AS AMERICA WATCHED THE OSCAR'S

Russia suspends activities of Alexei Navalny’s organisation

Andrew Roth in Moscow

THE GUARDIAN 4/26/2021

Russia’s prosecutor has suspended the activities of Alexei Navalny’s nationwide political organisation ahead of a court ruling that is expected to outlaw the opposition movement as “extremist” and threaten supporters with long jail termsThe Guardian

In a decision published on Monday, the prosecutor banned his regional headquarters from holding opposition rallies or engaging in elections activity pending a landmark court decision that could cripple the democratic opposition to Vladimir Putin.

The designation is part of a sweeping crackdown on Navalny’s activities, from sentencing the Kremlin critic to a two-and-a-half year prison term to dozens of arrests of his top aides and regional staff.

“They’re just yelling here: we’re afraid of your activity, we’re afraid of your protests, we’re afraid of smart voting,” wrote Ivan Zhdanov, the head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, uploading a copy of the prosecutor’s decision. Smart voting refers to efforts to direct opposition against Putin and the ruling United Russia party’s strongest competitors.

Related: Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny ends hunger strike

Court proceedings are expected to begin on Monday in the extremism case, a designation mostly reserved for terrorist organisations such as al-Qaida or religious organisations such as the non-violent Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have been targeted with mass arrests since being outlawed in 2017.

In a statement this month, the Moscow prosecutor accused Navalny’s organisation of “creating conditions for changing the foundations of the constitutional order, including through the scenario of a ‘coloured revolution’”.

The decision could affect thousands of staff, supporters and donors who have given support via crowdfunding efforts. The evidence in the case has been kept hidden because it contains state secrets, the government has said.

Police have already begun rolling up Navalny’s organisation nationwide, arresting more than 70 staff and supporters at the weekend following a nationwide protest calling for his freedom. Navalny recently ended a 24-day hunger strike to demand better medical care.

The Kremlin critic was arrested in January after returning from Germany, where he had treatment for novichok poisoning that he and the online investigative collective Bellingcat had traced back to Russia’s FSB.

On Monday Navalny’s allies said they would halt their public activities in order to protect their employees from fines and arrests. Membership of extremist organisations is punishable by up to six years in prison.

Several regional headquarters have started posting messages on their social networks saying they will stop updating them. “Unfortunately we can no longer work in the current format. It is not safe for our staff and supporters. From today, no information will appear on this page. It will be frozen,” a message on the Moscow headquarters’ Telegram channel read

.

© Photograph: Anton Vaganov/Reuters A demonstrator is taken away by law enforcement officers during a rally in support of jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny in St Petersburg last week.

In a recent interview, the Navalny ally Leonid Volkov said that the organisation’s expansion into Russia’s regions was “one of the most painful and irritating [situations] for Putin”.

“If we leave it the way it is, then certainly they’re going to initiate a mass criminal case against all the staff of the regional headquarters,” he said of the organisation.

Protests reveal generational divide in immigrants

Duration: 02:26 

The racial injustice protests in Minnesota reveal a generational divide in the area's immigrant communities. Young people of African descent have taken to the streets, but older generations are more likely to focus on their livelihoods. (April 26)

Sean Speer: Funding for memorial to 100 million victims of communism one thing Liberal budget gets right

100 MILLION IS A MYTH OF THE RIGHT WING

THEY INCLUDE VICTIMS OF THE NAZI'S, UKRAINES SO CALLED FAMINE, CHINA'S FAMINE, ETC.

STILL HARD PRESSED TO COME UP WITH 100 MILLION

CAPITALISM ON THE OTHER HAND CAN DOUBLE, TRIPLE OR QUDRUPLE IT.

Sean Speer 4/24/2021

This week’s federal budget certainly wasn’t conceived with the goal of securing Conservative support. Its high spending and high deficits instead reflect the Trudeau government’s own progressive ambitions as well as the political exigencies of obtaining New Democratic and Bloc Québécois votes in a minority parliament.

© Provided by National Post Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland waits for the first question from reporters on the telephone during a news conference in Ottawa, Monday April 19, 2021.

But it would be wrong to say that there were no Conservative ideas or priorities in Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s budget. Buried deep in the 724-page document was a $4-million commitment to complete the construction of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Ottawa. It’s an important project that’s been more than a decade in the making. Minister Freeland and her government deserve credit for helping to see it through to completion.


The idea of a Memorial for the Victims of Communism started in earnest in 2008. Its genesis was a conversation between then-federal Cabinet minister Jason Kenney and the Czech ambassador about the horrors of twentieth-century communism and the need to permanently memorialize in our nation’s capital the more than 100 million people who were killed under its totalitarian reach. Soon thereafter a non-profit organization, Tribute to Liberty, was established with the goal of raising funds to construct such a monument near Ottawa’s parliamentary precinct.

Kenney wasn’t the only one to support these efforts. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was also a major booster from the outset. His understanding of the interplay between history and ideas was the main reason. As he explained in a 2014 speech at a Tribute for Liberty fundraiser: “My fear is, as we move further into the 21st century, Canadians, especially new generations, will forget or will not be taught the lessons hard learned and the victories hard earned over the last 100 years.

Harper’s concern is well founded. More than 40 per cent of Canadians were barely born before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Our collective memory and understanding of what the former prime minister described in his remarks as a “poisonous ideology” will fade away as older generations pass on. There’s no reason to think that provincial education curriculum, which these days seems more focused on faddish ideas than foundational facts, will be able to reverse the inexorable effects of an aging population.

© Wayne Cuddington The display board with an artist rendering of the Victims of Communism Memorial.

The consequence is that U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s famous call to leave communism on the “ash heap of history” instead risks becoming the “ash heap” of a fading culture and political inheritance. As a result, we may lose the previous generation’s essential insight about the incompatibility between communism’s mechanistic collectivism and the innate human need for freedom and transcendence.

For these reasons, the Harper government committed $3 million to support the eventual construction of the monument near the Supreme Court of Canada. The remaining funds were to come from private donations.

One of the Trudeau government’s first actions in 2015, however, was to revisit its predecessor’s plan. Then-Canadian Heritage Minister Melanie Joly called the project “too political and too divisive.” She ultimately cut federal funding for the monument in half and insisted on moving it to another location.

It was never entirely clear whether the Trudeau government’s resistance was due to ideology or partisanship — that is, if it was concerned about offending its most vociferous left-wing supporters or it was just instinctively opposed to the project because Conservatives supported it. But, in any case, the monument’s proponents were left with the distinct impression that Ottawa was at best ambivalent and at worst hostile to its construction ultimately proceeding.

There’s reason to believe that Minister Freeland may have been an outlier on this issue within her own government. Due to a combination of her Ukrainian roots and career as a journalist in Eastern Europe, Freeland came to political office with a strong track record of anti-communism and anti-Putinism. It’s notable, for instance, that when she was appointed Foreign Affairs Minister in 2017, she was already banned by the Russian government from entering the country due to her outspoken criticism.

It’s not surprising therefore that Freeland’s first budget provides additional funding to help ensure that the monument is completed in the coming months. What’s interesting though is that the budget’s description of the project — “The Memorial to the Victims of Communism will recognize Canada as a place of communist regimes refuge for people fleeing injustice and persecution and honour the millions who have suffered under ” — reflects the same ideas and themes as championed by the Harper government.

HER ANTI COMMUNISM AND HER FAMILIES LINKS TO THE FASCIST UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS ARMYS OF WWII, WHO WERE COMPRADOURS WITH THE NAZI'S HAS BEEN WELL DOCUMENTED, SEE BELOW

It’s a positive sign that, notwithstanding our various partisan differences, we can still broadly agree on the inherent wickedness of communism and the need to memorialize those whose lives have been tragically taken by its brutal political manifestations across history and around the world. It seems especially timely in the current moment when China’s communist government is carrying out a genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

While there are no doubt various aspects of the Trudeau government’s budget worthy of criticism, Minister Freeland’s decision to affirm the Harper government’s plans for a Memorial to the Victims of Communism is an important exception. She got this one right and Conservatives shouldn’t be reluctant to say so.

Chrystia Freeland's granddad was indeed a Nazi collaborator ...
https://ottawacitizen.com › national › defence-watch › c...
Mar. 8, 2017 — Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland responds to a question during ... Ukrainian grandfather Michael Chomiak and his ties to the Nazis.

Freeland knew her grandfather was editor of Nazi newspaper ...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com › article34236881
Mar. 7, 2017 — Stories on pro-Russian websites have said minister's stand against Russian aggression in Ukraine is linked to her family's past.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland Is 'Proud' of Nazi ...
https://observer.com › 2017/03 › chrystia-freeland-fore...
Mar. 22, 2017 — Chrystia Freeland honors the memory of her grandfather, editor in chief of a Nazi newspaper that described Poland as 'infected by the Jews'

THEN THREE YEARS LATER SHE HAS AMNESIA

Blank spot: Why Chrystia Freeland's refusal to acknowledge ...
https://www.theprogressreport.ca › blank_spot_why_ch...
Aug. 31, 2020 — Is Chrystia Freeland a Nazi collaborator apologist? ... increasingly scandal-plagued Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has a familial connection.

FUNNY THAT  BECAUSE SHE WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO OUT HER GRANDFATHER AS A NAZI SYPATHIZER AND ANTI SEMITE.

Chrystia Freeland - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Chrystia_Freeland
However, Freeland has known of her grandfather's Nazi ties since at least 1996, when she helped edit a scholarly article by Himka for the Journal of Ukrainian Studies. Freeland is married to Graham Bowley, a British writer and The New York Times reporter. They have three children.

‘We’re the poo crew’: 💩💩💩

sleuths test for Covid by reading signs in sewage 

Linda Geddes 

They call themselves the “poo crew” – a team of health detectives who are tracking down and heading off Covid outbreaks by reading the signs in our sewage. And they are expanding. Earlier this month, the Environmental Monitoring for Health Protection Programme opened a purpose-built laboratory on the fringes of Exeter, its sterile interior in stark contrast to the unsanitary subject of its investigations.

The opening of the laboratory marks a dramatic expansion of what was, until less than a year ago, just a soil pipe dream: testing sewage for coronavirus to understand where it is circulating and get an early warning of future potential spikes in infection. In the future, this network could be expanded to monitor other infectious diseases including flu.

“Right now, what it means is we can identify and contain the spread of Covid. But moving beyond that, arguably what the NHS would like to know is what do we need to be prepared for in any given area? Through this programme we might be able to provide information to hospitals and local commissioning groups about what the health of the community looks like and what the demands might be, that could allow for the optimisation of resources and the saving of money,” said Dr Andrew Engeli of the Joint Biosecurity Centre, which is leading the project in collaboration with Defra, the Environment Agency and other partners including the devolved governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The idea was conceived during the early months of the pandemic, after reports that coronavirus was being shed in the faeces of some infected individuals. The immediate concern was that this might render public toilets and swimming pools potent sources of infection, although further studies have suggested that the risk of contracting Covid-19 from sewage is minimal.

However, scientists at the Environment Agency’s Starcross laboratory near Exeter also saw such observations as an opportunity. “We were on standby to offer clinical Covid testing for the NHS, but then a Dutch group published a paper saying that they had found coronavirus in wastewater about five days before they saw a change in clinical cases,” said Dr Jonathan Porter, a microbiologist who has been involved in the wastewater programme from the outset. “When it turned out that our services weren’t going to be useful to the NHS, we decided we should pick this up and give it a go.”

Last July, they began processing samples from 44 wastewater treatment plants, accounting for the combined excretions of 23% of England’s population. The detection of a sudden spike in coronavirus RNA in sewage from a plant near Trowbridge, Wiltshire, provided a crucial first test. “There was no coronavirus really in Trowbridge at that time, but we saw a small spike in the data which lined up with four or five cases that were detected through testing,” said Glenn Watts, deputy director of science at the Environment Agency

Since then, the programme has been expanded to include hundreds of sites, covering around two-thirds of the population of England. Similar programmes are being developed in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as in about 28 other countries around the world – although the English and Scottish programmes are among the most advanced. “I don’t think anyone else is operating at this scale,” Watts said.

The samples arrive by courier at 6am each morning, having been harvested from sewage pipes as they spew their contents into wastewater treatment plants across England before processing. Teeming with bacteria, viruses, and the mushy remnants of our meals, these 500ml plastic bottles of cloudy grey fluid are an epidemiological treasure trove of information about our collective health just waiting to be mined.



The individually barcoded bottles, which look a lot like fizzy drinks containers, are logged on to the system and then wheeled up to the processing lab on silver trolleys, where scientists load samples of fluid into centrifuge tubes, and spin them to separate the liquid components from the solids. It’s dirty work, but done for the public good inside carefully enclosed cabinets designed to both prevent contamination of the sewage samples from outside sources, and to protect the laboratory staff from the multitude of disease-causing microbes they contain.

Chemicals are added to the liquid portion of the samples to extract and purify the genetic material from numerous viruses that it contains, until all that remains from the original 500ml sample is a couple of raindrops-worth of viral RNA. Finally, this is loaded into PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) machines that detect and quantify the amount of RNA from Sars-CoV-2.

Using this data to make sense of how much virus is circulating in England’s cities and towns is by no means straightforward. The amount of poo carried by sewers varies according to the time of day, and the surge in solids may come later in university towns – where students get up later – compared with more rural locations. It can also be diluted by large amounts of rainwater, so all of this must be carefully factored into the scientists’ calculations.

© Provided by The Guardian A firefighter in Marseille extracts samples of sewage water at a retirement home in Marseille, France. Photograph: Daniel Cole/AP

Wastewater analysis is not accurate enough to tell us how many individuals are infected with Covid in any given area at any given time. However, it can provide an early warning of escalating cases in specific geographical areas that can be followed up with additional community testing and messaging, or the sewage equivalent of surge testing – where manhole covers are lifted up and samples taken from sewers in specific areas of a city, say, to try to narrow down the source of the outbreak.

Sewage from individual households or tower blocks is not monitored – although separate research is investigating whether sewage from school wastepipes could be used as an early warning system of outbreaks among pupils, many of whom may be asymptomatic.

“It is like taking a stool sample from a collective bowel,” said James Trout, who oversees the laboratory.

Efforts are also under way to develop methods of using wastewater to trace variants of concern. As proof of concept, during January and February, the team used sewage collected from Bristol to identify 118 separate coronavirus mutations, including those associated with the B117 variant, and the so-called “Bristol variant” – a version of B117 with an additional E484K mutation – in samples from 11 sub-catchments of the city, each containing about 27,000 people. The variant was detected in eight of these areas, including one where no confirmed or suspected cases had been detected through other means. This information was relayed to local and national response teams, to help track and contain its spread.

Related: UK scientists find evidence of human-to-cat Covid transmission

Sars-CoV-2 is not the only virus that is excreted in our poo. Indeed, labs around the world have previously used wastewater to monitor the success of polio vaccination programmes. In Wales, wastewater monitoring is being expanded to keep tabs on other viruses of public health concern, such as influenza, norovirus, and hepatitis A and E. Once such infrastructure has been developed, it could also theoretically be piggybacked to detect viruses in air filters from hospitals or workspaces, say.

It is hardly the most glamorous job, but these sewage sleuths are committed to their cause. “We’re the poo crew. We know a ridiculous amount about poo, but still not as much as we’d like to know,” Engeli said. “It’s way more complicated than we thought.”

Japan's QAnon disciples aren't letting Trump's loss quash their mission

By Emiko Jozuka, Selina Wang and Junko Ogura, CNN Business 
4/24/2021

Hiromi spent most of her life feeling trapped.

LONG READ

© CNN Illustration/Qarmyjapanflynn

Growing up, the now 58-year-old Japanese acupuncturist felt pressure to conform to Japan's rules-based society, and to become a model worker and wife. She married young and had three children, but later divorced and says she still struggles to make ends meet.

"I'm sure some Japanese people question this way of life where we take the same crammed train at the same time; we get sucked into corporate life. It's like we don't think for ourselves; instead, we follow someone else's outline for us," Hiromi told CNN Business. She withheld her full name to keep her privacy.

Convinced there was something wrong with society, Hiromi looked for answers online. While reading the tweets of a medical influencer, who alleged big pharmaceutical companies used the public as human guinea pigs, Hiromi stumbled across Japanese QAnon influencer Eri Okabayashi's Twitter account.

© QArmyJapanFlynn 

QArmyJapanFlynn members allege their numbers have grown amid the pandemic.

It translated QAnon information into Japanese, and had more than 80,000 followers before it was shut down in January as part of a mass purge of QAnon-related accounts by Twitter. Hiromi started speaking to Okabayashi, who claimed to offer her the opportunity to make the world a better place.


For Hiromi, QAnon provided an escape from the realities of daily life.

"I have no idea what other people would think of me, but I feel like I became so free," she said.

The baseless QAnon conspiracy theory began in October 2017 when a person or persons using the name "Q" (which is a level of US security clearance) posted a thread on 4chan, an anonymous American messaging board regarded as the birthplace of the alt-right movement. The poster spread several conspiracy theories, including ones claiming that then-President Donald Trump is facing down a shadowy cabal of child-trafficking elites, and others about the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election. The theory quickly moved from the darkest corners of the internet to draw in people around the world.

Japan has become one of QAnon's most sophisticated and active networks outside of the United States with its own ideologies and influencers, according to social network analysis research firm Graphika. Though there aren't solid estimates for the number of QAnon followers worldwide or in Japan, Hiromi is just one of a niche number of people who have fallen into fringe QAnon groups that have emerged in Japan.

© QArmyJapanFlynn 

QArmyJapanFlynn believers say they didn't support the Capitol Hill riots. The say their mission is peaceful.

QAnon is rooted in the belief that governments and established institutions are lying to the public, an idea with broad appeal around the world. Experts say QAnon adherents are searching for meaning in a society they feel is broken, manipulated to believe QAnon answers all the world's problems.

And while QAnon's roots are in American politics, experts argue that in Japan the conspiracy theory has diverged so sharply that it has taken on a life of its own.


QAnon's Japanese roots

Cults and conspiracy theories are far from mainstream in Japan, according to Yutaka Hori, a Japanese and religious studies expert at Tohoku University. But the country still has a history of those types fringe belief systems, many of which long predate QAnon.

During World War II, a state-sponsored version of Shintoism promoted the idea that the Japanese Emperor was an absolute God ruling over the country.

However, once the United States began its occupation of Japan following Tokyo's defeat in WWII, the Emperor issued a declaration in which he said he was not a living god. This sharp departure led many observant Shintoists to have a crisis of faith, Hori said.

According to Hori, while the sudden cultural shift away from nationalistic Shintoism allowed people to choose their own belief systems, it also paved the way for fringe religious movements — some with radical leanings.

By the 1990s, Japan had entered a period of economic uncertainty, and it became easier for cults to play on people's anxieties, according to Matt Alt, author of "Pure Invention: How Japan's Pop Culture Conquered the World."

© Kyodo News/Kyodo News Stills/Kyodo News via Getty Images Aum Shinrikyo cult group founder Shoko Asahara (4th from left), whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, speaking at a press conference in Tokyo in 1990 to announce a plan to field candidates for the general election.

Infamous doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, which emerged in the 1980s, grew its membership during this period and perpetrated the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack in a Tokyo subway station.

And as the internet took off, the '90s saw the rise of anonymous imageboards. The first widely used imageboard, 2chan (now known as 5chan), spawned chan culture — from which QAnon later emerged — and brought about an era of anonymous unfettered expression. While 2chan provided a space for people to speak their minds without being judged, the platform quickly became synonymous with Japan's right-wing sympathizers or "netto-uyoku," who used the board to spread anti-immigrant attitudes and hate speech against Koreans.

© QArmyJapanFlynn 

QAnon believers claim they joined the group to find a sense of purpose and challenge the status quo.

Japan's internet right-wingers harbor hostile views towards regional neighbors like Korea and China, reflecting the anti-communist and anti-China views that some QAnon adherents in Japan hold today, according to Alt.

"I think QAnon in Japan is bootstrapping itself on a bunch of pre-existing, far-right extreme movements that already existed in Japan," Alt said.

© Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Protesters gather outside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC.


Japan's two QAnons

Since its inception in 2017, QAnon has quickly metastasized, infiltrating American politics, internet culture and religious groups.

In Japan, two QAnon splinter groups have emerged: J-Anon and QArmyJapanFlynn, which takes its name from Trump's former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn.

The belief systems that underpin the groups have similarities — both mistrust the Japanese government and support Trump. But there are important differences as well.

J-Anon adherents, for example, have taken part in large, well-publicized demonstrations in support of Trump. In contrast, a QArmyJapan Flynn (QAJF) believer told CNN Business that the group does not see the value in holding public rallies to support Trump.

Hiromi and 2Hey, a 33-year-old former real-estate agent turned delivery driver, are members of QArmyJapanFlynn. 2Hey is divorced and has a son. He told CNN Business that at one point he wanted to be a politician to help change Japan, but later decided politics was a farce.

"It's so tough to stay afloat even with both parents working. I kept thinking something was so wrong and that's when I discovered QAnon," he said.

Neither 2Hey nor Hiromi say they were believers of any other online or religious groups before joining QArmyJapanFlynn, which they claim is different from J-Anon and other QAnon groups. They said the US elections may have been stolen from Trump but their group did not support the violence during the Capitol Hill riots in January. They claim their mission is a peaceful one that goes beyond Trump: They say it's about convincing people to challenge the status quo.


Lost in translation

According to Yasushi Watanabe, an American studies expert at Keio University, information on QAnon can be lost in translation as groups rely on English material being turned into Japanese.

"The difference between Japan and the US is that many QAnon believers in Japan do not understand English so well," said Watanabe.

He cited the example of how Trump supporters in Japan wrote the American national anthem lyrics in katakana, a Japanese phonetic alphabet, so they could easily sing along without necessarily understanding each word.

"They are not necessarily responding directly to Trump's literal message, but thinking of him as an anti-establishment cultural icon," added Watanabe.

But the subtle change in meaning across continents has led to confusion.

CNN Business reached out to multiple names listed on J-Anon's website. Only two people responded. Matsumoto, who withheld his full name due to privacy reasons, is a Japanese pro-Trump supporter who helped organize a rally for the former president in Fukuoka prefecture in January. Matsumoto has been an avid Trump supporter since 2015. He says he flew from Japan to America in 2019 to attend a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

Since 2016, Matsumoto has believed the world is controlled by a "Deep State" comprised of influential banking figures, but Trump is fighting against them. He also said he felt frustrated with China's mistreatment of Hong Kongers, Tibetans and Uyghurs.

Although Matsumoto's details appear on J-Anon's website, he said he wasn't a believer and didn't know how his information got there. He said he was familiar with QAnon, but it was not until after the Capitol Hill riots that he began to question the movements' motives.

"I started to feel like QAnon was manipulating people who loved Trump and exploiting them for a different purpose," said Matsumoto. "I think that in Japan, people didn't fully understand what QAnon was. Some people got sucked in because they sincerely supported Trump and thought that Q also endorsed him," said Matsumoto.

Nowadays, whenever Matsumoto meets QAnon supporters in Japan, he cautions that QAnon might be manipulating Trump supporters.


Misinformation in Japan

People often seek out conspiracy theories in times of crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated feelings of uncertainty, according to Watanabe, the American studies expert.

"People's frustration with Covid-19 might have provided a ground for some conspiracy theories to grow," he said.

The Japanese public's deep-seated mistrust of political institutions and the media doesn't help matters. For instance, a 2018 report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Oxford points out that though the Japanese have traditionally trusted in authority and mainstream news media, a "series of high-profile mistakes" by news organizations have eroded trust in recent years.

According to a 2019 report from Genron, a Japanese think tank, Japan, 67% of 1,000 people surveyed said they didn't trust political parties or expect them to solve issues, and 56% of people had little to no trust in the media.

Yoshiro Fujikura, a Japanese journalist and cult expert, said the mistrust in mainstream media had spurred some people to seek alternative information sources online.

"People start thinking that Japanese media was so untrustworthy in the past, so they must still be hiding the important facts," said Fujikura. "Some people became influenced by opinions they came across online and became susceptible to misinformation."


Taking down the QAnon networks

When Twitter shut down 70,000 QAnon-related accounts in January, the QAnon-affiliated Twitter accounts tweeting in Japanese saw around 45% of the community deactivated, according to Melanie Smith, the director of analysis at Graphika, the social network analysis research firm.

Smith, who has mapped the spread of QAnon online, quantifies the influence of communities by measuring the strength of their networks.

"[QAnon in Japan] was the first international community we saw being coherent and cohesive enough to show up on a network round, which means it has its own influencers, it has its own kind of linguistic markers, its own signals in terms of content that's being produced and consumed," said Smith.

"We can tell that even with the enforcement action that's now happening on Twitter, that community remains relatively strong," she added.

In Japan, QAnon adherents have created a network where Twitter accounts follow each other, Smith said. She said her concern isn't over whether QAnon conspiracy theories will become mainstream in Japan, but whether people will take on radical ideas as they congregate in fringe echo chambers.

"It's almost like when you drop a jar of marbles, and they scatter and try and reconstitute in different places," said Smith. "What we see with that in the US is a movement towards old tech platforms and places where these accounts know that they're not going to be moderated."

2Hey, the QAJF member, said he felt angry when he discovered his Twitter account had been blocked by the social media giant, but the group has moved to other platforms.

QAJF adherents also recruit offline, continuing the cycle of luring others into the baseless conspiracy theory. Hiromi organizes local meetups regularly with mostly middle-aged women who weren't aware of QAnon theories before.

Another member, J, 30, who didn't want to disclose his name for privacy reasons, told CNN Business he used to be a financial consultant. J, who is now in Hokkaido in northern Japan, said he travels across the country with donated funds, promoting QAnon by passing out flyers, hosting events and livestreaming online.

Despite the recent social media clampdown, QArmyJapanFlynn members alleged their numbers have increased more than ten times to 1,000 members during the pandemic. They say their members are from across the country: male, female, rich and poor. In contrast, over in America, QAnon has lost support since President Joe Biden's inauguration, with many adherents renouncing their beliefs after a popular Q prophesy known as "the Storm" failed to come true.


Looking to the future

Hori, the Japanese and religious studies expert, said the rise of social media had allowed people to more easily explore unconventional beliefs and religious practices. That, he added, could even lead to the spread of new religious movements in the future.

Fujikura, the cult expert, cautioned that even if the QAnon-affiliated pro-Trump demonstrations wane, the anti-Communist China messaging and protests that J-Anon has rallied around will carry on in another form given such sentiment existed long before the advent of QAnon.

"We could reach a point where those anti-Chinese groups gain more members, gain political power and start organizing more radical activities ... Even if QAnon crumbles, I don't think J-Anon will," said Fujikura.

Ultimately, Fujikura said it was essential to create a dialogue with people who have fallen into the conspiracy rabbit hole.

"We need to make sure people have access to the facts, so they don't believe in baseless conspiracy theories. I think those things are important. We need media literacy and cult literacy," added Fujikura.

But that may be tough to do. Hiromi, 2Hey and J — members of QArmyJapanFlynn — have already decided that public institutions and society are deceiving them, choosing instead to live in the imagined reality of QAnon.


Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the name of Japanese QAnon influencer Eri Okabayashi.

SPACE RACE 2.0
Elon Musk's Economies Of Scale Won SpaceX The NASA Moonshot

Enrique Dans
Senior Contributor

FORBES
Leadership Strategy
Teaching and consulting in the innovation field since 1990


IMAGE: SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

On April 17, when NASA revealed the result of its competition to develop a spacecraft to take astronauts back to the moon, it was clear that Elon Musk’s strategy of leveraging economies of scale had passed yet another milestone.


The competition pitted three proposals: Dynetics, a regular supplier to the Department of Defense; Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company, which had partnered with usual suspects in the aerospace world like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper; and Musk’s SpaceX.

Usually, NASA chooses more than one company for this type of arrangement, so as to cover its back and avoid any of them not being able to deliver its technology on time, but in this case it awarded the contract it in its entirety to SpaceX. In May 2020, NASA had also chosen SpaceX over the mighty Boeing to carry a mission with three astronauts to the international space station, and last week, they used another rocket from the company to send four astronauts more, making Musk’s company already one of the most trusted partners of the government space agenc

What made NASA choose SpaceX? Fundamentally, the aspect that differentiates Elon Musk’s companies: leveraging economies of scale. NASA’s $2.89 billion contract assures SpaceX the ability to develop, test and send two missions to the lunar surface: the second flight, which will be manned, is scheduled for 2024. But the value of the contract could be multiplied by a very important factor if, as expected, NASA continues, after this contract, to place its trust in SpaceX to continue sending regular missions to the moon to supply a base there with a permanent facility: in many ways, NASA’s contract is a major departure from what it has been proposing up to now.

This is precisely the most significant element of the decision, and where SpaceX had the biggest advantage: Blue Origin’s project was the most conventional, with a three-stage landing design, in line with NASA’s approach, but from which virtually no components were recovered. Dynetics delivered a more innovative and reusability-oriented proposal, but was unambitious, proposing to take just a few astronauts to the moon.

In contrast, SpaceX presented Starship, its huge rocket designed to reach Mars carrying dozens of people on a mission lasting about six months — which Musk insists will be ready before 2030, while accusing the European Space Agency of lack of ambition — making it oversized for the lunar mission, but which ensures the complete reusability of the spacecraft, a technological challenge SpaceX has been preparing for quite some time after carrying out multiple tests and launches. NASA’s support for such a bold project is an unusual gamble — government agencies tend to play it safe — but it makes sense given the dramatic change in scale involved.

In this sense, winning the NASA contract is critical to SpaceX’s ambitions to go to Mars, but it is also a change of scale for NASA itself, which until now could only aspire to launch one large rocket a year costing $2 billion, which was then lost in the ocean. Now, it can move on to thinking about carrying up to 100 tons of cargo, but building one rocket a month and reusing it dozens of times. More launches imply more experience, hence, more economies of scale. If $2 billion allows it to launch 100 tons of materials into space every two weeks, the dimension of the space program changes completely.

Once again, Musk’s vision of economies of scale becomes the way to change an industry. Convincing NASA, in this case, was a matter of scale and pure economic logic: setting completely new rules of the game that no previous competitor had ever considered taking to that scale, allowing SpaceX to anticipate the savings to create an unbeatable value proposition while its competitors were playing by the old rules.

If you thought the rules governing industries were written in stone, now you know. There’s always room for a new approach.

Five things about Canada's proposed small modular nuclear reactors

Alberta's Jason Kenney recently became the fourth Canadian premier to sign an agreement supporting the development of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in Canada, joining the premiers of Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan.

The provinces also released a feasibility report prepared by Ontario Power Generation, Bruce Power, NB Power and SaskPower which gives a potential timeline for development and deployment of SMRs and assesses their competitiveness with other non-emitting energy sources.

Here's five things you should know about SMRs:

What are SMRs?

SMRs are nuclear reactors that produce less than 300 megawatts of electricity. Because they are smaller than traditional nuclear power plants, which generally produce 800 MW and up, they are expected to be cheaper to manufacture, scalable to meet specific industrial and remote community needs and, according to the report, will have the "potential" to be competitive with other low-carbon forms of energy.

When are they expected to be in use and where?

According to the feasibility study, Canada's first grid-scale SMR project of about 300 MW is expected to be in place at the Darlington nuclear site in Ontario by 2028, followed by up to four similar units in Saskatchewan with the first in service in 2032. The technology and developer are to be selected by the end of this year.

An advanced SMR design is also to be developed in New Brunswick resulting in demonstration units at the Point Lepreau, N.B., nuclear site by 2030. Meanwhile, a new class of "micro SMR" is being designed to replace diesel use in remote communities and mines — a 5-MW gas-cooled reactor project is proposed at the Chalk River nuclear site in Ontario and is expected to be in service by 2026.

What is the federal role in developing SMRs?

The feasibility study says that "cost and risk-sharing with the federal government" is an important part of developing SMRs, noting they support Canada’s goals of phasing out coal by 2030 and becoming a net-zero carbon emitter by 2050. Federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan has said nuclear power is essential to meeting Canada's climate-change goals.

Are SMRs considered to be safe?

Proponents argue that new applications, simplified designs and advanced technology give SMRs an enhanced level of safety, building on Canada's reputation as a safe and well-regulated leader in nuclear energy.

What do opponents of SMRs say?

More than 100 environmental, anti-nuclear, community and other Canadian groups signed a statement in November declaring that SMRs are a “dirty, dangerous distraction” from tackling climate change. They argue the fight against global warming can't wait for the technology to be proven and deployed and warn SMRs will cost more than other low-carbon energy alternatives, won't create as many jobs and will result in new streams of dangerous nuclear waste.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 25, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Animals at risk as B.C. falls behind in educating veterinarians: society
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VANCOUVER — A shortage of veterinarians in British Columbia threatens food security and is responsible for animals suffering and dying, according the group that speaks for animal doctors in the province.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Dr. Al Longair, president of the Society of BC Veterinarians, said the problem has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic as more people get pets and public health restrictions double the length of appointment times.

Longair is among eight society executives who signed an open letter to members of B.C.'s legislative assembly saying the minister of advanced education won't meet with them about increasing seats at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine.

"On behalf of a beleaguered profession, exasperated animal owners and farmers, and suffering animals who cannot speak for themselves, we are asking for your help," reads the letter dated April 21.

The letter explains that Alberta is no longer sending its students to the Saskatoon-based college, leaving another 20 seats that could be taken over by aspiring vets in B.C.

"It is also of note that B.C. had more than 145 qualified applicants for its 20 B.C. seats. There was no shortage of qualified applicants and B.C. would have no problem filling 40 B.C. seats," the letter says.

The society characterizes the situation as a "crisis," describing it as the worst in Canada and saying it has myriad implications for the province's animals. The letter says animal food security is at risk, rescue groups are limited to which animals they can save, owners have had to euthanize their horses for preventable illnesses and residents with companion animals face long waits for care.

"Urban veterinarians are reporting two weeks or longer wait times to get appointments for veterinary care," it says. "Rural veterinarians report eight weeks or longer and, in some cases, the animals die before getting the help they need."

Longair said in an interview Sunday the society sent the letter out of "frustration" after trying to meet with either of the two ministers appointed to the advanced education portfolio since 2019.

A statement issued Sunday by a ministry spokesperson said the government supports 80 B.C. students every year spread over the four-year degree to study at the at the college.

It said solutions cannot stop at expanding post-secondary training and explore other opportunities to attract more veterinarians.

"B.C.'s recruitment efforts go beyond new grads, and we are fortunate to attract many foreign-trained veterinarians and vets from across Canada," the statement said.

Funding the extra 20 seats at the veterinary college would cost about $8 million a year, he said.

Students who are unfunded at the college pay $67,000 in tuition fees a year, while the 20 funded B.C. students pay $11,000 a year, the letter says.

A labour survey funded by the B.C. and federal governments in 2019 estimated the industry will need 100 new veterinarians every year until 2024 to keep pace with demand.

"It really is a struggle. Farm animals need help, food safety and quality of food is important and veterinarians are involved with that," said Longair, who works at a practice in Duncan on Vancouver Island.

He said he's booking into October just to have an animal spayed or neutered. Longair said some veterinarians are leaving their jobs because of the added stress, noting the suicide rate within the profession is high.

"It really is a disheartening situation were in," Longair said.

He said other options, such as accepting veterinarians from other countries, are also being examined. But foreign trained graduates have to meet certain standards and must be processed through the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association.

Longair said newcomers would then have to obtain their licence to practise from the province.

"We're working with the College of Veterinarians of B.C. to see if there's any way we can speed up the process within the province once they've qualified," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 25, 2021.

Terri Theodore, The Canadian Press

In China, politics got in the way of celebrating Chloe Zhao's big win at the Oscars

By Nectar Gan and Jessie Yeung, CNN 

4/26/2021

The Academy Awards this year could have been a major moment of pride for China.

© Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S./Getty Images Chloé Zhao attends the 93rd Annual Academy Awards at Union Station on April 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.

Chloe Zhao, a Beijing-born filmmaker, made history Sunday by winning the best director Oscar for her movie "Nomadland" -- becoming the first Asian woman and only the second woman to ever win the award. Zhao's movie also won best picture.

But China is not celebrating -- at least not officially.

On the contrary, this year's Oscars was not aired anywhere in China -- including on two major streaming platforms where the annual ceremony had been shown live in previous years. In Hong Kong, a leading broadcaster opted not to air the Oscars for the first time in more than half a century.

Even as Zhao's victory makes headlines around the world, Chinese state media has remained conspicuously quiet. Hours after the announcement, no reports of her win could be found on the websites of state news agency Xinhua or state broadcaster CCTV. Social media posts sharing the news of her victory have also been censored.

The official silence is in contrast to March, when Zhao won best director at the Golden Globes. Back then, Chinese state media was quick to congratulate Zhao, with nationalist tabloid the Global Times calling her "the pride of China."

But praise for Zhao didn't last long. Chinese internet users dug up a 2013 interview she gave to US movie magazine Filmmaker, during which she appeared to criticize the China of her childhood as a place "where there are lies everywhere." In another more recent interview with Australian media, Zhao was quoted as saying the United States "is now my country, ultimately." The site later clarified Zhao had been misquoted -- what she actually said was the US "is not my country."

But the damage was done. China's online nationalists rushed to attack Zhao, accusing her of "smearing China." Some even called for a boycott of the movie.

Before long, promotional materials for Zhao's "Nomadland" disappeared from social media site Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform. The film, which was originally scheduled to be released in China on April 23, was also removed from the country's major movie websites. As of Monday, there is no indication "Nomadland" is coming to Chinese theaters anytime soon.

The swift disavowal of Zhao is the latest sign of just how widespread China's nationalistic sentiment has become under President Xi Jinping. Zhao has not spoken critically of China since she rose to fame, but it seems a single comment made eight years ago is enough to destroy her image -- and halt her film's release.

Moreover, in the eyes of China's ruling Communist Party, Zhao's comparatively privileged upbringing and Western education might not make her the ideal candidate to embrace as a Chinese success story. Zhao attended schools in Britain and the US, before eventually enrolling in film school at New York University -- an experience out of reach for most Chinese people.

In addition to the nationalistic backlash against Zhao, this year's Oscars is also a political thorn for the Chinese government for another reason -- "Do Not Split," a 35-minute film chronicling Hong Kong's 2019 pro-democracy protests, was nominated for best short documentary (it didn't win in the end).

Whether the film's nomination contributed to a downplaying of the Oscars remains open to question. But as the Academy Awards got underway in Los Angeles, on Weibo -- one of China's most popular social media sites -- the event had not even made the top 50 trending topics of the day. This was despite the nomination of Chinese movie "Better Days" for best international feature. The young adult crime romance has been a smash hit in China, and is the first Chinese film to be nominated in that category in nearly two decades.

But in China, Zhao still has her share of supporters. As news of her win was shared by unofficial accounts on Weibo, many users left comments congratulating Zhao and criticized the nationalistic attack against her. But censorship soon kicked in, and the posts vanished within hours.

One of the popular posts scrubbed from Weibo was a video of Zhao's acceptance speech at the ceremony, in which she spoke proudly of her Chinese roots. Zhao said she used to recite classic Chinese poems and texts with her father, and one particular line from the Three Character Classic -- "People at birth are inherently good" -- had helped her keep going when things got hard.

"Those six letters had such a great impact on me when I was a kid, and I still truly believe them today. Even though sometimes it might seem like the opposite is true, I have always found goodness in the people I met, everywhere I went in the world," she said.

Laurentian university crisis has national import: Angus

The crisis at Laurentian has garnered national attention.

In Ottawa, Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus was granted an emergency session and called on Parliament to study the insolvency facing the university.

“I am proud to stand, to fight for the future of Laurentian University, and to fight for the people of Northern Ontario,” Angus said on April 14.

Angus spoke of the importance of the university to French-speaking and Indigenous communities. He highlighted the “60 years of public investment” and tricultural history.

“We have to get rid of that president and board of the governors,” was his appeal to fellow members during the late-hour debate.

“We have never seen anything like this,” the MP subsequently told The Star. “The CCAA is a totally secretive process. It excludes the municipality, provincial leaders, the staff … and then there are mass firing and cuts without any justification or negotiation. It is setting a very serious precedent.”

He said the key at this point is “to bring pressure … to bring the key political players to the table; that’s the province and the feds. We have to put the university and its function first.”

He also shared a personal story. “My own father and mother quit school at 17 and 15,” he said. “They were the children of miners. My dad returned to post-secondary education at 40 and became an economics professor; and that was because of Laurentian. Laurentian made it possible. It ultimately changed my life also.”

Angus said he was shocked by some of the programs targeted for cancellation. “The midwifery program? Physics, when we have a Nobel Prize? Getting rid of the environmental and reclamation program when Laurentian invented it? Mining engineering? Eliminating that, here in Northern Ontario, makes no sense. The people making these decisions have no idea. I’m going to be blunt, they should not be allow near any public institutions, and not public education.”

He said “we had built capacity and expertise,” but “when you turn it over to the hatchet-men, their job is to count beans and announce mass firings. We can’t let them determine what is or isn’t of value.”

Angus said the midwifery program “is fully funded” and “was serving a need that no one else in the country could serve. Without it we deny service to rural francophone families, and Indigenous communities in the Far North. These are social values that have to be factored in.”

As it stands now, “a woman in Attawapiskat who is giving birth has to be flown out on a Medivac flight to Moose Factory or another destination,” he said. “Imagine the cost. We have midwives working in those communities, teaching traditional birthing.”

Angus is adamant that what is happening at Laurentian has national significance. “Pressure on faculty to accept a forced contract undermines many basic Canadian beliefs,” he said. “University faculty and staff are being kicked out the door. No severance. The bean counters are going after the pensions next.”

Angus urges people in Sudbury to think about all the staff, students and faculty. “This will have the huge impact. This is an economic catastrophe. Economic and emotional shockwaves will be immense.”

Indigenous studies are unique to Laurentian’s mandate, Angus said, and “if you expect Indigenous students to go to Toronto where rents are high and you can’t get home easily, they won’t go. Waterloo, U of T, Guelph and others were not built for Indigenous learners nor for the inclusion of Indigenous voices. This denies access.”

Angus has received many calls from families and individuals who were planning and saving up to attend Laurentian. “For small towns across the North, Sudbury was the place to go,” he said.

Youth outmigration will be a greater issue with the loss of Laurentian.

“We were able to make it (Laurentian) a national issue and hold six hours of debate,” he said. “We were able to agree Laurentian is an issue of national concern, to draw attention to the crisis.”

Angus insisted all the Northern mayors need to act as one.

“If we can speak with one voice — as one region — we will have greater clout,” he said. “It is something we all want. We need Doug Ford to do his part. The government needs to look north. We got the prime minister’s team to make lots of warm, fuzzy promises to Laurentian, but now we ask ‘what are the actual steps?’ ”

The Local Journalism Initiative is made possible through funding from the federal government.

sud.editorial@sunmedia.ca

Hugh Kruzel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Sudbury Star