The four horsemen of US green energy development

Frank T. Manheim, Opinion Contributor 


Energy is the indispensable core resource for every advanced nation. The Biden administration's urgent goal of moving the U.S. to 100 percent renewable or carbon-free energy will require major infrastructural and industrial development while maintaining energy supply in the transition. Potential obstacles to green transformation in the U.S. are currently disputed or underestimated. They are suggested to need serious attention because the stakes are high. The "Four Horsemen" (potential problems) posed here are: 1) Conflict and polarization over environmental and energy policy, 2) bureaucratization and politization of federal aid to state and local infrastructure projects, 3) the regulatory/permitting labyrinth and 4) difficulty in engaging visionary leaders to achieve breakthroughs in manufacturing and infrastructure.

© iStock The four horsemen of US green energy development

Conflict and polarization: A recent historical review shows that U.S. environmentalists and industry have been locked in battle for the last 40 years. No nation can expect success in the demanding task of transforming energy use if major forces like the environmental movement and the industrial-business sector stay at loggerheads. The dilemma is confirmed in the title of a recent book by environmental scientist Michael Mann, "The New Climate War." Mann openly labels U.S. corporations as "the enemy."


Guided by former Norwegian Environmental Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, European nations deliberately avoided the risk of societal conflict by adopting cooperative environmental policies rather than the U.S.'s command and control system. Mann may be right in describing industry's sins, but environmentalists have also embraced unrealistic and damaging positions. For example, leading environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) continue to oppose nuclear energy, biomass and even hydropower, which together dominate current U.S. renewable and non-carbon energy supply. Biomass has been the fastest growing energy source for Sweden, a leading environmental nation. In 2015 Sweden had already exceeded its target of 50 percent renewable energy as a percent of total energy supply, whereas the U.S. percentage was at the bottom of those for European nations, at 8.7 percent.

Federal funding for state and local infrastructure projects: Requirements involve five subtitles of the federal administrative code with a total of 270 categories. Each category can run to dozens of pages. Only large and well-connected organizations can navigate this formidable system. Further, the system's labor and contract requirements stipulate regional stakeholder representation that complicates and diffuses decisionmaking and management authority. In the Washington, D.C. area, a superior underground plan for extending subway lines to the Dulles Airport was changed to a surface option in order to save money and gain federal support. It is now seriously delayed, and its outlays are far greater than the original plan. The Purple Line, conceived in 1996 to extend rapid transit to the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C., collapsed in 2020 after litigation, delays and deferred payments.

Regulatory/permitting problems: Notwithstanding passage of the FAST Act in 2015 (designed to streamline federal highway construction approvals), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that average NEPA Act approvals take 4.5 years. Without reducing such rates, major Biden initiatives would not even get permits during the administration's tenure. The Chrysler building, still a jewel in the Manhattan skyline, was completed in 1930 after 20 months of construction. Boston's Big Dig was planned in 1982 and 1983 but didn't get full federal permits until 1991. Its huge federal subsidies made it a milch cow for local communities, and the project ended with a 500 percent cost overrun. Permitting problems and NIMBY have crippled U.S. offshore wind turbine development. A single offshore wind turbine field operates in the U.S.'s most wind energy-rich Atlantic corridor, while 5,000 wind turbines operate in European waters. New offshore wind proposals are exclusively in federal waters (whose greater distance from shore can double cost) because riparian owners don't want to look at wind turbines in coastal waters.

Talent and entrepreneurship: Throughout U.S. history, breakthroughs like inventions, bridges and skyscrapers have required visionary leaders. The U.S.'s current breakthrough achievements are in information technology (the internet, Google, Facebook, Twitter), or marketing (Amazon and eBay), areas of activity with few legal and permitting barriers compared with industrial or infrastructure projects. With exceptions like Apple's products (produced in China) and Elon Musk's initiatives, there are few breakthroughs in manufacturing, and none in infrastructure.

What to do? President Biden's first address recognized the seriousness of U.S. polarization by emphasizing his administration's intention to promote national unity and cooperation. His green energy plan called for "100 percent American manufacturing for energy-related products." But continued congressional gridlock can encourage unilateral policies. Neither such strategies nor the academicized recent National Academy of Science book on decarbonization offer promise to avoid the four horsemen. They could potentially leave more areas of economic decay as happened with the economic decline in the 1970s.

A more positive approach would involve systematic inclusion of industry in planning, as is standard policy in Germany and Sweden. At the least, the administration would be fully informed of industry positions and concerns. The latter would not be left with only an oppositional role or support to the political party out of power.

The final need is to modernize existing U.S. environmental law that was enacted in response to earlier crises and is no longer adequate to the needs of the nation (see books by Fiorino and Schoenbrod). EU policies offer practical models that have shown stability across countries and political administrations. The current Congress is in political paralysis and unlikely to be able to undertake meaningful efforts of this type. But a nonpartisan approach to reform was suggested in my earlier book. Like the Fed chairman or FBI chief, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator's term of office would be extended and the nominee would be chosen from a short list prepared by a bipartisan task group. New duties of the office would include drafting proposed reform legislation. It would seek to professionalize environmental management, removing it from the swings and pressures of politics. Empowered to draw on the best expertise, domestic and foreign, it could move environmental management toward true sustainability.

Frank T. Manheim is an affiliate professor and distinguished research fellow at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government. Manheim is a former senior ocean and earth scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

These Cities Are Seeing Surges In Vaccinations — But Only In The Wealthiest Neighborhoods

Sarah Midkiff 

Over the past couple of weeks, some states have expanded eligibility for COVID-19 vaccines to certain age-specific and at-risk groups. The light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel is beginning to feel closer. But while early data is incomplete, a clear divide is already emerging: People in wealthy — often white — communities are getting vaccinated at disproportionately higher rates.

© Provided by Refinery29

So far, data has shown that low-income communities of color have been hit hardest by coronavirus, so why is it that largely white neighborhoods have been able to flood vaccination appointment systems — or get around them entirely — taking up a considerably outsized share of already limited resources?

According to data released last weekend for New York City, white people have received nearly half of the available doses of the vaccine. Meanwhile, Black and Latinx residents were greatly underrepresented given their respective share of the city’s population. In Colorado, 1 of 16 white residents has received the vaccine so far. In comparison, only 1 of 50 Latinx residents have, despite making up 20% of the state’s population, reports Colorado Springs’ The Gazette. These are just a couple of examples of unequal access nationwide. Furthermore, there are countless examples of wealthy people using connections and creatively skirting requirements to jump the line.

In Florida, board members of a West Palm Beach nursing home showed up to get COVID-19 shots meant for their residents. A SoulCycle instructor in New York publicized getting the vaccine on social media claiming she was an “educator.” Had she not, she would not have been qualified to receive the vaccine yet.

Perhaps the clearest example of this inequity, though, is in California. Data shows that of the state’s 40 million residents, those in wealthy areas are receiving far more vaccinations than those in poorer neighborhoods. In a study released by the L.A. County Department of Public Health, Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, and Pacific Palisades — some of the area’s wealthiest neighborhoods — report some of the highest vaccination rates, with 25% or more residents receiving at least one dose. In comparison, neighborhoods reporting vaccination rates under 9% are among those considered less affluent.

This is in some part due to the appointment registration process. Whoever can devote the most time to getting an appointment is often the one who gets the appointment. It is also affected by a region’s ease of distribution. Regions like the San Francisco Bay Area were able to distribute vaccinations more easily by leveraging ample resources, whereas overburdened communities have had to scale back vaccination efforts, according to NBC News, because they simply do not have the power to do more.

“The findings clearly indicate very significant inequities in the distribution of vaccine to date,” Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health told The Los Angeles Times. “These inequities are unjust and unacceptable and demand renewed efforts to address them.”

It’s impossible to deny that the vaccine rollout has been slow and uneven. Public patience has worn thin, but for some, additional time and expense mean nothing in terms of getting a vaccine that is being treated as a commodity. For most, however, spending additional resources is simply not an option. They are at the mercy of the convoluted system. Some of this, according to The New York Times, is due to a confluence of obstacles like registration phone lines and websites taking hours to navigate lack of transportation, and difficulty getting time off to get to appointments.

In an interview with Insider, Arthur Caplan, founder of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine, described the vaccine rollout process as “a screwed-up mess.” Caplan said he believed wealthy people were incentivized to use their status and influence to cut the line, in part, because of a lack of trust in the system. Regulations have not been consistent from state to state and appointments have been difficult to come by. “People began to say, ‘To hell with it, I’m going to use my money or my connections and see what I could do,’” he said.

Privileged peoples’ ability to manipulate access is not the only factor at play. For some, it is about information. A tracking poll published by the Kaiser Family Foundation in January found that the overall share of people who wanted to get the vaccine as soon as it was available to them had increased since December. However, 43% of Black adults and 37% of Hispanic adults claimed they wanted to “wait and see how it’s working.” In comparison, only 26% of white adults who participated in the poll felt the same.

Some state officials are trying to remedy the problem to varying success. Washington, D.C., pivoted its approach, offering the first day of new appointments to people in zip codes with the highest rates of infection and deaths from coronavirus. After that, more appointments were made available to people from other neighborhoods. Other cities, like Dallas, have attempted to implement similar policies, but have been met with resistance from state officials. Some fear that singling out neighborhoods for priority access could invite lawsuits in the future.

Inequity has been a distressing feature of the pandemic since the start. What makes it worse is that, even before the pandemic, this divide was nothing new. Coronavirus has already pointed a glaring spotlight on who is able to work remotely, who can afford to get weeks’ worth of groceries delivered in advance, and more — and now, it’s laying bare the ugly truth about who has access to the vaccine.

Secret Nazi 'killing lab' was gassing Jews a year before mass deportations began, author says

Shari Kulha 

  

© Provided by National Post An unknown German soldier captured a series of 21 photos of the raids in Amsterdam on Feb. 22, 1941.

The Nazis operated what was essentially a training camp for gassing people as much as a year before they began the large-scale expulsions of Jews to gas chambers, historian Wally de Lang says in a new book.

It began, de Lang told the BBC, when hundreds of Dutchmen were rounded up, in what is known as a razzia, from the streets of Amsterdam in early 1941 — the first Nazi raids on Jews in Western Europe. Germany had overtaken the Netherlands the previous spring and the razzia was revenge for the killing of a Dutch Nazi collaborator.

“We always thought the first deportation train departed in July 1942. These razziamen were already deported on 27 February 1941, so that’s much earlier,” De Lang said.

The last stop for the Dutchmen was the 17th century Hartheim Castle in Upper Austria. In 1940, it had been turned into a killing centre, with a gas chamber retrofitted to a specially adapted room.

De Lang said the Nazis were using gas on prisoners of war at Hartheim in 1941, months before Hitler created the Final Solution in January 1942.

“It was a kind of laboratory (for the Nazis) to improve their knowledge of everything that we see at Auschwitz on a much, much bigger scale.”

© Provided by National Post

De Lang learned that of the group of 340 Jews who had been transported from Amsterdam, 108 were murdered at Hartheim between Aug. 11 and 14, 1941. False causes of death were sent to their families.

The castle had been donated decades earlier to the local welfare society for the care of mentally and physically afflicted people. By 1940, some 30,000 of them were actually euthanized at this “hospital” under the German eugenics program. This program was stopped in 1940 after a public outcry, but 12,000 prisoners of war died there from 1941 to 1944 under Action 14f13, the Nazi program to eliminate concentration camp prisoners unable to work. The gassing technology had been adapted and applied in wartime to many national and ethnic groups, including Poles and Spaniards but Jews were the primary target.

During the war, Hartheim was used only for executions, while the staff at the concentration camps associated with it — Mauthausen, Dachau and Gusen — handled its logistics and administration. Mauthausen, housing mainly the intelligentsia, was one of the most brutal of the Nazi concentration camps. Its complex included about 100 sub-camps throughout Austria and by 1945, it held 85,000 people.

In her book, ‘The Raids of 22 and 23 February 1941 in Amsterdam’ (published in Dutch), de Lang said those in command at Mauthausen, where the Dutchmen were temporarily incarcerated, could choose whether to gas people “during the bus ride, halfway to the castle — and then at Hartheim there was a kind of place where no one could see what was going on.”

© NIOD Jewish men are rounded up and put on trucks in Amsterdam on Feb. 22, 1941.

De Long researched the names and fates of the Dutch killed at Hartheim and detailed a series of relocations in which members of the group were murdered at each stop.

She found that the Dutch Jews were first taken from Amsterdam to Camp Schoorl, a prison camp in the Dutch dunes. Of the 425 seized, 388 were sent to Buchenwald, where dozens died. From there, 340 were sent on to Mauthausen on May 22, where many subsequently perished, and then, three months later, the 108 Dutchmen were killed at Hartheim.

DICTATORSHIP OF THE PARTY NOT THE PROLETARIAT

Lam backs Hong Kong electoral changes excluding opponents

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam gave her clear support Tuesday to electoral reforms that would likely further exclude opposition voices and cement Beijing’s control over the semi-autonomous Chinese city’s politics.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Her comments came a day after a top Beijing official signalled major changes would be coming to ensure Hong Kong is run by “patriots," a sign that China intends to no longer tolerate dissenting voices, 23 years after the former British colony was handed over to Chinese rule with a promise it could maintain its own rights and freedoms for 50 years.

Following China’s imposition of a sweeping national security law on the city last year, authorities have moved to expel members of the city’s Legislative Council deemed insufficiently loyal and rounded up veteran opposition leaders on charges including illegal assembly and colluding with foreign forces. Government critics and Western governments accuse Beijing of going back on its word and effectively ending the “one country, two systems” framework for governing the dynamic Asian financial hub.

Lam said political strife and unrest in the city, including anti-government protests in 2019 as well as protests in 2014, showed there were always some people who are “rather hostile” to the central authorities in China.

“I can understand that the central authorities are very concerned, they do not want the situation to deteriorate further in such a way that ‘one country, two systems’ cannot be implemented,” Lam said at a regular news briefing.

The Hong Kong government on Tuesday also said it plans to require district councillors — many of whom are directly elected by their constituents and tend to be more politically independent — to pledge allegiance to Hong Kong as a special region of China. Currently, only the chief executive, high officials, executive council members, lawmakers and judges are required to take an oath of office.

Those who are found to take the oath improperly or who do not uphold the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, will be disqualified and barred from running for office for five years, according to the Secretary for constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Erick Tsang.

Opposition figures swept district council elections following the 2019 protests and the Beijing authorities have since sought to prevent them from exerting influence on other aspects of the political system.

The move comes after an oath-taking controversy in 2016 ion which six pro-democracy lawmakers were expelled from the legislature after court rulings that they had not properly pledged allegiance because they mispronounced words, added words or read the oath extremely slowly.

Hong Kong's legislature is expected to deliberate the draft legal amendments on March 17.

On Monday, Xia Baolong, director of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said Hong Kong could only be ruled by “patriots,” which exclude those who lobby other countries for foreign sanctions and “troublemakers.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin added to those assertions Tuesday, saying that “people in important positions, holding important powers and shouldering important administration responsibilities must be staunch patriots. It is a matter of course."

The electoral changes are expected to be discussed and possibly passed at next month’s meeting of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislature, and its advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

They will likely take the form of a redistribution of votes in the 1,200-member electoral commission that selects Hong Kong’s chief executive, subject to Beijing’s veto. The commission is composed of voting blocs intended to represent Hong Kong's various economic, educational and social sectors, along with its largely Beijing-dominated political institutions. The one exception is the 117 commission members drawn from among the city's 458 local district councillors.

With all other commission members deemed to be firmly under Beijing's control, speculation has risen that the 117 district council votes will be transferred to another bloc, possibly that of Hong Kong’s representatives to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, ensuring that they will follow Beijing’s directives.

It remains unclear whether Lam, who is deeply unpopular among Hong Kong's population, will seek a second five-year term in next year’s poll.

Another possibility is that China will close what it calls “loopholes” in the election for members of the Legislative Council, now entirely dominated by pro-Beijing legislators since opposition deputies resigned en masse last year after four were expelled for being insufficiently loyal to the government. Lam postponed elections for the council last year, citing concerns over COVID-19, in a move largely seen as designed to prevent an opposition victory.

Of the 70 members of the council, half are directly elected from geographic constituencies while the rest are drawn from trade and other special interest groups. Changes could include preventing district counsellors from also sitting in the body or simply raising the requirements for loyalty and patriotism above the already stringent levels they are set at now.

Zen Soo, The Associated Press

Chinese spies used hijacked NSA code in their hacking operations

Chinese spies used code first developed by the U.S. National Security Agency to support their hacking operations, Israeli researchers said on Monday, another indication of how malicious software developed by governments can boomerang against their creators.

 A map of China is seen through a magnifying glass on a computer screen showing binary digits.

Tel Aviv-based Check Point Software Technologies issued a report noting that some features in a piece of China-linked malware it dubs “Jian” were so similar they could only have been stolen from some of the National Security Agency break-in tools leaked to the internet in 2017.

Yaniv Balmas, Checkpoint’s head of research, called Jian “kind of a copycat, a Chinese replica.”

The find comes as some experts argue that American spies should devote more energy to fixing the flaws they find in software instead of developing and deploying malicious software to exploit it.
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The NSA declined comment. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.


A person familiar with the matter said Lockheed Martin Corp – which is credited as having identified the vulnerability exploited by Jian in 2017 – discovered it on the network of an unidentified third party.

In a statement, Lockheed said it “routinely evaluates third-party software and technologies to identify vulnerabilities.”

Countries around the world develop malware that breaks into their rivals’ devices by taking advantage of flaws in the software that runs them. Every time spies discover a new flaw they must decide whether to quietly exploit it or fix the issue to thwart rivals and rogues.

That dilemma came to public attention between 2016 and 2017, when a mysterious group calling itself the “Shadow Brokers” published some of the NSA’s most dangerous code to the internet, allowing cybercriminals and rival nations to add American-made digital break-in tools to their own arsenals.

How the Jian malware analyzed by Checkpoint was used is not clear. In an advisory published in 2017, Microsoft Corp suggested it was linked to a Chinese entity it dubs “Zirconium,” which last year was accused of targeting U.S. election-related organizations and individuals, including people associated with President Joe Biden’s campaign.

Checkpoint says Jian appears to have been crafted in 2014, at least two years before the Shadow Brokers made their public debut. That, in conjunction with research published in 2019 by Broadcom Inc-owned cybersecurity firm Symantec about a similar incident, suggests the NSA has repeatedly lost control of its own malware over the years.

Checkpoint’s research is thorough and “looks legit,” said Costin Raiu, a researcher with Moscow-based antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, which has helped dissect some of the NSA’s malware.

Balmas said a possible takeaway from his company’s report was for spymasters weighing whether to keep software flaws secret to think twice about using a vulnerability for their own ends.

“Maybe it’s more important to patch this thing and save the world,” Balmas said. “It might be used against you.”

Inside the origins of a conspiracy theory about Myanmar and China

February 22, 2021

Image: First Draft Montage / Photography: Unsplash (Immo Wegmann, Isabel Retamales, Ko Ko Myoe, Daniel Romero)


AUTHOR

Stevie Zhang,

Esther Chan


Myanmar.


Since Myanmar’s democratically elected government was ousted February 1, social media has been inundated with conspiracy theories and rumors.

In this case study, we explore a recent theory that emerged when people in Myanmar noticed Chinese characters appearing on their mobile devices.

Myanmar’s military junta announced on February 11 plans to introduce sweeping new cybersecurity laws that would give authorities what Reuters called “unprecedented censorship powers,” less than a fortnight after it overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s government. The proposed laws led to speculation online and among protesters that Chinese IT equipment and technicians were being flown in to help implement an internet firewall, similar to the Great Firewall of China.

The junta has denied this, but fear over alleged Chinese support for the military coup was exacerbated when social media, particularly Twitter, erupted with claims that Chinese characters were appearing, seemingly at random, on mobile devices, smart TVs and apps following the announcement of the new cybersecurity laws.

These rumors have since been debunked by internet monitoring firms and analysts, who said the characters’ appearance was the result of a technical glitch.

Starting on February 17, people in Myanmar reported they were receiving automated messages from telecommunicators operators in Chinese, rather than Burmese, language. On the surface, the Chinese-language messages are gibberish, and the string of characters appears to be identical across many different screenshots and videos shared by internet users.

In reference to the strange characters, social media users made comments such as “China is definitely involved in Myanmar military coup” and “This may be because of the great firewall of china.”

Around the same time the Chinese characters were appearing on mobile devices, smart TVs across Myanmar started displaying Chinese characters on their menus and on apps such as YouTube. This, too, prompted people to claim foreign interference.

“This is obvious that China is helping Myanmar military to strictly control/monitor telecommunication,” one Twitter user said.

The issue attracted international media attention. BBC’s Freya Cole tweeted on February 16, “There is huge concern about CCP involvement in Myanmar. But it’s difficult to verify. I need telecom workers & airport staff to securely speak to me. I also need way more evidence. If you notice Chinese language on your phone or TVs pls screenshot. Inbox me.”




A BBC journalist shared images of the Chinese-language text seen by mobile customers in Myanmar. Image: Twitter, screenshot

An investigation by Hong Kong-based independent news outlet Citizen News found that the Chinese characters were likely the result of an encoding issue within the telecom providers’ system. Plugging the Chinese-language SMS text into a tool used to decode UTF-8, the character encoding method most commonly used on the internet, returns the message, “Please enter a valid keyword.” You can even reverse engineer it using a character encoder/decoder tool.

An analysis by the monitoring service Netblocks also found that the Chinese characters were a side effect of the new internet restrictions, which affected the functioning of Google servers. A similar issue occurred in June 2020, when Verizon customers reported receiving nonsensical messages in Chinese. The problem was that messages were being sent in UTF-8 encoding, but were decoded in the more complex UTF-16BE.

While the BBC’s Cole later clarified that the characters were not an indication of Chinese government involvement, social media users discussing Myanmar quickly circulated her original post on Facebook and Twitter as validation of their concerns, urging others to send Cole evidence so the alleged collusion could be exposed. In the case of Cole’s tweet, the use of social media for journalistic inquiry inadvertently became a mechanism for the spread of a conspiracy theory.

Amid the larger questions about China’s relationship with Myanmar, the technical errors that resulted in Chinese characters being shown on digital devices became one node in a larger complex of conspiracy theories. The theory about the characters was used to support larger conspiracy narratives which, at the moment, remain far from proven: the idea that a China-style web surveillance regime was being set up in Myanmar; and that China was involved in the military coup there.

The example of the Chinese characters demonstrates how a volatile situation such as Myanmar’s can fuel conspiracy theories, which draw on a lack of trust in authorities. With a knowledge deficit created by Myanmar and China’s opaque politics and relations, speculation and rumors continue to run rampant.

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Protests swell after Myanmar junta raises spectre of force

YANGON, Myanmar — Protesters gathered in Myanmar’s biggest city on Monday despite the ruling junta’s threat to use lethal force against people who join a general strike against the military's takeover three weeks ago.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

More than 1,000 protesters gathered near the U.S. Embassy in Yangon despite barriers blocking the way, but left to avoid a confrontation after 20 military trucks with riot police arrived nearby. Protests continued in other parts of the city, including next to Sule Pagoda, a traditional gathering point.

Factories, workplaces and shops were shuttered across the country Monday in response to the call for a nationwide strike. The closings extended to the capital, Naypyitaw.

The junta had warned against a general strike in a public announcement Sunday night on state television broadcaster MRTV.

“It is found that the protesters have raised their incitement towards riot and anarchy mob on the day of 22 February. Protesters are now inciting the people, especially emotional teenagers and youths, to a confrontation path where they will suffer the loss of life,” the onscreen text said in English, replicating the spoken announcement in Burmese.

The junta’s statement also blamed criminals for past protest violence, with the result that “the security force members had to fire back.” Three protesters have been fatally shot.

Trucks cruised the streets of Yangon on Sunday night, blaring similar warnings.

The protest movement, which seeks to restore power to the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and have her and other leaders released from detention, has embraced nonviolence.

The nationwide strike was dubbed Five-Twos, for the five number twos in the numeric form of Monday’s date.

“I am joining the 22222 nationwide protest as a citizen of the country. We must join the protest this time without fail,” said 42-year-old Zayar, who owns a bottled water business in the capital. “So I’ve closed down my factory and joined the demonstration.”

Zin Mi Mi Aung, a 27-year-old saleswoman, also joined the strike.

“We don’t want to be governed by the regime," she said as people marched and chanted behind her. "We will fight against them until we win.”

Thousands of people gathered in the capital’s wide boulevards, many on motorbikes to allow swift movement in the event of any police action.

Reports and photos of protests in at least a dozen cities and towns were posted on social media. Overhead views, some shot from drones, showed massive crowds in six cities appearing to number in the tens of thousands.

There were pictures of a particularly colorful event in Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state, where scores of small red hot-air balloons were set aloft. A bigger one was adorned with a drawing of the three-finger salute adopted by the anti-coup movement. The city is famous for its annual hot-air balloon festival.

In Pyinmana, a satellite town of Naypyitaw, police chased people through the streets to arrest them. Reports on social media, including from worried family members, said police had arrested 200 people or more, mostly young people, and sent them to a military base. If confirmed, it would be the biggest mass arrest since the protests started.

The general strike was an extension of actions called by the Civil Disobedience Movement, a loosely organized group that has been encouraging civil servants and workers at state enterprises to walk off their jobs. Many transport workers and white collar workers have responded to the appeal.

On Saturday, a General Strike Committee was formed by more than two dozen groups to provide a more formal structure for the resistance movement and launch a “spring revolution.”

The United States and several Western governments have called for the junta to refrain from violence, release detainees and restore Myanmar's elected government. On Monday, the U.S. said it was imposing sanctions against more junta members because of killings of peaceful protesters by security forces.

Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun and Gen. Maung Maung Kyaw add to other military leaders and entities facing U.S. sanctions, and Britain and Canada have taken similar action since the military takeover.

The U.S. condemned the attacks on protesters, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement vowing to take further action if more violence occurred. “We call on the military and police to cease all attacks on peaceful protesters, immediately release all those unjustly detained, stop attacks on and intimidation of journalists and activists, and restore the democratically elected government,” he said.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military for most of its history since gaining independence from Britain in 1948. A gradual move toward democracy in the past decade allowed Suu Kyi to lead a civilian government beginning in 2016, though the generals retained substantial power under a military-drafted constitution.

Her party won last November's election by a landslide, but the military stepped in before Parliament was to convene on Feb. 1, detained Suu Kyi and other government officials and instituted a one-year state of emergency. It contends the vote was tainted by fraud and plans to reinvestigate those allegations before a new election is held.

The Associated Press

Malaysia deports Myanmar migrants despite court order

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian immigration authorities said Tuesday they have deported 1,086 Myanmar migrants, breaking a court order to halt their repatriation following an appeal by two human rights groups

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Just hours earlier, a high court granted a one-day stay order for the deportation of 1,200 Myanmar migrants to hear an appeal by Amnesty International Malaysia and Asylum Access Malaysia, which said refugees, asylum-seekers and minors were among those being sent back.

Immigration chief Khairul Dzaimee Daud said the 1,086 had agreed to return home voluntarily on three Myanmar naval ships. He stressed that they were all Myanmar nationals who were detained last year and didn't include any Muslim ethnic Rohingya refugees or asylum-seekers.

“All of them have agreed to return voluntarily without being forced by any parties," he said in a statement, adding that it was part of the department's normal repatriation program.

The statement didn't mention the court order or explain why only 1,086 were deported instead of 1,200.

Amnesty International called the decision “inhumane and devastating.”

“It appears the authorities railroaded this shockingly cruel deportation before any proper scrutiny of the decision," it said in a statement. “This life-threatening decision has affected the lives of more than a thousand people and their families, and leaves an indelible stain on Malaysia’s human rights record, already in steep decline over the past year."

The rights group earlier said the court would hear its appeal Wednesday and urged the government to reconsider its plans to send the migrants back home, where human rights violations are high following a Feb. 1 military coup that deposed the country's elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

It urged the government to give the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees access to the 1,200 migrants and all immigration detention centres in general, which Malaysia's government has denied since August 2019.

The immigration department earlier said the migrants were held for offences including not having valid travel documents, overstaying their visas and violating social visit passes.

But the two rights groups in their legal filing named three people registered with the UNHCR and 17 minors who have at least one parent still in Malaysia. The UNHCR has separately said there were at least six people registered with it among the group to be deported.

Amnesty International and Asylum Access said the repatriation is tantamount to legitimizing ongoing human rights violations by Myanmar’s military and would put the migrants at risk of further persecution, violence and even death.

A group of 27 Malaysian lawmakers and senators also sent a letter to Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Sunday urging him to halt the deportation. There was no response from the prime minister's office.

Malaysia doesn’t recognize asylum seekers or refugees, but has allowed a large population to stay on humanitarian grounds. It is home to some 180,000 U.N. refugees and asylum seekers — including more than 100,000 Rohingya and other members of Myanmar ethnic groups.

More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled from Myanmar since August 2017, when the military cracked down in response to attacks by a rebel group. The security forces have been accused of mass rapes, killings and the burning of thousands of homes.

The Associated Press

Angry youths rattle Spain in support of jailed rap artist

BARCELONA, Spain — The imprisonment of a rap artist for his music and tweets praising terrorist violence and insulting the Spanish monarchy has set off a powder keg of pent-up rage this week in the southern European country.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The arrest of Pablo Hasél has brought thousands to the streets for different reasons.

Under the banner of freedom of expression, many Spaniards strongly object to putting an artist behind bars for his lyrics and social media remarks. They are clamouring for Spain’s left-wing government to fulfil its promise and roll back the Public Security Law passed by the previous conservative administration that was used to prosecute Hasél and other artists.

Hasél’s imprisonment to serve a nine-month sentence on Tuesday has also tapped into a well of frustration among Spain’s youths, who have the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. Four in every 10 eligible workers under 25 years old are without a job.

“I think that what we are experiencing now with the cases of Pablo Hasél (...) and other rappers politically detained by this regime is a brutal attack against the freedom of speech,” 26-year-old student Pablo Castilla said during a protest in Barcelona. “The protests are being brutally repressed by the allegedly progressive national government and the Catalan government.

“They are attacking us youngsters because we are showing our anger.”

For many, including older peaceful protesters, Hasél’s case also represents what they perceive as a heavy-handed reaction by a state whose very structure is in need of deep reform. That's even when some of his public remarks, especially in messages sent out on Twitter, Hasél expressed radical ideas, talked about attacking politicians and defended the now-defunct Grapo and ETA, two armed organizations that killed over 1,000 people in Spain.

Hasél’s lyrics that strike at King Felipe VI and his father, King Emeritus Juan Carlos I, have connected with a growing public debate on the future of Spain’s parliamentary monarchy. Unquestioned outside fringe circles of the Left until the past decade, the royal house has been plagued by financial scandal that has reached Juan Carlos himself. Many Spaniards were aghast when the former monarch left Spain for the United Arab Emirates amid a court investigation into his alleged fiscal improprieties.

As well as shouting its support for Hasél, a crowd that gathered in Madrid on Saturday chanted “Where is the change? Where is the progress?” and “Juan Carlos de Borbón, womanizer and thief.”

The debate has caused tensions inside Spain's left-wing coalition government. While Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Party back the parliamentary monarchy Spain has had since the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in the 1970s, their minor partner, the upstart United We Can party, wants to get rid of the monarchy and has supported this week’s protests for Hasél despite their violent turn.

In the rapper's home region of Catalonia, the unrest also comes after years of separatist politicians urging citizens to ignore or disobey court rulings unfavourable to their cause. Although this week’s protests are missing widespread calls for Catalonia’s independence or flags supporting secession of the industrial region, the head of public safety for Barcelona’s town hall said that many of the most violent offenders were also heavily involved in the 2019 riots that followed the imprisonment of several separatist leaders.

“It is a varied, violent profile that we already are familiar with because it is very similar to those who played a large role in the incidents of October 2019, so we know the type,” Barcelona town council member Albert Batlle told Cadena SER radio.

Some leading pro-secessionist politicians have heavily criticized the handling of the protests by Catalan police, who made more than 35 arrests on Saturday night alone.

What started out as peaceful, if angry, protests by thousands in Barcelona and other nearby towns, degenerated into ugly incidents come nightfall caused by a violent minority bent on destroying property and battling with police.

“I think we must differentiate between those who come here in support of Pablo Hasél’s freedom and those who do not,” 19-year-old Joana Junca said. “Street barricades to defend themselves are okay. But those who go out there just to riot don’t have my support.”

The Mossos d’Esquadra police said Monday that 61 of the 75 people arrested in the Catalan capital since protests erupted on Feb. 16 were 25 or younger, including 24 minors. Three out of four had Spanish nationality and 26 of them had previous run-ins with authorities for public disorders or theft.

Within that splinter group of troublemakers, some are out to do some timely looting, Catalonia’s regional interior minister, Miquel Sàmper, on Sunday told the regional TV3 broadcaster that what was “a protest over freedom of expression” had evolved to "acts of pure vandalism.”

Police point to small groups who bash their way into sporting goods stores and other shops while law enforcement officers are engaged by the clashes and the clearing barricades of burning trash containers and metal barriers strewn across streets. Police described what they called “pillaging” by “some people who take advantage of the disorder and cover provided by the large number of people.”

Then there are those, mostly teenage rioters, who appear to be motivated by an anarchist, anti-police bent and seek to disrupt public order by any means possible. They work in fast-moving packs, smashing store windows and trashing bank offices. They pick their moments to stop running and target police with co-ordinated hurling of stones and other objects. Police swing batons and fire foam bullets after pouring out of riot vans to disperse them — and the chase continues.

Eleven police officers were injured on Tuesday night when a mob attacked a police station in the Catalan town of Vic.

“The attack on the station in Vic was a turning point,” Imma Viudes, spokeswoman of the SAP-Fepol union for the Catalan police told Spanish National Radio. “We don’t have the means to control this mass violence. (…) Someone is going to have to put their fist down.”

On Sunday, on their way to hurl bottles and firecrackers at a police station in Barcelona, a group of mostly black-clad youths marched behind a banner that they defiantly planted in front of a line of police vans.

It read: “You have taught us that being peaceful is useless.”

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AP journalists Aritz Parra in Madrid, and Renata Brito in Barcelona, contributed to this report.

Joseph Wilson And HernáN MuñOz, The Associated Press

CANADA

Egerton Ryerson: Racist philosophy of residential schools also shaped public education

Hunter Knight, PhD Candidate, Social Justice Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto 

Conservative leader Erin O'Toole issued a public apology in December: “I said that the residential school system was intended to try and ‘provide education.’ It was not. The system was intended to remove children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures.” He was referring to comments he made in a meeting with a Conservative club at Ryerson University, where he defended Egerton Ryerson in response to substantial debate and protest surrounding Ryerson’s legacy.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Carlos Osorio Black Lives Matter protesters threw pink paint on a statue of Egerton Ryerson at Ryerson University in Toronto on July 18, 2020.

O'Toole’s apology gives us an opportunity to think about Ryerson’s understanding of education and the purposes of schooling in a settler colonial society. As critics rightly noted, it is true that the primary objectives of residential schools were not to educate children. It is also true that these institutions were part of Ryerson’s broader conception of schooling as key to what he foresaw as the evolution of Canada into a “civilized” white and culturally British nation.

Ryerson designed a model for residential schools that was influential in shaping a system that amounted to cultural genocide. He is also credited for founding public schooling in Ontario.

These developments were not contradictory. As writer and cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter notes, western educational systems are inextricable from colonialism. The development of both residential schools and public schooling are the organic outcome of Ryerson’s educational philosophy.
Dramatic social shift

Schooling existed in a variety of forms in what would become Ontario before the middle of the 19th century, but the rise of mass public education in the latter half of the century marked a dramatic social shift.

As chief superintendent of schools in Canada West starting in 1844, Ryerson presided over this shift. He either wrote or directed many foundational educational laws over the next 30 years.

Ryerson promoted the development of mass public education by saying state-run schools were where every child belonged. The Common Schools Act, with the term “common” supposedly meaning universal, was passed in 1846. But the movement of “universal” education did not give rise to equality of opportunity in schooling.

What followed were proposals or legislation pertaining to the exclusion of at least four constructed categories of children.

In 1847, the Department of Indian Affairs asked for Ryerson’s suggestions for a model for industrial schools for Indigenous children. His recommendations would influence the development of residential schools throughout Canada.

In 1850, under the same act that established separate schools for Catholics and Protestants, he legislated separate schools for Black children. Black families were soon forced into separate schools even when they wished to attend common schools.

Read more: Black History: How racism in Ontario schools today is connected to a history of segregation

In 1862, he outlined plans for schools for the “vagrant and neglected” children of the poor. His plans describe many of the characteristics of what later developed as industrial schools, designed to divert working class children from an imagined future as criminals.

In 1868, he published a report on recommendations for schools for deaf or blind children.

These separate schooling systems had a long-reaching legacy. The last residential school in Canada was open until 1996. Segregated schools for Black students existed in Ontario until 1965. Industrial schools were phased out in the 1930s.

Today, racism in mainstream schooling is an ongoing urgent problem as is school equity or inclusion for Black, Indigenous, low-income and disabled people

© (Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County/Flickr) A photograph of Common School No. 2 in Belleville, Ont., around 1900.

Project of national development

Before he passed any major legislation, Ryerson’s first initiative in his tenure was a report that served as a basis for the Common Schools Act of 1846. It illuminates the philosophy behind Ryerson’s vision.

Ryerson set up the project of schooling as one of national development. This vision was understood in deeply colonial, racialized and hierarchical terms. He wrote:


“We should judge, not by what has been, or is, but what ought to be, and what must be, if we are not to be distanced by other countries in the race of civilization.”

Public schooling was understood as a venue through which children could do necessary work for their country’s “forward development.”

The framework for development here was as an extension of Enlightenment European philosophies of the world and humanity, which were posited as universal while being structured by ideologies of pseudo-scientific racism and evolutionary thought. As Wynter explains, these philosophies emerged amidst efforts to rationalize and justify colonial practices and transatlantic slavery.

Through this lens, advocates of colonial expansion argued that individual humans and races of people progressively develop from irrational, malleable subjects towards higher rationality and advanced scientific capabilities. As such, the state is an ultimate reflection of how advanced, or “civilized,” its people are. In this pseudo-scientific evolutionary philosophy, the “rational, advanced, civilized” subjects who deserve more power — and are justified in inflicting colonial rule, violence and genocide on others — are white European men.

© (Government of Ontario Art Collection, AC622107/Archives of Ontario) The Rev. Dr. Adolphus Egerton Ryerson, DD, LL D (Chief Superintendent of Education, Canada West, Ont., 1844-76), portrait ca. 1850-51 by Theophile Hamel.

Justifying colonial violence, hierarchies

For Ryerson, creating a framework for public schooling and also for residential schools was part of the same project of furthering Canada’s development. The differentiated schooling he proposed was intended to serve those explicit aims, and the contrast in schooling methods and what Ryerson advocated (or did not advocate) for is stark.

Ryerson described education in common schools as a “charming passage,” in which students were inspired towards lifelong learning and growth.

In contrast, for industrial schools for Indigenous children, the model which the residential school system emerged from, Ryerson argued that “a state of civilization” could only be achieved with eight to 12 hours a day of heavy agricultural labour, starting at the age of four. He mused there would likely be little time for academics.

Read more: Residential school literature can teach the colonial present and imagine better futures

For deaf and/or blind children, he believed that only an intensive focus on manual trades would be able to combat what he saw as their natural idleness.

For segregated schools for Black students, he refused to support Black parents and advocates when school boards (that answered to him) denied them adequate funds, arguing he had no power to help.

And he suggested that industrial schools for “vagrant and neglected children” be structured similarly to prisons.

Ryerson’s legacy is rightly criticized for his role in creating the model for residential schools. How Canadians choose to memorialize him and understand the systems he developed has wide-ranging implications.

Let’s not ignore how the same racist and colonial philosophy behind residential schools was also foundational to mainstream public education.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Hunter Knight receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.