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Thursday, March 24, 2022

MU5735

Wing, engine parts found from Chinese airliner crash

03/24/22

© Associated Press/Ng Han Guan

Several pieces of the China Eastern passenger jet that crashed in southern China, including one of its black boxes, were discovered Thursday.

In total, 183 pieces of the plane have been found by officials so far. Engine parts, cockpit items, personal objects belonging to passengers and human remains have been discovered, according to The Associated Press.

Black boxes in planes contain information and voice recordings from the cockpit between pilots, which could tell officials what went wrong causing the flight to crash with 132 people on board.

The black box found is believed to have voice recordings and was found largely undamaged, except for the outer casting, though its orange cylinder was mostly intact, the AP noted.

One of the items, a 1.3 meter-long fragment believed to be from the plane, was found 10 kilometers from the crash site, which encouraged officials to broaden their search area exponentially, Reuters reported.

There have been no survivors found and experts say that it is virtually impossible that anyone could survive the impact of such a fierce crash, according to the news service.

The investigation into the crash is being spearheaded by Chinese officials, though the United States is reportedly being invited to take part because the Boeing jet was manufactured and designed in the U.S.

Black box from crashed Chinese airliner discovered

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said that it has not yet been decided if investigators would go to China because of the country's strict visa and quarantine requirements and Chinese officials did not specify exactly when the American investigators would be invited, Reuters noted.

"Our work priority is still on search and rescue, and at the same time, carrying out evidence collection and fixation work in the early stage of accident investigation." Zhu Tao, a Chinese civil aviation administration official, said, according to Reuters.

Cockpit voice recorder from downed China Eastern Airlines being examined: officials

By Martin Quin Pollard Reuters

Posted March 24, 2022

The search continued for the flight data recorder.

Debris from the jetliner including engine blades, horizontal tail stabilisers and other wing remnants was concentrated within 30 metres of the main impact point, which was 20 metres deep.

One 1.3 metre-long fragment suspected to be from the plane was found about 10 km away, prompting a significant expansion of the search area, officials told a news briefing.

No survivors have been found, and experts have said it was all but impossible that anyone could survive such an impact.

0:45Firefighters rush to scene of Boeing 737 crash in south China

Firefighters rush to scene of Boeing 737 crash in south China

Flight MU5735 was en route from the southwestern city of Kunming to Guangzhou on the coast when the plane suddenly plunged from cruising altitude at about the time when it should have started its descent to its destination.

The investigation is being led by China but the United States was invited to take part because the plane was designed and manufactured there.

However, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday it had not determined if investigators would travel to China given strict visa and quarantine requirements, and Chinese officials declined to say whether or when NTSB officials would be invited.

“Our work priority is still on search and rescue, and at the same time, carrying out evidence collection and fixation work in the early stage of accident investigation,” said Zhu Tao, the CAAC’s head of aviation safety.

“However, when we enter the accident investigation stage, we will invite relevant parties to participate in the accident investigation according to relevant regulations,” he said.

Slow search

According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the plane briefly appeared to pull out of its nosedive, before plunging again into a heavily forested slope in the mountainous Guangxi region.

Authorities said the pilots did not respond to repeated calls from air traffic controllers during the rapid descent.

It was too early to determine the cause of the crash, which experts say are usually the result of a combination of factors.

“The difficulty now is that we are eager to search for survivors as soon as possible, but our work requires us to search carefully and slowly,” Huang Shangwu, deputy director of the Combat Training Office of the Guangxi Fire Rescue Corps said at the site.

Search teams used thermal imaging cameras and life detection devices as well as drones.

“The search area is really large, plus the two days of rain make the path very slippery,” said Zhou, among the more than 1,600 people involved in search operations on Thursday.

Photo taken with a mobile phone shows rescuers searching for the black boxes at a plane crash site in Tengxian County, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, March 22, 2022. Rescuers are making all-out efforts to retrieve the black boxes of a passenger plane that crashed in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Monday afternoon, an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China CAAC said Tuesday night. The passenger plane with 132 people aboard crashed on Monday afternoon, the regional emergency management department said. The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft, which departed from Kunming and was bound for Guangzhou, crashed into a mountainous area near the Molang village in Tengxian County in the city of Wuzhou at 2:38 p.m., causing a mountain fire, according to the department. The airline said the cause of the accident will be fully investigated. (Photo by Zhou Hua/Xinhua via Getty Images)

The flight’s captain had 6,709 hours flying experience, while the first and second officers had 31,769 hours and 556 hours, respectively, a China Eastern official said on Wednesday. One co-pilot was an observer to build up experience, the airline said, without disclosing the names of the pilots.

Phoenix Weekly magazine cited an aviation expert who identified the captain as Yang Hongda, the son of a former China Eastern captain, and the first officer as Zhang Zhengping, a pilot with 40 years of experience who mentored other pilots.

Photo taken with a mobile phone shows a rescuer searching for the black boxes at a plane crash site in Tengxian County, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, March 22, 2022. Rescuers are making all-out efforts to retrieve the black boxes of a passenger plane that crashed in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Monday afternoon, an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China CAAC said Tuesday night. The passenger plane with 132 people aboard crashed on Monday afternoon, the regional emergency management department said. The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft, which departed from Kunming and was bound for Guangzhou, crashed into a mountainous area near the Molang village in Tengxian County in the city of Wuzhou at 2:38 p.m., causing a mountain fire, according to the department. The airline said the cause of the accident will be fully investigated. (Photo by Zhou Hua/Xinhua via Getty Images)

The Southern Weekly newspaper reported Yang, 32, had a one-year-old daughter, while Zhang, 59, was a veteran pilot with an impeccable safety record and had been expected to retire this year. Another media outlet, Jimu News identified the less experienced second officer as Ni Gongtao, 27.

China Eastern did not respond immediately to a request for comment on the reports

MU3735

Rain hampers search for remains, clues to China's fatal plane crash

Dake Kang and Ng Han Guan Mar 23 2022

Rough terrain and rainfall were hampering the search on Wednesday for clues into why a China Eastern plane inexplicably fell from the sky and crashed into a wooded mountainside earlier this week, presumably killing all 132 people on board.

Under rainy conditions, searchers using hand tools, drones and sniffer dogs were combing the crash site and a debris field spread across steep, heavily forested slopes in southern China for the black boxes containing the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, a well as any human remains.

ZHOU HUA/XINHUA NEWS AGENCY

Rescuers search the crash site for plane debris and human remains.

Video clips posted by China’s state media showed small pieces of the Boeing 737-800 plane scattered over the area, some in green fields, others in burnt-out patches with raw earth exposed. Mud-stained wallets, bank and identity cards have also been recovered. Each piece of debris has a number next to it, the larger ones marked off by police tape.

Investigators say it is too early to speculate on the cause of the crash. Flight 5735 went into an unexplained dive an hour after departure and the plane stopped transmitting data 96 seconds into the fall.

NG HAN GUAN/AP

Relatives of passengers of MU5735 arrive at the entrance of Lv village, which leads to the crash site.

It crashed on Monday afternoon outside the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region. The plane had been flying from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, an industrial centre not far from Hong Kong on China’s southeastern coast.

An air-traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the plane’s altitude drop sharply, but got no reply, a grim-faced Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Authority of China, said at a Tuesday evening news conference.

NG HAN GUAN/AP

Director of Aviation Safety Zhu Tao at Tuesday night’s press conference.

“As of now, the rescue has yet to find survivors,” Zhu said. “The public security department has taken control of the site.”

China Eastern is headquartered in Shanghai and one of China’s three largest carriers with more than 600 planes, including 109 Boeing 737-800s. China's Transport Ministry said China Eastern has grounded all of its 737-800s, a move that could further disrupt domestic air travel already curtailed because of the largest Covid-19 outbreak in China since the initial peak in early 2020.

The Boeing 737-800 has been flying since 1998 and has a well-established safety record. It is an earlier model than the 737 Max, which was grounded worldwide for nearly two years after deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Monday's crash was China's worst in more than a decade. In August 2010, an Embraer ERJ 190-100 operated by Henan Airlines hit the ground short of the runway in the northeastern city of Yichun and caught fire. It carried 96 people and 44 of them died. Investigators blamed pilot error.

Bloomberg / Mar 23, 2022,

The China Eastern Airlines jet that crashed Monday was traveling at close to the speed of sound in the moments before it slammed into a hillside, according to a Bloomberg News review of flight-track data.
Such an impact may complicate the task for investigators because it can obliterate evidence and damage a plane’s data and voice recorders that are designed to withstand most crashes. One of the two black boxes was located Wednesday, officials in China said.

READ ALSO China plane crash: Black box found in damaged condition

One of the two black boxes from the crashed China Eastern passenger jet has been found, an official of China's aviation regulator told reporters on Wednesday. However the recovered black box is said to be heavily damaged, and retrieveing data for investigation might prove a challenge.

The Boeing Co. 737-800 was knifing through the air at more than 640 miles (966 kilometers) per hour, and at times may have exceeded 700 mph, according to data from Flightradar24, a website that tracks planes.

“The preliminary data indicate it was near the speed of sound,” said John Hansman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology astronautics and aeronautics professor who reviewed Bloomberg’s calculation of the jet’s speed. “It was coming down steep.”

Sound travels at 761 mph at sea level but slows with altitude as air temperature goes down and is about 663 mph at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters).

Flight 5735 was flying to Guangzhou from Kunming with 132 people on board at an altitude of about 29,000 feet when it began a sudden descent, according to data transmitted by the plane and captured by Flightradar24. The jetliner was cruising at about 595 mph before the dive.

READ ALSO China plane crash: Pilots did not answer calls

Pilots of a doomed China Eastern Airlines Corp. flight failed to respond to calls from air-traffic controllers after tipping into a deadly nosedive, authorities said. The jet was traveling at close to the speed of sound just before it slammed into a hillside, according to a Bloomberg News

The speed data is consistent with videos appearing to show the jet diving at a steep angle in the moments before impact and indicates that it likely hit the ground with huge force.

“It was an exceedingly high-energy crash,” said Bob Mann, president of R.W. Mann & Co. consultancy, who did not participate in the speed analysis. “It looks like it literally evaporated into a crater.”
Chinese officials said Wednesday that the black box they had located was badly damaged, but didn’t say which one it was — the cockpit voice recorder or the one that captures flight data.

Modern black-box recorders, which store data on computer chips, have a good record of survival in high-velocity crashes, said James Cash, who formerly served as the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board’s chief technical adviser for recorders.

The circuit boards storing the data often break loose from the recorder’s protective exterior. But data can usually be extracted even if they’re damaged, Cash said before the black box was found.

“I would suspect it would be OK,” he said.

READ ALSO Chinese Boeing 737 plane crash in 7 pictures

No beacon activated

The search for the remaining one won’t be aided by a beacon or “ping” from the devices because they are only activated underwater.

The two recorders on the China Eastern 737-800 were supplied by the aerospace division of Honeywell International Inc. and installed on the plane when it was new, according to company spokesman Adam Kress.

Crash investigators have over decades perfected the examination of wreckage in search of clues, but some impacts can obliterate evidence. The crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max in 2019 was traced back to a sensor on the plane’s nose, but the sensor was never found after the jet hit the ground at a high speed, according to a preliminary report from that nation.

Accident investigators should be able to find more precise speed data from the jet’s flight recorder. If it isn’t available for some reason, aerodynamic experts can perform extensive analysis to more closely estimate speed.

Flightradar24’s data includes the jet’s speed, but it’s measured horizontally across the ground. Bloomberg’s computations give a rough idea of how fast it was flying through the air by taking into account its horizontal speed over the ground as well as how fast it was descending.

The speed estimates were based on how fast the jet traveled between two points and didn’t take into account wind direction or other atmospheric conditions. The Bloomberg review was conservative and actual speeds may be higher.

READ ALSO Explainer: What is known about the China Eastern plane crash

While unverified videos showed the plane diving at a steep angle near the ground, it wasn’t clear how fast it was traveling at impact. The last data transmission captured by Flightradar24 occurred at about 3,200 feet altitude.

About 40 seconds before the last transmission, the jet stopped descending and briefly climbed before resuming the dive. During these later stages of the flight, it slowed somewhat, according to the preliminary review.

It was still flying far faster than normal. Typically, jets don’t go above 288 mph at altitudes below 10,000 feet. The China Eastern jet was traveling at roughly 470 mph or more at those altitudes, according to Flightradar24 data.

Rights group denounces violence against LGBT people in Iraq

A report by Human Rights Watch, in collaboration with an Iraqi LGBT rights organization, accuses armed groups in Iraq of abducting, raping, torturing, and killing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people with impunity

By MARIAM FAM and SAMYA KULLAB

Associated Press
22 March 2022

BAGHDAD -- A transgender woman said several men beat her up, threw her in a garbage bin, cut her and set her alight before she was rescued. A gay man said his boyfriend was killed before his eyes. A lesbian woman was stabbed in the leg and said she was warned to stop her “immoral behavior.”

The accounts are part of a report by Human Rights Watch that accuses armed groups in Iraq of abducting, raping, torturing, and killing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people with impunity. The Iraqi government, it says, has failed to hold perpetrators accountable.

Released Wednesday, the report by the New York-based organization in collaboration with Iraqi LGBT rights group IraQueer also accuses Iraqi police and security forces of being often complicit in compounding anti-LGBT violence and of arresting individuals “due to non-conforming appearance.”

It paints a picture of LGBT people besieged from multiple directions. These include “extreme violence” by family members; harassment in the streets; and digital targeting and harassment by armed groups on social media and same-sex dating applications, it said.

“Attacks against LGBT Iraqis have become multi-faceted and the methods of targeting have expanded,” Rasha Younes, LGBT rights researcher in the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch and the report’s author, said in response to emailed questions.

“Many LGBT people said they felt they were forced to hide who they are to stay alive,” the report said.

Across much of the Middle East and North Africa, LGBT people and organizations advocating for LGBT rights face violence and discrimination, and most countries in the region have laws that criminalize same-sex relations, Younes said. Some that don’t, use other laws to target LGBT people, she added.

In Iraq specifically, “a culture of impunity and relative absence of the rule of law ... allow armed groups to escape punishment for violence against ordinary Iraqis, including LGBT people,” she said.

Armed groups suspected to have been involved in abuses against LGBT people, according to the report, mostly fall under the Popular Mobilization Forces, a state-sanctioned umbrella group of militias, the most powerful of which are Iranian-backed Shiite groups.

The Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Khaled al-Muhanna, denied any attacks by security forces on gay people. A mid-level commander with a powerful faction within the PMF who was contacted by The Associated Press also rejected the accusations, saying any violence was likely from their families.

The Islamic State group, which at the height of its power controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq, reserved one of its most brutal methods of killing for those suspected of being gay -- throwing them to their death from building rooftops.

The report is based in part on 54 interviews with LGBT Iraqis; Human Rights Watch conducted research for it between June and November of last year.

Two LGBT people interviewed by the AP in Baghdad -- one who identifies as bisexual and another as lesbian -- said they were afraid of sharing photos of themselves on same-sex dating apps, fearing it would be used against them. Both spoke on condition of anonymity fearing reprisal from armed groups and their families.

Fear of blackmail is widespread among LGBT people in Iraq, they said.

“When I choose to open myself up to someone I wonder, can I trust them? Or will they use this against me?” said the bisexual Iraqi man, a filmmaker living in Baghdad.

“I’ve lived in fear every day of my life since I discovered myself (to be bisexual),” he said.

The lesbian woman, an employee at a foreign embassy, said she confided in only a few close friends. Asked what was the worst that could happen if she opened up to her family, she said: “They would kill me.”

Loosely defined “morality” clauses and the absence of anti-discrimination legislation are among the “formidable barriers” cited by the report as deterring LGBT people from reporting abuses to the police or filing complaints against law enforcement agents. This, it added, creates an environment in which “police and armed groups can abuse them with impunity.”

In describing an attack against her last year, the transgender woman who said in the report that she was set on fire, added that her attackers wielded razor blades and screwdrivers. “I was screaming and tossing and turning from the burns, but I managed to protect my face.”

Some Iraqi government officials and religious figures have made anti-LGBT statements that helped fuel violence against LGBT people, the report said, adding that members of armed groups began a campaign of violence against men suspected of same-sex conduct in 2009.

Among its recommendations, it urged Iraqi authorities to investigate reports of violence by armed groups and security forces against perceived or actual LGBT people and punish those found responsible.

———

Fam reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed reporting.

———

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Schools primed for 'militant teacher strikes' over post-COVID pay, benefits and respect

Erin Richards, USA TODAY
Wed, March 23, 2022

In January, Minneapolis Public Schools students stayed home for two weeks as the omicron COVID-19 variant surged and schools shuttered. This month, schools have closed for another two weeks – and counting – because of a teacher strike.

Classes will remain canceled Tuesday, the district said Monday night. Since March 8, Minneapolis teachers have been picketing for better pay and benefits, smaller classes and more student mental health services. They're not alone. From Minnesota to Illinois to California, teachers unions are actively on strike or preparing to have members walk off the job over many of the same demands.

"I think you are going to see more militant teacher strikes over the next couple of years," said Jon Shelton, a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor who studies teachers unions.

Twin Cities teachers including MFT, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59, and ESP, Education Support Professionals, rallied at the Minnesota State Capitol March 9.

The heaviest COVID-19 wave is subsiding, but two years of pandemic teaching have taken a toll. Educators are navigating health protocols, staff shortages, students' academic challenges, parents' frustrations and national criticism of how they manage matters of race and sexuality in schools.

Many also feel disrespected. One out of three teachers say they've been verbally harassed or threatened by a student; almost as many report harassment or threats by a parent or a student, according to a new survey by the American Psychological Association.

Unions are demanding pay hikes for teachers and for lower-wage school workers, where turnover and shortages have sharply increased. They also want more support services for students, many of whom are struggling academically or socially after two years of disrupted learning.

But the actions aimed at improving schools are also halting in-person instruction after students have missed extraordinary amounts of it.

The organizing has echoes of the "Red for Ed" teacher strike movement in 2018 and 2019, which started in West Virginia when teachers with no legal right to strike walked out to campaign for more money for schools. Teachers secured raises, and the movement inspired educators elsewhere, including in Republican states such as Arizona, Kentucky and North Carolina.

How 'Red for Ed' started: What changed for West Virginia schools after 2018 strike

Remember 2019? Strikes, raises, protest mark teachers' exhilarating year

School staff celebrate after the House of Delegates passed a motion to postpone a vote on Senate Bill 451 indefinitely at the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston, W.Va., during a statewide teachers' strike on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019.

Money is still at the forefront of concerns – although unions say they're focused on supporting struggling students and addressing teachers' workloads.

Superintendents understand teachers are underpaid and recognize how hard they're working, said Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association. But strikes are adding additional stress, he said.

"Parents are upset over education, they want their kids attending school in person, and now here’s another thing coming that has nothing to do with the pandemic that’s going to keep kids out of school," Domenech said.

Thousands of Chicago Public Schools staff marched through the streets near City Hall during the 11th day of a teachers strike on Oct. 31, 2019.

Teacher strikes around the country

In Minneapolis, the 11 school days missed as of Tuesday will mean the district's 31,000 students are at least six days under state learning-time requirements.

"We are committed to getting students back in classrooms as soon as possible, as well as honoring the needs of our teachers and (education support staff)," the district said in a weekend update.

Last week, educators rallied at the governor's mansion to ask for schools to receive more of Minnesota's $9 billion budget surplus.

"We're looking for contract language around class-size caps, mental health supports, recruiting and retaining educators of color, and living wages for education support professions," Shaun Laden, a Minneapolis union leader, said in an update last week. "We don't have a budget crisis. We have a values and priorities crisis."

In nearby St. Paul Public Schools, the district averted a planned March 8 strike with a last-minute deal on raises, class-size limits and $3,000 bonuses for educators. The bonuses will be paid for by the district's federal COVID-19 relief money.

In suburban Chicago, classes for 4,200 students in the Proviso High School District 209 have been canceled for two weeks as teachers strike for higher pay. District leaders say they cannot sustain the raises the union wants. Negotiations are ongoing; the district says it hopes to bring students back March 28 after a regularly scheduled spring break.

In California, Sacramento teachers began a strike Wednesday for higher pay and more staffing. Buildings are closed for approximately 43,000 students there until the strike comes to an end, the district said.

In Sonoma County, teachers in one district just ended a six-day strike, while teachers in another nearby voted to authorize a strike over many of the same concerns.

Across the districts, thousands of students have stayed home or gone to buildings with no teachers.

Domenech, from the superintendents' group, said administrators often have little financial flexibility to meet teachers' demands. Districts are funded primarily through local property taxes, and many communities don't want to pay more to support teacher raises, he said.

The federal relief money is great, he added, but it runs out in three years.

Another economic problem: Schools receive state money based on enrollment and often attendance, said William Jones, a labor historian at the University of Minnesota. So while many districts are flush with pandemic-relief cash, urban schools that have lost students during the pandemic are struggling.

School reopening: Thousands of kids are missing in these districts

"(Many) districts are really poor, despite more federal funding and despite state surpluses," Jones said. "It's weird that we have forces keeping money away from the one institution we need to pay attention to right now."

Kindergarten students participate in a classroom activity on the first day of in-person learning at Maurice Sendak Elementary School in Los Angeles on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. Some schools were closed for more than a year due to the pandemic.

'Why would someone stay?'

Public support for teachers has whiplashed during the pandemic, and support for strikes will likely vary by community.

Parents first exalted the work of educators in the early days of 2020 as they confronted the complexities of guiding their own children's schooling from home. But by summer 2021, parents were pillorying educators at school board meetings nationwide, as frustrations grew over everything from school reopening policies to pandemic protocols and curriculum concerns.

A mass exodus from the profession hasn't happened – yet. More than half of educators said they're thinking about leaving teaching earlier than planned, according to a national survey released in February by the National Education Association. But most districts are not reporting higher-than-normal levels of teacher turnover, said Shelton, the professor from UW-Green Bay.

The national labor shortage means schools are having trouble filling the openings they have.

"You’re either going to see more teachers than usual leave the profession, which will put more pressure on districts and unions to turn to recruitment and retention, or you’re going to see more militant teachers," Shelton said. "Because why would someone stay in a job that is stressful and doesn’t pay enough?"

Dirck Roosevelt, an education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, said, "I think we're headed into a crisis."

Contact Erin Richards at (414) 207-3145 or erin.richards@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter at @emrichards.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Schools brace for teacher strikes over post-COVID pay, benefits

Experts say Russia’s war on Ukraine is accelerating the ‘splinternet.’ But what is the splinternet?

Sefa Karacan—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Sophie Mellor
Tue, March 22, 2022

Russia’s war on Ukraine is bringing on the arrival of the “splinternet.”

That's according to France’s digital affairs envoy Henri Verdier, who told Bloomberg News that the combination of Russia's increasing online censorship with Ukraine's intensified calls for Russia to be taken offline could be bringing the world closer to the “fragmentation of the internet."

The splinternet refers to the splintering of cyberspace into disparate realms controlled by autonomous political blocs or any other controlling power—such as tech or e-commerce companies, or countries with diverging national interests tied to nationalism or religion.

“Will the unique, neutral, multi-stakeholder, free internet survive this crisis?” he said. "I’m not sure."

What is the splinternet?

Clyde Wayne Crews, a researcher at the Cato Institute, coined the term “splinternet” in 2001 to describe "parallel internets that would be run as distinct, private, and autonomous universes."

Over the past 15 years, state security concerns and the privatization of e-commerce have led to walled-off infrastructure and techno-isolationism separating the internet with geopolitical borders, in the same way the earth is carved up today.

According to the author of Splinternet: How Geopolitics and Commerce Are Fragmenting the World Wide Web, Scott Malcomson, the splinternet is a growing threat to the internet’s status as a globe-spanning network of networks, and according to Verdier, may encourage cyberattacks.

Verdier warns that any move by Russia to create an independent internet “would have very severe consequences,” as countries insulated from the internet of other countries might be more tempted to launch cyberattacks.

“Today if I break the Russian internet, probably I will break my own internet, because it’s the same,” Verdier argued, noting the interconnectedness of the World Wide Web protects all of its users from losing service.

“If we have two or three or four internets, the temptation to disconnect the other will be very high,” Verdier said, warning that if the splinternet is accelerated, authoritarian countries could be tempted to take democratic countries offline if mutual dependence was lost.

Worries about this kind of attack have also been growing since the invasion of Ukraine, with U.S. President Joe Biden announcing on Monday that there is "evolving intelligence that the Russian Government is exploring options for potential cyberattacks."

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1505974451434831874

Russian sovereign internet

Russia has been pushing forward on plans to create a more sovereign internet for several years.

In May 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation known as the "sovereign internet" law to shield the country from what it called the "aggressive nature" of the United States’ national cybersecurity strategy. The law, which came into effect in November 2019, installed technological equipment to counter external threats and allow the Russian network to track, filter, and reroute internet traffic.

Russia has also run tests on its Runet intranet by disconnecting itself entirely from the global internet. In June and July last year, RBC Daily reported that Russia tested all major Russian telecom firms "to determine the ability of the 'Runet' to work in case of external distortions, blocks, and other threats," a source told Reuters.

The test involves sequentially disconnecting major telecom firms and ISPs from the global internet so in the eventuality that major global internet servers were instructed to stop serving web pages with the Russian .ru domain, Russian companies could serve cached copies of those pages with minimal delay.

Russia has also blocked access to private tech platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter. Other foreign internet services have suspended some or all of their activities in Russia because of sanctions or on their own initiative; companies like Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and ByteDance’s TikTok have limited their presence in the country.

A senior U.S. State Department official told Bloomberg that Putin’s attempt to establish sovereign boundaries in cyberspace was fully intended as a way to control his people. “He wanted a new Iron Curtain; that’s what he’s doing. He just found an easy way to do it, where everybody’s helping him.”

The acceleration toward the splinternet was “everything that Putin has ever wanted,” he said.

AS DUMB AS THEIR BASE

Oops! The US Senate’s unanimous approval of daylight saving time was a comedy of errors

Stephanie Finucane
Tue, March 22, 2022

That adage “Everyone makes mistakes” is all too true.

Here’s one of my recent blunders: I left the “l” out of “public.” In an editorial.

Luckily, a sharp-eyed reader alerted us soon after the editorial was posted and before it made it into print, for which I remain grateful. And humbled.

Still, some mistakes — or “accidents” as they are sometimes called — are beyond comprehension.

For example, when news broke that the U.S. Senate had unanimously approved a bill, aptly called the Sunshine Protection Act, making daylight saving time permanent, we assumed (and by “we” I mean “I”) they knew what they were doing.

As it turns out, some of them did not actually know what they were approving and were shocked when they discovered what they had done.

Call it an accident, or a mistake, or a blunder, or an oversight. Call it whatever you like. By any name, it’s frightening to realize that important public policy decisions can be made so haphazardly.

Here’s a short version of what happened: The legislation sponsored by Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio passed by unanimous consent, without a roll-call vote.

Unanimous consent is often used as a shortcut to bypass procedural rules — such as requiring quorum calls and the full reading of amendments.

Even one objection can sink unanimous consent, but in this case, no one objected when Rubio requested it— apparently because not everyone was aware of what was happening.

Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank reported that a top Republican on the Commerce Committee — which had been assigned to review the bill but had not approved it — knew what was going on and intended to object, “but decided not to at the last minute because he’s focused on more pressing matters, such as the war in Ukraine.”

“In other words, it’s Vladimir Putin’s fault that our clocks may change,” Milbank wrote.

BuzzFeed reported that some other senators “were not told by their staff that the request was happening.”

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, was one of them.

“It’s literally an issue my staff and I had never discussed, and they made an assumption that I don’t care about daylight saving time,” Coons told BuzzFeed. “And I don’t know if I do! I’ve never taken five minutes to stop and think about it. “

Funny, because I’ll bet a vast majority of the public has spent a lot more than five minutes thinking about it.

So there we have it: A bill that affects the life of each and every American sailed through the Senate without so much as a full hearing or a debate or a roll-call vote, as if it were as routine as declaring June National Dairy Month or designating square dancing as our national folk dance.

Sure, senators are only human — and humans make mistakes — but is this any way to run a country?

We can only hope this snafu will serve as a wake-up call for our illustrious senators.

By the way, this is far from being a done deal. It still has to be heard by the House of Representatives, and that could take months.

Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, says he’s researching the issue.

“I understand that altering or abolishing daylight saving time would have far-reaching implications beyond just changing when California families have to reset their clocks,” he wrote in an email. “I am still seeking more information on the impact the Senate-passed bill could have on our Central Coast communities, and encourage my constituents to reach out to me and share their perspective on this issue.”

So relax. Despite the Senate’s rushed passage, there’s still time to let your representative know if you want to maintain the status quo, or ditch the annual rite of springing forward, only to fall back again and again.

Tucker Carlson shills for Putin while his colleagues are killed in Ukraine | Opinion

Jackie Calmes
Mon, March 21, 2022

It’s a tragic irony that Fox News, purveyor of so much disinformation and pundit propaganda about Russia’s war on Ukraine, is the media outlet now grieving the deaths of courageous correspondents who lost their lives transmitting the truth from that devastated nation.

Those casualties should stand as a reproach to the network’s top-rated star, and biggest Russia apologist, Tucker Carlson.

While Carlson has been bloviating from the comfort of his studio, repeatedly propagandizing for Russian President Vladimir Putin while disparaging Ukraine and its allies, longtime Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, and 24-year-old Oleksandra Kuvshynova, a local journalist and consultant to the Fox News crew in Ukraine, were braving arms fire there. They died last week when their vehicle was hit near Kyiv. Another Fox News journalist, Benjamin Hall, was injured in the attack. (A day earlier, the independent documentarian Brent Renaud was shot and killed outside Kyiv.)

As Fox News’ Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin said in an emotional tribute to her colleagues, “If ever there was a time that the world needed journalists, reporters, risking their lives to tell these stories, it’s now. Without a free press, the autocrats win.”

Not that such an outcome would necessarily bother Carlson.

“Why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which I am?” Carlson had said in 2019, as Putin was threatening Ukraine, building up his troops on the countries’ border. Back then, Carlson was mocking the House’s impeachment of Donald Trump for withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine, extorting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to come up with dirt on Joe Biden.

Carlson later said that he was joking, but he’d begun his rant by saying, “And I’m serious.” He’s said much the same thing recently, as Russia began its invasion of Ukraine late last month. On his Feb. 22 show, he lamented what he described as Democrats’ “mandate” that Americans have “a patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin” and “anything less than hatred for Putin is treason.”

Carlson defended the murderous Russian dictator, dismissed Putin’s threat to Ukraine as merely “a border dispute,” falsely claimed Biden favored Ukraine because its leaders gave his family “millions of dollars” and said Ukraine isn’t a democracy but rather “a client-state of the U.S. State Department.” (For the record, the pro-democracy Freedom House gives Ukraine a “democracy score” of 39 on a scale of 1 to 100; Russia got 6.55 — graded on the curve, I guess.)

Lest you doubt Putin approves of Carlson’s diatribes, that clip made it onto Russian TV, with Russian subtitles.

And not just that one. David Corn of Mother Jones disclosed a Kremlin memo to Russian media outlets and commentators, dated March 3, saying: “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson.” Why? As the 12-page directive explained, Carlson “sharply criticizes” the United States and NATO, including for their “provocative behavior ... towards President Putin, personally.”

Carlson recently denounced U.S. sanctions against Putin’s Russian oligarchs as unfair property seizures and echoed Russian disinformation that the United States has bio-weapons labs in Ukraine.

It’s a wonder that Fox News can attract and retain reputable journalists like Zakrzewski, Kuvshynova and Hall when they have to share airtime with the likes of Carlson. In fact, Fox has lost other talented people, including Chris Wallace. And Griffin, to her great credit, has increasingly fact-checked the network’s fact-free pundits on air.

Carlson should be canned for his shameful performances of late — and they are performances. But, of course, he won’t be; a long history of outrages attests to that. We’re left instead to mourn the real journalists, the ones who sought to inform Americans, not con them.

Jackie Calmes is an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times, based in Washington, D.C.

©2022 Los Angeles Times

Letters to the Editor: Tucker Carlson, Fox News' vaccine conspiracy theorist and Putin apologist

Tue, March 22, 2022

Fox News host Tucker Carlson speaks in Esztergom, Hungary, last August. (Janos Kummer / Getty Images)

To the editor:

Last year, Tucker Carlson was confronted in a Montana fishing store by a patron who said, "Dude, you are the worst human being known to mankind. I want you to know that." ("Tucker Carlson shills for Putin while his colleagues are killed in Ukraine," Opinion, March 18)

The confrontation was about the damage Carlson had done with his disinformation campaign against vaccines.

But now, things get more serious. Carlson has gone lower and deeper by becoming a propaganda tool for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Fox News is dangerously irresponsible. They are facilitating a war criminal and helping to undermine the United States.

William Goldman, Palos Verdes Estates

..

To the editor:

Jackie Calmes' suggestion that Fox News should fire Carlson over his support for Putin should be looked at from another prospective.

The simple answer for those of us who believe in free speech and might disagree with what what Carlson has to say is to change the channel. In this case, Fox News would not have Carlson on the air if he didn't produce good ratings. What does this say about his views?

Another choice people have is to contact sponsors of Carlson's program and the leaders of Fox News. Have we forgotten that the former president praised Russia and its leader often, and Fox News promoted him?

Edward A. Sussman, Fountain Valley

..

To the editor:

After our spies spilled the beans about Putin's plan to set up a Russian puppet government in Ukraine, it made me begin to wonder if that is what Putin wants for the United States.

Our puppet-in-chief would be former President Trump, and his circle of oligarchs and enablers would include Carlson, Steve Bannon, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and all of his cronies who are continuing to support Putin and his evil invasion of Ukraine.

Everyone who values our freedom needs to become proactive and work to preserve our precious democracy.

Mary Carlson, Mission Viejo

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Captain of Russian oligarch's $85 million superyacht stuck in Norway says crew is catching and barbecuing fish after local suppliers refused to refuel the vessel: report

Kate Duffy
Tue, March 22, 2022

A Russian oligarch's yacht captain said the crew caught fish as suppliers refused to fuel the ship.

The superyacht believed to belong to Vladimir Strzhalkovsky has been stuck in Norway for a month.

Strzhalkovsky hasn't been sanctioned by the EU, which means Norway can't seize the vessel.

The crew aboard a Russian oligarch's superyacht in Norway is catching and barbecuing fish as local businesses refuse to refuel the vessel, which has left it stranded, the boat's captain told The Wall Street Journal.

The vessel, Ragnar, is believed to be owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former KGB agent who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin but has avoided sanctions, the outlet reported.

Ragnar, worth $85 million, according to SuperYacht Fan, has been stuck in the port of Narvik, Norway, for over a month because fuel suppliers are refusing to do business with Strzhalkovsky.

Strzhalkovsky isn't among the Russian oligarchs who have been hit by Western sanctions, but Norwegian fuel suppliers told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK last week that they didn't want to help any entities associated with Russia.

The US, the UK, and the European Union have levied sanctions against oligarchs believed to be close to Putin, which has led to seizures of yachts and private jets.

In some countries, people have protested against Russian goods and entities that aren't sanctioned. Dockworkers in the UK this month refused to handle consignments of Russian natural gas, despite UK sanctions at the time allowing the import of the goods.

With no one willing to refuel the boat and nowhere to go, the crew of the Ragnar has been barbecuing freshly caught cod, Rob Lancaster, the yacht's captain, told The Journal.

"We did not realize why there was so much fuss with us," Lancaster told The Journal. "It happened so quickly."

Lancaster told NRK last week that the 16 crew members on board were from Western countries and "have nothing to do with the owner of the boat."

While the Ragnar is not subject to sanctions, a number of oligarchs' yachts have been impounded in Europe. A $75 million yacht belonging to the Russian businessman Dmitry Pumpyansky was seized on Monday after it docked in Gibraltar, the local government told Insider.

It followed Spain's detention of a $153 million superyacht linked to the arms tycoon Sergey Chemezov, France impounding a $120 million vessel linked to Putin's confidant Igor Sechin, and Italy seizing a $578 million vessel linked to the oligarch Andrey Melnichenko.

Sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich's $600 million superyacht is cruising off Turkey's coast after 8 days' sailing without a destination

Kate Duffy
Mon, March 21, 2022

Roman Abramovich's yacht was off the coast of Turkey on Monday, ship-tracking data shows.

His $600 million yacht, Solaris, is "scenic cruising" without a port destination, per MarineTraffic.

It might be trying to confuse people about its final destination, a MarineTraffic spokesperson said.

A luxury superyacht owned by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich that has been sailing without a destination for more than a week updated its status for the first time since leaving port, suggesting it has no immediate intention of docking, ship-tracking data shows.

Solaris, a 140-feet vessel worth $600 million, was off the southwestern coast of Turkey and heading west, according to the tracking website MarineTraffic. On Monday, the website showed that the vessel's status changed to "scenic cruising" from "awaiting orders," the status it had shown since leaving Tivat, Montenegro, on March 13.

Solaris was off the coast of Turkey on Monday, according to the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.

Georgios Hatzimanolis, a spokesperson for MarineTraffic, told Insider that though yachts and ships can change their status whenever they want, "most likely in this instance" Solaris is "using the status to confuse people from where its final destination is."

"Lots of speculation on if it will be Turkey, Israel, or even possibly the UAE," Hatzimanolis said.

The locations of luxury assets owned by Russian oligarchs have been closely monitored since sanctions were levied against many of the country's elite in response to Moscow's ordering troops into Ukraine. European countries including Italy and France have seized yachts, private jets, and other assets from several sanctioned oligarchs.

Abramovich, whose net worth is estimated at about $13.6 billion, according to Bloomberg, was sanctioned by the UK and the European Union, meaning his assets have been frozen and he's been barred from doing business there.

Solaris had been docked in the Barcelona shipyard of the Spanish yacht-maintenance firm MB92 since late 2021. It left on March 8, shortly before Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, was sanctioned.

Before the announcement of sanctions, some of Russia's wealthiest people sought to move their expensive boats and private jets to jurisdictions where they might be able to protect them from seizure.

Abramovich's other superyacht, Eclipse, said to be worth $700 million, was just off the coast of Crete, a Greek island in the Mediterranean Sea, on Monday, according to MarineTraffic. The yacht has been sailing since it left St. Martin in the Caribbean on February 21, the ship-tracking website shows.

How can a $700 million superyacht sitting in an Italian port ‘belong to no one’? Russian sleuths say it’s Putin’s

Vivienne Walt
Tue, March 22, 2022

In the legend of Tales From the Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade is a beautiful virgin who escapes being murdered by the king by telling him stories at night.

Scheherazade is also President Vladimir Putin’s $700 million superyacht, according to Russian investigative journalists—and its ability to survive being seized by Western governments will require far more cunning than storytelling.

The yacht, currently moored in the Marina di Carrara on Italy’s Tuscany coast, is gargantuan, even by the outsize dimensions of Russian oligarchs’ superyachts. At about 459 feet long, it has six levels of decks, two helipads with a hidden helicopter hangar, a spa, huge living room and dining room, a swimming pool and three saunas, as well as an upper-level “owner’s area” that includes its own private spa.
“Belongs to no one”

For weeks, there have been questions about who owns the superyacht, which is registered in the Cayman Islands through a shell company. But on Monday, the group headed by jailed Russian activist Alexis Navalny claimed in a YouTube video that the vessel belongs to Putin himself.

“On paper, it belongs to no one, and sits quietly in an Italian port,” the video says in Russian. “Watch the video, and you will find out how Putin owns this yacht through figureheads, and how we can take this yacht away from him.”

The group obtained the all-Russian crew list for the yacht, and found that almost all of them were employed by Putin’s security detail, the Federal Protective Service, known by its Russian acronym FSO.

Earlier this month, the Scheherazade’s British captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, told the New York Times he was under “a watertight nondisclosure agreement” about who the superyacht’s true owners were, but claimed he had never seen Putin on board.

But Navalny’s group says the crew’s employment status suggests that the Russian leader owns the vessel. If that hunch is correct, it would be subject to immediate seizure under U.S., U.K., and European Union sanctions.

Superyachts have been one of the most visible signs of Russian oligarchs’ mammoth wealth—and, recently, one of the most often seized. French police seized a $120 million vessel allegedly owned by Igor Sechin, head of the Russian oil giant Rosneft, on the Mediterranean coast earlier this month. Spanish officials impounded two more yachts, including the Crescent, a 443-foot superyacht also thought to belong to Sechin.

Another boat, owned by former KGB agent Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, was stranded in Norway when no one would sell it fuel. And on Monday, the 460-foot superyacht Solaris, owned by the sanctioned billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich, was spotted parked in the harbor of Bodrum, Turkey; that country has not implemented sanctions.
Putin’s $200 billion

Western governments face a daunting task in tracking down Putin’s true wealth, which could amount to some $200 billion, according to financier Bill Browder, who told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 that Putin’s inner circle of oligarchs split their billions 50-50 with the Russian president. The assets include a $1.3 billion mansion on the Black Sea, funded through a Russian health project in which Putin allies were vastly overpaid for medical supplies.

The Scheherazade, in fact, might not be Putin’s only superyacht. Last month, the vessel Graceful made a hurried departure from its berth in Hamburg as the EU was drafting tough new sanctions just days before Putin sent Russian tanks into Ukraine. Believed to be linked to Putin, that superyacht is thought to be worth $100 million.

But untangling ownership details, and pinpointing them to Putin, will be immensely complicated.

In that, Navalny’s team has joined forces with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or OCCRP, a Sarajevo-based group of investigative journalists, to create a database of oligarch wealth. It publishes its “Russian Asset Tracker” in Russian, English, and Spanish.

The journalists say they are focusing on “a new generation of wealthy men obedient to Putin”—many of whom are now under Western sanctions and whose funds Western governments believe are crucial to funding the Ukraine war. The database lists mansions, superyachts, private planes, and other property, so far totaling about $17.5 billion. The group is sure that will grow, and invites people to send details of “anything we’ve missed.”

“Figuring out who owns what, and how much of it, is a tall order even for experienced police investigators,” the journalists say. “We decided to follow the trail.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com