As Congress looks into ways to fix the immigration system, often with the goal of safeguarding job opportunities for U.S. workers, at least one immigration organization argues that current federal regulations fail to protect foreign visa holders from job misrepresentation, recruitment fees, exploitation, fraud and discrimination.

Four women who came to the U.S. on temporary visas were part of a panel discussion Tuesday in Washington to raise awareness of a system they said often treats human beings like commodities.

“In the workplace, there were about 80 of us, women, and we had a hard time,” Adareli Hernandez, a former H-2B worker, said in Spanish during a discussion hosted by the Center for Migrant Rights (CDM), a Mexico-based organization with an office in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hernandez, who is from Hidalgo, Mexico, looked for two years before she was finally able to get a H-2B seasonal non-farm work visa to work at a chocolate packing factory in Louisiana.

Inequality in workplace

While men who worked at the factory earned higher wages by carrying and stacking boxes, women were relegated to packing chocolates on assembly lines with no time off for illness.

“We weren’t able to make complaints, because if we did make complaints, we were threatened by the manager. … We were told we didn’t have a right to file complaints, because we didn’t have rights here in the United States,” she said.

But after four seasons as an H-2B visa worker, Hernandez fought for better labor conditions along with 70 colleagues. She said though work conditions improved, the company decided not to rehire her or co-workers.

Hernandez’s testimony is one of the 34 detailed worker stories featured in a CDM report, Engendering Exploitation: Gender Inequality in U.S. Labor Migration Programs.

Though the report focuses on women migrant workers, CDM policy recommendations say, “All temporary labor migration programs should be subjected to the same rules and protection so that unscrupulous employers and recruiters do not use the patchwork of visa regulations to evade liability.”

According to the Economic Policy Institute, about 1.4 million people are recruited to work in the U.S. each year through temporary work visas, including H-1B (specialty occupations), H-2B, J-1 (exchange visitor program) and TN (Canadians and Mexicans in certain occupations under the North American Free Trade Agreement).

The visas may vary, but immigration and labor organizations report that recruited foreign workers face common patterns of abuses.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security cracked down on abuse within the H-2B system, hoping to prevent the exploitation of workers and to ensure U.S. workers’ awareness of available jobs.

Rosa’s story

A licensed veterinarian, who asked to be called only Rosa for fear of retaliation, submitted a statement that was read during CDM’s discussion. Rosa was unable to join the panel because the U.S. government rejected her application for a tourist visa.

“Although the U.S. government had no problem offering me a TN work visa at the employer’s request, it won’t allow me to visit the country as a tourist. Anyway, that’s not going to stop me from sharing my story,” Rosa’s statement said.

Rosa is a former TN visa worker who was hired for an animal scientist position in Wisconsin. She was “thrilled” for the opportunity to work at a place where she would put in practice the skills she acquired as a recent graduate from a top Mexican university.

TN visas were created within NAFTA to allow U.S. employers to hire Canadian and Mexican workers for specialized jobs.

“I was deceived by my employer. They promised me a salary that they failed to pay, a contract they didn’t respect,” Rosa’s statement said.

“The supervisors would yell at us constantly and tell us that our visa was only good for obeying orders. I cleaned animal troughs, unloaded them from trucks. As the only woman, they would also give me jobs they considered ‘women’s work,’ cleaning the bathroom or the kitchen,” she said.

Protecting American workers

Rachel Micah-Jones, CDM’s executive director, said there is a need to ensure workers have basic protections, including the right to understand a contract before entering into an agreement with a U.S. company.

Immigration hard-liners agree about the need to protect visa workers, but they also express concern about the welfare of American workers.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said though she agrees these visa programs “can be beneficial to certain employees for legitimate purposes,” there is a “big problem” with employers abusing the system as a way to bring in “workers who can be paid less, and who end up replacing American and legal immigrant workers.”

“The solution is not necessarily to end the program, but to reform it and for the government agencies that are responsible for these programs to do a better job of oversight to make sure that they are not abused,” Vaughan told VOA.

Vaughan was scheduled to speak about guest worker visa programs at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that had been scheduled for Wednesday. The hearing was postponed because government officials were focused on hurricane response and recovery efforts after two storms struck in Texas and Florida.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Cambodian Space Project, long on the forefront of a local rock’n’roll revival, is a band making good with their pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodia sound.

The Cambodian-Australian group, kicked off a mini-U.S. tour on Tuesday with a performance at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. Channthy Kak, 38, also known as Srey Thy, said she was honored to have been invited to perform at the Washington venue, where the band played their original brand of psychedelic rock, before heading to New York City and California. On the West Coast, they’ll rock out in Long Beach, which has the largest Cambodian population in the U.S.

“It is very special that we are invited to perform on a very big stage and in a very big city,” Chanthy said about the Kennedy Center gig. “It is unbelievable.” 

Perhaps more at home among the rice paddies and rural villages of her home province of Prey Veng, Chanthy formed The Cambodian Space Project  after being approached by Julien Poulson, a musician from Australia’s island state of Tasmania, while working as a karaoke singer at a bar in Phnom Penh. Neither of them expected to be on the international scene just eight years after forming.

Video: A Ros Sereysothea song uploaded to YouTube

‘Lost’ Cambodian rock 

Inspired by the great artists of Cambodia’s golden era of the 1960s, the band aims to revive the country’s lost rock’n’roll scene, which was wiped out during the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s.

Fans heard original favorites such as “Whiskey Cambodia,” as well as covers of 1960s divas such as Pan Ron and Ros Sereysothea.

American music brought to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War influenced Cambodia’s music scene in the 1960s. Bands like Baksei Cham Krong, Bayon and Draka introduced Phnom Penh to new sounds, said Seng Dara, a music preservationist.

“They were highly educated artists. Though they were influenced by Western culture, they were able to integrate Western music to be authentically Khmer,” he said. “It’s good to conserve pure Khmer culture, but it’s not very creative.”

As the Vietnam War ended in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Penh and erased foreign influences. The regime targeted intellectuals, artists and musicians, destroying documents, cultural records and songs. Citizens identified as the “cultural elite” were sentenced to death during the regime’s four-year rule. An estimated 1.7 million lives were lost.

Cambodian Space Project takes off

Chanthy says the inspiration for song comes either from the heart or the head, and the songs of the 1960s “are very deep in the heart.” 

“When I started writing my own songs, I didn’t have a mentor,” she recalled. “But what I experience, see and feel, which can be easily forgotten, I put into words, I put it into a song so that it will always be meaningful and remembered.” 

Chanthy dropped out of elementary school with only basic reading and writing skills, and that has made communicating with composers her greatest challenge. 

“I don’t know melody. I don’t know the ‘do, re, mi’ things,” she said. “We use body language. I raise my hands up, they play the high keys, and as I put my hands down they play lower keys.” 

Her musical idol is Pan Ron, who became a national star in Cambodia in the mid-60s when she teamed up with Sinn Sisamouth. She is believed to have been executed during the final days of the Khmer Rouge regime.

“Her songs are sexy. Her laugh and sense of humor and her voice are beautiful. Ros Serey Sothea also had a golden voice. But Pan Ron, you know, it’s just like me. We only fit with rock and roll because we’re a funny kind of person. Not sentimental. I’m very playful,” Chanthy said.

Her mother was the best singer in her town, Prey Veng, Chanthy said, and she recalls how her father often listened to music on the radio.

At 19, Chanthy moved to Phnom Penh to look for work. After almost being duped into working in a brothel, she tried her hand at everything from construction to owning a souvenir store – until the beat freed her soul.

“Rock’n’roll is the type of music genre that helps people get relief and become happy,” she said. “It helps them get out of painful feelings because of its humble and funny lyrics.” 

Rock revival

The Cambodian Space Project was the subject of a feature-length film, Not Easy Rock’n’Roll, which premiered in 2015. 

Director Marc Eberle said the film’s recent screening on BBC World was “a great way to bring Cambodian culture to the world. In many countries in South America, Africa and across Asia, the story resonates well with the audience.”

Along with The Cambodian Space Project, the Los Angeles-based group Dengue Fever pursues a similar mission to preserve and innovate in the Cambodian music scene.

Jimmy Kiss, a rising Cambodian pop-rock musician, says he is impressed by the current state of Cambodian rock’n’roll. He disagrees with those who say it is stuck in the past.

“The only difference between musicians in the past and the musicians in the present is how people value the music,” he said. “There are so many talented musicians out there nowadays. The thing is that people in the past valued musicians more than people do now.” 
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From: MeNeedIt

More than 60 percent of the world’s nations are expected to meet some of their health targets in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The targets include reducing child and maternal deaths and deaths from malaria. However, fewer than five percent are projected to meet their targets on reducing the number of overweight children, tuberculosis infections and traffic deaths.

The news comes in a report published Wednesday by the British journal The Lancet that analyzed health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries. The 17 wide-ranging goals spearheaded by the U.N. focus on improving health and education, ending poverty, combating climate change, making cities more sustainable and protecting oceans and forests. They were adopted at a U.N. summit in 2015.

Singapore, Iceland and Sweden were the highest performing countries in the health-related goals. Somalia, Central African Republic and Afghanistan ranked the lowest. Nordic and other European countries plus Australia, Canada, Antigua and Barbuda rank in the top 20. The U.S. ranks 24th. 

The report, which was funded by the U.S. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the findings should help shape policies in order to address long-standing and emerging health challenges.

Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics Evaluation and a professor of global health at the University of Washington, was the lead author.

Murray said in The Lancet, “China, Cambodia and many other middle and low-income nations deserve recognition for improving their citizens’ lives, as evidenced by impressive improvements in under-five mortality, neonatal mortality, vaccine coverage, maternal mortality, and malaria.”

The report was prepared ahead of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, beginning in New York later this month.

The authors pointed to policies that set the stage for substantial improvement. For instance, China expanded its health insurance scheme to rural populations and unemployed urban residents in the first years of this century and followed with further reforms in 2009-10; similarly, Cambodia’s health reforms from 1990 onwards have laid the groundwork toward national health planning.

Having access to health care seems to be key. Between the turn of the century and 2016, a number of countries made notable improvements in achieving universal health care. They included Cambodia, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Laos, Turkey and China; however, some low-income countries, such as Lesotho and the Central African Republic, as well as high-income countries, such as the U.S., showed minimal gains.

Kazakhstan, Timor-Leste, Angola, Nigeria and Swaziland were projected to have the largest improvements on the overall health-related goals index by 2030. 

On the downside, only seven percent of countries were projected to meet the HIV/AIDS target, and no country was projected to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target on tuberculosis.

To reach their conclusions, the study authors measured 37 of 50 health-related indicators from 1990 until 2016 for 188 countries. Then, on the basis of these past trends, they projected health-related progress to 2030. They said understanding both gains and gaps is essential for decision-makers as they aim to improve the health of their populations.
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From: MeNeedIt

Roughly one year ago, Denise Wallace, executive co-director of the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, received a phone call from 19-year-old Halima Aden asking if she could compete in the contest wearing her hijab.

“Her photo popped up and I remember distinctly going, ‘Wow, she is beautiful,’” Wallace said.

The Somali-American teen made headlines as the first hijab-and burkini-sporting contestant in the history of the pageant.

The bold move catapulted her career to new heights involving many “firsts,” including being the first hijabi signed by a major modeling agency.

“I wear the hijab everyday,” Aden, who was in New York for Fashion Week, told Reuters.

The hijab – one of the most visible signs of Islamic culture – is going mainstream, with advertisers, media giants and fashion firms promoting images of the traditional headscarf in ever more ways.

Nike announced it is using its prowess in the sports and leisure market to launch a breathable mesh hijab in spring 2018, becoming the first major sports apparel maker to offer a traditional Islamic head scarf designed for competition.

Teen apparel maker American Eagle Outfitters created a denim hijab with Aden as its main model. The youthful headscarf sold out in less than a week online.

Allure magazine’s editor-in-chief, Michelle Lee, is also in the mix, describing Aden as a “normal American teenage girl” on the front cover of the magazine’s July issue.

“She is someone who is so amazingly representative of who we are as America, as a melting pot it totally made sense for us,” Lee said.

Aden, born in Kakuma, a United Nations refugee camp in Kenya, came to the United States at age 7 with her family, initially settling in St. Louis.

She fondly recalled her time at the refugee camp saying, “Different people, different refugees from all over Africa came together in Kakuma. Yet we still found a common ground.”

In America, she was an A-student and homecoming queen. Now, her ultimate goal is to become a role model for American Muslim youth.

“I am doing me and I have no reason to think that other people are against me,” Aden said. “So I just guess I’m oblivious.”

Aden said she is content being a champion for diversity in the modeling industry, but in the future she hopes to return to Kakuma to work with refugee children.
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From: MeNeedIt

Eiffel Tower employees planned a walkout, angry carnival workers snarled traffic around Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, and Paris police girded for potential violence as unions and others hold nationwide protests Tuesday against changes to labor laws they fear corrode job security.

The protests are the first big public display of discontent with President Emmanuel Macron’s presidency, which kicked off in May amid enthusiasm over his promises of reviving up the French economy but is now foundering amid anger over the labor decrees and other domestic troubles.

The prominent CGT union is leading Tuesday’s protests, calling for strikes and organizing some 180 demonstrations against last labor decrees unveiled last month by Macron’s government.

At the Eiffel Tower, CGT union representative Denis Vavassori told The Associated Press that workers plan a walkout Tuesday afternoon, but it is unclear so far whether the monument will be forced to close or will stay partially open for tourists.

Horn-tooting funfair workers held a separate protest movement Tuesday against legal changes they say favor big corporations and could wipe out their centuries-old industry.

Dozens of big rigs drove at a snail’s pace around the Arc de Triomphe, causing rush-hour traffic snarls as protesters danced and waved flags on a flat-bed truck with a severed plastic head from a funfair ride.

The workers said they timed their protest to coincide with Tuesday’s broader labor demonstrations, since both movements are about workers fearing their jobs are at threat.

Bumper car worker Sam Frechon said, “everybody likes funfairs. Everybody has been to a funfair one time in his life … Funfair is France.”

Meanwhile, thousands of union activists marched Tuesday morning in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, in Le Havre on the English Channel and other cities.

An afternoon march is planned in Paris, where police announced extra deployments. While union marches are usually peaceful, troublemakers on the margins often clash with police. A broad movement against similar labor reforms last year saw several weeks of scattered violence.

The protests come amid anger at a comment last week by Macron suggesting that opponents of labor reform are “lazy.” Government spokesman Christophe Castaner said on RTL radio Tuesday that Macron didn’t mean workers themselves but politicians who failed to update French labor rules for a globalized age.

Macron’s labor decrees — which reduce the power of unions and give companies more authority to fire workers and influence workplace rules — are the first step in what he hopes are deep economic changes. The decrees are to be finalized this month.

Critics say they dismantle hard-fought worker protections and accuse the government of being undemocratic for using a special method to push the decrees through parliament.

Companies argue that existing rules prevent them from hiring and contribute to France’s high unemployment rate, currently around 10 percent.

Some unions refused to join the protests, preferring to negotiate with the government over upcoming changes to unemployment and retirement rules instead of taking their grievances to the street.

Macron himself chose Tuesday to go to the French Caribbean to bring aid and meet with victims of Hurricane Irma.
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From: MeNeedIt

The annual Farm Progress Show held every other year in Decatur, a town situated among the vast corn and soybean fields of central Illinois, is one of the largest farming exhibitions in the world, where manufacturers and suppliers show their latest and greatest products and equipment.

In some cases, it’s a starting point for farmers researching what big-ticket items are available to make their work in the fields more efficient, and easier.

But all Tolono, Illinois farmer Jeff Fisher can do at the John Deere exhibit at this year’s show… is look.

“A quarter of a million dollars list price for this planter,” he says, pointing to the large tractor behind him painted in the distinctive green and yellow colors of John Deere.“This is just a medium-size planter, and it isn’t a large planter by today’s standards.I’m interested in a planter, a notch below this planter, but the commodity prices aren’t high enough to be able to afford it.”

It’s been over five years since Fisher’s been able to afford new equipment, the last time he says he made a profit.

“The economics are tough on the farm,” he told VOA.“The profit margin isn’t there.We’re losing money where the cost of production of corn is higher than the price of corn on the Chicago Board of Trade and our local price.”

Stocks, costs up, commodity prices down

While U.S. stock indexes continue to see record-breaking gains and U.S. employment numbers are encouraging, U.S. farmers continue to struggle with high costs for fertilizer and seed at a time of low demand and low prices for their products. 

The United States Department of Agriculture reports median net farm income in 2016 was the lowest since 2009, but projects a modest increase overall for 2017.However, the year-over-year hardship for many U.S. farmers has impacted more than just the agricultural industry.

“The Equipment Manufacturers Association released some pretty dismal numbers for farm equipment sales, and what that means to Caterpillar and Deere, that’s troublesome,” says Tamara Nelsen, senior director of commodities for the Illinois Farm Bureau, who outlined the interconnected relationship between manufacturing jobs and farmers like Fisher.

“If a farmer cannot afford to buy this, then those 25 workers that work to make it and the steelworkers who produce the steel, and all of the people involved in the parts they are not going to have jobs either.So farmers need to have good markets just like manufacturers need to have good markets.”

And it’s not just in the United States.The Association of Equipment Manufacturers or AEM also reported a 14 percent decrease in overall farm equipment exports for the first three quarters of 2016.Sales were down 44 percent from 2015 in Asia and 28 percent in South America.

“Our biggest concern is just being able to make it to next year to try again,” says farmer Mark Bremer, who grows corn and soybeans on his property in the southern Illinois town of Metropolis, where he also raises livestock.Like Fisher, he’s also getting by using old equipment to make ends meet.

“We would love to update, we’d love to purchase new technology and stuff, but that technology comes with a price – that technology didn’t come free,” he said.

Bremer isn’t sure when he’ll be able to afford new equipment, and is worried about the crop yield this year thanks to a lack of rainfall.

“Every year’s an experiment and that experiment is called farming,” he told VOA.“We’re not guaranteed the rain, we’re not guaranteed the price and we’re not guaranteed the yield either so it’s a continual challenge of making it.”

There’s also no guarantee next year will be better, but Fisher still has hope.

“We’re in the bottom of that roller coaster ride right now – I hope it doesn’t get worse,” he said.

A roller coaster ride that continues in just a few weeks as the next, and perhaps most important phase of his work as a farmer begins – harvesting this year’s corn and soybeans. 
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From: MeNeedIt

The end of this week will also see the end of a glorious decades-long space mission that thrilled space scientists, sending huge amounts of data about a distant alien world. On Friday, the space probe Cassini-Huygens will descend into Saturn’s atmosphere until it burns and disintegrates. VOA’s George Putic looks back at the achievements of the joint NASA-ESA mission.
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From: MeNeedIt

The past few years have seen a drastic decline in the number of kids who play American football. One of the main reasons is the fear of brain injuries due to the constant helmet on helmet bashing. A new study is just more proof that too much football is seriously damaging the brains of players. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

President John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter and Caroline Kennedy’s daughter Tatiana Schlossberg has gotten married at the family’s Martha’s Vineyard home.

The New York Times reports the 27-year-old Schlossberg married 28-year-old George Moran on Saturday with former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick officiating. The couple met in college at Yale. Schlossberg was an environmental reporter for the Times until July. Moran is a medical student at Columbia University.

Schlossberg is Caroline Kennedy’s second child. She has an older sister, Rose, and a younger brother, Jack. They are President Kennedy’s only grandchildren. He was assassinated just before Caroline Kennedy’s sixth birthday in November 1963.

Kennedy served as ambassador to Japan under former President Barack Obama until earlier this year.
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From: MeNeedIt

Scientists say DNA tests on a skeleton found in a lavish Viking warrior’s grave in Sweden show the remains are those of a woman in her 30s.

While bone experts had long suspected the remains belong to a woman, the idea had previously been dismissed despite other accounts supporting the existence of female Viking warriors.

Swedish researchers used new methods to analyze genetic material from the 1,000-year-old bones at a Viking-era site known as Birka, near Stockholm.

Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Uppsala University said Monday the tests show “it is definitely a woman.”

Hedenstierna-Jonson said the grave is particularly well-furnished, with a sword, shields, various other weapons and horses.

Writing in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the researchers say it’s the first confirmed remains of a high-ranking female Viking warrior.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Cardi B. has a breakthrough hit with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)” and the rapper said she’s ready to follow the single’s success with an album next month.

“I have an album coming. It will be dropping in October. I’m an October baby,” Cardi B., who turns 25 on Oct. 11, said in a recent interview. “I’m a little nervous to put the project out, but I think it’s going to be pretty good.”

Cardi B. said she’s nervous because there’s “a lot of pressure on” her after the success of “Bodak Yellow,” which is currently No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, just under Taylor Swift’s comeback hit “Look What You Made Me Do” and the year’s biggest smash, Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito.”

“Everybody’s waiting to see what I’m going to have next and it’s like, ‘…I hope people love it,’ ” she added. “But I have confidence. I really do.”

“Bodak Yellow” has become a No. 1 hit on both the R&B and rap charts, and is one of the year’s most streamed songs. The New York-born rapper, who first gained attention on Instagram, appeared on the VH1 reality show “Love & Hip Hop” before the song’s massive success. The song has helped her become one of the few solo female acts to launch a major hit on the pop charts, which has recently been dominated by male performers for the last two years.

“It feels amazing and it’s overwhelming. It’s like, it fills me up with lot of happiness and a lot of joy,” she said. “It’s just like unbelievable. I’ve been through so many things and I worked so hard for me to be here, and it’s like I’m finally here getting what I wanted, (and getting) the respect from other artists and from everybody.”

One of those artists is Beyonce.

“I’m surprised Beyonce liked me,” Cardi B. squealed. “I met Beyonce!”

“It’s like, ‘Oh my God!’ That’s how it feels like. I can’t talk, I can’t breathe,” she added.

When asked what female rappers she’d like to work with, Cardi B. said: “Well, all of them.” She listed Lil Kim, Trina and Remy Ma as some of her idols.

Cardi B. said she’s been finding time to treat herself in between studio recordings, concerts and photo shoots.

“The first splurge that I did I bought like an $80,000 watch but that’s because I’m a rapper. I need jewelry,” she said, laughing.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

The introduction of post-Brexit customs checks could cost traders more than 4 billion pounds ($5.28 billion) a year, according to a think tank report released on Monday.

The British government has said it plans to leave the European Union’s customs union when it leaves the bloc, and it wants to negotiate a new relationship that will ensure trade is as free of friction as possible.

In its report ‘Implementing Brexit: Customs’, the Institute for Government said the government needed to offer as much certainty as possible to business and help them plan for changes to customs.

Around 180,000 traders now operate only within the EU and face making customs declarations for the first time after Brexit. The government estimates an extra 200 million declarations a year will be made.

Those declarations cost 20 to 45 pounds each, the IfG said, putting the total additional cost at 4 billion to 9 billion pounds.

“The scale and cost of change for many traders could be significant. Government must engage with them in detail about changes, understanding their requirements and giving them as much time to adapt as possible,” the report said.

The government has proposed two options for the future customs relationship. One is a system using technology to make the process as smooth as possible; the second a new customs partnership removing the need for a customs border. It wants a transition period after Britain leaves in March 2019 to allow time to adapt.

However, the EU says negotiating the customs relationship must wait until the two sides have made make progress on the rights of expatriates, Britain’s border with EU member Ireland and a financial settlement.

“To be in and out of the customs union and ‘invisible borders’ is a fantasy,” Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s coordinator for Brexit, said on Twitter after the British government floated its proposals. “First need to secure citizens rights and a financial settlement”.

Moving customs requirements away from the physical border, retaining access to key EU computer systems and setting up working groups with the private sector on implementing changes are among the report’s suggestions for smoothing the process.

To avoid a cliff-edge, the government must make sure everyone from port operators to freight companies and local authorities is ready, the IfG said. It should also work with EU partners to ensure issues at European ports do not cause significant disruption to supply chains.

“In the past they have been given years to adapt to any government change; they now have fewer than 20 months to prepare without yet being clear what they are preparing for,” the report said. “Successful change relies on all these organizations being ready.”
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From: MeNeedIt