Malala Yousafzai features on Vogue UK's July cover

The youngest woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize joins a list of activists and cultural celebrities to grace the cover of the fashion and lifestyle magazine.


Malala Yousafzai: The outspoken survivor

As a 15-year-old, Malala was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan because she spoke up for girls' education. In 2014, she received the Nobel Peace Prize. The now 23-year-old features on the cover of Vogue UK's July edition, in which she discusses the limits of online activism: "Right now... we have associated activism with tweets. That needs to change, because Twitter is a completely different world."

PHOTOS 12345678910

Opinion: US voting rights restrictions are a warning to all democracies

New restrictive voting laws in many Republican-ruled US states are hollowing out citizens’ basic civil rights, especially those of African Americans. DW’s Ines Pohl says an existential attack on democracy is underway.


The person who resides here should represent all Americans, irrespective of gender, skin color, religion or origin


On the surface, it all seems to be nothing more than a classic US power struggle of the kind presented to the rest of the world in many a Netflix series. In this two-party country, it is often a dubious political custom to thwart the other party by any means and to prevent the ruling party from scoring any political successes in order to win back a majority in at least one, if not both, houses in the midterm elections. And it should not be forgotten: These are tactics that Democratic politicians have also used in the past.

But what is currently happening in the US is something more fundamental, more existential. After four years of Donald Trump and a Republican Party that remains firmly caught in his web of lies, it is nothing less than the entire political system that is at stake. That may sound exaggerated, but it is not.
Preventing Black Americans from voting

A true democracy is characterized by the fact that all citizens have the right to vote freely and secretly, regardless of origin, sexual orientation, religion, age or income. But it is precisely this right that is currently being undermined in parts of the US. Republican governments in 14 states have already changed election laws, and several more are set to do so. The goal is to minimize the ability of Blacks and other minorities to influence the outcome of elections and to bolster the Republican Party's hold on power. This is how the party is trying to secure its future in a country where the white majority will be a thing of the past in a few years' time.

Ines Pohl heads the DW studio in Washington, DC

To this end, boundaries of congressional districts are being redrawn, it is being made mandatory to present proof of identity to vote, non-recent signatures are being declared invalid and absentee voting is being abolished or made more difficult. The state of Texas is even going so far as to prohibit voting on Sunday mornings — the time many Black Americans tend to head for polling stations, combining their democratic rights with their churchgoing.

What's most dangerous, however, are the legal reforms making it much easier for election commission chairs to simply declare elections invalid. To put this in context: A broad majority of Republicans claim to this day — without any evidence and despite all recounts to the contrary — that Donald Trump actually won the presidential election last November.
What's at stake

These are extremely grim developments with hardly foreseeable consequences — not only for the upcoming midterm elections at the end of 2022, but also for the next presidential election in 2024. That's because ultimately, both chambers, the Senate and Congress, must certify the results of the vote by the so-called Electoral College so that the president elected by the people can actually take office.

It was precisely this process that Donald Trump's supporters tried to stop on January 6 by storming the Capitol. Since then, democratic forces within the United States have been in a state of alarm and realize just what is at stake.
All democracies should pay close attention

All democracies around the world should watch the situation in the US closely and draw lessons from it:

1. There is no such thing as being a bit anti-democratic. Forging coalitions with anti-democratic persons and parties as a strategy to gain or retain power is a bad idea. The Republicans are discovering they can no longer restrain the populist spirit unleashed by Donald Trump.

2. No one has found an answer to the question of how to break up social media echo chambers. The US is a disturbing example of how quickly facts can be replaced by lies when the latter support people's own worldview.

3. Politicians' credibility starts with respect for voters. The presidency of Donald Trump was made possible partly by the arrogance of the liberal political elite, which simply ignored the concerns of many Americans.

4. Democracies can survive only with an independent, critical media that is capable of dialogue and reaching a broad public.

5. And the most important thing of all is educating young people in media literacy and encouraging them to think for themselves. It all starts at school. But that is also where everything can end.

This article has been translated from German

Opinion: Spying among friends? Sadly, it's the norm

Denmark is believed to have helped the US National Security Agency spy on German politicians. Anyone who's surprised by this is being naive, writes Marcel Fürstenau


I spy with my little eye: Intelligence services remain largely uncontrolled by their respective governments


Denmark has now been added to the unofficial list of states who are believed to have treated supposedly friendly countries as if they were enemies. From 2012 to 2014, Germany's northern neighbor is said to have assisted the National Security Agency (NSA) in spying on the electronic communications of prominent German politicians: Chancellor Angela Merkel, Frank-Walter Steinmeier — then foreign minister, now German president — and Peer Steinbrück, the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate in the 2013 election.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, it has been common knowledge for some time that the NSA had targeted Merkel and Steinmeier. His 2013 revelations sent shockwaves around the world. It was always obvious that secret service agencies, even those of democratic states, are not simply harmless associations. But the degree of ruthlessness and lack of scruple astonished even political heavyweights like Angela Merkel, a victim of the NSA's surveillance. Her comment at the time — "Spying among friends is unacceptable" — has become a familiar bon mot. Because, in reality, anything goes. Spying knows no limits, either moral or geographical.
Secret services must be subject to stricter control

DW's Marcel Fürstenau

We can and should continue to be outraged at the way the NSA, Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND), and others of their ilk effectively write their own rules. However, since the Snowden revelations at the very latest, this reaction — while all too understandable — seems downright naive. It would be much more important for the political leaders in Germany, Denmark and all other countries that practice the separation of powers to finally exercise better control over their intelligence services. Unfortunately, this looks as unlikely as ever.

In Germany, a parliamentary investigative committee spent years looking into the NSA/BND scandal, but the outcome was scandalous and shameful. The reform led to the legalization of the illegal wiretapping practice, which had only became common knowledge as a result of Snowden's information. Fortunately, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court proved it could be relied on: It quashed this shameless and false relabeling in 2020.
A scandal: Snowden in Russian exile

Anyone who wants to understand how the United States, Germany and democratic Europe tick with regard to intelligence services need only look at Snowdon's fate. Since making his unprecedented revelations, he has been living in exile in Russia. The fact that Vladimir Putin, the strongman in the Kremlin and a former Soviet secret service (KGB) officer, has to hold his protective hand over Snowden is and remains an indictment of the West.

And unfortunately, there is nothing whatsoever to indicate this might change. Because the 37-year-old American's opponents on both sides of the Atlantic are in agreement: In their eyes, he is a traitor. This was the opinion of former US President Barack Obama, who was in office when Snowden made his revelations; and the current president, Joe Biden, shares the same view.
A culture change is needed

There have been no reports of Merkel, Steinmeier, or other German victims of the NSA insulting the whistle-blower in the same way — but the controversial former president of Germany's domestic intelligence service, Hans-Georg Maassen, has done so. It is people like him, and their ideal of the intelligence services remaining largely uncontrolled, that stand in the way of a radical culture change in this area. This will remain the case for as long as they still have enough support from legislators and governments — and it will have to change before Snowden can hope to leave his dubious exile in Russia.

This article was translated from German.

Germany warns: AI arms race already underway

The world is entering a new era of warfare, with artificial intelligence taking center stage. AI is making militaries faster, smarter and more efficient. But if left unchecked, it threatens to destabilize the world.


'Loitering munitions' with a high degree of autonomy are already seeing action in conflict


An AI arms race is already underway. That's the blunt warning from Germany's foreign minister, Heiko Maas.

"We're right in the middle of it. That's the reality we have to deal with," Maas told DW, speaking in a new DW documentary, "Future Wars — and How to Prevent Them."

It's a reality at the heart of the struggle for supremacy between the world's greatest powers.

"This is a race that cuts across the military and the civilian fields," said Amandeep Singh Gill, former chair of the United Nations group of governmental experts on lethal autonomous weapons. "This is a multi-trillion dollar question."


Great powers pile in

This is apparent in a recent report from the United States' National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. It speaks of a "new warfighting paradigm" pitting "algorithms against algorithms," and urges massive investments "to continuously out-innovate potential adversaries."

And you can see it in China's latest five-year plan, which places AI at the center of a relentless ramp-up in research and development, while the People's Liberation Army girds for a future of what it calls "intelligentized warfare."

As Russian President Vladimir Putin put it as early as 2017, "whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world."

But it's not only great powers piling in.

Much further down the pecking order of global power, this new era is a battle-tested reality.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas: 'We have to forge international treaties on new weapons technologies'

Watershed war

In late 2020, as the world was consumed by the pandemic, festering tensions in the Caucasus erupted into war.

It looked like a textbook regional conflict, with Azerbaijan and Armenia fighting over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. But for those paying attention, this was a watershed in warfare.

"The really important aspect of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, in my view, was the use of these loitering munitions, so-called 'kamikaze drones' — these pretty autonomous systems," said Ulrike Franke, an expert on drone warfare at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

'Loitering munitions' saw action in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war

Bombs that loiter in the air

Advanced loitering munitions models are capable of a high degree of autonomy. Once launched, they fly to a defined target area, where they "loiter," scanning for targets — typically air defense systems.

Once they detect a target, they fly into it, destroying it on impact with an onboard payload of explosives; hence the nickname "kamikaze drones."

"They also had been used in some way or form before — but here, they really showed their usefulness," Franke explained. "It was shown how difficult it is to fight against these systems."

Research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that Azerbaijan had a massive edge in loitering munitions, with more than 200 units of four sophisticated Israeli designs. Armenia had a single domestic model at its disposal.

Other militaries took note.

"Since the conflict, you could definitely see a certain uptick in interest in loitering munitions," said Franke. "We have seen more armed forces around the world acquiring or wanting to acquire these loitering munitions."

AI-driven swarm technology will soon hit the battlefield

Drone swarms and 'flash wars'

This is just the beginning. Looking ahead, AI-driven technologies such as swarming will come into military use — enabling many drones to operate together as a lethal whole.

"You could take out an air defense system, for example," said Martijn Rasser of the Center for a New American Security, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.

"You throw so much mass at it and so many numbers that the system is overwhelmed. This, of course, has a lot of tactical benefits on a battlefield," he told DW. "No surprise, a lot of countries are very interested in pursuing these types of capabilities."

The scale and speed of swarming open up the prospect of military clashes so rapid and complex that humans cannot follow them, further fueling an arms race dynamic.

As Ulrike Franke explained: "Some actors may be forced to adopt a certain level of autonomy, at least defensively, because human beings would not be able to deal with autonomous attacks as fast."

This critical factor of speed could even lead to wars that erupt out of nowhere, with autonomous systems reacting to each other in a spiral of escalation. "In the literature we call these 'flash wars'," Franke said, "an accidental military conflict that you didn't want."

Experts warn that AI-driven systems could lead to 'flash wars' erupting beyond human control

A move to 'stop killer robots'

Bonnie Docherty has made it her mission to prevent such a future. A Harvard Law School lecturer, she is an architect of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, an alliance of nongovernmental organizations demanding a global treaty to ban lethal autonomous weapons.

"The overarching obligation of the treaty should be to maintain meaningful human control over the use of force," Docherty told DW. "It should be a treaty that governs all weapons operating with autonomy that choose targets and fire on them based on sensor's inputs rather than human inputs."

The campaign has been focused on talks in Geneva under the umbrella of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which seeks to control weapons deemed to cause unjustifiable suffering.

It has been slow going. The process has yielded a set of "guiding principles," including that autonomous weapons be subject to human rights law, and that humans have ultimate responsibility for their use. But these simply form a basis for more discussions.

Docherty fears that the consensus-bound Geneva process may be thwarted by powers that have no interest in a treaty.

"Russia has been particularly vehement in its objections," Docherty said.

But it's not alone. "Some of the other states developing autonomous weapon systems such as Israel, the US, the United Kingdom and others have certainly been unsupportive of a new treaty."

TECHNOLOGIES THAT REVOLUTIONIZED WARFARE

AI: 'Third revolution in warfare'

Over 100 AI experts have written to the UN asking them to ban lethal autonomous weapons — those that use AI to act independently. No so-called "killer robots" currently exist, but advances in artificial intelligence have made them a real possibility. Experts said these weapons could be "the third revolution in warfare," after gunpowder and nuclear arms. PHOTOS 12345678910

Time for a rethink?

Docherty is calling for a new approach if the next round of Geneva talks due later this year makes no progress. She has proposed "an independent process, guided by states that actually are serious about this issue and willing to develop strong standards to regulate these weapon systems."

But many are wary of this idea. Germany's foreign minister has been a vocal proponent of a ban, but he does not support the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.

"We don't reject it in substance — we're just saying that we want others to be included," Heiko Maas told DW. "Military powers that are technologically in a position not just to develop autonomous weapons but also to use them."

Maas does agree that a treaty must be the ultimate goal. "Just like we managed to do with nuclear weapons over many decades, we have to forge international treaties on new weapons technologies," he said. "They need to make clear that we agree that some developments that are technically possible are not acceptable and must be prohibited globally."

Germany's Heiko Maas: 'We're moving toward a situation with cyber or autonomous weapons where everyone can do as they please'

What next?

But for now, there is no consensus. For Franke, the best the world can hope for may be norms around how technologies are used. "You agree, for example, to use certain capabilities only in a defensive way, or only against machines rather than humans, or only in certain contexts," she said.

Even this will be a challenge. "Agreeing to that and then implementing that is just much harder than some of the old arms control agreements," she said.

And while diplomats tiptoe around these hurdles, the technology marches on.

"The world must take an interest in the fact that we're moving toward a situation with cyber or autonomous weapons where everyone can do as they please," said Maas. "We don't want that."

SEE KILLER ROBOTS IN MY GOTHIC CAPITALI$M

 The Horror Of Accumulation And The Commodification Of Humanity 

For more, watch the full documentary Future Wars on YouTube.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

France opens probe into personal wealth of Lebanon’s central bank chief

Issued on: 06/06/2021 - 

Lebanon's Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh gestures during a press conference at the bank's headquarters in Beirut on November 11, 2019. © AFP (Archive)

Text by: NEWS WIRES

France has opened a probe into the personal wealth of Riad Salameh, central bank chief in crisis-hit Lebanon, sources told AFP Sunday.

Paris financial prosecutors have opened a preliminary probe into criminal association and money laundering by Salameh, a source close to the investigation and a judicial source said, following a similar move by Switzerland.

Its findings could shed light onto the origins of the 70-year-old former Merrill Lynch banker's wealth.

In post since 1993 and once hailed by political and business leaders, Salameh has been repeatedly accused by the government of caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab of being responsible for the collapse of the Lebanese pound.

The Lebanese public suspect him and other high officials of transferring money abroad during a 2019 uprising, when ordinary people were prevented from doing so.

Lebanon has since been hit by an economic crisis which the World Bank says is one of the worst anywhere since the 19th century.

Close to the powerful Hariri family, Salameh has been under investigation for months in Switzerland on suspicion of serious money laundering and embezzlement from the Bank of Lebanon.

He also owns several properties in France and may have transferred money via the country.

One of the criminal complaints that prompted French prosecutors to get involved came from Swiss foundation Accountability Now, daily Le Monde reported.

Another was filed by anti-financial crime group Sherpa and by the Collective of Victims of Fraudulent and Criminal Practices in Lebanon, set up by savers devastated by the post-2019 crisis.

Capital flight

The French move signals the start of "a universal mega-investigation across Europe", said William Bourdon and Amelie Lefebvre, lawyers for Sherpa and the savers' collective.

"Enormous money laundering operations will be examined, which ought to open every nook and cranny of the mafia that has brought Lebanon to its knees," they hope.

Their criminal complaint, seen by AFP, accuses Salameh and people close to him -- his brother Raja, his son Nadi, a nephew and an aide at the central bank -- of fraudulently building a vast fortune in Europe.
The groups urge the judiciary to investigate massive capital flight from Lebanon since the crisis began, as well as property purchases out of all proportion to the buyers' income and the roles played by financial intermediaries, tax havens and strawmen.

Based especially on reports by Lebanese website Daraj.com and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the plaintiffs believe that Salameh's worldwide total wealth amounts to more than $2 billion.

He contests that figure, saying his holdings stem from inheritances, his banking career and legitimate investments since taking office in 1993.

The French prosecutors' investigation is the latest in a string of probes into "ill-gotten gains" of foreign leaders -- especially from Africa or the Middle East.

(AFP)

Engine No.1, a tiny ‘green’ investment fund, is challenging the oil titans

Issued on: 05/06/2021 -

The 'green' investment fund Engine No.1 succeeded in getting three of its candidates elected to the board of the oil giant Exxon. © Karen Bleier, AFP

Text by: Sébastian SEIBT

Activist investment fund Engine No.1 has succeeded in getting three of its candidates elected to Exxon’s 12-member board of directors, despite strong opposition from the oil giant. This confirms the increasing pressure the sector is experiencing as it struggles to make the shift to energy transition.

Until this week, Alexander Karsner was best known for being a senior strategist for the innovation lab Alphabet, the parent company of Google. On June 2, Karsner became the third candidate backed by the Engine No.1 hedge fund to be elected to the board of directors of the American oil powerhouse Exxon.

For this small-scale financial player, it was almost total victory. Founded only seven months ago, on December 1, 2020, this fund set itself the mission to shake up the oil industry from the inside out, to push these rich multinationals to prepare for a future without fossil fuel.

BREAKING: Hedge fund Engine No.1 has stunned the world by winning a third seat for climate activists on Exxon's Board.

A terrible day for a major polluter is a great day for the planet. pic.twitter.com/ekvM4FRd86— Steven Donziger (@SDonziger) June 3, 2021

Eternal battle of David versus Goliath

Engine No.1 began its assault on fortress Exxon just a week after its creation. With $240 million (€200m) in its pocket and 22 employees, this David of 'green' finance set out to bring the US energy Goliath, which is worth $250 billion and employs more than 70,000 people, back into the environmental fold.

The investment fund's first step was to acquire 0.02 percent of Exxon's capital. This allowed it, as a shareholder, to send a letter to the ExxonMobil board on December 7 demanding the group's management to focus more on renewable energies to boost its long-term growth and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

When Exxon predictably refused to comply with these demands, Engine No.1 moved on to phase two of its plan: to propose four candidates for election for the board of directors. It seemed an almost preposterous idea, this small unknown investment fund taking on Exxon's favourites for these board positions.

David had laid down the gauntlet to Goliath and emerged victorious: Engine No.1 started to gain seats. The election on May 26 of the first two candidates put forward by this fund reverberated "like an earthquake in the industry", said the Financial Times. The triumph of Engine No.1's third candidate on June 2 confirmed their successful entry in a board that has the power to influence strategic choices such as the replacement of the CEO of Exxon or the validation of his salary.

A sign of a change in mentality

These appointments do not fundamentally change the balance of power within the board of directors, since nine of the 12 seats are occupied by Exxon-backed directors. But they do highlight a change in mindset among Big Oil investors.

To get support for their candidates, Engine No.1 had to convince a majority of investors to vote essentially against Exxon's advice. In particular, it obtained the support of three pension funds (including the Church of England) that are Exxon shareholders, and of the Blackrock and Vanguard investment funds, which hold more than 15 percent of the oil group. "This would not have been possible one or two years ago," said business website Quartz.

Engine No.1 cleverly appealed less to the "green" motives of these investors and more to their appetite for profit. In a document the firm circulated to shareholders, it said that Exxon's obsession with fossil fuels and disdain for renewables was jeopardising future dividends.

"This is one of the first times that talk of the long-term financial prospects of the energy transition has had concrete consequences for a major oil company," reported the Bloomberg business channel. The Exxon fight is the most high-profile proof to date that environmental and social issues are now fully at the forefront.

Engine No.1 has also been careful to choose candidates who do not have an overly "green" CV. In addition to the Alphabet executive, their other two new Exxon directors are Kaia Hietala, an executive who worked for Finnish oil refiner Neste, and Gregory Goff, a veteran of the North American oil industry.

Exxon the perfect target

Exxon was also the perfect target for this first environmental infiltration operation. Currently, the group appears to be the weak link in the oil industry. In 2020, it lost money for the first time in its history. Some analysts put this poor performance down to Exxon's stubbornness in producing only oil without seeking to diversify into renewables.

In this context, Engine No.1 “tapped a well of discontent among Exxon shareholders, arguing that the company’s climate approach and its financial underperformance were part of a whole – and only deep changes to the board and strategy would fix it,” said the Financial Times. Frustrated investors were ready to lend an attentive ear to an investment fund that came to explain that by changing strategy now, it will be possible to return to profit growth.

Exxon is not an isolated case. Since the end of May, disappointments have been piling up for the oil giants, which are struggling to make the transition to cleaner energy. In the Netherlands, a court ordered Shell "to reduce its CO2 output by 45 percent" on May 26, and Chevron's shareholders voted by a 60 percent majority that same week to ask the group's executives to reduce their CO2 emissions.

Of course, multinational executives are not going to be rushed into action. The Dutch court ruling can be appealed, Chevron's shareholder resolution is only a recommendation, and Exxon retains control of its board despite the arrival of three Engine No.1-backed troublemakers.

But this black streak for these oil giants does suggest "an ongoing transformation of the industry", says the news site Vox. One of the pension funds that supported Engine No.1 issued a statement after the appointment of the new directors to say that "this is just the beginning". Revolutions are no longer just happening in the streets, they are now in the boardrooms too.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

New exhibition 'Science Friction' blends nature and art

Issued on: 07/06/2021 -

PERSPECTIVE © FRANCE 24

By:Alison SARGENT
10 min

"All living forms are interdependent." That's the jumping off point for the exhibition "Science Friction", opening this month at Barcelona's Centre of Contemporary Culture. It challenges us to think of evolution, "not as a tree with humans at the top, but as network of collaborations". We spoke to the show's curator Maria Ptqk about symbiosis, feminism and recognising the legal rights of the world's ecosystems.

TRIAL FOR THE DOWNING OF MH17

Dutch judges will on Monday start hearing evidence against three Russian suspects and a Ukrainian in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over war-torn Ukraine in 2014. The trial formally began in March 2020 but has so far been dealing with legal arguments, mainly about the admissibility of evidence in the crash in which 298 passengers and crew were killed. FRANCE 24's Fernande Van Tets tells us more.

Former NBA star works to end solitary confinement in prisons


Caron Butler can easily point to the lowest moment in his life — the days he spent as a teenager locked in a solitary confinement cell inside a juvenile prison.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The former UConn and NBA star planned to be at Connecticut's state Capitol on Monday to ask Gov. Ned Lamont to sign legislation that would strictly limit the use of solitary confinement and other forms of inmate isolation in prisons.

The bill, which requires almost all inmates be allowed at least 6 1/2 hours out of their cells and also limits the use of certain restraints, received final legislative approval early Sunday morning. It comes as the state is closing its maximum-security, Northern Correctional Institution, which was designed specifically to keep inmates in isolation.

Butler has been open about his struggles as a youth in Racine, Wisconsin. He dealt drugs and was arrested more than a dozen times before serving more than a year in prison on drug possession and firearms charges.

He was 15 years old when he got into a fight in prison and was thrown into solitary, spending 23 hours a day isolated in a small cell for two weeks. He had no contact with anyone — no books, no radio, no television. He said none of the violence or other trauma in his young life prepared him for the despair of that situation.

“Being in those four walls and those four corners, it does something to you,” Butler said, in an interview with The Associated Press. “Mentally and spiritually, it takes away a lot. It dehumanizes you.”

Butler said he believes he survived because of a strong family support system. He discovered basketball in prison. He turned his life around when he got out to the point where Hall-of-Fame coach Jim Calhoun saw something in him and offered him a scholarship.

Butler went on to become the Big East's player of the year in 2002 and spent 14 seasons in the NBA, where he is now an assistant coach with Miami.

But Butler, who is also a trustee at the Vera Institute for Justice, said he'll never forget the torture he endured in prison and is hoping that the Connecticut legislation will serve as an example for other states.

“Now I look back in hindsight and I want to tell my younger self to stay hopeful,” he said. “There are people out there that care. There's going to be elected officials out there in the future that's going to care about this community in real time. There's going to be change on the horizon. They are going to come up with ways to rehabilitate that never dehumanize people.”

Opponents of the bill say it will take a tool away from guards that helps maintain discipline in prisons. But its supporters say it includes exceptions, such as allowing officers to isolate a prisoner when that is needed to protect someone's life. But there will now be a review process to ensure that isolation ends.

Barbara Fair, the lead organizer for the Stop Solitary CT campaign, part of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said while thousands of people have horror stories about living in solitary confinement, it’s important for someone as well known as Butler to step forward.

“This is somebody people can connect with,” she said. “That's the biggest problem around our prison systems is that often people have a hard time connecting with the humanity of incarcerated people.”

Butler is not the first former UConn star to advocate for criminal justice reform.

Former UConn women's star Maya Moore left the WNBA to wage what became a successful fight to overturn the wrongful conviction of Jonathan Irons, a man who later became her husband. She also started a social action campaign called Win With Justice, designed to call attention to the power wielded by prosecutors and their obligation to use it responsibly.

Butler said it's not a coincidence that she and others, such as former UConn player Renee Montgomery, are active in the push for social-justice reform.

“We were taught by two Hall of Fame coaches (Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma) that when you are passionate about something, you have to find a way to create a wave and make that wave bigger and create a current,” Butler said. “Just like momentum changes in a basketball game, you have to impose your will on a situation.”

Pat Eaton-robb, The Associated Press

Bye-bye four-year degree. Canadian companies want workers faster
Bianca Bharti

FINANCIAL POST

JUNE 7, 2021


Last summer, Marcos Chumacero, an out-of-work bar manager, lolled about his downtown Toronto apartment as the world slowed to a crawl and the federal government went on COVID-19 damage control.

 Provided by Financial Post Tech companies have struggled to find qualified workers for years but the rapid shift to a digital economy brought on by the pandemic has made it worse.

“Like everyone else in my industry, I was collecting CERB,” he recalled, referring to the $2,000-per-month emergency benefit.

A chance call to an acquaintance in social work changed his life. The friend told Chumacero, 30, about NPower, a charity that retrains younger workers who lack computer skills for jobs in the information-technology (IT) industry. He applied and was accepted into a three-month program in September that taught computer protocols and networking among other related subject matter.

No more CERB.

By January, Chumacero had landed a job at Touchbistro Inc., a payments software firm for restaurants, as a bilingual product technician. He’s earning slightly less than the $5,000 per month he averaged as an experienced bartender, but that income came with 60-hour work weeks. Touchbistro asks for only 40 hours per week. The new job is also secure, comes with benefits and offers a path for upward career growth.

“They were not just looking for someone who was tech savvy, but someone who was outgoing, well spoken, obviously bilingual in this case, and that had the drive to learn fast,” he said.

©

 Supplied/Marcos Chumacero Marcos Chumacero’s rapid transformation to IT specialist from bartender is one that Canada’s red-hot technology companies hope thousands of others will replicate.

Chumacero’s rapid transformation to IT specialist from bartender is one that Canada’s red-hot technology companies hope thousands of others will replicate. The latest Statistics Canada data show the professional, scientific and technical services sector had more than 46,600 job vacancies in March. Last week, Economic Development Minister Mélanie Joly suggested the need was even greater, telling reporters on June 3 that the Greater Toronto Area alone had 70,000 vacant technology positions.

Tech companies have struggled to find qualified workers for years. The skills shortage is now even more acute because the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the shift to a digital economy in which STEM skills and knowledge are key. For example, education, which has been carried out largely on the internet for the past year, is now at a place that some experts thought would take a decade to reach, according to a report last year by the federal Industry Strategy Council.

But Canada’s workforce wasn’t ready for such a drastic shift, as most of the jobs were in non-technical sectors, such as healthcare and social assistance, retail, and construction. The mismatch is forcing the private sector to step up with training programs tailored for the jobs on offer, rather than wait on a post-secondary education system based on a four-year university degree.

“There is a war on talent right now right across Canada and a lot of companies, including KPMG, just sort of can’t hire fast enough,” said Rob Davis, chief diversity and inclusion officer at KPMG Canada, a consulting firm. “I think that fact alone to me says that, perhaps, we need another avenue, another source of talent than the traditional university type of degree.”

Canadian technology companies had started relying on immigration to fill the gaps. That remains an important part of the solution, but the pandemic-induced border closures exposed the downside to counting on international pipelines to fill empty positions.

Davis, along with other executives, said that rather than waiting on economic immigrants, Canada needs to overhaul its approach to training to take advantage of the large pool of workers that were left stranded by the recession. There is a plethora of workers available for retraining, as the economic downturn has pushed long-term unemployment to record levels. Statistics Canada data released last week put the number of people who had been unemployed for longer than 27 weeks at 478,000, a 166.8 per cent increase from the start of the pandemic.

Traditional paths into digital and knowledge-based jobs, where a person typically spends four or five years at university before going into the workforce, aren’t always flexible enough to meet the needs of employers, said D’Andre Wilson-Ihejirika, director of programming and employment partnerships at Elevate, the non-profit that runs annual technology festivals.

“We know that technology is constantly changing and shifting very quickly,” Wilson-Ihejirika said. “So by the time you finish a four-year degree, what you learn at the beginning of those four years may no longer be relevant.”

As well, people who are already working age don’t always have the luxury of spending more than $40,000 on tuition, while also putting their lives on pause for half a decade to get a STEM degree, Davis said. The sector’s reputation for being dominated by white men creates an additional barrier for marginalized communities.

Joly was in Toronto to announce that the federal government, alongside the City of Toronto, had decided to give Wilson-Ihejirika’s organization $5.8 million to help fund a program that aims to prepare 5,300 people from marginalized communities in the GTA for tech-based jobs. The program lasts three months and focuses on high-demand fields, like project management, data analytics and digital marketing.

“As we know, the tech sector will continue to grow and (will) need to be more inclusive to make sure that everybody is able to have access to its success,” said Joly. If the program is a success, she said it could expand countrywide.

Executives are warming up to hiring graduates of such programs, setting aside notions that qualified candidates must have a university degree, said Greg Smith, CEO of Thinkific Labs Inc., a software platform that helps people create and sell their own online courses.

Smith said Thinkfic’s interview process focuses on previous projects that a candidate has completed and how that has helped him or her acquire the necessary skills. In fact, most of his software developers didn’t go to university for software development. “I quite frankly don’t care if they went to school or where they went to school,” he said. “I care if they can write great code and build great software.”

Coming from a non-tech background can only help an organization, said Sabrina Geremia, who oversees the Canadian operations of Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

Google also has its own certification programs, designed to be completed in six months, that target everyone from existing IT workers who want to add to their skill sets to complete newbies. The training programs focus on high-growth, in-demand fields such as user-experience design, IT and Android development. Geremia describes the “micro-certificates” that participants receive at the end of their training as “Lego blocks” that can either be the start of a base of knowledge or add on to an existing base.

“We are just at a point where the future of work is the future of lifelong learning,” Geremia said.

That’s the case for Chumacero, who used his first block of learning as a springboard to an entirely new career.

“I’ve done everything in the restaurant industry,” he said. “I can’t be convinced to go back.”

• Email: bbharti@postmedia.com | Twitter: biancabharti