Do Humans Have Nutritional Wisdom?

A new study with a novel approach has shed fresh light on this field of research. It suggests that our food choices are even more sophisticated than was thought previously, and this choice is influenced by nutrients and not only calories, as thought earlier.

Sandipan Talukdar
26 Apr 2022


Previously, it was thought that humans evolved to have food preferences which were dependent on calories needed to fulfil the energy requirement of the body. In other words, humans evolved to prefer calorie intense foods and the balance in the diet is maintained by the consumption of a variety of foods. The main notion was that animals possess an inbuilt quality of selecting optimal diets for good health. This age-old dogma, however, was outrightly dismissed by many.

In the 1930s, an American paediatrician Dr Clara Davis conducted a research where a group of 15 babies was put on a diet. The group members were allowed to select their choice of foods among 33 different food items available there. The researcher found that no child chose an exact combination of foods, but with their choices, each one of them achieved a good state of health and could maintain it. This famous experiment was considered evidence of human nutritional wisdom, which led to a variety of diet preferences.

Expectedly, Davis's findings were scrutinised and criticised later by many other researchers. But replication of the experiment would be considered unethical, which involves experimentation on babies. And as a result, even almost a century later, no scientists have attempted to find evidence about the nutritional wisdom of humans. Interestingly, nutritional wisdom is not limited to humans, but other animals, including primates, manifest this behaviour in their food choice.

In this regard, a new study with a novel approach has shed fresh light on this field of research. The research published in the journal Appetite recently suggests that our food choices are even more sophisticated than was thought previously, and this choice is influenced by nutrients and not only calories, as thought earlier. The nutritional wisdom of humans leads to selecting foods as per the requirement of the micronutrients, including minerals, and vitamins.

Jeff Brunstrom of Bristol University's Nutrition and Behavior Unit, School of Psychological Science and the lead author of the study commented on the findings—“The results of our studies are hugely significant and rather surprising. For the first time in almost a century, we've shown humans are more sophisticated in their food choices and appear to select based on specific micronutrients rather than simply eating everything and getting what they need by default.”

Brunstrom's team devised a novel technique for exploring the topic. They opted for a typical behavioural study methodology and showed participants the pictures of pairs of food items and asked for their preferences. The team then analysed their choices. In this approach, the participants were not liable to eat anything in reality, so there arose no health issues

The research consisted of 128 adults in total who participated in two experiments. The first experiment showed that people prefer to have certain food combinations more than others. For example, the researchers found that apples and bananas were preferred more than apples and blackberries. The remarkable aspect was that the preferences appear to be predicted by the amounts of micronutrients in a pair.

The researchers cross-checked these findings and carried out the second experiment. They studied the UK's National Diet and Nutrition Survey, where real-world meal combinations are reported. These data also revealed that people prefer diets that provide exposure to micronutrients.

Mark Schatzker, the co-author of the study and a journalist and author and the writer-in-residence at the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center, Yale University, commenting on the research and its findings, said—“The research throws up important questions, especially in the modern food environment. For example, does our cultural fixation with fad diets, which limit or forbid the consumption of certain types of foods, disrupt or disturb this dietary intelligence in ways we do not understand?"

"Studies have shown animals use flavour to guide the vitamins and minerals they require. If flavour serves a similar role for humans, we may be imbuing junk foods such as potato chips and fizzy drinks with a false 'sheen' of nutrition by adding flavourings. In other words, the food industry may be turning our nutritional wisdom against us, making us eat food we would normally avoid and thus contributing to the obesity epidemic,"—Mark added further.

Air Pollutants Impact Immune Cells in Causing Cancer

Experts believe that findings from a new study may lead to new approaches for treating the initial lung changes that eventually progress to cancer.

Sandipan Talukdar
23 Apr 2022

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

Air pollutants have many forms. Apart from gaseous chemical components like carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, etc., some tiny powdery particles also contribute to air pollution. These inhalable fine particulate matters (FPM) that circulate in the air have already been recognised as carcinogens. These particulate matters are now considered a substantial threat to global health. Although their role in the genesis of cancer is widely acknowledged, the mechanism through which they develop the disease remains largely enigmatic.

In this context, it is worth mentioning that the highly complex cancer disease also involves cells from our immune system (our body's defence mechanism). Some immune cells play a crucial role in preventing cancer progression by destroying the cells where cancer has been initiated. Can the tiny particulate matter in polluted air play a role in subverting the protective functions of the immune cells?

Researchers have been intrigued by this aspect, and encouragingly, the latest research published in eLife has shed new light on it. Experts believe that the new findings may lead to new approaches for treating the initial lung changes that eventually progress to cancer.

Zhenzhen Wang of Nanjing University, China and the study's lead author, said, "Despite its potential to cause mutations, recent research suggests that FPM does not directly promote and may even inhibit the growth of lung cancer cells. This suggests that FPM might lead to cancer through indirect means that support tumour growth. For example, some studies suggest FPM can prevent immune cells from moving to where they are needed."

To explore the indirect way through which the FPMs can exert their impact on cancer progression, the researchers first collected samples of FPM from seven locations in China. The team then attempted to analyse their effects on a particular kind of immune cell called the cytotoxic T cells (CTL). The CTLs play a crucial role in defending the growth of tumours. The researchers first administered lung cancer cells in mice not exposed to FPM. In these mice, induced with lung cancer cells but unexposed to FPM, the important immune cells were recruited to the lung to destroy the tumour cells. On the other hand, the researchers conducted the same experiment with mice administered with lung cancer cells and exposed to FPMs. They found that in the second set of mice, the movement of CTLs was delayed, which concomitantly allowed the tumour cells to grow and establish in the lung tissue.

The team then proceeded to decipher how and why the CTLs did not enter the lungs of those exposed to FPM. The team studied both the CTLs and the lung tissue structure. Their experiments revealed that the CTLs exposed to FPM still retained the ability to migrate, but there appeared a change in the lung tissue. The FPM exposed lung tissues got dramatically compressed up to the level where the space between the lung tissue and the space where CTLs move became congested. In addition, the researchers found that there was a high level of collagen. Collagen is a protein that provides biomechanical support for both tissues and cells. The lung tissues of the mice exposed to FPMs, due to the constriction had a significant effect on the movement of the CTLs. The CTLs struggled to move into the FPM exposed lung tissues where tumour formation had started.

They further analysed the lung tissues and found that they showed structural changes because of an increase in a particular type of collagen known as collagen IV. However, the team could not find any clue how FPM triggered this. Nevertheless, they found another hint. The enzymes, known as peroxidasin, make the collagen drive a specific type of situation, leading to the collagen formation becoming absurd.

"The most surprising find was the mechanism by which this process occurred. The peroxidasin enzyme stuck to the FPM in the lung, which increased its activity. This means that wherever FPM lands in the lung, increased peroxidasin activity leads to structural changes in the lung tissue that can keep immune cells out and away from growing tumour cells," explains Wang.

Lei Dong, a professor at Nanjing University and a co-author of the study, said, "Our study reveals a completely new mechanism by which inhaled fine particles promote lung tumour development. We provide direct evidence that proteins that stick to fine particulate matter can cause a significant and adverse effect, giving rise to pathogenic activity. Our discovery that peroxidasin is the mediator of this effect in lung tissue identifies it as a specific and unexpected target for preventing lung disease caused by air pollution."

Macron Wins ‘Without Triumph’ as Far-Right Entrenches Itself in France

Marine Le Pen added three million votes to her 2017 tally, indicating how close the Far-Right was to power since World War II.

Aninda Dey
27 Apr 2022

Image Courtesy: AP

Bien accueillir, extrème droite. La France est divisée (Welcome Extreme Right, France is Divided)— yes, France has welcomed the Far-Right and is polarised. Emmanuel Macron might have scripted history by becoming the first French president to be re-elected consecutively but Sunday’s momentous victory also showed the ominous entrenchment of the Far-Right in France’s national politics.

Riven by the vitriol unleashed by Rassemblement National (National Rally, known as National Front till 2018) founder Marion Anne Perrine ‘Marine’ Le Pen and Eric Zemmour-led Reconquête! against Muslims, immigrants, the European Union (EU) and globalisation, the multiculturalism of France has been dealt a devastating blow.

The election results portend the ominous surge of the Far-Right. Macron defeated Le Pen in the second round by winning 58.55% of the votes against 41.45% for her but by a reduced margin compared with their 66.1% to 33.9% fight in 2017.

France might have voted to keep the Far-Right out of the Élysée this election but Le Pen added almost three million votes to her 2017 tally, indicating how the Far-Right is menacingly catching up since World War II. In all, 26 districts and two overseas territories voted for her, and Macron’s winning margin in every district, except New Caledonia, reduced.

Declaring victory in front of the Eiffel Tower, Macron too acknowledged that “our country is beset by doubts and divisions” and the French voted not for his ideas “but to block those of the Far-Right”. French dailies were quick to pick on the brutal reality: Le Monde dubbed his win “An evening of victory without a triumph” and Le Figaro asked: “Who can possibly believe that it is rooted in popular support?”

Macron’s rival was unrelenting. Le Penn was at her usual combative best declaring the loss a “brilliant victory”. Her words showed how breaching the 40% votes mark—a gigantic improvement over her late father and National Front founder Jean Louis Marie Le Pen’s rout by Jacques Chirac by 82% to 18% in 2002—has catalysed the party and cemented its nationalist and xenophobic agenda.

“The ideas we represent have reached new heights... this result itself represents a brilliant victory. In this defeat, I can’t help but feel a form of hope,” Le Pen told her supporters at an election night party. “This evening, we launch the great battle for the legislative elections (scheduled for June).”

In fact, the first round highlighted how the radical right had fortified itself with Macron winning only 27.8% of the vote compared with Le Pen’s 23.2%. The results also ended the decades-old traditional dominance of the Centre-Left Parti Socialiste and the Centre-Right Les Republicains with the combined vote share of the Far-Right crossing 30%.

Le Pen also reaped the harvest of Far-Left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon finishing third in the first round—though with a wafer-thin margin of 1.2%—and the historically low voter turnout. Mélenchon might have finished a close third but he wiped out other contenders, including the Les Républicains, by improving his tally from 19.6% in 2017 to 22% in 2022.

Le Pen’s Far-Right ideology helped her beat Mélenchon due to their overlapping agendas of opposing the rising cost of living, Macron’s economic liberalism, increasing globalisation, the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation or NATO. Le Pen’s Far-Right stance added ballast to her claim of being the best candidate to lead France after she combined it with the Far-Left’s agenda.

Usually, supporters of candidates edged out in the first round don’t vote in the second round—they either don’t agree with the agendas of the final two candidates or are frustrated and unsure. This explains the historically low voter turnout in the final round this year.

The abstention rate reached a record 28%, or 13,600,000 voters, 2.5% more than in 2017 and the highest since 1969. In fact, according to an Ifop poll conducted after the first round, 44% of Mélenchon supporters were expected not to vote in the second round. A recent Ipsos poll showed half of Mélenchon’s supporters would neither vote for Macron nor Le Pen. Even in the first round, around 26% of voters didn’t vote, 4% lower than in 2017.

Alarmingly, around 6.35% of votes cast in the final round were ‘blank’ and another 2.25% ‘null’ (when a candidate’s name is either crossed out or a ballot is invalidated). According to Ipsos and data analysis firm Sopra Steria, 41% of voters in the 18-24 age group did not vote. According to Le Monde, if blank votes were recognised, Macron would have been elected with 54.7%, not 58.5%, of the votes cast.

Since her father’s first presidential contest in 1997, an increasing number of French have rooted for Le Pen’s party. Changing her campaign tactics and concentrating more on the decreasing purchasing power of the ordinary man, jobs and “social inequalities” and batting for the working class, Le Pen’s had solidified her support base before the election—without abandoning her hard-core agenda against immigrants, Islam and the EU and her pro-Russia stance.

Education has become a determinant in the rising support for the Far-Right. Unlike the 1950s and the 60s, lower-educated voters, especially in rural France, have been gradually aligning with Right-wing parties, which have been feeding on their fears of immigrants taking up jobs and finally subsuming them and the government ignoring their plight.

The National Rally’s vote share from the least-educated city to the most-educated ones increased from 4 percentage points in 1995 to 24 in 2022 with municipalities having a lower share of university graduates becoming increasingly likely to vote for Pen, according to political surveys. Similarly, the share of primary-educated voters supporting Le Pen jumped from 10% to 34% between 1986 and 2017.

Even in poorer cities, which have lower levels of education, the support for Le Pen has increased. Compared with 1995, the support for National Rally increased by 22 percentage points in 2022 moving from the smallest to the biggest city.

In rural areas, Le Pen garnered more support from the working class, especially Whites—who felt cheated by Macron as factories shut down or shifted overseas—by capitalising on their anger and a sense of abandonment. For example, in Beaucamps-le-Vieux, which was once an industrial hub north of Paris, she won double the number of votes bagged by Macron and four times as many as Far-Left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round. Shockingly, some voters had shifted from the far-left to the far-right.

What makes Le Pen’s inroads more dangerous is the lethal concoction of her polarising agenda and the apparent support for the working class. While Zemmour continued his diabolical tirade against Muslims and immigration during the campaign, Le Pen promised to slash sales tax on oil, gas and electricity, scrap income tax for several young French workers and raise the minimum wage by 10%.

Le Pen also promised to give jobs, housing and welfare preferences to French, almost halt immigration and ban the Muslim headscarf in public and Halal meat—not diverting from her divisive goal but shrewdly couching it under such promises as Zemmour literally played into her hands by advancing her chasmic agenda.

The meteoric rise of Far-Right polemicist and former journalist Zemmour, who has compared Islam with Nazism, in the last few years to become a presidential contender shows how several voters are gravitating to radicalism.

Convicted repeatedly of hate speech and incendiary remarks, Zemmour went to trial in November 2021 for inciting racial hatred when he said in November 2021 that unaccompanied foreign minors were “thieves, murderers and rapists” and should be sent back.

Despite garnering only 7% of the votes and ranking fourth in the first round, Zemmour was initially considered a threat to even Le Pen in the opinion polls and the primary candidate that could challenge Macron. Even Le Pen’s niece Marion Marechal believes in Zemmour’s potential and joined him in March with the Reconquête! founder describing it as the “great union of the Right”.

What’s more dangerous is Zemmour’s support in the richest cities unlike Le Pen’s. There is a high probability that he was backed by the elite section that used to vote for the more rabid Jean Louis Marie and has been disenchanted by Le Pen’s changed and moderate rhetoric. Zemmour has also benefited from his extensive media experience and limelight. He appeared on the cover of the conservative magazine Valeurs Actuelles five times in the first nine months of 2021 and was mentioned 4,167 times—139 times a day—in French media outlets, according to media observatory Acrimed.

The general notion that the French Far-Right was only a peripheral threat has been blown to pieces gradually with the National Rally having seats at local and regional levels, in the Senate and European Parliament and a growing support in the military.

In fact, aware of the rising anti-Islam sentiments in the country, even Macron’s party has taken a hard stance on Muslims. During a debate with Le Pen in February 2021, interior minister Gerald Darmanin, who had prohibited the construction of a mosque in Strasbourg, blasted her for “not being tough enough” on Islam.

The rise of the Far-Right has also been aided by a divided France. A March 2017 survey by Bertelsmann Foundation a few days before the presidential election showed that French voters were among the most polarised in the EU.

One in five described themselves as “extreme” and only about a third as “centrist”. The survey, based on the responses of 11,021 people across the EU, showed that 20% of French voters saw themselves as either extreme Right or extreme left compared with just 7% in the wider EU—out of those, 14% of French described themselves as extreme Right with only 36% considering themselves as centrist compared with 62% in the wider EU.

PUT THEM ON PONTOONS

New Zealand unveils plan to tackle climate crisis by adapting cities to survive rising seas


Proposals to prepare the country for more floods, massive storms and wildfires include building away from high-risk areas and protecting cultural sites

A New Zealand air force helicopter crewman looks down at flood-affected areas south of Christchurch, New Zealand. 

Photograph: Chris Skelton/AP


Tess McClure in Auckland
THE GUARDIAN

Wed 27 Apr 2022 

The New Zealand government has released new plans to try to prepare the country for the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis: sea level rise, floods, massive storms and wildfires.

The proposals, released for consultation on Wednesday, outline sweeping reforms to institutions, councils and laws to try to stop people building in hazardous areas, preserve cultural treasures, improve disaster responses, protect the financial system from the shocks of future disasters, and reform key industries including tourism, fisheries and farming.

“The climate is already changing and there will be some effects we cannot avoid,” climate change minister James Shaw said. “Just in the last few months we have seen massive floods, such as those in Tairawhiti; storms, such as those experienced recently in Westport; fires in the Waituna wetlands in Southland; and droughts right across the country.”


2021 was New Zealand’s hottest year on record

“These events demonstrate the case for urgent action on climate change – action to protect lives, incomes, homes, businesses and infrastructure.”

Over the last year, some New Zealand communities have been repeatedly hit by devastating flooding. In March, Tairawhiti was hit with its second destructive flood in less than a year. Flood waters damaged homes, schools and infrastructure, with residents saying it would “take about a year to clean up”. Last year, flooding in Westport left 450 homes unliveable or damaged.

At the forefront of the plan is the challenge of how to adapt New Zealand’s cities and housing stock – much of which is coastal – to the risk of rising seas and flood waters.

According to the government, the scale of the problem is enormous: 675,000 people – one in seven New Zealanders – live in areas prone to flooding, amounting to nearly $100bn worth of residential buildings. Another 72,065 live in areas projected to be subject to extreme sea level rise.

“The number of people exposed to these hazards will increase as the climate changes,” the report says. It found that between 2007 and 2017, the contribution of climate change to floods and droughts alone cost New Zealanders an estimated $840m in insured damages and economic losses. Those figures present a huge, looming problem for homeowners, who face losing their ability to insure their homes as the risk level rises, and for local and central government, which have been met with furious revolt by some communities when trying to shift them away from hazards.

Damage caused by wildfires in Lake Ohau, on the South Island of New Zealand. Photograph: Gary Kircher/AFP/Getty Images

The government’s proposed changes, include updating the building code to make sure new builds account for climate hazards, ensuring the country’s public housing stock is built away from hazards, creating incentives for development away from high-risk areas and making it compulsory to disclose information about climate risks to prospective buyers and builders. Some of those measures are likely to cause unease for homeowners, who are worried that climate risk assessments could tank the value of their homes.

Shaw was clear that the government would not be picking up the bill for all such changes. “Central government does not bear all the costs,” he said. “The consultation asks how best to share risks and costs between property and asset owners, insurers, banks and local government as well.”


Charge more for flights to deter tourists and help the planet, says Air New Zealand adviser

The draft National Adaptation Plan outlines the actions the government will take over the next six years to respond to climate-related risks. It also includes proposals for protecting important cultural sites, such as coastal marae [māori meeting houses], and to adapt government-funded infrastructure to take climatic heating into account. It also covers proposed reforms of the tourism sector to ensure international visitors “contribute to resilient, adaptable infrastructure and the natural environment they use” – possibly through an arrival fee or other taxes on tourists.

Prof Bronwyn Hayward, of University of Canterbury, said via the Science Media Centre that the plan “shows the enormity of the task facing the government after years of inaction”.

“We now need to implement climate planning guidelines across a raft of new legislation, and we need to think carefully about how people are exposed to repeated flooding effects – and I’d add fires – in the future. If homeowners, businesses, schools, ports or airports have to move away from a high-risk area for example, who pays?”

Prof Anita Wreford, of Lincoln University, said that the plan was “well overdue” and “an improvement from New Zealand’s current approach to hazards, which has been very reactive and focused on recovery after an event”.

But she said the proposals were still very high level, and needed to provide “much more guidance for decision-makers”.

“I suspect groups waiting in anticipation for this … may have hoped for more concrete direction in implementing adaptation to achieve these goals.”

The plan will be open for public consultation before the proposals are finalised by the government.

“Aotearoa will soon have a plan to bring down our emissions and help prevent the worst effects of climate change,” Shaw said, “But we must also support communities already being hit by more extreme and more frequent weather events.”

Unions in 2022

Trade unions in Pakistan are at a crossroads.

Zeenat Hisam

Published May 1, 2022 

The writer is a researcher in the development sector.


“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” — Albert Einstein

THE Covid-19 pandemic, which destroyed the livelihoods of billions of workers, exposed the widening inequity in the world between the rich and poor as never before. An important lesson to emerge in the aftermath is the need for a “just transition into the future” and the need to go “towards a more protected and empowered workforce” as was said in a recent ILO report. This lesson may not have been grasped yet by the employers and workers in our country, but it has created a ripple in the world of work at large. Let us hope our employers, labour unions and state officials realise these needs, if not today, then tomorrow.

Contrary to the notion that in times of crisis trade union membership falls, many countries witnessed a resurgence of trade union activism during the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, trade union membership was going down in the world, excepting a few African and Latin American countries. The pandemic resulted in a realisation of precariousness of jobs and a reckoning for social security systems. The crisis heightened the sense of loneliness and kindled a desire to connect with others. Workers came out in droves to raise their voice against inequity and for transformative social policies. It was not just workers, but employers’ associations and industrial relations officials in many countries too that came together to formulate proposals to step up protective mechanisms for health and safety, and to remedy the loss of income.

It is not surprising that union resurgence is highest in the US, the most powerful capitalist economy, with the highest level of income inequality among the G7 countries. The US was once famous for its strong middle class; but today, the number of middle-income households has declined from 60 per cent to 51pc and union density has shrunk from 20pc to 10.3pc in the last four decades.

Trade unions in Pakistan are at a crossroads.

During the pandemic years, although union density remained at the previous level, the percentage of young union members rose substantially. Unionisation gathered momentum in food chains like McDonald, Starbucks and Chipotle, where young workers dominate. The April 2022 victory of workers to form a union for the first time in Amazon.com, an internet-based retail enterprise, has accelerated unionisation in America and kindled hope among workers globally. Amazon is notorious for its treatment of workers and had successfully squashed workers’ efforts to unionise.

In the UK, trade unionism and worker activism have also seen a resurgence over the past two years. A recent example is CHEP, a pallet warehouse in Trafford, Manchester, where 65 workers have been striking since the last five months against low pay. Cases of labour activism in other countries include Argentina, where platform workers are organising a new union; Indonesia, where motorcycle and taxi drivers trade unions have formed an Online Transportation Action Committee; and Uzbekistan, where the trade union federation is organising seasonal workers such as cotton pickers.

Closer home, we witnessed the historical Indian farmers’ one-year-long movement (2020-2021) against three laws which the government finally repealed. In March 2022, an estimated 50 million people in India joined the two-day national strike called by 10 trade unions demanding social security, higher minimum wage and a halt to privatisation.

In Pakistan, a small victory for labour was recorded in March 2022. More than 2,000 workers of a carpet company in Lahore went on a three-day strike in September 2021 when the company failed to raise the minimum wage to Rs20,000 as stipulated by the Punjab government. By the end of the year, the workers’ continued struggle resulted in an increment of 16pc for piece rate and 14pc for fixed salary workers.

What came out of the pandemic’s impact on the world of work was a simple truth: trade unions matter.

Trade unions are founded on the concept of social dialogue, a dialogue between two (unequal) partners — workers and employers. It is only through dialogue that the conflicts can be resolved and grievances addressed. According to a recent survey by the ILO, the consensus reached through social dialogue between employers and workers led to a 26pc increase in trade union membership.

Though faced with serious challenges, trade unions in Pakistan are at a crossroads. On the one hand are the constraints of inadequate labour legislation, poor socioeconomic indicators of the workforce, social divisions and politico-economic instability that the unions have to reckon with. On the other hand, the increasing induction of youth in the labour force, a bulky informal sector and the rising number of platform workers present an opportunity to organise and service a greater number of workers through both traditional and innovative methods and bring them into the fold of trade union structures.

zeenathisam2004@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2022

PAKISTAN
THE ROOTS OF THE RAGE AGAINST AMERICA

Zahid Hussain
Published May 1, 2022 


LOANG READ

The crowd of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) supporters at the Islamabad rally on March 27 was already charged — their party leader seemed to be on his way out, and various other politicians and stakeholders had clearly banded together to ensure his ouster.

The crowd wanted to know what their leader had in store for them. Imran Khan had promised them a revelation, and he surely delivered.

The then prime minister pulled out a paper that would further electrify this crowd. He brandished before them a ‘letter’, evidence of an ‘American-sponsored conspiracy’ to oust his government. What came next was all too familiar to anyone who has lived in, or observed, Pakistan over the decades. Chants of ‘down with America’, and a doubling down of the foreign conspiracy mantra.

Given deep-rooted anti-American sentiments in Pakistani society, the public response to the conspiracy narrative has not been surprising. The narrative of a ‘foreign conspiracy’ may have failed to prevent the unravelling of the former ruling coalition, but a populist, ultra-nationalist rhetoric has galvanised Khan’s supporters.


Weeks after former Prime Minister Imran Khan first claimed an American conspiracy to oust his government, he and his party continue to stick doggedly to the narrative — even in the absence of evidence. What do politicians hope to gain from inflaming anti-American sentiments? And why does this narrative continue to resonate in Pakistan?

Interestingly, as is now clear, the allegation has been built around a cable from the outgoing Pakistan ambassador to Washington, based on his conversations with senior-level US State Department officials. It is simply a diplomat’s analysis of the existing views in Washington regarding the Khan-led government.

A file photo shows an anti-US and anti-Israel protest in Karachi | White Star

Imran Khan’s move to weaponise this and whip up nationalist sentiments has dangerously polarised the country. It has not been uncommon in Pakistan’s power game to use the ‘anti-state’ label against political rivals. Almost every political leader in the country has, at one time or the other, been branded a traitor.

But Khan has taken this to a new level. He has declared himself the sole defender of national interests, while painting all his opponents as ‘American agents’.

It is not only the opposition. Journalists and members of the civil society have also been constantly targeted in this ongoing campaign orchestrated by the party’s top leadership. Even social interactions with foreign diplomats have been labelled as anti-state. (Khan’s own recent meeting with a US Congresswoman has been an exception, of course).

Khan is back on the proverbial container, marking the beginning of what he describes as a “freedom struggle” against a “foreign conspiracy of regime change.” He vows to bring down the so-called “imported government”.

The long history of external involvement in Pakistani politics — particularly the decades-long Pak-US relations rollercoaster ride, which has certainly had its ups and downs — has made it easier to whip up anti-American sentiments.

This is what makes the ‘imported government’ narrative such a powerful tool.

The National Security Committee has recently reiterated that there was no foreign conspiracy to topple the Khan-led government. But it hardly matters. PTI supporters and the party leadership have stuck to the narrative.

The distrust towards America strengthens this narrative. Indeed, this distrust has built up over decades. Here we journey back to see why.

DISENCHANTED ALLIES

A 2006 file photo shows US President Bush with President Pervez Musharraf

 at the Oval Office | AFP



The history of US-Pakistan relations is full of paradoxes. After gaining independence, Pakistan decided to join the US-led Western alliance against the Communist bloc. And in 1954, Pakistan and the US signed a Mutual Defence Assistance Agreement. In the same year, Pakistan also joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (Seato), a US-sponsored security alliance.

Because of its geostrategic location, Pakistan became an important cog in America’s regional security strategy to contain communism.

Although there was no assurance for Pakistan of the alliance coming to its help against any aggression from its arch-enemy India, the military aid it received from the US helped strengthen its defence. The US financial aid also provided economic stability to the country. In 1955, Pakistan also joined the Baghdad Pact, later known as the Central Treaty Organisation (Cento).

A new cooperation signed between the two states in 1959 was perhaps the most significant up until that time. Under the treaty, the US was required to assist Pakistan if the country was attacked by any regional power. Pakistan’s decision to join the US-led defence pacts was justified on the grounds that the country faced threats from India on its eastern borders and Afghanistan on the west. But it was mainly meant to improve the country’s defence capabilities against India.

The US supplied a wide range of military hardware, including Patton tanks, artillery, helicopters, bombers, high-level long-distance radars, frigates and submarines. Pakistan also received substantial US aid for infrastructure development. On the other hand, the defence pacts allowed the US to set up a secret intelligence base under the cover of a communication centre at Badaber, near Peshawar.

This centre also served as the base for high-level U-2 ‘spy in the sky’ surveillance aircraft for illegal flights over the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Pakistan, however, paid a heavy price for this alliance. It antagonised the Soviet Union. And it also fuelled anti-American sentiments at home.

Then the Sino-Indian War in 1962 drastically changed regional geopolitics. As the US sided with India, it heralded a new period in Pakistan’s relations with China. As Pak-China relations strengthened, there was a steep increase in US military and economic aid to India.

Finally, the 1965 war between India and Pakistan lent a serious blow to Islamabad’s relations with Washington. Instead of helping Pakistan, the US stopped all military assistance to the country. The US action was regarded as a stab in the back.

CHANGING TIDES

Then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif greets visiting US Secretary 

of State John Kerry in 2013 | White Star


The 1971 war brought further Pakistani resentment and US restrictions on Pakistan. A popular feeling of the time was that while the nearby American Sixth Fleet could have intervened in the East Pakistan fighting against India, it did not. This compelled Pakistan to review its foreign and security policy, which was heavily tilted towards the US. There was a realisation among Pakistani policymakers that they could not rely on the US for their nation’s security.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who took over power in the truncated Pakistan after the 1971 war, pulled Pakistan out of the defence pacts. He diversified Pakistan’s foreign policy by improving ties with China and the USSR.

In February 1975, following the Washington visit of then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the US administration lifted its embargo on the supply of arms to Pakistan.

But the Pakistan-US relationship started to deteriorate once again in 1976, when the Ford administration exerted unprecedented pressure on Pakistan to abandon the negotiations concerning the purchase of a nuclear reprocessing plant from France. In 1979, President Carter cancelled American aid to Pakistan, having successfully pressed France to break this nuclear deal.

Pakistan’s nuclear programme, started by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1975, remained a major point of conflict between Islamabad and Washington. But two key regional developments in 1979 — the Islamic revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — compelled the US to review its policy towards Pakistan. The two erstwhile allies got back together to stop the Soviet advance.

The international response to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was sharp and swift. US President Jimmy Carter, reassessing the strategic situation in the region in his State of the Union Address in January 1980, identified Pakistan as a “frontline State in the global struggle against communism.” Setting aside the sanctions imposed on Islamabad for its nuclear programme, the US offered massive military and economic aid to Pakistan.

The Soviet invasion ended the decade-long estrangement between the two erstwhile allies and brought them together to help the Afghan ‘Mujahideen’ fight the occupation forces. Pakistan once again became the linchpin in the West’s battle against communism. The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) collaborated in conducting the biggest covert war ever in global history.

The Afghan War placed enormous resources at the ISI’s disposal. Weapons provided by the CIA were channelled to Afghan fighters through the ISI.

By the mid-1980s, every dollar given by the CIA was matched by another from Saudi Arabia. The funds, running into several million dollars a year, were transferred by the CIA to the ISI’s special accounts in Pakistan. The backing of the CIA and the funnelling of the massive amounts of US military aid helped Pakistan expand its defence capabilities. The ISI-CIA covert operations eventually forced the Soviet forces to leave Afghanistan in 1989.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1990 also gave birth to a new world order. The US walked out of the region after the Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989. And Pakistan was no more as important for the US, which had emerged as the world’s sole superpower.

Relations between the two countries went into deep freeze after the US clamped multiple sanctions against Pakistan once again for developing nuclear weapons. More sanctions came after Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, in response to India’s tests. Pakistan was further punished after the 1999 military takeover of Gen Musharraf.

From being a close ally in the 1980s, Pakistan had become a pariah nation. The sanctions had hurt military to military relations the most, which had been the pivot of the relationship between the two countries.

This marked yet another period of separation between the two Cold War era partners, causing a deep sense of betrayal in Pakistan. During the 1990s, Pakistan suffered banishment from American favours.

From Pakistan’s perspective, the legacy of the country’s relations with the US during the Cold War has been generally negative. The left in Pakistan had always viewed the state’s tilt towards imperial America with hostility, since they saw US support as bolstering dictatorships such as that of Gen Ayub and Gen Zia. But now a similar hostility also began to be expressed within the establishment and by its allied conservatives. A sense of bitterness and distrust towards the US began to pervade Pakistani society. And clearly, this bitterness continues to persist.

AFTER SEPTEMBER 11

The 9/11 attacks again changed the world. Within hours of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, the Bush administration declared a war against Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. Rarely had the world witnessed such unanimous international support. Nations stood behind President Bush in what he had described as the ‘War on Terror’. A UN Security Council resolution bound all nations to support the US action.

The events of 9/11 also, once again, ended Pakistan’s international isolation.

Gen Musharraf had realised, within hours of the September 11 attacks, that the US would accept nothing short of complete compliance from his government on the US war plans. Denying support did not seem like a viable option. Musharraf was apprehensive that the Pakistani military could be completely destroyed in a confrontation with the world’s greatest superpower. His other fear was that the country’s weak economy would not be able to withstand international sanctions. His greatest concern, however, was about US forces using Indian bases in case of Pakistan’s refusal to cooperate.

And just like that, Pakistan and the US were back together after a decade of estrangement.

Pakistan’s policy volte-face after 9/11 was more of an expediency. Ironies abounded in the new relationship. After having spent the past seven years helping the Taliban, Pakistan was required to help the US dislodge the hardline Islamist government that was seen by Pakistan’s military establishment as critical to the country’s security.

Pakistan’s vast cache of intelligence information on Afghanistan was seen as crucial by the US for taking military action against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But the turnaround was not easy.

It was the most difficult moment for Gen Musharraf when, in an address to the nation on September 19, 2001, he tried to explain why he had decided to side with the US in the so-called ‘War on Terror’. He justified his decision to support the US saying it was necessary to save the country’s strategic assets, safeguard the cause of Kashmir and prevent Pakistan from being declared a terrorist state.

Gen Musharraf was, perhaps, more concerned about the reaction within the military than the general public. He had a tough time in convincing his generals of, once again, getting into a partnership with the US. At least four commanders, including the Vice Chief of Army Staff General Muzaffar Usmani, were opposed to abandoning the Taliban. Musharraf had to walk a very difficult tightrope.

A strong argument in support of the change of policy direction was that the US could obliterate Pakistan if it did not cooperate. India had already offered logistic support and use of all their military facilities to the US. And India had even cleared its air base at Farkhor, near Dushanbe in Tajikistan close to the Afghan border, for American forces to operate from. The fear of an American-Indian alliance, that could lead to Pakistan being declared a terrorist state, finally swung the decision.

Nevertheless, antipathy towards the US ran deep in Pakistan. It was the beginning of an extremely uneasy relationship. There was deep distrust of the US.

This distrust was at the very foundation of this relationship. This new phase of the US-Pakistan partnership was seen as a good opportunity to join the international community, but there was also a vote of caution.

It was another war in Afghanistan that became the pivot around which the new US-Pakistan partnership was built. The circumstances of the two unisons were, however, very different. While there was a strong convergence of interest that had bound the two nations in a strategic relationship in the 1980s, the alliance that emerged after 9/11 was more out of expediency and compulsion. Although it was projected as a strategic partnership, in reality it was a transactional relationship from the outset.

While Pakistan’s support was critical to the US’s war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the new partnership brought an end to Pakistan’s international isolation. The removal of multiple sanctions revived the flow of US financial and military aid to Pakistan. It almost felt like the country had returned to 1979, when the Soviet invasion had ended the estrangement between the two erstwhile allies.

AN INCONVENIENT PARTNERSHIP

A 2019 file photo shows US President Donald Trump with then

 Prime Minister Imran Khan in New York | AFP

The post 9/11 US-Pakistan partnership remained full of ironies. While the cooperation between Washington and Islamabad against Al Qaeda remained extremely effective, that understanding was missing when it came to taking action against the Taliban leadership residing in Pakistan’s border regions.

Meanwhile, the sanctuaries in Pakistan and support from their allies among Pakistani Islamist groups helped the Taliban reorganise. Within a few years, the Taliban had turned into a formidable resistance force challenging the occupation forces.

Increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan was one of the reasons for the Pakistani security agencies not acting against the Taliban safe havens on its soil. The Pakistani military establishment viewed the expanding Indian presence in its ‘backyard’ as a serious threat to the country’s own security. The expanding Indian presence in Afghanistan had compounded Islamabad’s fears of being encircled.

Some of Pakistan’s security concerns were legitimate, but the fears of encirclement verged on paranoia. It also resulted in Pakistan’s continuing patronage of some Afghan Taliban factions, such as the Haqqani Network, which it considered a vital tool for countering Indian influence, even at the risk of Islamabad’s relationship with Washington.

Worsening US-Pak relations had also seriously affected America’s war efforts in Afghanistan. A series of incidents in 2011 had brought an already uneasy alliance to a breaking point.

The Raymond Davis episode in January 2011 exposed the CIA’s secret network operating in Pakistan. The scandal revealed the widening trust gap between the two allies. The crisis was deescalated by both sides taking a step back, but the damage had already been done.

The unilateral raid by the US Special Forces on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, further strained the relations between Washington and Islamabad. The US action on Pakistani soil was seen as a national humiliation. But the fact that the world’s most wanted terrorist was living in a garrison town close to the Pakistan Military Academy had put Pakistan in a very embarrassing position.

Pakistan faced many questions. Was this just an intelligence failure? Or was there anything more to the presence of the Al Qaeda leader in a high security zone?

But the most serious blow to the alliance came on November 29, 2011, when US Air Force jets bombed a Pakistani border post at Salala in the Bajaur tribal region, killing several soldiers. It was an inflection point in the rocky relationship. The Obama administration’s reluctance to even offer an apology to the killing of soldiers of an allied country made things worse.

For seven months, Pakistan closed down the vital ground supply line to Nato forces in Afghanistan. The stalemate was finally broken after Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said the magic word: sorry.

But by now the cracks in the alliance had become irreparable. The Salala incident led to a resetting of the relationship. Now there was not even a pretence of a strategic alignment.

There was nothing much left in the partnership, wrecked by allegations of double games and deceit. Almost all US military aid to Pakistan had been stopped and only a trickle of civilian assistance continued.

Yet, a complete rupture was not a choice for either side. Pakistan was still critical for the US to extricate itself from its longest war. While the illusion of any strategic convergence has been absent for long, the mutual interest in ending the war in Afghanistan kept relations alive.

END OF THE WAR

With the end of America’s war in Afghanistan, the post post-9/11 US-Pakistan relations have come full circle.

There is no indication yet of any major shift in Washington’s policy towards Pakistan. The cold response from the Biden administration and some unnecessary rhetoric from Pakistani leaders has made it difficult to move forward.

Indeed, Khan’s attempts to get Biden on the phone last year yielded no results. And surely, the former prime minister’s insistence on igniting anti-US sentiments has not gone unnoticed internationally.

Nonetheless, for the past several years, Washington has seen Pakistan purely from the Afghan prism. There is no indication that the Biden administration will be deviating from that policy approach.

Meanwhile, changing regional geopolitics have created a new alignment of forces. The growing strategic alliance between the US and India on one side, and the China-Pakistan axis on the other, reflect these emerging geopolitics. Pakistan’s growing strategic relations with China and the escalating tension between Washington and Beijing too cast a shadow over future US-Pak relations.

The changing regional geopolitics and consequent realignment of forces have brought China and Pakistan closer. The cooling of Pakistan’s relations with the US, and the rising tensions with arch-rival India, have given further impetus to Pakistan to lean towards China.

BREAKING A PATTERN

Historically, the engagements between Washington and Islamabad have been narrowly framed, dictated either by short-term security interests or the imperative to deal with a common challenge. Resetting the relationship would need this pattern to be broken.

Pakistan says it seeks to have a broad-based relationship with the US. Now that the US military mission is over, there is a need to build a relationship beyond counterterrorism and Afghanistan.

For Pakistan, the US remains an important trading partner. The US is Pakistan’s largest export market and a major source of foreign remittances. Pakistan certainly needs US support to achieve economic stability. The country also has a growing technology sector that could be developed with US support.

But resetting the relationship will not be easy.

Public opinion in Pakistan about the US is not favourable. This is backed by a decades-long history — a history not only of the volatile relations between the two countries, but how these sour relations have been leveraged within Pakistan for political mileage.

Khan may be the latest politician to decry a foreign conspiracy, but he is far from the first. And in all likelihood, he will not be the last to invoke this tried-and-tested narrative.

The writer is an author and journalist.
He tweets @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 1st, 2022

Conspiracy theories and polarisation

Riaz Riazuddin

Published April 28, 2022

The writer is a former deputy governor of the State Bank of Pakistan.


WHY do conspiracy theories thrive and divide political opinion so much? The answer to this question is, perplexingly, very simple and rooted in the science of making decisions under uncertainty. A simplified scientific dictum is that the ‘absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence’. A theory, however, cannot be accepted just because there was no evidence to reject it. So why do people usually start believing in conspiracy theories?

Before answering the question, it is necessary to understand decision-making processes that are conducted under uncertainty, and how different entities (businesses, governments, parliamentary bodies, judicial bodies, etc) make their decisions. For instance, judicial bodies decide whether a particular act is in accordance with the law and reach a verdict on the basis of evidence, without going into the consequences of their decision. Non-judicial bodies react to a particular situation or event. They have to take day-to-day decisions continuously and under conditions of uncertainty. In making decisions, governments seldom have incontrovertible evidence regarding the superiority of one course of action over another.

If a government entity is confronted with a situation where there are only a few clues or signs that point to a conspiracy against national sovereignty or security, it must make a decision to either accept it or reject it. In conditions of uncertainty, or lacking full evidence, it will rely on the credibility of the available, although incomplete, evidence to form an opinion. Unlike judicial bodies, it will also think of the consequences of its decision. The expected consequences will ultimately drive its decision if the evidence itself is scant. One of the many reasons for the separation of judicial and non-judicial powers is that the latter has to concern itself with the consequences of decision-making as opposed to the former. That difference notwithstanding, non-judicial bodies must also ensure that their decision-making procedure is not in violation of the law.

What are the consequences in the eyes of the decision-makers? Even if there is little to suggest a conspiracy, the expected costs of rejecting a theory that is not substantiated by concrete proof could be immense. From this perspective, there seems to be nothing wrong with clinging to an idea branded a conspiracy theory. Uncertainty propels people to rely on clues and signs like Sherlock Holmes did.

Blind belief in a conspiracy theory can be dangerous, but a nuanced approach is useful.

If the views of a large number of people match those of the decision-makers in terms of the expected consequences of a ‘conspiracy’, then it would be naïve for the intelligentsia to term their belief as irrational. When intellectuals start lamenting about the naivety of people, they need to put themselves in the shoes of those they are criticising. This, of course, is not easy, and the inability or unwillingness to do so leads to political polarisation, which is at alarming levels nowadays.

According to Ikram Junaidi’s report in this newspaper some days ago, even seven-year-old children are divided according to their, or their parents’, political beliefs, and sit separately from each other in their classrooms. Nothing can be more despicable than this. All of us have a collective responsibility to reverse this trend in order to strengthen national solidarity.

According to political scientist Joseph Uscinski, “If conspiracy theorists are crazy or stupid, why are they so numerous and stubborn? Perhaps the reason is that conspiracy theories are less about specific details and more about broader conceptions of power: who has it and what are they doing with it? In this sense, conspiracy theories are alarm bells, trip wires, early warning systems. They alert the vulnerable to coming threats, violations of ground rules, and the abuse of power. The alarms sound even when the threat is not realised. The question is, would democracy be better off with more warning bells, or with less?”

While I do not have the answers to Uscinski’s questions, we need to review two important recent developments in the context of the debate on conspiracy theories. One alarming event has already been forgotten by most of us: it was an actual breach of our national borders and security when a runaway flying object from across our eastern border hit our soil last month. Luckily, it was not mounted with a warhead. According to the Scientific American, it was a BrahMos missile. The Indian authorities brushed aside this dangerous event as routine malfunction. Whether it was accidental or deliberate will not be known to us.

One theory was circulated by a defence analyst that it was deliberate move by India that wanted to test our defence system. Whether or not this theory is correct, it can still serve a useful purpose and lead to a review of the strength of our defence systems. The point here is that even if there is scant evidence to show that it was a non-accidental strike, there is no harm in accepting the possibility of the latter and boosting our defence systems if needed. We need not take the theory in the direction of a counter-response though. Blind belief in a conspiracy theory can be dangerous, but a nuanced approach is useful.

The second event occurred on April 10, when a no-confidence motion in the National Assembly was held, in line with our constitutional provisions and the Supreme Court’s directions. A week earlier, the National Assembly had been dissolved on the basis of the expected consequences of an alleged international conspiracy seeking regime change through a no-confidence resolution filed earlier. The judiciary decided on the basis of, not of the expected consequences, but adherence to the law. Our people may be naïve, but they are not oblivious to the current political turmoil. Some are celebrating purana Pakistan, others are dreading it. Despite all this upheaval, two welcome developments augur well for our future. Our judicial bodies seem to have buried the infamous doctrine of necessity and our military authorities have committed themselves to not interfering in politics. Aren’t these signs of an emerging naya Pakistan?


rriazuddin@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2022

Twitter takeover

Waqqas Ahmad Mir

Published April 30, 2022 

The writer is a lawyer in Pakistan.

TWITTER is, in Elon Musk’s words, the ‘de facto public town square’. Should we worry it is now owned by the world’s richest man? This takeover has important implications for how we think about free speech, our discourse and independence of publication platforms from powerful owners.

There is consensus that newspaper owners should not be able to control or stifle editorial independence. Twitter’s model presents a twist: there is no buffer of an editorial board and everyone has their say. With more than 80 million followers, Musk can exert significant influence. A lot of people seem to think Musk owning Twitter means he will likely not be censored. He can promote viewpoints or ridicule at will. This is a credibility issue and if Twitter’s policies are applied in shadowy ways, it will become harder to believe in Musk’s proclaimed ‘pathological’ obsession with the truth.

While Musk should continue to receive scrutiny, his ownership of Twitter need not lead to assumptions about misuse of position. Him picking on certain Twitter employees (including the woman who heads Twitter’s legal department) does little to assuage concerns about bad behaviour, yet hurting a platform’s credibility after buying it would not make business or strategic sense.

He does want to influence Twitter’s content regulation. He has no issues being called a ‘free speech absolutist’; no one has ever been able to give a coherent description of what the term means. And his approach to content issues (if in doubt, let the tweet stay) doesn’t take us very far.

Musk needs to be bold to protect the vulnerable.

Marginalised groups and citizens face severe abuse, harassment and threats on Twitter. Relaxing content control could risk alienating many. Musk recently said by ‘free speech’ he means speech allowed by the law. The law in that reference is the First Amendment, which determines restrictions on state action interfering with speech. A private corporation is free to consider different standards. For a marketplace of ideas to exist, he needs to ensure people want to come to the market. Content regulation is something where Musk may have to continue to defer to experts and inclusive processes.

Encouragingly, Musk has promised he will take on spam bots. This will aid free speech and his aim to authenticate all humans on Twitter will add to the platform’s credibility.

Musk reckons Twitter’s algorithms should be open source, so people can learn and suggest improvements. Different users may be able to rely on different algorithms. This will sound revolutionary to some — and will spark worry in others who may cite issues involving the lay user’s limitations about choices of algorithms, issues around intellectual property protection, implications for the revenue stream, etc. The issue nonetheless is compelling. Consider another position Musk has articulated: if Twitter promotes or demotes your tweet, you should be able to tell.

As opposed to bans, Musk reckons ‘time outs’ backed by transparency might work better. Everyone is allowed back in the room if they behave themselves — yes, even Donald Trump.

If Twitter aims to build more trust between governments and the people, Musk is saying that enhancing the public’s trust through transparency in Twitter itself is necessary.

While advocating free speech, Musk also said Twitter should obey laws of the countries it operates in. Is this a contradiction? Twitter’s value exists in being able to broadcast and amplify speech that challenges — sometimes violates — restrictive free speech laws in many countries where it operates. Following the laws of countries could mean voices of dissidents and human rights defenders are marginalised. This will be music to the ears of almost all governments. No doubt compliance is prudent business but when celebrating speech, Musk needs to be bold to protect the vulnerable.

None of this should obscure the fact that banks do not agree to lend billions for free speech. Twitter will undergo important changes. Musk might take it from an ad-based revenue model to a paid subscription leading to a ‘blue tick’. Then there is the ‘edit’ button he has mentioned — who doesn’t want that? He has spoken of end-to-end encryption on Twitter and enhancing it as a communication medium.

This takeover is a reminder of the power of corporations — indeed, even of one rich man — but there is something more at stake. Ultimately, if we care about free speech, we the people have to prioritise it in our politics and discourse. A corporation or those controlling it cannot always be held accountable like a government. But our collective and diverse voices can and do change how governments, and ultimately even corporations, act. Musk’s burning ambition has started off another conversation — we are all better off for it — but he need not be the one controlling the discourse. That is how politics works and this is an algorithm we figured out long before Twitter.


Twitter @wamwordoflaw
Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2022

THIRD WORLD USA

Autopsy backlog plagues Mississippi, with worst delays in US

“I knew it was bad,” he told the AP. “I didn’t know it was this bad.

By LEAH WILLINGHAM

1 of 18

 Denise Spears holds a portrait of her late step-daughter Marsha Harbour, in her Meridian, Miss., office, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. Although Marsha's husband, Truitt Pace, admitted killing his wife, he was free on bond while court proceedings were partially held up because the Mississippi Medical Examiner's Office autopsy report was delayed for a year, and the trial got held up further because of the pandemic and other factors. Harbour was a victim of domestic violence. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — After Truitt Pace admitted to law enforcement that he beat and shot his wife, her family expected a swift conviction. The 34-year-old mother of three’s tiny frame was so bruised and traumatized that the funeral home suggested a closed casket. But as months went by, state prosecutors told Marsha Harbour’s family they were waiting on a key piece of evidence: the medical examiner’s autopsy report.

National standards recommend most autopsy reports be completed within 60 days. Prosecutors in Harbour’s case waited for a year.

Across Mississippi, many families wait even longer. An Associated Press analysis based on state data and documents, as well as dozens of interviews with officials and residents, found that Mississippi’s system has long operated in violation of national standards for death investigations, accruing a severe backlog of autopsies and reports.

Autopsies that should take days take weeks. Autopsy reports that should take months take a year or longer, as in Harbour’s case. Too few pathologists are doing too many autopsies. Some cases are transferred hundreds of miles to neighboring states for reports without their family’s knowledge.

The Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office was waiting for about 1,300 reports from as far back as 2011, records sent to AP in early April show. Around 800 of those involve homicides — meaning criminal cases are incomplete.

District attorneys have resigned themselves to long waits: “We’re at a point now where we’re happy if it’s only a year,” said Luke Williamson, who’s been a prosecutor for 14 years in northern Mississippi.

The National Association of Medical Examiners, the office that accredits U.S. death investigations offices, dictates that 90% of autopsy reports should be returned within 60 to 90 days.

Mississippi’s office has never been accredited. The majority of U.S. medical examiner agencies, which are chronically underfunded and face a shortage of forensic pathologists, are unaccredited. States such as Georgia have raised the alarm about autopsy report delays of up to six months. But nowhere is the issue more severe than in Mississippi.

Mississippi’s delays are an “emergency-level” concern, said Dr. James Gill, the association’s 2021 president and a leader in the College of American Pathologists. “That’s a disaster situation where you need to do something drastic.”

Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell is a former Mississippi Court of Appeals judge who stepped into his role — overseeing the state medical examiner’s office, the highway patrol and other agencies — in May 2020. He called the backlog “unacceptable” and said he’s made eliminating it the top priority of his administration. He said working as a judge, he saw how trials were delayed while prosecutors awaited reports.

“I knew it was bad,” he told the AP. “I didn’t know it was this bad.

“Families deserve better. I’m sorry that they’ve had to experience delays in laying to rest loved ones, to getting closure in these cases, but we’re going to fix the problem.”

Tindell said he’s instituted a policy that all reports must be back within 90 days. Using contractor pathologists in other states, the office began working to whittle down the backlog. Tindell said around 500 cases have been completed since summer.

But Tindell — who has hired two new pathologists, started university recruiting efforts and streamlined staff duties — said it’s been a challenge trying to fix old problems while facing new ones: the pandemic and an unprecedented increase in violent crime.

Mississippi saw 597 homicides in 2021 and 578 in 2020 — record numbers for the state of 3 million. That’s compared with 434 in 2019 and 382 in 2018.

Arkansas, with a similar population, had 347 homicides in 2021 and 386 in 2020.

From 2020 to April 2022, Arkansas has employed five to seven pathologists performing autopsies. Mississippi has employed two to three, as people left jobs.

Tindell said both the forensics laboratory and medical examiner’s office haven’t been a state priority for funding or staffing in over a decade. The forensic laboratory’s budget has essentially remained unchanged since 2008.

But during Mississippi’s 2022 legislative session, lawmakers approved $4 million that must be used to address backlogged cases.

Like most states, Mississippi does not perform an autopsy — a post-mortem surgical procedure by a forensic pathologist to determine cause of death — for all people. Autopsies are reserved for homicides, suicides, deaths of children and those in correctional facilities, and other unexpected cases. Forensic pathologists are responsible for performing autopsies at Mississippi’s two medical examiner offices — one in the Jackson metro area, one on the coast.

After the autopsy, pathologists complete a report explaining their findings and results, including an official cause of death. Reports can help determine whether a death was an accident, a suicide or a homicide. They shed light on child deaths, or show whether a person accused of murder acted in self-defense.

In 2017, 93-year-old World War II veteran Durley Bratton died after two employees of a Mississippi veterans home dropped him and put him back in bed without telling anyone. Police began an investigation after a tip from the hospital where Bratton was taken.

Arrests didn’t come until 15 months later, after the autopsy report was returned, concluding the veteran died of blunt-force trauma.

In the Harbour case, the autopsy report was the critical piece of evidence after Pace claimed self-defense for shooting his wife.

At the December 2021 trial where Pace was sentenced to life in prison, a medical examiner said Harbour suffered from blunt force trauma wounds consistent with being beaten before she was shot.

Harbour, who helped deliver babies as a surgical technician at a local hospital, had endured months of abuse. She once went to a domestic violence shelter. But she worried for her children’s safety and never went to the police.

Because Pace had no criminal record, he was released on bond days after his arrest.

Harbour’s stepmother, Denise Spears, said she and her family felt dejected as they went to the mailbox month after month to find notices that the trial was being pushed back. Once the report came in, the trial was delayed further because of the pandemic. Pace didn’t stand trial until more than three years after killing his wife.

One of the worst parts was explaining to her grandchildren why the man who killed their mother was able to live free for years, Spears said. More than once, they came to her, afraid they’d run into him.

“They couldn’t understand it,” Spears said. “It was hard for me to explain to them, because I couldn’t understand it either.”

Ben Creekmore, a district attorney in northern Mississippi, said conversations with families about delays are always difficult. He worries about the impact the postponements have on trust in the criminal justice system.

“Those things dramatically impact our relationship with people who have suffered loss,” he said. “It undermines your credibility on everything else.”

Beyond effects on criminal cases, the lack of an autopsy report and official death certificate can prevent families from collecting benefits.

Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said he’s been contacted by families who can’t get insurance payouts without a certificate.

“One that contacted us was a mom and two children whose husband died unexpectedly,” he said during a fall budget hearing. “They couldn’t get their life insurance benefits, and that’s the only money they had.”

More than money, families can also find closure. Rebecca Brown lost her brother unexpectedly in 2018. It wasn’t until last June — three years after his death — that his report was completed.

Her brother, in his early 40s, had a history of drug addiction but was in recovery. He lived with his mother, who worried he’d started using again and had died of an overdose. When they finally learned the cause of death was a heart attack, Brown said she felt no relief — just anger that it had taken so long. When she showed her mother a photo of the death certificate, she cried.

“In my mind, what they did is they called for my mother to grieve harder for three years than she could have,” Brown said.

Tindell said the problems won’t be fixed until the state is able to hire more pathologists. The National Medical Examiners Association standards recommend that pathologists perform no more than 250 autopsies a year. If pathologists perform more than 325 a year, the office risks losing accreditation.

In 2021, two Mississippi pathologists performed 461 and 421 autopsies. Arkansas’s six pathologists completed an average of approximately 282 each.

During most of the 1990s and 2000s, Mississippi had no state medical examiner, instead contracting with a private physician, Dr. Steven Hayne, who performed 80% of autopsies in the state. He completed as many as 1,700 autopsies a year.

Hayne’s work was repeatedly attacked in court as sloppy and scientifically unsound. Verdicts in multiple murder cases in which Hayne testified were overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court.

In 2011, the state hired Pathologist Dr. Mark LeVaughn as its first chief medical examiner since 1995. During his tenure, LeVaughn spoke publicly repeatedly about a lack of resources, calling his office a critically understaffed public health risk.

Tindell said a substantial number of autopsy reports that are pending are LeVaughn’s. Because of the department’s staff turnover rate, LeVaughn was the only forensic pathologist handling all the autopsies in the state at times and fell behind on paperwork.

“He was put in the impossible situation of trying to do all the autopsies for the entire state, and just unfortunately, he was not able to get it all done,” Tindell said.

LeVaughn resigned as chief medical examiner in January 2021. He has since been rehired as a pathologist finishing outstanding reports and testifying on them in trials.

Tindell said the office expects an additional pathologist to start late next month, and that he’s recruiting to hire another as soon as possible.

In the meantime, to meet demand, the Mississippi Medical Examiner’s Office has been forced to send bodies to neighboring states such as Arkansas. In 2021, 284 autopsies were completed by contractor pathologists.

The National Medical Examiner’s Association recommends autopsies be completed within 72 hours. The turnaround time in Mississippi has exceeded three weeks in some cases. The problem is especially severe in north Mississippi, where there is no medical examiner’s office.

One family in Tupelo waited 24 days. After he was shot and killed in May of last year, Lorenzin Brown’s body was first brought almost 200 miles (322 kilometers) away for an autopsy at the Mississippi State Crime Lab in Pearl, the closest state facility that could do it.

Brown lay for two weeks in the morgue before pathologists determined they couldn’t get to his case fast enough. They decided he should be transferred to Little Rock — more than 260 miles (418 kilometers) away — for an autopsy by a contractor.

His family wasn’t notified that he was being transferred or told when he’d be returned. Without updates, they struggled to make funeral arrangements. His father wondered if he’d be able to see him before he was buried.

“To get a call saying that he’s been murdered, it was already a tragic enough situation,” said Brown’s uncle, Tim Butler, a pastor who organized the funeral. “The grieving process is always bad. Under these circumstances, it’s made everything that much worse.”

His mother, Geisha, said she couldn’t work while she waited for his body to be returned and to hold his service. It wasn’t until a month and a day after he died that they were able to bury her son.

Clayton Cobler — coroner in Lauderdale County, where Harbour was killed — said families try calling the medical examiner’s office for answers about the status of autopsies and reports, and they often don’t hear back. Each of Mississippi’s 82 counties has an elected coroner who’s responsible for collecting and transporting bodies to the medical examiner’s office. They end up acting as liaisons with families and answering desperate calls month after month, Cobler said.

“I’ve got a grandmother that her grandson died in 2017, and she wants to know why,” he said. “It just breaks my heart every time she calls, because I can’t tell her.”

Cobler, who has worked in death investigations for decades, said he recently made the difficult decision not to run for reelection.

“More and more coroners or long-term coroners are saying, ’I’m done. I’m not going to run again, because it’s just too frustrating, and it’s too heartbreaking,’” he said.

Rocky Kennedy, the Lafayette County coroner, said many people who work with families feel the same fatigue.

“It’s a waiting game, and I think everybody’s patience ran out a long time ago,” he said. “Words without results mean nothing.”

___

Leah Willingham is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

GREEN MINERALS AIN'T SO GREEN
Biden order to boost mining may not have quick payoff

By MATTHEW DALY

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 The Montana Mountains loom over Thacker Pass in northern Nevada on July 14, 2021. The new lithium mining project closest to development is the one proposed for Thacker Pass by Lithium Americas. That northern Nevada mine would make millions of tons of lithium available, but Native American tribes have argued that it's located on sacred lands and should be stopped. (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is turning to a Cold War-era law to boost production of lithium and other minerals used to power electric vehicles, but experts say the move by itself is unlikely to ensure the robust domestic mining Biden seeks as he promotes cleaner energy sources.

Biden’s action, part of his efforts to find alternatives to fossil fuels and combat climate change, does not waive or suspend existing environmental and labor standards, the White House said. Nor does it address the chief hurdle to increased domestic extraction of so-called critical minerals: the years-long process needed to obtain a federal permit for a new mine.

Even so, the mining industry and supporters in Congress cheered Biden’s use of the 1950 Defense Production Act to increase U.S. supplies of lithium, nickel and other minerals needed for electric-vehicles batteries and other clean-energy technology.

His March 31 executive order is a historic step by the White House to “recognize the critical importance of minerals and push to electrify the car industry,″ said Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association.

But “unless we continue to build on this action″ and approve new hardrock mines, Nolan added, “we risk feeding the minerals dominance of geopolitical rivals″ such as China and Russia.

“We have abundant mineral resources here,” he said. “What we need is policy to ensure we can produce them and build the secure, reliable supply chains we know we must have.”

Environmentalists, meanwhile, worry that Biden is activating a war-time tool to boost mineral extraction that can contaminate groundwater and harm ranching and wildlife.

“The clean energy transition cannot be built on dirty mining,” said Lauren Pagel, policy director of Earthworks, an environmental group that has pushed for stronger restrictions on hardrock mining.

Biden’s order directs the Defense Department to consider at least five metals — lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and manganese — as essential to national security and authorizes steps to bolster domestic supplies. Biden and former President Donald Trump both used the defense production law previously to speed the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On minerals, Biden wants to ensure the U.S. has enough lithium and other materials needed for EV batteries, heat pumps and large-capacity batteries for the electric grid. A majority of global lithium production comes from China, Australia, Argentina and Chile, while Russia dominates the global nickel market and the Democratic Republic of Congo is the world’s largest cobalt producer.

Technical grade lithium carbonate comes off a conveyor belt during a tour of the Silver Peak lithium mine near Tonopah, Nev., on Monday, Jan. 30, 2017. The element is critical to development of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that are seen as key to reducing climate-changing carbon emissions created by cars and other forms of transportation. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP, File)

“We need to end our long-term reliance on China and other countries for inputs that will power the future,″ Biden said, vowing to “use every tool I have to make that happen.″

Although lithium reserves are distributed widely across the globe, the U.S. is home to just one active lithium mine, in Nevada. New and potential lithium mining and extracting projects are in various stages of development in Nevada, Maine, North Carolina and California. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has labeled California the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” and two projects there could produce lithium by 2024.

Under Biden’s order, the Pentagon is authorized to spend millions of dollars to support a range of activities, including feasibility studies to determine economic viability of a proposed mine and develop mineral-waste recycling programs. Money also could help existing mines and other industrial sites produce valuable materials, the Pentagon said. For example, a copper mine could also produce nickel.

It’s unclear how much money will be available for mining, but the Defense Department is authorized to keep up to $750 million on hand for its strategic and critical material stockpile.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., called Biden’s order “a good first step toward expanding our electric vehicle battery manufacturing and infrastructure.″ But she and other lawmakers said the U.S. needs a long-term strategy to improve the domestic supply chain of critical minerals.

“Unless the president streamlines permitting, we should not expect to see any meaningful increase in American mineral production,″ said Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. At a recent committee hearing. Barrasso urged Biden to “stand up to mining opponents in his own party.”


In this Feb. 10, 2020, file photo, a plant ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, points to a tiny Tiehm's buckwheat that has sprouted at a campus greenhouse in Reno, Nev. The rare desert wildflower is at the center of a fight over a proposed lithium mine in Nevada. President Joe Biden is turning to a Cold War-era law to boost production of lithium and other minerals used to power electric vehicles, worrying environmentalists who say expanded production could harm wildlife and plant life. The White House says Biden’s actions do not relax environmental protections. (AP Photo/Scott Sonner, File)

Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, called Biden’s order misguided. “Fast-tracking mining under antiquated standards that put our public health, wilderness and sacred sites at risk of permanent damage just isn’t the answer,” he said.

Grijalva and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., introduced legislation to modernize the 1872 law that governs hardrock mining in the U.S.

(asterisk)Our current mining law was put in place before we even knew what a car was, much less an electric one,″ Grijalva said. “Modernizing this relic of a law isn’t extreme or anti-industry — it’s just common sense.”

Mining companies have extracted hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver, copper and other minerals from federal lands over the past 150 years “without paying a cent in federal royalties,” Grijalva and Heinrich said in a statement. The House bill would establish a 12.5% royalty on new mining operations and an 8% royalty on existing operations.

The bill also would set up a Hardrock Minerals Reclamation Fund to make the industry pay for cleanup of abandoned mine sites.

About 40% of watersheds in the western U.S. are contaminated by hardrock mine drainage, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Many nickel, copper, lithium and cobalt reserves are located within 35 miles or 56 kilometers of tribal lands.

Indigenous people living near a proposed lithium mine in Nevada assailed Biden’s order.

“I believe this is going to be the second coming of environmental destruction,″ said Day Hinkey, a member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone tribe and an organizer with People of Red Mountain, a group that opposes the vast Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada.

Another Nevada lithium mine is planned near a desert ridge where a rare wildflower has been proposed for listing as an endangered species. The mine’s developer, Australia-based Ioneer, said the expected habitat protections for the rare Tiehm’s buckwheat would not affect its mining activities, and company operations would not jeopardize conservation of the species.

Opponents dispute that. Hinkey said the first environmental crisis was caused by the fossil fuel industry “and I believe this next one will be lithium mining.”