ‘Threat’ or a ‘Problem’. By continuously and deliberately mentioning the religion of criminals, they played a central role in arousing public’s sentiments against the Muslim communities in Britain.
The intensification of Islamophobia in the UK has deep impacts on wider Muslim communities in Britain. Their sense of vulnerability and collective victimisation as a faith community has increased over the years because of unfair Government policies and irresponsible media coverage.
The horrific attacks against innocent people in Paris were as shocking for Muslims as they were for the rest of the world. However, as much as Muslims are the greatest victims of terrorist ideology, they are held responsible and made a ‘suspect community’ by certain segments of society because of their faith. This environment is unhealthy and dangerous especially for the younger generations of Muslims who are born and bred in Britain and consider this country as their home. It’s not just the Muslim communities but British society at large must come forward and challenge the hate narratives against the Muslims. The Government needs a policy shift and must introduce more ‘inclusive’ policies instead of focusing on ‘preventive’ measures – which have been miserably failed to tackle the challenges of extremism in Britain.
A resident of the city of Manila helps clean up a creek to remove garbage that clogs drainage and waterways. (Photo: Justine E. Letargo/World Bank)
Metro Manila -- my current home -- is a metropolis of extraordinary contrast. Referred to as the National Capital Region, it is the workhorse of the country, housing about 12.8% of the total population and producing about 38% of national GDP. Metro Manila is a key contributor to the country’s dynamic and vibrant economy, which has been among the fastest growing in East Asia in recent years. With glittering high rise buildings, a Starbucks on seemingly every corner, and bustling commerce wherever you look, one could be lulled into thinking that the citizens of Metro Manila all have a comfortable life.
But this is far from the reality. When we first moved to Manila last year, my youngest daughter was startled to see during our tour of her new school, a huge shanty settlement – houses upon houses – just outside the school wall. For a young teenager, she’s well-traveled and has lived in big, rapidly urbanizing cities in China and Turkey, but never had she seen such a contrasting patchwork of people’s circumstances, right there outside her school gate.
Of the almost 15 million people who live in Metro Manila, about 3 million live in informal settlements. They live in houses made of tin, plywood, and plastic sheeting, many built under bridges or on stilts over creeks and rivers. These settlements are scattered around the city – wherever a small piece of land is available – and many people who live in these areas have lived there for several generations. In the last several decades, millions of Filipinos have flocked to Manila from their hometowns in the countryside or on the islands, in search of jobs and better education and opportunities for their children. Many of these settlements are in disaster-prone areas along Manila’s many waterways that rapidly flood during monsoonal rains.
Climate change is making this situation worse. The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. Each year more than 20 typhoons enter the Philippines, and the damage is often extensive. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) – one of the most powerful typhoons ever to have made land fall – devastated the eastern part of the Philippines. Even Metro Manila is not immune – in 2009, Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) made a direct hit on Metro Manila, causing more than 464 deaths and huge damage and disruption to the city.
Between June and November, it often rains in Manila. My family is lucky – where I live when it starts to rain the water rapidly rises above our ankles in the streets, but it just as quickly subsides again, as a well-functioning drainage system kicks into operation. But for the vast majority of the city, this is not the case. Just two weeks ago when a tropical storm passed directly over Metro Manila, many of our staff could not make it to the office because roads (and, in some cases, their houses) were flooded.
Recently I had the opportunity to visit some areas to be included in the Metro Manila Flood Management Project – a huge undertaking by the Government of the Philippines with support from the World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – that will improve the city’s drainage infrastructure, clean up solid waste, and help to protect the lives and livelihoods of 1.7 million people, including many of the city’s poorest citizens who live in precarious circumstances along some of the city’s most flood-prone waterways.
Visiting the informal settler communities living along Manila’s waterways is a sobering experience. Trash fills the waterways, and the smell is pervasive. Small children play along the river beds just inches from the water with no fences to stop them from falling in. Houses are built on every postage stamp piece of land – under the bridges, along the sidewalks, and just above the water line in the rivers. Even on a dry day, the water is flowing fast and it is not hard to imagine how terrifying it must be when the water roars along those rivers during a storm.
When a disaster strikes, it is always the poor who suffer the most. And yet in many areas, the poor are also helping themselves. We visited a creek where programs run by the government and civil society are helping the community improve their own safety through participation in river cleanup activities, by educating them on how to better manage their trash, and by helping them plant and tend gardens along the riverbanks to keep the banks clear of informal development and improve their living environment. Even the construction of a simple fence between their houses and the creek can go a long way to making sure that children are protected and parents do not need to worry for their safety.
There’s still a long way to go but I am really pleased that the government is taking this important step in Metro Manila and that the World Bank and AIIB have the privilege of supporting them along this journey.
Turning ‘people problems’ into ‘government problems’: Reflection of an outgoing District Head in Indonesia
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