Radical Robbie Burns, Peoples Poet

In Kharkiv, sandbags pile up to save Ukraine national poet’s statue

By AFP
Published March 27, 2022

Taras Shevchenko is Ukraine's national poet, the country's foremost nineteenth bard and one of the first to write in Ukrainian - 

Copyright AFP Hector RETAMAL

Hervé BAR

In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv — under daily Russian bombardment that has damaged or destroyed 1,000 buildings — work has begun to erect sand barricades to protect its statues.

The most symbolic of them all sits enthroned in the heart of the town centre in a vast park filled with century-old trees: Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s national poet, who was the country’s foremost nineteenth-century bard and one of the first to write in Ukrainian.

Since the country’s independence in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, not a single Ukrainian city has been without its own Shevchenko Avenue or Square. The country’s largest university in Kyiv is named after him.

Workers with lifting equipment busy themselves around the imposing black cast-iron statue.

At 16 metres (52 feet) high, it is the biggest in Kharkiv since the statue of Lenin on a nearby esplanade was taken down in 1994.

“We must protect the city so that future generations know it as we have known it,” says Petro, a 72-year-old retiree sporting a leather cap and gold teeth, who is taking part in the operation.

Put up in 1935, the statue of Shevchenko is a mixture of socialist realism and baroque Stalinism, with the central character surrounded by revolutionary soldiers at his feet.

It’s an example of Ukrainian patriotism long suppressed by “brother” Russia during the Soviet era.

The sandstone plinth and the Stalinist fighters have now disappeared beneath sandbags that are already up to the poet’s waist, obscuring his conquering gait, but not yet his fierce gaze and drooping moustache.

“It seems a bullet ricocheted off his head during World War II,” says one of the council workers with a smirk.

“Back then, the city was devastated, but the centre was relatively well-preserved, not bombarded like now,” says Volodymyr.

Since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine has, along with southern Mariupol, been the most bombed Ukrainian metropolis.

From just a few kilometres (miles) away, Russian artillery has bombarded the north and east of the city daily, as well as its historic centre, targeting in particular administrative buildings.

– ‘Another 1,000 years!’ –

More than a thousand buildings have been destroyed or damaged in a city emptied of around a third of its 1.5 million inhabitants, according to local authorities.

A city of culture and history, Kharkiv has around 50 important monuments which will be protected with sandbags, according to the town hall.

“We hope that these monuments will last another thousand years!” it said.

As the protective wall surrounding the Shevchenko statue nears completion, dozens of town hall employees and volunteers turn their attention to the positioning of sandbags around the independence monument, a goddess brandishing the laurels of victory, celebrating Ukraine’s proclamation of independence on August 24, 1991.

For the moment, one can still read, engraved in the Cyrillic alphabet, the slogan that one now hears everywhere in this country at war: “Glory to Ukraine.”

“At the moment, we mainly collect branches and trees brought down by rockets. This year we will not plant anything, there will be no flowers,” says council worker Ilona Kalashnikova who normally tends the city’s green spaces.

“These sandbags are a symbol of our attachment to our city. We can rebuild destroyed houses, but not historical monuments,” she adds.

SEE 

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Radical Robbie Burns, Peoples Poet

A'hae toast ya laddie with a wee dram.
It is Robbie Burns Day around the world.

A day to celebrate the common man, the common poet, of the common people; Robbie Burns. It's a day where we all become Scot's for a moment, drinking a wee dram of the namesake liquor in a toast to that countries greatest lover, poet and radical. Around the world there are Robbie Burns dinners and celebrations.

This unique popularity of Burns as the voice of the common people is not shared by any other poet. Other poets of the common people and their struggles, are not celebrated internationally by men and women of all nations as one of their own. As great a voice for their people as they may be.

The great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko is known as the Robbie Burns of the Ukraine. Some would say this is idle boasting but compare this final verse from Shevchenko's poetic eulogy, Zapovit (My Testament) with the last lines of Burns immortal; Scots Whae Hae, they both ring with eternal truth, that stirs the heart and brings a lump to the throat. A clarion call to revolution, and the fight for social justice for all.

Zapovit
Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained
And in the great new family,
The family of the free
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me


Scots Whae Hae
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Let us do, or die!

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Radical Robbie Burns, Peoples Poet (plawiuk.blogspot.com)

Six organizations sue French presidential candidate for denying gay Holocaust victims

Far-right candidate Eric Zemmour said it's just a "legend" that gay men were deported to concentration camps. LGBTQ organizations say that's illegal Holocaust denial.

By Alex Bollinger 

Sunday, March 27, 2022

The monument to gay victims of Nazi Germany in Sitges, Spain

Six LGBTQ organizations in France are suing a far-right presidential candidate for denying that gay people were targeted by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The lawsuit is the first in France to address Holocaust denial specifically as it relates to LGBTQ people.

According to the organization Holocaust Memorial Day, somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 men were accused of homosexuality and sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust, and tens of thousands more were arrested and jailed in police prisons. Others were castrated and subjected to “gruesome medical experiments.” Others were killed.

Related: French fascist tells American conservatives to oppose ‘individuals without gender’

That, though, is a “legend,” according to Eric Zemmour, who is running for president of France. He got national attention with his 2014 book The French Suicide (Le Suicide français), where he said that France has been in decline for decades due to immigration, feminism, and egalitarianism. In that book, he claimed that Vichy France – the authoritarian French regime during World War II that collaborated with the Nazis – actually protected Jews, despite Vichy’s mass arrests of Jewish people in France who were sent to concentration camps.

Last year, Zemmour published a campaign manifesto entitled France Has Not Said Its Final Word (La France n’a pas dit son dernier mot), in which he called it a “legend” that gay people were targeted in France during the Holocaust.

“The deportation of homosexuals from France because of their sexual orientation is a legend,” he wrote. Around 500 men accused of being gay were arrested in France during World War II.

Now, six LGBTQ organizations – Mousse, Stop Homophobie, Inter-LGBT, Adheos, SOS Homophobie, and Quazar – have filed a lawsuit against Zemmour. France, like many other European countries, bans Holocaust denial. These laws have been passed out of fear that denying the Holocaust would be a precursor to it happening again. France’s law was passed in 1990 in order to fight anti-semitism.


The organizations published an op-ed in the French LGBTQ magazine TETU that notes that French authorities themselves did not acknowledge the gay victims of the Holocaust until 1995, refusing to let LGBTQ activists participate in official remembrance ceremonies. And it wasn’t until the 2010s that acknowledging the gay victims was normalized at local ceremonies.

In 2011, Rudolf Brazda – a French man deported to a concentration camp for being gay – was made a knight in the Legion of Honor in recognition of his role as a witness.

“Eric Zemmour’s Holocaust denial is a veiled call to hatred,” the op-ed states. “In denying the crimes committed during the Second World War against gay people, Eric Zemmour minimizes homophobic violence that is still happening today. That is, in in order to understand and fight against homophobia, we have to face up to it, in its historic and everyday reality.”

The French presidential elections will occur on June 12 and the runoff – if no candidate gets over 51% of the vote, no one is expected to – will take place on June 19. Zemmour has generally polled in third or fourth place this past month.

French Far-Right Candidate Vows to Fight for Identity as Prospects Fade

Éric Zemmour, a far-right pundit, tried to revive his flagging campaign Sunday in a place that is familiar to hopefuls of his ilk.

Éric Zemmour drew a large crowd at a rally on Sunday in Paris, but his campaign for the French presidency has stumbled in recent weeks.

Credit...Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Constant Méheut
March 27, 2022

PARIS — With its immense forecourt opening onto a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadéro Plaza in Paris offers an ideal setting to revive a flagging campaign for the French presidency. Twice in the past decade, tens of thousands of people have flocked there, responding to calls from embattled right-wing contenders looking for support.

A third attempt came on Sunday, when Éric Zemmour, the far-right pundit turned presidential candidate, held a massive rally at the Trocadéro designed to halt his slide in the polls, exactly two weeks before the first round of voting.

“I will fight to reconquer our identity, I will fight to regain our prosperity,” Mr. Zemmour told tens of thousands of supporters who waved a sea of French flags under a blazing sun.

Sunday’s rally, one of the biggest of this year’s elections, had all the trappings of a last-ditch attempt to revitalize a campaign that started with a bang and then gradually stalled, as Mr. Zemmour, 63, got bogged down in controversies and struggled to broaden his voter base.

He entered the presidential race last fall, putting his prolific career as a polarizing far-right writer and television star behind him and promising to shake up French politics with his hard-line views on immigration, Islam’s place in France and national identity.

Many people at Sunday’s rally were drawn by support for Mr. Zemmour’s conservative positions on immigration. The placard reads, “So that France remains France.”

Credit...Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

And shake it up he did. For months, through his active presence on social and news media as well as his frenzied rallies, he shaped the public debate by pushing it further to the right. He popularized the concept of the “great replacement” — a racist conspiracy theory stating that white Christian populations are being replaced by nonwhite immigrants — rewrote some of the worst episodes from France’s past and promoted divisive ideas such as a proposal to force parents to give their children “traditional” French names.

His meteoric rise in the polls — he briefly ranked second in mid-February — turned him into an unexpected runoff contender and a serious threat for Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the far right, and Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the mainstream right.

But his ratings have gradually slipped for a month, putting him in fourth or fifth place, after the war in Ukraine exposed two of his biggest flaws: his past sympathy for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his neglect of the issue of economic inequalities.

In a 2018 interview, Mr. Zemmour said he “would dream” of a French equivalent of Mr. Putin, praising his attempt to restore the grandeur of “an empire in decline” — words that have haunted him since Russia invaded Ukraine, severely denting his credibility on international affairs. The candidate also provoked an outcry after he first opposed welcoming Ukrainian war refugees, saying it would further “destabilize France, which is already overwhelmed — I do say overwhelmed — by immigration.”

Ukrainian evacuees crossing the border into Palanca, Moldova, this month. Mr. Zemmour provoked an outcry after at first opposing an influx of Ukrainian refugees.

Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times


But it is his failure to respond to the economic hardship created by the war that has most affected his standing. Mr. Zemmour has long defended liberal positions on the economy, which have done little to allay voters’ fears about rising energy prices. By contrast, his competitors, Ms. Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left candidate, have benefited from this concern, having long campaigned against economic inequality.

“He has focused so much on identity, immigration and security,” said Bruno Cautrès, a political scientist at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po university in Paris, “that it has prevented him from embodying anything else in the eyes of the voters.”

In the fall, Mr. Zemmour had pinned his hopes on his ability to appeal to “the patriotic bourgeoisie and the working classes.” But attendance at Sunday’s rally suggested that he mainly attracted bourgeois voters.

“Sovereignty, grandeur, identity — this guy thinks exactly like me,” said Benoît Bergeron, a 68-year-old Zemmour supporter wearing a tweed jacket, who had crossed the Seine from his upscale Left Bank neighborhood to join the rally.

Mr. Bergeron said the last time he had joined a demonstration was to support La Manif Pour Tous, a large movement opposing same-sex marriage that upended France in 2013. Several supporters in the crowd said Mr. Zemmour was the best representative of a conservative generation that emerged after that movement.

Mr. Cautrès said Mr. Zemmour had a limited voter base and scored well mainly among segments of the upper middle class, the elderly and conservative Catholics. “It’s not something that propels you to the second round of the presidential election,” he said.

Against a backdrop of sinking poll numbers, Mr. Zemmour has tried to refocus the debate around immigration by toughening his already polarizing stance. Warning that France will become “a Muslim country” by 2060 if current migration levels persist, he promised last week to create a “Ministry of Remigration” and deport 100,000 “undesirable foreigners” each year, if elected.


Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the far right, is now polling at 20 percent in voting intentions, about twice the level of Mr. Zemmour.

Credit...Johanna Geron/Reuters

But the proposal only caused further controversy and accentuated his image as an extreme politician. “He didn’t run a campaign to bring people together, but he ran one that was more divisive, more provocative every day,” said Robert Ménard, a French radical right-wing mayor and longtime acquaintance of Mr. Zemmour who supports Ms. Le Pen.

At the rally, Mr. Zemmour’s speech was filled with populist overtones, with attacks against the news media and the elites, who he said where trying to undermine his candidacy. “Nothing and no one will steal this election from us,” he told the roaring crowd.

The candidate’s radical messaging has also had the unexpected effect of sanitizing the image of his direct far-right competitor, Ms. Le Pen, a goal she has long been pursuing. Ms. Le Pen is now polling at 20 percent in voting intentions, about twice the rate for Mr. Zemmour, and appears on track to reach a runoff with the incumbent, President Emmanuel Macron.

“He has normalized Marine Le Pen,” Mr. Ménard said.

Perhaps the biggest impact of Mr. Zemmour’s campaign will be its lasting effect on French politics, which have increasingly lurched to the right. Polls show that two-thirds of French people today are worried about the “great replacement.” Depending on his performance in the first round of voting, Mr. Zemmour may also force a complete reshuffle of the French right. Several leaders of Ms. Le Pen’s and Ms. Pécresse’s parties have already joined his campaign.

Several supporters at the Trocadéro on Sunday said they did not trust the polls. “We’re at a turning point,” said Stéphanie Vitry, a company manager, who was convinced Mr. Zemmour would come out ahead in two weeks. Otherwise, she said, “it’s the end of France.”

But some did not hide that they had largely given up hope that the far-right candidate would reach a second round.

“I confess that I’m not very optimistic,” said Oxana Herbeth, 23, a former Le Pen voter who had turned to Mr. Zemmour, attracted by his tough line on immigration and security.

It did not help that the Trocadéro has also been symbolically associated with the downfall of the French right. The past two presidential candidates of the center-right party Les Républicains held big rallies there — before being defeated on Election Day.

“To gather the right at the very place where it has failed,” Mr. Ménard said. “Strange idea.”

The Rise of Éric Zemmour

Echoes of Trump at a Rally for France’s Far-Right Upstart
Dec. 11, 2021

Rise of a Far-Right Pundit Is Scrambling French Politics
Oct. 12, 2021

Éric Zemmour, Far-Right Pundit, Makes French Presidential Run Official
Nov. 30, 2021

From TV to the French Presidency? A Right-Wing Star Is Inspired by Trump
Sept. 17, 2021

Constant Méheut reports from France. He joined the Paris bureau in January 2020. @ConstantMeheut

A version of this article appears in print on March 28, 2022, Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Fading Far-Right Candidate Vows Fight for French Identity. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Chat and Encrypted Messaging Apps Are the New Battlefields in the Propaganda War

By Inga Kristina Trauthig 

Sunday, March 27, 2022


Ukrainians fleeing the war check their phones while on a train to Poland on Feb. 28, 2022. Photo credit: Pakkin Leung via Wikimedia; CC BY 4.0.

Editor’s Note: Just as the military conflict in Ukraine rages, so too does the propaganda war. Russia has long been a master of wartime (and peacetime) propaganda, and Ukraine has surprised many observers by adeptly telling its story and winning the hearts of much of the world. Inga Kristina Trauthig of the University of Texas at Austin shows how both sides are using chat and encrypted messaging apps as part of the propaganda struggle and explains why this may be the new normal for future conflicts.

Daniel Byman

***

The war on Ukraine has intensified the importance of chat and encrypted messaging apps (EMAs). Ukrainian users rely on these apps for up-to-date information and advice on personal safety and public health, but they are also central to the propaganda war and are being manipulated by both sides. EMAs are used widely in Ukraine: Viber appears to be the most popular chat or encrypted messaging app, with Telegram second and Facebook Messenger third (with penetration rates of 98 percent, 86 percent and 76 percent, respectively). These apps are especially effective for spreading Russian propaganda in Ukraine, but the apps are also used widely in Russia, where they are exploited to spread propaganda that focuses on Russia’s domestic audience. Russian users spend more time on Telegram than the global average, and the current war has made the app more important for both activists and pro-government media. For instance, Russian propagandists exploit the dissemination of disinformation on Telegram by re-reporting it as “leaked” information on Russian state channels that amplify the false claims. At the same time, Telegram has established itself as a way for Russian activists to access independent information after the Russian government shut down the few remaining independent news channels.

Propagandists adapt to changing circumstances, and how they use these new technologies will likely change over the course of the conflict. What is clear so far is that EMAs will be an important medium for actors fighting for control of narratives about the war. Ukraine and Russia are taking different approaches, with Ukraine adapting its state-supported infrastructure on the apps for public messaging and Russia using the apps to source or spread new disinformation in support of its messaging campaign. The companies that run these apps are only just waking up to the ways their platforms are being used, and there is no clear path forward for preventing the apps’ exploitation for propaganda purposes. These apps are now a battlefield in their own way, representing a new normal for how propaganda wars are fought.

Ukraine: Adapting Public Communication for Wartime

The ubiquity of EMAs in Ukraine led to local journalists and politicians building new infrastructure for communicating to mass audiences on these platforms. This shift had been developing for several years prior to the invasion. These actors had begun relying on EMAs to offer their audiences “unfiltered” messages. Research that my colleagues and I conducted in 2021 at the Propaganda Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Media Engagement captured how Telegram and Viber in particular had grown in importance for political messaging by Ukrainian leaders. A Ukrainian academic who advises politicians on effective communication with citizens told us in an interview that “Telegram is the major source that brings politically relevant information” to the Ukrainian public, as most major news outlets, parties and individual politicians have their own Telegram channels with large numbers of subscribers.

Over the past two years, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health’s coronavirus communications relied heavily on Telegram and Viber. Following the Russian escalation, these established lines of communication were repurposed. The primary Telegram channel that was dedicated to reliable coronavirus news in Ukraine is run by a private company but works closely with the government and is verified by Telegram. The channel asked whether subscribers wanted updates on the latest “socio-political” news. Following a positive vote, the channel changed its purpose and has since mostly provided updates on the war. This exemplifies a radical change, with a nominally nonpolitical channel shifting to become an important tool of citizen communication during wartime. The existing EMA infrastructure—which journalists relied on to identify news stories and politicians used for political campaigning—has become vital for Ukrainians trying to find the most recent information and analysis about the conflict.

On EMAs, as in other media, it can be difficult to distinguish between nonpolitical communication and reliable information on the one hand, and propaganda built on half-truths or even lies on the other. Russia was already aware of the importance of Telegram for the Ukrainian public prior to the invasion and used anonymous Telegram channels and other propaganda strategies on these apps to push its agenda. For example, after Ukraine banned the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in 2021, Russia increased personal attacks targeting key Ukrainian politicians, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian minister of health, on Telegram channels that were purportedly set up to share news by local journalists in Ukraine. Political messaging on EMAs is part of a broader ecosystem of computational propaganda, which is a business in Ukraine as it is in any other country and includes Ukrainian political actors’ messaging to domestic audiences. One interviewee, who previously worked in the Ukrainian parliament but now works for a media nongovernmental organization, described to us how the earnings scale of “political consultants” running Telegram channels related to the previous Ukrainian president’s office depended on the subscriber numbers of channels they ran, which creates incentives for polarizing messaging and exploitative gimmicks. These apps are pervasive, but the information on these channels is as unreliable as other forms of social media.

Ukrainians are learning from their unfortunate history of having been attacked by Russia in the recent past. Both new and repurposed channels and groups on EMAs are now being used to provide practical information, from advice on safety to self-defense. Recently, Ukraine’s deputy minister for digital policies has turned to Telegram, setting up an “IT Army of Ukraine” group, which has reached over 260,000 members. Overall, Ukraine is capitalizing on its advanced digital ecosystem. Ukrainians are using these apps to push back on Russian propaganda and document the gruesome war for foreign audiences with the aim of fostering international support.

Russia: New Tools, Old Tactics

Russian propagandists have capitalized on the rising use of EMAs in Ukraine by setting up their own channels aiming to attract Ukrainian subscribers, with even the state broadcaster RT running Telegram channels. More than just an additional avenue for propaganda output, Russia’s state media have been relying on “leaked” videos, images and claims—often unverified or outright disinformation—from Telegram channels to fuel its propaganda. Despite coming from dubious sources pursuing their own agendas, Russian media use these so-called “leaks” to implicitly increase the legitimacy of their state-controlled channels by relying on what they claim is “authentic” input from Ukrainian citizens.

For example, a video from the Telegram channel of the DNR People’s Militia, a Russian-supported militant group operating in Donetsk, allegedly showing Polish-speaking attackers trying to blow up chlorine containers in separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine was picked up by Russian state media. TASS and RIA Novosti took the video and the separatists’ claims at face value and amplified them to a wider audience. Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, described the video as “the laziest, dumbest disinformation I’ve seen in forever.” However, by the time accurate, fact-checked information could spread, Russian state media had already moved on to the next news item. Even when fact-checking happens simultaneously, these corrections are unlikely to reach the audience on which it has the biggest effect: the Russian people.

Russian propagandists seek to counter two dynamics that have disrupted propaganda efforts since the Cold War. First, specific propaganda campaigns have become less effective due to the sheer increase in volume and related noise that adversely affects targeted campaigns. Second, propaganda has become harder to control than in previous eras when it was conveyed from the top down, from the professional news media to the public. Now, the emphasis of two-way communication in Web 2.0 makes a consistent message more difficult, but Russia is adapting by creating a disinformation ecosystem that seeds false reports and convenient narratives abroad through social media that propagandists can then seize on and claim as “authentic” reporting. In 2014, for example, the Internet Research Agency generated blog posts pretending to be first-hand accounts from inside Ukraine and ginned up comments to make them look real and generate traffic; we are witnessing similar tactics in the current conflict. These tactics and the exploitation of social media has increased the relevance of traditional journalism as an amplifier of disinformation operations—both because traditional journalism can promote these false claims, intentionally or inadvertently, and pass them on to a broader audience and because traditional journalism exposes how these disinformation operations work.

The New Normal

Propagandists and local activists have benefited from features that have made it more difficult to access EMA content—either to surveil or to fact-check. Telegram does not suggest trending topics to navigate its broadcast channels, which complicates finding problematic spaces, for instance. Also, users must request access to join private groups, and when communications are end-to-end encrypted this stands in the way of established content moderation regimes like the ones implemented by Meta. But interventions to limit the spread of disinformation can still be established by analyzing metadata, promoting verified information by the company or relying on third-party efforts.

The companies that run EMAs are aware that their platforms are being used as critical lifelines by some actors and exploited to spread propaganda by others, but their responses have been inconsistent. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, recently announced that the company would crack down on Russian propaganda, offer users in Russia and Ukraine encrypted direct messaging on Instagram, and demote Facebook posts by Russian state media outlets. The spread of false information on Telegram prompted its founder, Pavel Durov, to consider restricting access to the platform, and Signal’s creator, Moxie Marlinspike, tweeted a reminder to users that Telegram is not always end-to-end encrypted and leaves communications more exposed. WhatsApp’s Will Cathcart emphasized the app’s usefulness, tweeting that the State Emergency Service of Ukraine had launched a helpline on WhatsApp with the aim of providing advice on how to stay safe.

Combating propaganda is largely falling to journalists and open-source analysts. Local Ukrainian fact-checkers have increased their efforts on EMAs, as part of an ongoing process described to us by a Ukrainian journalist in 2021. VoxUkraine is one example; it has acted to counter Russian propaganda since 2014.

Identifying the creators of propaganda campaigns remains the greatest challenge. Propagandists can take advantage of online anonymity, automation and the scale of the internet to remain in the shadows as they sow deceptive political messaging. Manipulation and deception have always been part of politics, and no state or society will be able to eliminate them. Instead, new technological developments must be incorporated into existing analysis. With the global success of EMAs, the political manipulation of these chat apps is now a significant conduit for propaganda.

Inga Kristina Trauthig is a senior research fellow with the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin.

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How North Korean Cyberattacks Threaten the Developing World

North Korea once fostered supportive relationships with the Global South, but it now uses cyber attacks against developing countries for its own purposes.

by Benjamin R. Young

March 27, 2022

The North Korean government of the Cold War era expressed solidarity with Third World liberation movements and decolonization. From supporting African anti-colonial struggles to sending pilots to fight alongside the communists in the Vietnam War, the North Korean leadership saw itself as part of a global anti-imperialist front. However, North Korea retreated inwards after the fall of the communist bloc in the 1990s and became much more nationalistic in its foreign policy. Now, North Korean cyberattacks increasingly target countries in the developing world.

Pyongyang began to devote significant resources to its cyber capabilities in the 1990s. Cyber operations became a way for North Korea to aggressively assert itself in the international arena and inflict pain on its strategic foes, principally the United States and Republic of Korea. Nonetheless, in recent years, Pyongyang’s cyber operatives have stretched beyond North Korea’s traditional adversaries. They now increasingly target financial institutions in the developing world. In an effort to bolster the coffers of the political elite and also gather intelligence for military purposes, North Korean hackers see the developing world as a vulnerable target for increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. In fact, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) remains the only government in the world that brazenly uses cyber attacks for monetary gain.

The most well-known North Korean cyber attack in the developing world took place in 2016. North Korean hackers stole around $81 million from the Central Bank of Bangladesh (CBC). The CBC was targeted due to its relatively lax security standards and outdated systems. North Korean hackers manipulated the SWIFT system and tricked the U.S Federal Reserve into sending funds to their fraudulent bank accounts that appeared to be the CBC’s, but were in fact accounts set up by Pyongyang’s hackers. The North Korean cyber theft of the Bangladesh Central Bank shocked the international community.

After the CBC bank heist, North Korean hackers continued to target financial institutions in the developing world. In March 2018, a North Korean hacker unit, known as “Hidden Cobra,” targeted Turkish banks. Using a spear-phishing email campaign, the North Korean hackers lured targets with a fake cryptocurrency scheme and acquired sensitive information for potential future cyber attacks. In 2019, a UN report said that North Korean hackers attacked banks and cryptocurrency exchanges in India, Bangladesh, Chile, Costa Rica, Gambia, Guatemala, Kuwait, Liberia, Malaysia, Malta, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, and Vietnam. Two years later, in April 2021, North Korean cyber agents attacked a South African logistics company and took control of their computers for purposes of intelligence gathering.

North Korean hackers now use developing countries as physical and virtual locations to obfuscate Pyongyang’s involvement in illicit cyber activity. In fact, the 2014 Sony Pictures hack came from a WiFi network in a five-star Thai hotel. North Korean hackers have also likely used India as a physical base for some of their cyber operations. In Africa, North Korean hackers have found “safe havens” in Kenya and Mozambique. Passing themselves off as workers at legitimate businesses, North Korean hackers utilize the cyber infrastructure of developing countries to attack financially lucrative targets on behalf of the Korean Workers’ Party. It seems that North Korean hackers use lax visa regimes and weak sanctions enforcement measures in developing countries as a way to disguise Pyongyang’s role in these cyber operations.

North Korean cyberattacks in the developing world are dual purpose. In addition to revenue generation for the Kim family regime, North Korean cyberattacks are meant to acquire sensitive information on weapons systems and critical infrastructure. The collection of this intelligence is vital for the heavily sanctioned regime that is cut off from global supply chains. During the Covid-19 pandemic, North Korean hackers have even targeted pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, for information related to COVID vaccines. Under Kim Jong Un, the regime’s propaganda has emphasized a return to economic self-reliance and self-sufficiency. North Korea’s cyber operations can be seen as part of this broader internal effort to promote autarky.

It is clear now that North Korean hackers view the Global South as vulnerable cyber terrain. It is imperative that governments and banks in the developing world bolster their cyber defenses and indicate to their employees the importance of up-to-date cybersecurity measures in preventing cyber intrusions. Cybersecurity training is imperative in order to deter North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated and aggressive cyber attacks.

In addition, governments in the Global South need to reevaluate their visa agreements with the North Koreans. Pyongyang’s willingness to abuse visa regimes and diplomatic immunity should be cause for concern. North Korean diplomats and overseas agents are expected to send loyalty funds back to Pyongyang. This self-funding expectation makes the Kim family regime’s diplomatic presence abroad a potential source for future cyber espionage and criminal activity. North Korea is no longer a friend or an ally to the developing world. Pyongyang’s cyber agents exploit and abuse the security vulnerabilities of Latin America, Africa, and southern Asia. The days of North Korea’s Third World solidarity are long gone.

Benjamin R. Young is an assistant professor of homeland security and emergency preparedness in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of the book Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World, and his writing has appeared in a range of media outlets and peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Follow him on Twitter @DubstepInDPRK.

Russians Ditch Instagram Following Ban, Study Shows



Russians have ditched the popular U.S. social-media platform Instagram after the country's communications regulator banned it for "extremism," opening the door to persecution, a study shows.

Russian-language posts on the picture-sharing platform dropped 30 percent between February 24 -- the day Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine -- and March 24, Moscow-based Brand Analytics reported.

The number of active users also declined by 31 percent during the period, Brand Analytics reported.

Usage of Facebook and Twitter, which were also banned earlier in the month, declined as well but at a lower rate, while Russian social-media platforms including Vkontakte and Telegram saw an increase.

SEE ALSO:
Interview: Will The Russian Internet Resemble China's 'Great Firewall'?

Instagram had been the most popular of the three U.S. platforms, explaining its sharper decline.

Roskomnadzor on March 11 announced it would ban Instagram effective March 14. A week later, a Moscow court reiterated the ban on the grounds the platform was "extremist."

The ruling outlaws Russian individuals or entitles from transacting on the platform, including paying for advertisement or buying goods and services.

Some Russians initially slowed down posting on Instagram following the start of the war due to shock, while others felt doing so was inappropriate or "tone deaf," social-media-content marketers have said.

SEE ALSO:
Russian Instagrammers Face Uncertain Future As Government Tightens Control Over Social Media

The decline in activity on the platform accelerated after March 11, with some influencers saying their views fell by as much as 50 percent.

Many Russians entrepreneurs -- including photographers, artists, shop owners, content marketers, and influencers to name a few -- heavily depend on Instagram to generate income and the ban has been a blow to their livelihood.

Russian Artist Doused In Fake Blood In Anti-War Protests

A Russian artist doused herself in fake blood in a solo protest in St. Petersburg on March 27, before the police came and took her away. Yevgenia Isayeva stood on the steps of the municipal assembly, repeating the phrase "my heart bleeds." She also put a canvas at her feet with an appeal to passersby not to support "bloodshed" in Ukraine.

George Takei got reparations. He says they 'strengthen the integrity of America'

NEDA ULABY

NPR

George Takei testifies before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in California in 1981.

Kaz Takeuchi/Visual Communications Photographic Archive

On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. It sent about 70,000 U.S. citizens into internment camps for years, including a very young George Takei.

"I was 5 years old at the time," recalls the actor. "It was a terrorizing morning I will never be able to forget. Literally at gunpoint, we were ordered out of our home."

Best known for playing Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek, Takei is a longtime activist whose causes have included LGBTQ rights and reparations for Japanese American survivors of internment camps. In 1942, his family was sent to Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas, then later to Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California. The Takeis were among thousands of Americans who lost their homes, farms, stores, cars, churches, temples and countless belongings because of xenophobia and racism.

"Some people had their life savings taken from them just because we looked like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor," Takei says.


An "I AM AN AMERICAN" sign is displayed at a Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The store was closed and the Matsuda family, who owned it, was relocated and incarcerated under the US government's policy of internment of Japanese Americans.

Dorothea N/Getty Images

Collectively, Japanese Americans forced into internment camps lost more than $6 billion adjusted for inflation, according to an estimate from the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. This is a story George Takei has told over and over: in a memoir, on Broadway, and to members of Congress in 1981. Takei testified at a hearing as part of an effort to push for redress.
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"I urge restitution for the incarceration of Japanese Americans because that restitution would, at the same time, be a bold move to strengthen the integrity of America," Takei told a federal commission.

Working with other activists, he succeeded. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, signed legislation to give $20,000 and a formal apology to Japanese Americans who had survived internment.


Actor George Takei, who received reparations, is a passionate supporter of redress for descendants of enslaved people in the U.S. "For us, it was four horrific years. For African-Americans, it's four torturous centuries."Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

George Takei dedicated the money he received from the federal government to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Now, he's a passionate supporter of redress for descendants of enslaved people in the U.S.

"For us, it was four horrific years," Takei says. "For African-Americans, it's four torturous centuries."

Such solidarity warms the heart of Andre Perry, a renowned scholar of reparations and a fellow at the Brookings Institute. "George is exerting a level of patriotism that we don't see today," he says. "You can be of a different persuasion but share a common cause, a common purpose. I may not be related to you, but civically, I'm your brother. I'm your sister. I'm your friend."

"If he were around, I'd give him a big hug," he adds.

Perry notes that the historic experiences of Black Americans and Japanese Americans are obviously very different, but ultimately, he says, it's about getting to a similar place.

"Even with slavery, it's not impossible to find out who deserves reparations," he points out. "And it's clearly not impossible with redlining and criminal justice atrocities. That was not that long ago. We can identify who is injured and who deserves how much. It's really about willingness."

Last year, composer Kenji Bunch set George Takei's testimony before Congress to music. His piece, called Lost Freedom: A Memory, premiered at the Moab Music Festival. Takei himself provided narration. "I believe that American today is strong enough and confident enough to recognize a grievous failure," he reads in his inimitable baritone. "I believe that it is honest enough to acknowledge that damage was done. And I would like to think it is honorable enough to provide proper restitution to the injury that was done."

Does George Takei still believe that in 2022? He says he does.

He says he believes America — and Americans — are still strong and honorable enough for the best of this country's ideals to prevail.

‘A striking work of nature’: the search for a rare flower in the Philippines jungle

Chris Thorogood had to venture deep into the Luzon rainforest to set eyes on the extraordinary Rafflesia banaoana

‘the world’s most whopping weird plant’

The Rafflesia banaoana flower, in the Luzon rainforest. 

Photograph: Dr Chris Thorogood

Josh Halliday

Sun 27 Mar 2022 

It was after travelling 6,600 miles and battling through the tropical assault course of the Luzon rainforest that Chris Thorogood set his eyes upon the rare and extraordinary flower that ignited his childhood imagination 30 years ago.

Thorogood, 38, last month became the first westerner to see the Rafflesia banaoana – an otherworldly-looking red spotted species that spans half a metre across – in an experience that reduced him to tears.

“It’s hard to put into words the feeling,” he said on Sunday. “It’s a combination of the exertion of the trek, which is quite intense, but also a feeling of sharing a moment with something ephemeral, rare, and a striking work of nature that you can’t see anywhere else. It’s a bit of a tear-jerker to sit with something like that.”

The Rafflesia banaoana is the rarest and most elusive species of the genus named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore. The flowers are found only in the deep rainforests of Luzon island in the Philippines.

Thorogood, the deputy director of the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum, describes it as “the world’s most whopping weird plant”.

The botanist is quick to point out that although he is the first westerner to set eyes on the Rafflesia, the experience would not have been possible without the work of Pastor Malabrigo Jr and Adriane Tobias, of the University of the Philippines, the only two other botanists to have seen the flower.

Chris Thorogood with ‘the world’s most whopping weird plant’. 

Photograph: Dr Chris Thorogood

The trio gained permission to enter the farthest reaches of the rainforest by the indigenous Banao community, who own the land and escorted them to the flower by hacking a trail through the dense and hostile vegetation.
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By the time they reached the Rafflesia, Thorogood’s arms were covered in blood from leeches and he nursed a plant sting that “felt like someone poured boiling water” on his skin.

The two-week expedition was the culmination of years of planning, but its genesis goes back to Thorogood’s childhood bedroom in Chelmsford, Essex. From the age of eight, he would marvel at photographs of alien species of rare flowers in the remotest corners of the planet.

“There were these extraordinary photographs of these flowers in the jungle somewhere that seems so remote and inaccessible and alien to me, as a child, having never really travelled very far,” he said.

“It’s almost like they were a magnet from the other side of the globe luring me to go and see them. I remember quite clearly as a child being entranced by these photographs in books of these otherworldly botanical enigmas. I think I subconsciously made my plans then that I was going to make it my life’s work to go and see them.”

Rafflesias can grow to 1.5 metres across and weigh 10kg, making them the largest flowers on earth. There are 13 species of Rafflesia in the Philippines and they remain something of a mystery in the scientific world.

Thorogood, the author of a book titled Weird Plants, said it was vital to understand rare species so they can be better protected.

“Two in three of the world’s plant species are threatened with extinction, which is alarming, and we’re losing plant species possibly more quickly than we can describe and discover them,” he said. “We can’t conserve or protect something if we don’t know it exists.”

As for his next expedition, Thorogood is remaining tight-lipped: “With 400,000 or so different plants, there’s a bewildering diversity of plants out there. So it’s very difficult to narrow it down to one or two. But there will be plenty of plants lying in wait for me, I’m sure.”

Scholz’s Social Democrats win big in Saarland election — exit poll

Party of German chancellor set for majority in small western German state, ousting center-right Christian Democrats from power.

Anke Rehlinger, top candidate of the Social Democratic Party SPD in the Saarland state elections | Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP via Getty Images

BY HANS VON DER BURCHARD
March 27, 2022 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats look set for a major victory in the small western German state of Saarland on Sunday, exit polls show, putting the party on top in the first of four regional elections taking place this year.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is predicted to get 43.2 percent of the votes, according to the first projections by public broadcaster ZDF. That puts Scholz’s party way ahead of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) of current state premier Tobias Hans, trailing on just 28 percent.

It means the SPD’s lead candidate, Anke Rehlinger, is set to oust Hans, who had previously governed with the SPD as a junior partner.

If the exit poll numbers are confirmed by final results, the Social Democrats would be on track to achieve a majority in the Saarland state parliament and they could govern without the need for a coalition partner.

Of the other parties in the running, only two more are currently set to make it past the 5 percent hurdle needed for entry to the state parliament. They are the Greens — on 5.5 percent, per the ZDF projection — and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on 5.4 percent. It’s still uncertain whether the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), which got 4.9 percent, according to the projections, will make it into parliament.

Although Saarland is Germany’s second-smallest federal state in terms of population, with just below 1 million inhabitants, the vote is likely to bolster the power of Scholz, who was elected chancellor at the end of last year following a surprise victory in the September federal elections. Those elections saw the SPD oust the CDU of former chancellor Angela Merkel, who did not run for re-election, after 16 years in office.

The SPD’s Secretary General Kevin Kühnert spoke of a “landslide victory” in the wake of the vote, arguing it would also have an effect on nationwide politics. “This gives an insane tailwind,” he told ZDF.

Germany faces three even more important state elections this year: in Schleswig-Holstein on May 8; in North Rhine-Westphalia, the biggest state in terms of population, on May 15; and in Lower Saxony on October 9.