This publication outlines the Commonwealth Child Safe Framework requirements and guidance for its implementation.The primary audience for this publication is Commonwealth entities. This publication has been developed to assist entities to understand and implement the requirements of the Commonwealth Child Safe Framework.

Consumers who only make the minimum repayment on their credit card could be paying hundreds of dollars a year in high interest payments. To help, BETA partnered with the Treasury and Westpac to see if reminders could encourage consumers to pay earlier and save money. We found any type of SMS reminder resulted in a $134 (28 per cent) increase in repayments in the following month, compared to those who received no message. However, different SMS messages all had a similar impact and we were unable to detect an effect from sending email reminders. Overall, the findings suggest that sending an SMS reminder to credit card consumers before their payment due date is a simple, cost-effective way to improve their financial wellbeing.

The use of behavioural insights in public policy has traditionally focused on small, low cost 'nudges' to improve communications, increase compliance and enhance the way services are delivered. But BETA has begun to look beyond to identify a smaller set of 'richer veins' where BI can offer high financial and social impact. These areas includes consumer choice, financial decision-making and personal wellbeing.

Commonwealth Railways (Australia) -- History.

London : printed by W. Wilson, for E. Brewster, and George Sawbridge, at the Bible on Ludgate-Hill, neere Fleet-bridge, 1653.

<span class="topsy_trackback_comment"><span class="topsy_twitter_username"><span class="topsy_trackback_content">"Commonwealth Games will deliver" – ESPN STAR Sports | RSS Feeds ...: Globe and Mail"Commonwealth Games will deliv... http://bit.ly/9hmE8P</span></span>

The United Nations on Thursday issued a new appeal for $4.7 billion in funding to "protect millions of lives and stem the spread of coronavirus in fragile countries."

Over two years, 27 communities have split from their home districts, and the new districts are mostly wealthier, whiter, and more property-rich than the ones left behind.

The school funding group EdBuild finds neighborhood attempts to secede popping up in more school districts, with racial and economic isolation increasing in their wake.

What have we done? That’s what Hawick housewife Carol Martin said when she realised her lottery ticket had scooped £33 million.

In developed countries, child health disparities across wealth gradients are commonly widening; at the same time, child mortality in low- and middle-income countries is declining. Whether these declines are associated with widening or narrowing disparities is unknown.

A systematic analysis of the evidence on child mortality gradients by wealth in less-developed countries shows that mortality is declining fastest among the poorest in most countries, leading to declining disparities in this important indicator of child health. (Read the full article)

Around the world, education is the largest recipient of philanthropic giving by a large margin, but in the United States, funders are moving away from investing in K-12 schools in favor of early childhood and higher education.

Mauritians are Africa's wealthiest individuals, while Zimbabweans count as the poorest, according to the latest Africa Wealth Report.

Don't wait until you have a large amount of money to invest: the key to building wealth is just starting somewhere and letting your returns generate over time, says Ebrahim Moola of Bobats Wealth Solutions.

You might be one of the few South Africans who has provided for the autumn years, but if not, here are some tips on what you can do.

On March 21, more than 120 student government representatives from 19 Penn State campuses virtually attended the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments’ first sustainability summit, featuring a poster expo of students showcasing their campus’ sustainability efforts, and a presentation on students’ potential impact on climate change by Richard Alley, Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences.

NEW CASTLE (May 3, 2018) – Ranking in the bottom half of states in a variety of health measures, including adults who smoke, annual diabetes treatment testing, and adults who are obese, Delaware fell four spots in The Commonwealth Fund’s 2018 Scorecard on State Health System Performance released today. Delaware ranked 22nd among all the […]

The tax proposals would face opposition from the Republican-controlled Congress. Its lawmakers argue that tax hike would hamper economic growth at a time the country cannot afford it

Saudi Arabia’s $320 billion sovereign wealth fund is exploring a potential investment in Reliance Industries Ltd.’s digital unit.

President Donald Trump said he was not willing to sacrifice the abundant fossil energy wealth of the U.S. on “dreams” such as renewable power.

More than 1 000 people queued to get free food parcels in Geneva, underscoring the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the working poor and undocumented immigrants even in wealthy Switzerland.

During major sporting events, certain brands will actively pursue an “ambush marketing” strategy meaning that they will deliberately seek to associate their products with an event, despite not being one of the official sponsors. However,...

The Covid-19 crisis has many wealthy individuals thinking about estate planning opportunities. Personal finance expert Megan Gorman discusses the benefits of using GRATs during the current environment. ......

In the lead-up to the Truth Matters conference in October, we will be focusing our attention on the sufficiency, authority, and clarity of Scripture. Of our previous blog series, none better embodies that emphasis than Frequently Abused Verses. The following entry from that series originally appeared on April 5, 2017. -ed.

The prosperity gospel is neither a small nor isolated error. The fixation with money and material riches pervades the theology of its adherents, corrupting every aspect of their faith and doctrine. It is a comprehensive lie—one that skews the very nature of the gospel itself, distorting even the Person and work of Christ.

In particular, it assaults the nature of Christ’s atoning work on our behalf. Forgiveness of sins and imputed righteousness are of minor importance at best. Instead, prosperity preachers teach a version of the atonement that serves their material interests. And it all hinges on one verse: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Here’s how TBN televangelist Joseph Prince explains it:

On the cross, Jesus bore the curse of poverty! That is what the Word of God declares: “For you know the grace [unmerited favor] of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” Read 2 Corinthians 8 for yourself. The entire chapter is about money and being a blessing financially to those who are in need. So don’t let anyone tell you that the verse is referring to ‘spiritual’ riches.” ^[1] Joseph Prince, Unmerited Favor: Your Supernatural Advantage for a Successful Life (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2010), 29.

Prince is partly right—2 Corinthians 8 is about blessing others financially. But his fixation with money forces him to overlook the obvious flaw in his argument—that Paul was exhorting the Corinthians to give for the sake of other Christians in need. Apparently they had not been—as Prince promised his readers—delivered from “the curse of poverty.”

In verse 1 Paul commends the Macedonian Christians for the “wealth of their liberality” that flowed out of their “deep poverty.” Likewise, in verse 7 Paul reminds the Corinthians of their own spiritual riches: “Just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious [giving] work also.” The Corinthians and Macedonians were wealthy in many ways, just not in the specific way Joseph Prince is.   

Phil Pringle, another prosperity preacher and founder of the gigantic C3 Church in Sydney, Australia, leaves no doubt about his interpretation of 2 Corinthians 8:9—going so far as to offer his own paraphrase: “Jesus became poor regarding the wealth of this world on the cross, that those who receive Him may become rich with the wealth of this world.” ^[2] Phil Pringle, Dead for Nothing?: What the Cross Has Done for You (Tulsa, OK: Harrison House, 2007), 58.

Such is the corruption and greed of men like Prince and Pringle, that no subject is off limits in their quest to sanitize and sanctify their perverse love of money. At best, they minimize the forgiveness of sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness at the expense of physical health and material wealth. At worst, they do away with the spiritual components of Christ’s atoning work altogether.

That self-absorbed theology collapses under biblical scrutiny. John MacArthur points out the true nature of Christ’s earthly poverty:

This verse is not a commentary on Jesus’ economic status or the material circumstances of His life. . . . The Lord’s true impoverishment did not consist in the lowly circumstances in which He lived but in the reality that “although He existed in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6–7). ^[3] John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 2 Corinthians (Chicago: Moody Press, 2003), 291–92.

Christ was not a wealthy man, but He wasn’t especially poor, either. The poverty He endured was in contrast to the vast heavenly riches He willingly set aside during His incarnation:

Though as God, Jesus owns everything in heaven and on earth (Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 10:14; Job 41:11; Psalm 24:1; 50:12; 1 Corinthians 10:26), His riches do not consist primarily of what is material. The riches in view here are those of Christ’s supernatural glory, His position as God the Son, and His eternal attributes. . . . As the eternal second person of the Trinity, Jesus is as rich as God the Father. To the Colossians Paul wrote, “For in Him [Jesus] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9), and “[Jesus] is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3). Arguments for Christ’s eternity and deity are inseparable. Since the Scriptures reveal Him to be eternal, and only God can be eternal, Jesus must be God. Therefore, He owns the universe and everything in it, possesses all power and authority (Matthew 28:18), and is to be glorified and honored (John 5:23; Philippians 2:9–11). ^[4]The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 2 Corinthians, 289–90.

Therefore, the riches Christ offers us surpass anything this world can offer. Material blessings don’t merely pale in comparison—they fade into oblivion when contrasted with the vast spiritual riches the Lord supplies. Justification, reconciliation, sanctification, and, eventually, glorification—the eternal benefits of salvation are beyond our comprehension. Peter described them as “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for [believers]” (1 Peter 1:4).

And as John MacArthur explains, these are the riches we most desperately require:

Sinners desperately need the riches of Christ because they are spiritually destitute. They are the “poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), beggars with nothing to commend themselves. But through salvation, believers are made “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17), sharing His riches because they are made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). The ultimate goal of their salvation is to be made like Him (1 John 3:2), to reflect His glory in heaven, “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). ^[5]The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 2 Corinthians, 294.

Paul anticipated the lies of the prosperity gospel. In his letter to the Philippians, he described its promoters as “enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things” (Philippians 3:18-19). He charged the church to avoid such worldly distractions. Instead, Christians must fix their hearts on the eternal riches only Christ can provide.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. (Philippians 3:20–21)

ADB today signed a $60 million loan deal (in Chinese Yuan equivalent) with Maxwealth Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. to improve municipal and industrial wastewater treatment capacity and standards in the People’s Republic of China...

Reuters’ blogger Felix Salmon shares a surprising list of which companies over the last 90 years have generated the most wealth for shareholders, and which ones have destroyed it.

Data showed the domestic equity market gave up half the gains that it had amassed.

Blogger Ed García Conde, who runs the Instagram page Welcome2TheBronx, captured contrasting park photos on May 2 that show differences in how the NYPD is enforcing social distancing.

CBA says today's closure of 114 branches nationwide is temporary and due to a massive increase in online and telephone banking.

Sporting organisations can afford to join the national redress scheme for institutional child sexual abuse but have chosen not to, according to government documents obtained by the ABC.

The proposed consent decree resolves claims of the United States and the commonwealth under the Clean Air Act and related provisions of the laws of the commonwealth.

The Justice Department announced today the filing of a complaint against the city of Brockton, Mass., and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for violating the rights of an Iraq war veteran.

A former principal of a wealth management firm pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to causing the Hillary Clinton for President Committee unwittingly to submit false statements to the Federal Election Commission.

"This conference comes at an important moment in Russia’s efforts to strengthen its rule of law. In the Justice Department, we have long recognized corruption as a transnational problem. Corruption affects countries rich and poor, large and small, and it has particularly harmful effects on emerging economies."

The Justice Department announced today that the city of Brockton, Mass., promoted U.S. Army Reservist Brian Benvie on Dec. 16, 2011, to the position of lieutenant in the city’s police department.

The Justice Department today announced that it has entered into a comprehensive settlement agreement that will transform the Commonwealth of Virginia’s system for serving people with developmental disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, and will resolve violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has approved a comprehensive settlement agreement between the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia, resolving the department’s findings that Virginia’s system for serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The department had found that Virginia was violating the ADA requirement, as interpreted by the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., to provide people with intellectual and developmental disabilities the opportunity to live and receive services in the community.

Abimael Arroyo-Cruz, 30, of Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, and Josue Becerril-Ramos, 36, of Carolina, Puerto Rico, were both charged in an indictment returned today in the District of Puerto Rico with one count of conspiracy, one count of federal programs bribery, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion and one count of attempted extortion.

he Justice Department today entered into a sweeping civil rights agreement with the commonwealth of Puerto Rico to modernize and reform the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD).

The United States and the Commonwealth of Kentucky have reached a settlement with the AK Steel Corporation (AK Steel) in Ashland, Ky., resolving alleged violations of the Clean Air Act, AK Steel’s title V permit, and the Kentucky State Implementation Plan, announced the Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Justice Department announced today that, jointly with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, it is moving in the U.S. District Court for the appointment of Juan Mattos Jr. as Technical Compliance Advisor (TCA).

The Justice Department announced the filing of a lawsuit today against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania State Police, alleging that the defendants are engaged in a pattern or practice of employment discrimination against women in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, the lawsuit challenges the state police’s use of two physical fitness tests to screen and select entry-level state troopers

The growing gulf between rich and poor inflicts biological damage on bodies and brains

Jul 8, 2019

Capital Choices analyzes the creation of different SWFs from a comparative political economy perspective, arguing that different state-society structures at the sectoral level are the drivers for SWF variation. Juergen Braunstein focuses on the early formation period of SWFs, a critical but little understood area given the high levels of political sensitivity and lack of transparency that surround SWF creation. Braunstein’s novel analytical framework provides practical lessons for the business and finance organizations and policymakers of countries that have created, or are planning to create, SWFs.