First batch of wintering birds arrive in Chinas Poyang Lake
Four white spoonbills arrived in Maying Lake in Duchang County, east Chinas Jiangxi Province, on Sept. 11, becoming the first batch of wintering birds to arrive in the Poyang Lake area this year.
According to the Duchang station of the Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve Administration Bureau, the birds landed a day earlier than last year.
It’s the ninth consecutive year the migratory birds have come to Maying Lake for their first stop during the winter months since 2013.
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With a surface area of over 3,200 square km, Poyang Lake hosts up to 700,000 wintering birds every year.
The worlds largest free-trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), will further boost China-ASEAN cooperation and facilitate the regions economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, officials and business leaders said at a high-level forum of the ongoing 18th China-ASEAN Expo.
The RCEP, signed by 15 Asia-Pacific countries, including China and ASEAN’s ten member states in November last year, will “open a new chapter for China-ASEAN economic and trade ties,” said Ren Hongbin, China’s vice minister of commerce. The forum took place on Friday in Nanning, the capital of south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Covering roughly 30 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, trade and population, the RCEP has great development potential and will inject strong impetus into the anti-pandemic battle and economic revival in East Asia and across the globe, Ren said.
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Noting that China expects the RCEP to add new vitality to East Asia economic integration, he said the agreement “integrates and optimizes the region’s economic and trade rules in a wide range of fields, including goods, services, investment, intellectual property rights, e-commerce and competition policy, which will further promote the integrated development of industrial chain, supply chain and value chain in the region.”
The signing ceremony of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement is held via video conference in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, Nov. 15, 2020.
Dato Lim Jock Hoi, secretary-general of ASEAN, said via video that the RCEP could play a significant part in post-pandemic economic recovery in the region by linking the regional value chains more closely. In turn, this will improve the transparency of trade and investment regulations and enhance cooperation across the RCEP participating countries.
The RCEP has the potential to boost business confidence, benefit consumers and promote regional economic integration and equitable economic development for all participating countries, said Thanongsinh Kanlagna, executive vice president of the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, via a video message.
At the forum, officials, business leaders, scholars and entrepreneurs from China and ASEAN also called on the RCEP participating countries to work together for the agreement’s early entry into force and implementation.
“To reap the rewards of the RCEP, we need to ensure the timely entry into force of the RCEP agreement,” Dato Lim stated, noting that full, effective and efficient implementation of the RCEP is imperative for realizing its benefits.
He also commended China for setting an example as one of the first signatories that ratified the agreement.
Ratifications of six ASEAN member states and three non-ASEAN member countries are needed to reach the threshold of the RCEP’s entry into force. Countries that have completed the ratification procedures include China, Singapore, Japan and Cambodia.
“Attaching great importance to the RCEP, the Chinese government has ratified the agreement and made full preparations for fulfilling its obligations under the agreement,” Ren said.
He added that China will work with the RCEP participating countries to expedite their ratification processes for early entry into force and implementation of the agreement.
Photo taken on Sept. 11, 2021 shows exhibitors from Thailand at the 18th China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning, capital of south China
Afghan women can attend schools but in gender-separated classes: Taliban official
Afghan female students are allowed to go to school in gender-separated classes, and wearing an Islamic dress is also necessary, said the Talibans acting education minister.
Afghan female students can attend higher education institutions and universities but in gender-separated classes, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, acting minister of higher education of the new Taliban government, said on Sunday.
“All government-run universities will reopen soon. Higher education authorities are working on regulations as students will return to their classes,” Haqqani told reporters.
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The minister noted that “boys and girls would not study together … They will be separated,” as co-education scheme has been against Islamic principle and national values.
The minister noted that the “Islamic dress was also necessary for the female students while attending classes.”
The report came as an Afghan female student secured a top position at a national university entrance exam this year.
Being affected by the COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year, the Afghan universities were closed after the Taliban takeover of the country in mid-August. However, a number of private universities reopened earlier this week after the Taliban announced a caretaker government in Afghanistan
Argentine president stresses importance of voting in primary elections
“I have fulfilled my duty to vote. It is a beautiful day, because every time we vote in Argentina, we make democracy a little stronger, and for me, that is very important,” said the president after casting his vote in southern Buenos Aires.
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez on Sunday stressed the importance of voting in the Primary, Open, Simultaneous, and Mandatory elections (PASO), in which citizens choose the candidates that will face off in the legislative elections scheduled for Nov. 14.
“I have fulfilled my duty to vote. It is a beautiful day, because every time we vote in Argentina, we make democracy a little stronger, and for me, that is very important,” said the president after casting his vote in southern Buenos Aires.
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A total of 101,457 ballot boxes are open to voters in 17,092 electoral establishments, which have reported long lines and delays due to COVID-19 protocols.
The winners of the primaries will be able to compete in the legislative elections, in which 127 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 24 of the 72 seats in the Senate are up for grabs.
The National Electoral Chamber reported that as of 2:00 p.m. local time, 36 percent of the electorate had voted.
The primary elections were implemented in 2011 with the aim of allowing each party to define who appears on their candidate lists during the national legislative elections.
Singapore braces for quadrupling of Covid cases, as Asean sees improvement
Southeast Asia saw a decline in new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, the lowest in four days, but deaths were higher, collated data showed.
Asean reported 74,305 new cases, lower than Saturday’s 83,523, while the death toll was higher at 1,481 from Saturday’s 1,323.
Total Covid-19 cases in the region crossed 11.1 million, with 242,746 deaths.
Indonesia, which a few months ago had the most number of new cases on a daily basis, was fifth in Asean behind Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam with 3,779 patients on Sunday. Cumulative cases in the country rose to 4,167,511 patients and the death toll to 138,889.
Indonesia on Sunday received 500,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine from the Netherlands, which is a part of the 3 million doses that the Dutch government promised to provide to the country. Earlier, the Netherlands had delivered 657,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Indonesia, which is planning to provide Johnson & Johnson jabs to those over 18 years of age.
Meanwhile Singapore reported 520 new cases on Sunday, bringing cumulative cases in the country to 71,687 with 58 deaths. The Ministry of Public Health revealed that domestic infections had doubled since the government eased up disease control measures despite 50 per cent of the country’s population receiving two doses of vaccination. It estimated that in the next few weeks new infections could reach 2,000 a day, and suggested widening its active case finding campaign to prevent large cluster cases as well as giving a booster shot to those over 60 years old.
FBI releases 9/11 investigation document that scrutinized Saudis
WASHINGTON – The FBI has released the first of what are expected to be several documents from its investigation into whether agents of the Saudi Arabian government provided support to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror plot, a move heralded by victims families though it yielded no tangible proof of official involvement.
The Saturday night release was the result of an executive order issued by President Joe Biden earlier this month ordering government agencies to review, declassify and release more information regarding the investigation.
Some families of 9/11 victims have sued the Saudi government, alleging the Saudis knowingly provided financial and logistics support to the terrorism plot, something that country’s government has long denied. As part of that lawsuit, lawyers for the families have fought for years to force the FBI to share what it knows about possible connections between the 9/11 hijackers, most of whom were citizens of Saudi Arabia, and any Saudi diplomats or intelligence operatives.
Brett Eagleson, whose father was killed in the attacks, said it was “particularly meaningful” that first document in response to the executive order was released on the 20th anniversary of the attacks. “Today marks the moment when the Saudis cannot rely on the U.S. government from hiding the truth about 9/11,” he said in a written statement pledging to “hold the Saudi government fully accountable for the tremendous pain and losses we suffered.”
Biden signed the executive order after families of hundreds of 9/11 victims said he would not be welcome at this year’s events marking the anniversary unless he declassified evidence.
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In 2019, the Trump administration said it would share some of the relevant information with the families but not other details about the bureau’s findings, invoking the rarely used state secrets privilege to argue that some elements of the investigation into the 9/11 attacks would damage national security if revealed.
Justice Department lawyers said last month they had recently closed an investigation related to the attacks, making it easier to share documents like the one released Saturday.
That document shows that FBI agents were still investigating as recently as 2016 possible ties between two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, and those who may have helped them after they arrived in the United States in 2000.
Investigators were particularly interested in details about the Saudi government’s connections to Fahad al-Thumairy, a former Saudi consulate official, and Omar al-Bayoumi, a person the FBI once investigated as a possible Saudi intelligence officer.
After the 9/11 attacks, Bayoumi told investigators that he met the hijackers by chance in early 2000 in a Los Angeles restaurant and that they became friends. Bayoumi said he helped them navigate their new lives in the United States, but denied any knowledge of their terrorist intentions.
The newly released FBI document says some of Bayoumi’s statements in that 2003 interview “are directly contradicted by eyewitness statements.”
The 9/11 families suspect those interactions were not accidental, but directed by a senior Saudi government official.
The FBI document released Saturday contains significant redactions, but nevertheless shows FBI officials were skeptical of claims by various witnesses that Saudis in the U.S. who met with the two hijackers did so accidentally through chance encounters.
It was “difficult to reconcile” the connection between the hijackers and those who gave them support, the FBI document states, noting that one individual claimed he met the hijackers at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Northern Virginia “during a ‘chance meeting’, in a uniquely similar fashion to the way Bayoumi described his ‘chance meeting’ with Hazmi and Midhar in Los Angeles.”
The report also said Bayoumi’s “logistical support to Hazmi and Midhar included translation, travel assistance, lodging and financing.”
In 2004, the 9/11 Commission said: “Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization,” but added, “This conclusion does not exclude the likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to al Qaeda.”
Taliban minister says women can attend university, but not alongside men
Women in Afghanistan will be allowed to study in universities and postgraduate programs but only in gender-segregated classrooms and in Islamic dress, a senior Taliban official announced Sunday as the militant group began to articulate its vision for the country after forming an all-male cabinet and raising its flag over the presidential palace.
The Taliban intend to “start building on what existed today,” the acting minister of higher education, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, told reporters in Kabul.
He said women would not be kept out of schools as they were from 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban last ruled the country under a fundamentalist Islamist code. But he said Taliban officials would conduct a curriculum review, and suggested the group would not abandon its hard line. “We will not allow female and male students to study in one classroom,” Haqqani said. “Coeducation is in opposition to sharia law.”
Farzana Sarwari, 21, who is studying at both a private university and Kabul University, likened that segregation to a pandemic. “It will spread to other parts of the society as well,” she said.
Questions of how the Taliban will handle culture, education and civic freedoms have loomed over Afghanistan since the group defeated government forces and returned to power last month. The fate of women, perhaps more than anything else, has been a central concern in the early weeks of Taliban rule.
Women in the past week have led protests in several major cities to demand they be allowed to keep their government jobs, only to have their demonstrations broken up forcibly by Taliban fighters patrolling the streets. Journalists covering an unapproved women’s march in Kabul were detained and whipped.
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Meanwhile, pro-Taliban women have held a countermarch, and a group wearing niqabs – a conservative face veil showing only their eyes – sat in a Kabul University lecture hall on Saturday to hear speakers inveigh against the liberal women who protested earlier in the week.
The Taliban dismissed women from government ministries shortly after seizing Kabul on Aug. 15, saying the work was not appropriate for female employees. And as classes resumed in the past week for the first time since the Taliban takeover, some universities already began imposing gender segregation, or classrooms divided by curtains.
On Tuesday, the Taliban unveiled an all-male caretaker cabinet drawn entirely from its own ranks. That brought criticism from foreign governments, which have said they will monitor how the Taliban rolls out its social policies to determine whether to extend diplomatic recognition to the caretaker government.
The Taliban raised its white flag over the presidential palace on Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to signify it was beginning the business of governing.
Much of the international community has yet to recognize the new government. Qatar’s foreign minister on Sunday became the most senior foreign official to visit Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover. In a brief trip, Foreign Minister Muhammad bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani met with senior leaders of the group, according to Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi.
“This visit is very important for us,” Karimi said. “We hope the rest of the world follows suit.”
Al Thani also met with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and former chief of reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah, leaders from previous governments who have remained in Kabul, the two said in a statement. Qatar has been a longtime mediator between the West and the Taliban.
In the new government’s first news conference on Sunday, Haqqani took pains to emphasize gender segregation in the classroom.
In most circumstances, he said, women should be taught only by female teachers, but in the event of a shortage of lecturers, male instructors could teach women from behind a curtain, or via video call. “We will provide classrooms with a video screen,” he said.
Mohammad Nasir Habibi, a lecturer of psychology at Kabul University, said it was unrealistic that the university would be able to provide women with adequate educations under the new Taliban rules. Almost 90 percent of the lecturers at his university are men, he said, and it would be difficult to find lecturers who would be allowed to teach women.
The entire environment at the university has become “terrorized,” Habibi said. “Already, many of my students and colleagues say that they do not want come to the university.”
When private universities reopened last week, Sarwari said, she returned to find a classroom with a divider to separate men from women. She said only seven of the class’s 42 students – four women and three men – showed up.
Sarwari said she, too, will stay away.
“I don’t feel safe go to university,” she said. “There is no hope for our educational journey anymore. The Taliban has thrown us back to 20 years ago. . . .
“If we want to build a sustainable country, we need to grow together, both girls and boys.”
The new university rules could have stark consequences for women beyond the campus.
Amanullah Sarwari, a second-year computer science student at Kabul University, said his generation grew up alongside female students, which led them to view women at the workplace and outside the home more as equals.
“When you graduate from university with female students, interaction with them becomes normal,” said Sarwari, who is unrelated to Farzana Sarwari. “Without having female classmates, it will feel weird and strange to see them in the street.”
As more countries turn to coronavirus vaccination requirements in a bid to bring the pandemic to heel, England is moving in a different direction.
“I’m pleased to say that we will not be going ahead with plans for vaccine passports,” U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the BBC’s Andrew Marr on Sunday.
“There’s a lot of defenses . . . that we need to keep in place because this virus hasn’t gone anywhere, there’s still a pandemic, so of course, we need to remain cautious,” he said. “But we just shouldn’t be doing things for the sake of it or because others are doing it.”
The announcement marked a reversal of the government’s plan to require proof of full vaccination to enter nightclubs and other crowded venues in England. Intended to incentivize vaccine uptake, especially among young people, the system had been expected to take effect at the end of the month.
About 65 percent of the population in England is fully immunized. But vaccination rates among young people have lagged behind those of older demographics. Coronavirus cases have dropped since July, though England is still reporting more than 20,000 new cases per day.
“Some of life’s most important pleasures and opportunities are likely to be increasingly dependent on vaccination,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in remarks directed to young people in July.
Officials had previously suggested, however, that the plan would never become reality, and that the government was using the threat of vaccine passports to convince people to get the shots. In late July, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab pointed to the surge in vaccination appointments in France following its government’s announcement that proof of vaccination, a negative coronavirus test or natural immunity would be required to access restaurants, cafes and other places beginning in August.
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A month after the system took effect in France, coronavirus infections have dropped. One public health consultant told Politico that the measures “saved tens of thousands of lives.”
Italy also instituted a “green pass” system in July, requiring people to show proof of vaccination, recovery from covid-19 or a recent negative test to access indoor activities – a move that, to the surprise of some, appears to have helped increase internal tourism. New York City and several Canadian provinces are rolling out similar measures.
Some countries, such as Indonesia and Turkmenistan, have instead opted for blanket vaccine mandates. Russia and the United States, meanwhile, have placed the onus on employers to require that workers get vaccinated – though not without criticism.
In England, the vaccine passport plan encountered fierce opposition from across the political spectrum, with lawmakers in Johnson’s Conservative Party calling it a hindrance to businesses and an infringement on civil liberties. The Liberal Democrats also opposed the measure, as did some venues. Labour leaders raised concerns about the plan and called for a testing component to be added.
Javid on Sunday acknowledged the concerns but defended the government’s consideration of the policy. “I’ve never liked the idea of saying you must show your papers or something to do what is just an everyday activity. But we were right to properly look at it, to look at the evidence,” he told Marr.
He added, however, that the government “should keep it in reserve as a potential option” should the coronavirus situation deteriorate. Some venues have been asking people to show proof of vaccination anyway, the BBC reported.
Just days before, government officials had defended the vaccine passport plan as necessary.
The Labour Party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, on Sunday criticized the swift reversal and called the government’s approach to vaccine passports “shambolic from the start.”
Johnson’s government has come under fire for policy reversals over the course of the pandemic that have eroded the public’s trust. Javid’s remarks Sunday came ahead of Johnson’s announcement of his winter coronavirus plan for England on Tuesday.
Sunday’s announcement applies only to England. Wales is still considering adopting vaccine passports, and people in Scotland will be required to show proof of full vaccination to get into nightclubs and many large events starting in October. Northern Ireland is not currently considering such measures.
With rockets and rhetoric, Hamas seeks to leverage Palestinian prisoner escape
TEL AVIV – Hamas, aiming to capitalize on the public euphoria after Palestinian prisoners escaped from an Israeli prison last week, said it would demand the release of the men who have been rearrested as it remained committed to fighting.
Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Hamas militant arm, al-Qassam Brigades, spoke during a weekend of rocket fire exchanges with Israel that threatened to shatter a fragile four-month cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.
“An upcoming exchange deal will only take place with the liberation of these heroes,” he said Saturday night. “If the heroes of the Freedom Tunnel have liberated themselves this time from underground, we promise them and our free prisoners that they will be liberated soon, God willing, from above ground.”
The video statement was released after rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Overnight Saturday, Israeli fighter jets and helicopters struck three Hamas targets in Gaza. On Sunday night, at least one rocket was fired from Gaza into southern Israel for a third consecutive night.
The Israeli army said Israel views the “Hamas terrorist organization as responsible for all terror activity emanating from the Gaza Strip.”
“If the situation escalates, Hamas and the Gaza Strip will pay a heavy price,” Israeli army chief of staff Aviv Kochavi said Sunday night.
The cross-border exchange of fire was spurred by developments in the Israeli manhunt for the Palestinian prisoners. The cease-fire halted an 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in May that left 13 dead in Israel and more than 250 people dead in the Gaza Strip.
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On Saturday, Israeli police said they had arrested four of the six Palestinian fugitives: two on Friday near the northern Israeli city of Nazareth and two more on Saturday at a truck stop near the Arab town of Umm el-Ghanem. They said they were tipped in both cases by Arab-Israeli families in the area.
The men were classified as high-profile “security prisoners” for having orchestrated a string of suicide bombings and lethal shootings against Israeli soldiers and civilians during the second intifada, or mass Palestinian uprising, in the early 2000s.
They include Zakaria Zubeidi, a former child theater actor turned militant leader who served as the Jenin chief of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militant offshoot of the West Bank’s Fatah party. He escaped with five members of Islamic Jihad, the Islamist militant group based in Gaza, from the Gilboa detention facility in northern Israel, several miles west of his home in the Jenin refugee camp, by digging a tunnel underneath the walls.
Zubeidi was among the four prisoners who were recaptured. The two others remained at large on Sunday.
Israel’s Prison Service called the incident “a major security and intelligence failure.” Palestinians hailed it as “heroic.”
Pictures of the four Palestinian men that were altered to make them appear as if they were smiling broadly at the time of the arrest have circulated widely on social media.
One Palestinian news site, Shehab Agency, tweeted the doctored photos superimposed on an image of al-Aqsa Mosque, a flash point for Israeli-Palestinian tensions, with the hashtag #freedom_tunnel.
In the last week, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in the streets in support of the prisoners. They held up spoons, the tool that the men reportedly used to dig out of a hole in the shower area and into a dirt road.
Riots have erupted in Israeli prisons, and Palestinian inmates have set fire to their cells. On Friday, as Hamas called for a “day of rage,” a Palestinian was shot to death by Israeli police in Jerusalem’s Old City after reportedly attempting to stab the Israeli officers.
Israeli security forces remained on high alert and increased their presence near prisons, throughout the West Bank and at the border near Jordan, which initially was believed to be the Palestinian escapees’ preferred destination.
Nafez Azzam, a member of the political bureau of the Islamic Jihad, said the prisoners’ escape “sent a clear message to all those calling for normalization and coexistence with the occupation, that the Palestinian cause is alive in the hearts of peoples.”
“The operation achieved its goals,” he said in a statement. “The heroes crossed barriers and fortresses and struck the enemy’s concept of its own security, and they wrested their freedom to bring the issue of prisoners back to the spotlight.”
Texas wanted to be the nations tech haven, but new measures on abortion and voting cause workers to rethink their move
On Sept. 3, just two days after Texas banned abortions, Vivek Bhaskaran, the chief executive of an Austin-based online survey software company, quickly assembled the handful of female employees that are based in the city.
In a virtual town hall that lasted about 15 minutes, he told the women that regardless of insurance, the company would cover out-of-state abortion services.
“I’m not a politician; I can’t change anything. But I’m still responsible for my employees in Texas, and I have a moral responsibility to them,” said Bhaskaran, CEO of QuestionPro.
For the past several years, Texas has been selling itself as a tech haven attracting start-ups and tech companies such as Oracle, Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, and even Elon Musk, Tesla’s billionaire co-founder and CEO, who has moved to the state. Big Tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Apple all have grown their presence in the state, opening new warehouses, data centers, and production facilities.
But Texas’s recent swerve to the right on abortion, voting restrictions as well as a ban on coronavirus vaccine mandates has many workers and industry leaders like Bhaskaran worried about retaining workers and recruiting top tech talent to the state. In August, Texas had 33,843 tech job openings – the second highest in the U.S. after California – according to a report from the Computing Technology Industry Association. That’s up 56% from a year earlier.
“We already find it extremely challenging to attract tech workers,” said Bhaskaran, noting there are more jobs than talent in the industry. “This seems like an extremely unnecessary conversation we’re going to have to have” with potential recruits.
The new abortion law in Texas, which went into effect earlier this month, bans abortions at six weeks and allows private citizens to sue people or services that perform or aid in an abortion. Reporting parties could receive at least $10,000 as well as recover legal fees if they win their cases. In response, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state over the law, trying to block it.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, R, on Thursday also signed a bill that would prohibit large tech companies from blocking or restricting people or their posts based on their viewpoint, setting the stage for a legal battle with the tech industry. Abbott also slammed President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for private companies, calling it a “power grab.”
Texas led the nation in population growth in 2020 attracting 373,965 residents, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. While experts say it’s too early to tell whether the new laws will cause any massive change in worker migration, they note that right-wing measures could lead to a pause of left-leaning tech workers considering moving to the state.
“You might see a slow down,” said Richard Alm, a writer in residence at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business in Dallas who studies Texas’ economy. “This has potential to impact the supply of labor if workers are less willing to relocate to Texas.”
After Abbott signed the abortion bill into law, many tech workers were quick to react on social media platforms such as Twitter to air their concerns, frustration, and fears. For some tech industry workers who recently relocated to the state, the abortion law is making them consider moving elsewhere.
That’s the case for Valerie Veteto, a copywriter, who has freelanced for San Francisco tech companies including Salesforce, Patreon and Lyft. She moved to Austin from San Francisco in September 2020, drawn by the city’s vibe, creativity, live music scene and the low cost of living.
But a few months later, when Texas’ power grid failed during a winter storm, leaving millions without power, heat and water, Veteto began questioning her choice.
“That was a moment that chipped away at my confidence of living here. Then obviously what’s going on currently, it sealed the deal,” she said. She and her boyfriend are now planning to relocate to New York City.
Some professionals in the tech industry say they’re worried about what the passage of the abortion law says about the direction Texas is headed in terms of other major social issues.
“It scares the living daylights out of me,” said Deep Barot, a Texas native and San Francisco-based angel investor in biotech, software and cryptocurrency companies. “This is an abortion law, but what’s next?”
The issue boils down to one question, said Alm from SMU: Can employers retain and attract top tech talent despite the state’s new restrictive laws?
David Panarelli, a user experience designer for an e-commerce company in San Diego, said he and his wife had considered moving to Texas but both are concerned with how officials have handled issues like immigration, the pandemic, and masking guidelines. The abortion law reaffirmed their fears, he said.
“If I’m in a situation where I have to make an extremely irreversible decision, I don’t want anyone making that decision for me,” he said. “It’s not about women. It’s about human rights.”
Crystal Wiese, QuestionPro’s director of marketing, said the reaction from the people on the virtual town hall was mostly silence.
“There was a reassuring feeling, but it’s not the kind of conversation you expect to have with your CEO.”
Some Texas-based tech companies were quick to respond to what essentially is an abortion ban, recognizing that it could have significant repercussions on recruitment and retention of talent in the future.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, said in a tweet on Friday that he would be willing to move his employees if they wanted to relocate without providing further details. A Salesforce employee who declined to be named said the company told workers via an internal chat that if they had concerns about access to reproductive health care in their states, Salesforce would help relocate them and their immediate families.
Dallas-based Match, which operates dating apps, said its CEO Shar Dubey is creating a fund to help cover the cost of abortion services for employees who have to travel outside of the state.
“I immigrated to America from India over 25 years ago and I have to say, as a Texas resident, I am shocked that I now live in a state where women’s reproductive laws are more regressive than most of the world, including India,” Dubey said in a memo to employees earlier this month. “Surely everyone should see the danger of this highly punitive and unfair law.”
Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell based in Round Rock, Texas, sent a note to employees on Sept. 8, addressing the latest Texas laws, saying the company believes in “the right to free, fair and equitable access to voting” and that its goal is to give employees “more coverage” when it comes to health “not less.” The company declined to say whether it is planning anything specific related to Texas’ abortion and voting laws.
HPE still believes that its policies and benefits will attract workers “no matter where they’re located,” said spokesman Adam Bauer. But he said the company can’t predict if and how this will impact recruiting in the future.
Kat Scott, a San Francisco-based developer advocate for the open-source foundation Open Robotics, said if the law is not removed quickly, it will have a lasting impact on people’s impression of the state.
“It’s going to be extremely difficult to recruit women or young people,” she said.
The signing ceremony of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement is held via video conference in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, Nov. 15, 2020.
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