Livestreamed carnage: Tech’s hard lessons from mass killings'

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, HALELUYA HADERO and MATT O'BRIEN


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A person pays his respects outside the scene of a shooting at a supermarket, in Buffalo, N.Y., Sunday, May 15, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

These days, mass shooters like the one now held in the Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket attack don’t stop with planning out their brutal attacks. They also create marketing plans while arranging to livestream their massacres on social platforms in hopes of fomenting more violence.

Sites like Twitter, Facebook and now the game-streaming platform Twitch have learned painful lessons from dealing with the violent videos that now often accompany such shootings. But experts are calling for a broader discussion around livestreams, including whether they should exist at all, since once such videos go online, they’re almost impossible to erase completely.

The self-described white supremacist gunman who police say killed 10 people, most of them Black, at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday had mounted a GoPro camera to his helmet to stream his assault live on Twitch, the video game streaming platform used by another shooter in 2019 who killed two people at a synagogue in Halle, Germany.

He had previously outlined his plan in a detailed but rambling set of online diary entries that were apparently posted publicly ahead of the attack, although it’s not clear how may people might have seen them. His goal: to inspire copycats and spread his racist beliefs. After all, he was a copycat himself.

He decided against streaming on Facebook, as yet another mass shooter did when he killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, three years ago. Unlike Twitch, Facebook requires users to sign up for an account in order to watch livestreams.

Still, not everything went according to plan. By most accounts the platforms responded more quickly to halt the spread of the Buffalo video than they did after the 2019 Christchurch shooting, said Megan Squire, a senior fellow and technology expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Another Twitch user watching the live video likely flagged it to the attention of Twitch’s content moderators, she said, which would have helped Twitch pull down the stream less than two minutes after the first gunshots per a company spokesperson. Twitch has not said how the video was flagged.

“In this case, they did pretty well,” Squire said. “The fact that the video is so hard to find right now is proof of that.”

In 2019, the Christchurch shooting was streamed live on Facebook for 17 minutes and quickly spread to other platforms. This time, the platforms generally seemed to coordinate better, particularly by sharing digital “signatures” of the video used to detect and remove copies.

But platform algorithms can have a harder time identifying a copycat video if someone has edited it. That’s created problems, such as when some internet forums users remade the Buffalo video with twisted attempts at humor. Tech companies would have needed to use “more fancy algorithms” to detect those partial matches, Squire said.

“It seems darker and more cynical,” she said of the attempts to spread the shooting video in recent days.

Twitch has more than 2.5 million viewers at any given moment; roughly 8 million content creators stream video on the platform each month, according to the company. The site uses a combination of user reports, algorithms and moderators to detect and remove any violence that occurs on the platform. The company said that it quickly removed the gunman’s stream, but hasn’t shared many details about what happened on Saturday — including whether the stream was reported or how many people watched the rampage live.

A Twitch spokesperson said the company shared the livestream with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a nonprofit group set up by tech companies to help others monitor their own platforms for rebroadcasts. But clips from the video still made their way to other platforms, including the site Streamable, where it was available for millions to view. A spokesperson for Hopin, the company that owns Streamable, said Monday that it’s working to remove the videos and terminate the accounts of those who uploaded them.

Looking ahead, platforms may face future moderation complications from a Texas law — reinstated by an appellate court last week — that bans big social media companies from “censoring” users’ viewpoints. The shooter “had a very specific viewpoint” and the law is unclear enough to create a risk for platforms that moderate people like him, said Jeff Kosseff, an associate professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy. “It really puts the finger on the scale of keeping up harmful content,” he said.

Alexa Koenig, executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, said there’s been a shift in how tech companies are responding to such events. In particular, Koenig said, coordination between the companies to create fingerprint repositories for extremist videos so they can’t be re-uploaded to other platforms “has been an incredibly important development.”

A Twitch spokesperson said the company will review how it responded to the gunman’s livestream.

Experts suggest that sites such as Twitch could exercise more control over who can livestream and when — for instance, by building in delays or whitelisting valid users while banning rules violators. More broadly, Koenig said, “there’s also a general societal conversation that needs to happen around the utility of livestreaming and when it’s valuable, when it’s not, and how we put safe norms around how it’s used and what happens if you use it.”

Another option, of course, would be to end livestreaming altogether. But that’s almost impossible to imagine given how much tech companies rely on livestreams to attract and keep users engaged in order to bring in money.

Free speech, Koenig said, is often the reason tech platforms give for allowing this form of technology — beyond the unspoken profit component. But that should be balanced “with rights to privacy and some of the other issues that arise in this instance,” Koenig said.

BUFFALO SUPERMARKET SHOOTING


'Like every other day:' 10 lives lost on a trip to the store


In Buffalo, Biden to confront the racism he's vowed to fight


Violent death in America stalks ordinary walks of daily life

Buffalo shooter’s previous threat raises red-flag questions

ABOLISH THE SECOND AMENDMENT

GUNS DON' KILL PEOPLE

PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE USING GUNS

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, MICHAEL TARM and JAMES ANDERSON

 In this July 20, 2012, photo, a row of different AR-15 style rifles are displayed for sale at the Firing-Line indoor range and gun shop in Aurora, Colo. A warning about possible violence last year involving the 18-year-old now being held in the Buffalo, New York, supermarket shooting is turning attention to New York's "red flag" law.

 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Less than a year before he opened fire and killed 10 people in a racist attack at a Buffalo grocery store, 18-year-old Payton Gendron was investigated for making a threatening statement at his high school.

New York has a “red flag” law designed to keep firearms away from people who could harm themselves or others, but Gendron was still able to legally buy an AR-15-style rifle.

The “general” threat at Susquehanna Valley High School last June, when he was 17, resulted in state police being called and a mental health evaluation at a hospital. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told Buffalo radio station WKSE-FM that Gendron had talked about murder and suicide when a teacher asked about his plans after school ended, and it was quickly reported but the threat wasn’t considered specific enough to do more. No request was made to remove any firearms from the suspect, New York State police said Monday.

The revelations are raising new questions about why the law wasn’t invoked and how the effectiveness of “red flag laws” passed in 19 states and the District of Columbia can differ based on how they’re implemented.

WHAT ARE RED FLAG LAWS?

Typically, red-flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, are intended to temporarily remove guns from people with potentially violent behavior, usually up to a year. In many cases, family members or law enforcement must petition the court for an order, though New York is a rare state in which educators can also start the proces

Removing weapons for that long, however, requires a hearing in which prosecutors must convince a judge that the person poses a risk. Most states also block the person from buying more guns during that period.

Red-flag laws are often adopted after tragedies. Florida did so after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that killed 17 students. Law enforcement officials had received numerous complaints about the 19-year-old gunman’s threatening statements.

“This is actually one of the very few policies we have available where it actually builds on this vanishingly small point of common ground between public health people who want to stop gun violence and gun owners and the gun industry,” said Jeffrey Swanson, a professor in psychiatry at Duke University who researches gun violence.

But, Swanson added: “The issue is it’s so easy for people to get guns anyway. ... It’s not a one-thing problem, and there’s not one solution to it either.”

WHAT DOES NEW YORK’S FLAG LAW SAY?

The 2019 law allows family members, prosecutors, police and school officials to ask courts to order the seizure of guns from someone who poses a danger to themselves or others. The subject of the court action is also prohibited from buying guns while the order is in effect.

An explanation of the law on a state government website says the law made New York the first state to give teachers and school administrators the ability “to prevent school shootings by pursuing court intervention.”

The online description, crafted before the Buffalo shooting, expresses optimism about the law’s impact, saying it would both safeguard gun rights “while ensuring that tragedies, like the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, are not repeated.”

The question is why one wasn’t used in Gendron’s case.

WHAT’S THE PROCESS OF REQUESTING AN ORDER?

Someone seeking an order files a simple, two-page application with the primary county court. It’s considered a civil case, with no criminal charge or penalties involved.

A judge decides whether to issue a temporary order on the same day the application is filed, according to a New York courts website. If it is issued, police take the guns.

A hearing, involving witnesses and evidence, is set within 10 days. If the judge decides to issue a permanent order, it would remain in effect for a year. The petitioner can ask for an extension.

HAS THERE BEEN PUSHBACK TO THE LEGISLATION?

Some opponents of the red-flag legislation in New York feared it could lead to false accusations by family members or others with a grudge against a gun owner.

Legislators in New York and elsewhere were aware of the potential legal pitfalls and drafted laws in such a way to avoid constitutional challenges, said Eric Ruben, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice who also teaches law at SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas.

Among the safeguards in New York, he said, is a relatively high standard of proof — clear and convincing evidence — required to secure a final, yearlong order, he said. The law also includes penalties for false applications.

DO RED-FLAG LAWS SAVE LIVES?

The law, Ruben said, “poses significant obstacles” for someone under a red-flag order wanting to buy firearms because they are entered in the background check system as long as the order is in effect. “It wouldn’t stop someone from illegal purchases, however.”

Experts in red-flag laws contend that the laws have undoubtedly saved lives, be it in cases involving planned mass shootings, suicides or potentially deadly domestic violence cases.

“Certainly, red-flag laws are more than anything else aimed at trying to stop mass shootings,” said Dave Kopel, research director at the Colorado-based libertarian think tank Independence Institute, which supports gun rights. “But they can be and should be used for more than just that. A handful of killings or suicides is horrific enough.”

Swanson worked on a study that estimated Connecticut prevented one suicide for every 10 to 20 people subjected to gun seizures. A 2019 California study found it was used in mass-shooting threats 21 times. Maryland authorities granted more than 300 petitions in the three months after its law went into effect, including at least four threats of school violence.

That research shows the laws have worked, said Allison Anderman, senior counsel for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, though absolute proof can be tough.

“It’s very hard to prove a law is effective based on things not happening,” she said. “We still have a problem where we have more guns than people in this country, and this patchwork system of laws and our overall weak laws.”

Conspiracy theorists flock to bird flu, spreading falsehoods

By DAVID KLEPPER

A chicken looks in the barn at Honey Brook Farm in Schuylkill Haven, Pa., on April 18, 2022. An outbreak of avian flu is forcing farmers to cull their flocks and leading to concerns about even higher food prices. While it doesn't pose much of a threat to humans, the outbreak is prompting a new wave of some of the same conspiracy theories that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

(Lindsey Shuey/Republican-Herald via AP, File)

Brad Moline, a fourth-generation Iowa turkey farmer, saw this happen before. In 2015, a virulent avian flu outbreak nearly wiped out his flock.

Barns once filled with chattering birds were suddenly silent. Employees were anguished by having to kill sickened animals. The family business, started in 1924, was at serious risk.

His business recovered, but now the virus is back, again imperiling the nation’s poultry farms. And this time, there’s another pernicious force at work: a potent wave of misinformation that claims the bird flu isn’t real.

“You just want to beat your head against the wall,” Moline said of the Facebook groups in which people insist the flu is fake or, maybe, a bioweapon. “I understand the frustration with how COVID was handled. I understand the lack of trust in the media today. I get it. But this is real.”

While it poses little risk to humans, the global outbreak has led farmers to cull millions of birds and threatens to add to already rising food prices.

It’s also spawning fantastical claims similar to the ones that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring how conspiracy theories often emerge at times of uncertainty, and how the internet and a deepening distrust of science and institutions fuel their spread.

The claims can be found on obscure online message boards and major platforms like Twitter. Some versions claim the flu is fake, a hoax being used to justify reducing the supply of birds in an effort to drive up food prices, either to wreck the global economy or force people into vegetarianism.

“There is no ‘bird flu’ outbreak,” wrote one man on Reddit. “It’s just Covid for chickens.”

Other posters insist the flu is real, but that it was genetically engineered as a weapon, possibly intended to touch off a new round of COVID-style lockdowns. A version of the story popular in India posits that 5G cell towers are somehow to blame for the virus.

As evidence, many of those claiming that the flu is fake note that animal health authorities monitoring the outbreak are using some of the same technology used to test for COVID-19.

“They’re testing the animals for bird flu with PCR tests. That should give you a clue as to what’s going on,” wrote one Twitter user, in a post that’s been liked and retweeted thousands of times.

In truth, PCR tests have been used routinely in medicine, biology and even law enforcement for decades; their creator won a Nobel Prize in 1993.

The reality of the outbreak is far more mundane, if no less devastating to birds and people who depend on them for their livelihood.

Farmers in states like Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota have already culled millions of fowl to prevent the outbreak from spreading

The first known human case of the H5N1 outbreak in the U.S. was confirmed last month in Colorado in a prison inmate who had been assisting with culling and disposing of poultry at a local farm.

Most human cases involve direct contact with infected birds, meaning the risk to a broad population is low, but experts around the country are monitoring the virus closely just to be sure, according to Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, an agency that tracks animal disease in part to protect the state’s agricultural industries.

“I can guarantee you, this is the real deal,” Poulsen told The Associated Press. “We certainly aren’t making this up.”

Poultry farms drive the local economy in some parts of Wisconsin, Poulsen said, adding that a devastating outbreak of avian flu could create real hardships for farmers as well as consumers.

While the details may vary, the conspiracy theories about avian flu all speak to a distrust of authority and institutions, and a suspicion that millions of doctors, scientists, veterinarians, journalists and elected officials around the world can no longer be trusted.

“Americans clearly understand that the federal government and major media have lied to them repeatedly, and are completely corrupted by the pharmaceutical companies,” said Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopath whose discredited claims about vaccines, masks and the coronavirus made him a prominent source of COVID-19 misinformation.

Mercola’s interest in the bird flu dates back years A 2009 book for sale on his website, which Mercola uses to sell unproven natural health remedies, is titled “The Great Bird Flu Hoax.”

Polls show trust in many American institutions — including the news media — has fallen in recent years. Trust in science and scientific experts is also down, and along partisan lines.

Moline, the Iowa turkey farmer, said he sympathizes with people who question what they read about viruses, given the last two years and bitter debates about masks, vaccines and lockdowns. But he said anyone who doubts the existence or seriousness of the avian flu doesn’t understand the threat.

The 2015 outbreak was later determined to be the most expensive animal health disaster in U.S. history. Moline’s farm had to cull tens of thousands of turkeys after the flu got into one of his barns. Workers at the farm now abide by a hygiene policy meant to limit the spread of viruses, including using different pairs of boots and clothes for different barns.

Conspiracy theories are bound to flourish during times of social unrest or unease, according to John Jackson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Before the internet, there were likely just as many people who privately doubted explanations for big events, Jackson said. But they enjoyed limited opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals, few chances to win new converts, and no way to broadcast their views to strangers.

Now, the conspiracy theories that gain wide popularity — such as the QAnon movement or discredited claims about COVID-19 — work because they give believers a sense of control in a rapidly changing, interconnected world, Jackson said. While they can emerge after disasters, assassinations or plane crashes, they can also appear during times of social upheaval or rapid change.

“There isn’t a phenomena on the planet, whether it’s the avian flu or 5G, that isn’t already primed for conspiracists,” Jackson said. “Now we have coronavirus, which has traumatized us so profoundly ... we look at this same idea of bird flu with completely new eyes, and we bring different kinds of conspiracy to it.”

Claims that the avian flu is a hoax used to drive up food prices also highlight real-world concerns about inflation and food shortages. Worries that the flu is somehow linked to 5G towers underscore anxieties about technological change. Suggestions that it will be used to mandate vegetarianism, on the other hand, reflect uncertainties about sustainable agriculture, climate change and animal welfare.

By creating explanations, conspiracy theories can offer the believer a sense of power or control, Jackson said. But he said they also defy common sense in their cinematic fantasies about vast, sprawling conspiracies of millions working with clockwork efficiency to undermine human affairs.

“Conspiracy theories rest on the idea that humans have the capacity for keeping secrets,” Jackson said. “But they underestimate the reality that we aren’t very good at keeping them.”

Cannes' first female president: Iris Knobloch

German manager Iris Knobloch, a longtime Warner Bros. executive, could make the prestigious Cannes Film Festival more corporate and more American.

When German manager Iris Knobloch begins her mandate as the new president of the board of the Cannes Film Festival, she will also become the first woman to hold the top job at the world's most famous and important film festival.

She is taking over from Pierre Lescure, a French former TV journalist and executive, who has been Cannes president since 2015. The 76-year old will be stepping down after this year's edition, the 75th, which runs through May 28.

Festival's first non-French president

Knobloch is a pioneer in more ways than one. She'll not only be Cannes' first female president but the first "foreigner" to run France's most prized cinema event. That's significant.

The Berlin Film Festival has two non-Germans at the helm — artistic director Carlo Chatrian is Italian, executive director Mariette Rissenbeek is Dutch — but to have a non-Gallic boss in Cannes is something of a revolution.  

Not that Knobloch doesn't know the French film industry.

The daughter of Holocaust survivor and former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Charlotte Knobloch, Iris Knobloch studied law in Munich and New York before spending 25 years at various executive positions within the European operations of US film studio Warner Bros., including 15 years as chair of the Warner Bros. France group. She eventually ended up running Warners' operations across France, Germany, Benelux, Austria and Switzerland.

Knobloch seen in 2014 with a former Warner Bros. co-executive Olivier Snanoudj

Promoter of a film that became a critical and commercial hit

In France, Knobloch played a key role in lobbying Cannes to accept Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" for competition in 2011.

Many, particularly in the French industry, thought the crowd-pleasing black-and-white silent film was too mainstream to get a Cannes berth. But Knobloch prevailed.

"The Artist" was Cannes' hottest ticket that year.

The film's French star, Jean Dujardin, won the best actor award at Cannes, and critical raves sent the movie on an historic awards run, ending at the 2011 Oscars where the movie won five awards including for best picture, best actor and best director.

Jean Dujardin in 'The Artist'

It also became that rarest of beasts: a French global box office hit, earning more than $130 million (€124 million) worldwide.

Coincidentally, Hazanavicius is back in Cannes this year. His zombie comedy, "Final Cut," will open Cannes' 75th anniversary edition on May 17.

Combining red carpet glam and art house cinema

Knobloch's mainstream instincts, and her Hollywood connections — she only stepped down from WarnerMedia last summer — could be a major asset for Cannes, which has long struggled in trying to balance its imprimatur as the world's leading showcase of art house and avant-garde cinema with the necessity of bringing in big American movies and stars to pack its famed red carpet, attract paparazzi and generate buzz in the form of blogs and social media posts.

The Venice Film Festival, which last year featured the world premiere of Warner Bros. sci-fi epic "Dune," and included crowds of Italian fans screaming themselves raw over the sight of stars Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya, has arguably done a much better job of bringing in the Hollywood glam.

Getting two big studio films to France this year — Tom Cruise's long-awaited "Top Gun 2: Maverick" and Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis," a biopic of Elvis Presley featuring Tom Hanks as Presley's mercurial manager Colonel Tom Parker — was a major coup for the festival.

With Knobloch's Hollywood Rolodex, Cannes will be hoping to make it a regular occurrence.

Baz Luhrmann's anticipated rock'n'roll biopic 'Elvis' will debut at Cannes

Artistic director remains Thierry Fremaux

When she takes over as president, Knobloch won't be directly picking Cannes' future lineup. That will still be the purview of artistic director and general delegate Thierry Fremaux.

But as Cannes president, she'll act as a go-between, balancing Fremaux's artistic demands with Cannes' deep-pocketed sponsors, who want as much glamour and bulb-flashing paparazzi moments as they can get.

There, too, Knobloch has an in. When she resigned from Warner last year, ahead of the company's merger with television giant Discovery, she launched a €250 million ($260 million) media investment company, I2PO, together with Artemis, the investment firm backed by French businessman Francois-Henri Pinault.

Pinault, in addition to being the husband of Hollywood star Salma Hayek, is also the owner of luxury goods giant Kering, one of the Cannes festival's official sponsors. Many believe the Kering-Pinault link was key in convincing the Cannes board to vote for Knobloch.

Knobloch's corporate connections have raised hackles in the French film industry, with some suggesting it would be a conflict of interest to have a Cannes president who is also an investor in film companies. Knobloch has pledged that I2PO will not invest in any film company with a connection to Cannes.

Those concerns aside, critics and fans agree that Iris Knobloch brings to her new job a deep knowledge of the entire movie business, from the corporate suite to the red carpet.

As Cannes' first female president, she's more than qualified to prepare the world's most important film festival for an uncertain future.

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

Macron appoints Elisabeth Borne as France's new prime minister

She is the first woman to hold the position in over 30 years. French President Emmanuel Macron and Borne were expected to appoint the full government within days.

Borne was named France's new prime minister following the resignation of Jean Castex

French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Elisabeth Borne as France's new prime minister on Monday.

She is only the second woman to hold the position, and the first to head the French government since 1992.

Borne succeeds Jean Castex, whose resignation paved the way for a cabinet overhaul after Macron's re-election last month.

She will seek to make a greater impact than France's first female prime minister, Edith Cresson, who lasted less than a year under President Francois Mitterrand and quit amid a corruption scandal.

At the transition of power ceremony, Castex called Borne "Madame la Premiere Ministre" with a broad smile, before warning:

"The role [of prime minister] is not exempted from public exposure and criticism, dear Elisabeth, people even say that's what it had been created for," Castex said of what the French often refer to as the "job from hell," working to implement plans on behalf of an ever-present president.

Macron's high expectations

Macron most likely hopes Borne's profile could help him appeal to radical-left voters who backed Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round of the presidential election in April, while avoiding alienating supporters right-wing supporters of Marine Le Pen.

Her first task would be to steer Macron's centrist grouping in the upcoming parliamentary election.

Despite being historically close to the Socialist Party, Borne proved her loyalty to the president during his first term when she served as transport, environment and finally, labor minister from 2020.

On her watch, unemployment fell to its lowest level in 15 years and youth unemployment to its lowest level in 40 years.

Melenchon attacks her record as labor minister

However, as labor minister, she also oversaw negotiations with unions that resulted in a cut to unemployment benefits for some job seekers and reduced monthly payments for some unemployed people.

Those negotiating skills could come in handy when she'll be charged with pushing through Macron's unpopular plans to raise the pension age from 62 to 65. Macron had hoped to do this in his first term, but had to delay his plans amid widespread strikes and public protests, and then later as the COVID pandemic turned the last years of his first term into more of a damage limitation exercise.

Melenchon was quick to dismiss Borne's appointment, referring to her as "my predecessor," indicating a belief the he would be able to usurp the position as prime minister following parliamentary elections in the summer.

"Borne: reduction in the allowances for 1 million unemployed people, abolition of regulated gas prices, postponement of the end of nuclear power by 10 years, opening up to competition of [publicly-owned rail companies] SNCF and RATP. Very in favor of retirement at 65. Forward for a new season of social abuse," Melenchon wrote, listing what he perceived to be some of her main achievements in politics to date.

Macron also promised that the new prime minister would be directly in charge of "green planning,'' seeking to accelerate France's implementation of climate-related policies.

lo/msh (AP, AFP, Reuters)

UK PM Johnson visits Northern Ireland amid Brexit-based deadlock

Boris Johnson has again threatened to break post-Brexit agreements with the EU as victorious Sinn Fein accuses him of pandering to the DUP, which is blocking the formation of a government after recent elections.

Johnson has reiterated threats to renege on parts of the Brexit deal to placate DUP hard-liners

Boris Johnson traveled to Belfast on Monday, trying to convince local politicians to form a government in the wake of recent elections. Not for the first time in the past seven years or so, Johnson's push for Brexit — and the terms he ultimately agreed with the EU for Northern Ireland's status — have unsettled the always fragile politics in Northern Ireland.

He met with all the five largest parties, but the talks with the leaders of the Catholic nationalist Sinn Fein party and the Protestant pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to urge them to form a government were the most anticipated. These are the two parties required in order to set up any government in Northern Ireland, with only one of them currently saying it is willing to do so.

Sinn Fein was the clear winner of Northern Ireland's May 5 parliamentary elections, but the DUP has blocked the formation of a power-sharing government as stipulated in the Good Friday Agreement, a 1998 peace deal, citing issues with the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit agreement signed by the UK and the EU when the UK left the bloc in 2020.

Post-Brexit tensions in Northern Ireland

"There is no disguising the fact that the delicate balance created [by the peace agreement] in 1998 has been upset," Johnson wrote in an article published in the Belfast Telegraph newspaper ahead of the meetings. "One part of the political community in Northern Ireland feels like its aspirations and identity are threatened by the working of the Protocol.''
DUP and Johnson dislike EU accord, Sinn Fein approves of it

However, while the DUP does object to the Northern Ireland Protocol, saying it has created friction in trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, Sinn Fein largely approves of the accord, which also ensured Ireland's internal border could remain open.

Johnson's proposed solution at present, unilaterally scrapping parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol without consulting Brussels, is unacceptable to Sinn Fein.

"We have said directly to him that the proposed unilateral act of legislating at Westminster is wrong. It seems to us absolutely extraordinary that the British government would propose to legislate to break the law," said Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the opposition in the Republic of Ireland, following her meeting with Johnson.

"We've had no straight answers really from the British prime minister," McDonald said.

Prior to the meeting, Sinn Fein Northern Ireland leader and First Minister-elect Michelle O'Neill said the UK government was, "playing a game of chicken with the [European] Commission right now, and we're caught in the middle."

O'Neill said the DUP was holding Northern Ireland "ransom" and that Johnson needed to stop pandering to them.

EU also warns against unilateral action

Brussels has already said the treaty can't be renegotiated, but it is willing to act flexibly to ease the burden of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from the UK.

"Any unilateral action by Great Britain on Protocol — which would undermine its international legal obligations — clearly [is] not welcome, all the more so in these difficult geopolitical times," European Council President Charles Michel said Monday.

"Northern Ireland is about compromise and trying to find middle-ground positions that everybody can live with, to maintain political stability," Simon Coveney, the Republic of Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister, said in Brussels.

"That's the approach we need to take at the moment, not a unilateral action or threats of unilateral action, which I think is deeply unhelpful. To act unilaterally to break international law, to not respect the democratic decisions in Northern Ireland would make matters significantly worse, not better, in terms of trying to solve the problems of the protocol," Coveney said.

Johnson says would prefer 'consensual' change, but needs 'insurance'

Speaking to reporters in Belfast on Monday, Johnson said his government would prefer not to tear up the accord unilaterally, but said that the threat of doing so was necessary.

"We would love for this to be done in a consensual way with our friends and partners, ironing out some of these problems," he said. "But to get that done, we need to proceed with a legislative solution at the same time."

The Protocol, and the checks on some goods going between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK that come along with it, was the trade-off for ensuring that Northern Ireland could effectively remain with its open border to the EU's single market and customs unions.

Ireland's open border, and the rights of people on either side of it to seek whichever citizenship they prefer and to move freely between the two sides, were core components of the Good Friday peace accord.

"We will set out a more detailed assessment and next steps to parliament in the coming days, once I return from discussions with the local parties," Johnson promised Monday, saying Foreign Secretary Liz Truss would lay out the case to Parliament on Tuesday.

js/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

Iran: Rights groups decry planned execution of Iranian-Swedish citizen

Diplomats and agencies have called the espionage charges against Ahmad Reza Jalali unfounded. Some experts speculate that his sentencing is in retribution for the trial in Sweden of former Iranian official Hamid Nouri.



Jalali's wife has called on Swedish authorities to help him out of Iran

Human rights organizations and relatives have denounced the recent announcement of the date for the execution of Iranian-Swedish citizen Ahmad Reza Jalali. Vida Mehrannia, Jalali's wife, is calling for his return to Sweden. Some experts have pointed to possible retribution for the trial in Sweden of former Iranian official Hamid Nouri.

"Ahmad Reza has not been allowed any direct telephone contact with us in Sweden since November 2020," Mehrannia told DW.

Mehrannia, like the representatives of several human rights agencies, believes her husband is innocent and that his trial was completely unfair.

Quoting "informed sources," Iranian Students' News Agency reported on May 4 that Jalali's death sentence would be carried out by May 21. Iran's government had sentenced the disaster medicine doctor to death on allegations of espionage for Israel.

Speculation over connection to Hamid Nouri trial

Some experts believe the sentence was issued in retaliation for the trial taking place in Sweden of Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian official who has been implicated in the mass execution of dissidents. The death sentence was announced on the last day of Jalali's trial.

Swedish prosecutors have demanded life in prison for Nouri on charges of involvement in the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners, as well as for "committing war crimes and premeditated murder."

Maja Aberg, of Amnesty International Sweden, said she believed that the announcement of Jalali's execution was directly related to Nouri's case. "It indicates that [Iran] sees him as a kind of piece in the jigsaw puzzle, which is very worrying," she told Sweden's TT news agency.

Meanwhile, Iran has claimed that its actions against Jalali have nothing to do with Nouri's case.

"His lawyer went to the Evin Prison's Prosecutor's Office to see if the news was true — and it was," Mehrannia said.

She said Jalali's mental and physical condition had worsened after hearing the news of the execution and he had lost 30 kilograms (66 pounds) from his original weight of 81 kilograms.

Mehrannia said their family was also struggling to process the news, and that the couple's 10-year-old son was unaware of his father's death sentence and had only recently learned that his father is imprisoned in Iran.

"My children should not have experienced such days. My 19-year-old daughter has been informed of her father's death sentence and is worried and upset by this unjust sentence," she said.

Earlier this month, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde tweeted that the reports that Iran may carry out the death sentence were "very worrying."

"Sweden and the EU condemn the death penalty and demand that Jalali be released. We are in contact with Iran," she said.

Mehrannia said the Swedish government had not done enough for her husband.

Although she has met with Belgium's foreign minister and members of the Italian Parliament, she said she had not been able to meet with Swedish officials face-to-face over the past six years.

"How could the Swedish government not do anything for its citizens?" she asked. "My expectation from the Swedish government is to support its citizens and bring Ahmad Reza back to us."

In May, Mahmud Amiri Moghadam, of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization, told Radio Farda that Jalali's sentencing shows that "the Islamic republic is using Jalali as a hostage" to pressure Sweden over the Nouri trial.

"We demand the international community and specifically European countries to clarify the ramifications of such an execution," he said, referring to the "hostage-taking" of Jalali as a punishable international crime.

Jalali was arrested when he was visiting Iran in April 2016, following an invitation from the University of Tehran and Shiraz University.

Two weeks later, he faced charges of espionage, treason and collaboration with Israel. Jalali, a researcher and Karolinska Institute alumnus, is accused of "assassinating two nuclear scientists" by providing "information about the Islamic Republic's nuclear program to Mossad."


On October 21, 2017, the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Jalali to death. According to reports, his lawyer was not allowed to be present in the court and he was denied access to the case files. Appeals for judicial review of the sentence have been rejected.
Prisoners protest with hunger strike

His death sentence has been widely protested by human rights organizations both inside and outside Iran. "Jalali's situation is truly horrific," UN human rights experts said in a statement in March. "He has been held in prolonged solitary confinement for over 100 days with the constant risk of his imminent execution laying over his head."

Additionally, Iranian political prisoners Houshang Rezaei and Farhad Meysami, have gone on a hunger strike in Evin and Rajaei-Shahr prisons to protest Jalali's verdict, saying they will continue to strike until the death sentence is overturned.

"We denounce the actions of the Iranian authorities in the strongest terms, as well as their complete inaction despite our constant calls for him to be immediately released," the UN statement said. "The allegations against him are completely baseless and he should be allowed to return to his family in Sweden as soon as possible."

Edited by: Leah Carter

Anniversary of Okinawa's return to Japan rekindles calls for independence

Fifty years after the US ceded rule back to Tokyo, many Okinawans are calling for a renewed independence movement and to reduce the presence of US military bases.

Okinawans have been protesting the construction of US military bases for several years

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida vowed to take steps to reduce the US military presence in Okinawa, the nation's most southerly prefecture, on Sunday. He made the comments at a ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the reversion of Okinawa from US control.

Residents of the poorest prefecture in Japan, however, were skeptical. Many say they have heard similar promises from a succession of political leaders, but have seen no changes.

Okinawans who oppose the presence of the US military bases, which were built following World War II, say they create a major source of pollution and noise. Many also blame US military personnel for violent crimes that have had an impact on residents, and say the culture, history and language of the indigenous Ryukyuan people are disappearing. The US justifies its presence in Okinawa as the island offers a strategic stronghold in the Pacific.

Many Okinawans are now calling for independence for the semitropical archipelago, which was a kingdom in its own right until it was incorporated into Japan in 1872.


Promises for a 'strong Okinawan economy'

In his address at the Okinawa Convention Center, in the city of Ginowan, Kishida referred to Okinawa as the "gateway to Asia" and said the Ryukyu islands had the potential to become a regional hub for international exchanges. He added that his government would also work hard to create a "strong Okinawan economy."

He conceded, however, that the bases, which were first set up when the US military invaded Okinawa in the closing stages of World War II in 1945, weigh heavily on the local community. He pledged to "steadily make visible progress on the alleviation of the burden while maintaining the deterrence offered by the Japan-US [security] alliance."

Okinawa was returned to Japan's control on May 15, 1972, 27 years after the US invasion. However, the military presence remains overwhelming. Though Okinawa accounts for just 0.6% of the total land area of Japan, it is home to more than 70% of the US military facilities in the country. And locals' resentment does not sit far below the surface.

'No need for any military here'

Asked about the anniversary of the return of Okinawa to Japanese control, Byron Fija told DW: "How can I be happy? Today I am sad and I am angry because this is my country, but, for 270 years, when the first invaders came from the Satsuma Domain, the people here have been exploited for our treasures."

Fija, 52, never knew his American father and was adopted by his mother's older brother. Today he is an academic at Okinawa University and said the ongoing construction of a new US military base on reclaimed land in a pristine bay near the village of Henoko was just the latest slight against the people of Okinawa.

"Henoko is a small village, and there has been a lot of opposition to the base plan there, but the government does not listen to what the people say," he said.

"We could trade with anyone — the US, China, Japan — and there would be no need for any military here at all," he said. But he is not sure whether enough Okinawans are sufficiently unhappy with the situation to form a coherent movement that would fight for independence.

Shinako Oyakawa — a member of the Association of Comprehensive Studies for Independence of the Lew Chewans, or Ryukyuans, which aims to win the islands' independence — is more optimistic.

"Fifty years ago, most Okinawan people believed the return of the islands to Japanese control was a solution to their dreams because it would mean the bases would go, and our human rights would be returned and respected," she told DW. "But that didn't happen, and it's the same even today. ... The people of this prefecture are treated as second-class citizens of Japan."

Despite pleas by successive governments in Okinawa, for some of the US bases to be moved to mainland Japan in order for the burden to be shared more equally with the rest of the nation, nothing has happened, Oyakawa said. It is the perfect example of communities and politicians in the rest of the country saying "not in my backyard,” she added.

The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, signed in 1951, permits the presence of US military bases on Japanese land. Critics say the government in mainland Japan has designated the majority of US military bases to Okinawa.

Majority opposes US troop presence

In the run-up to Sunday's anniversary events, opinion polls conducted in Okinawa by the Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper and in mainland Japan by the Mainichi Shimbun revealed that 69% of Okinawans believe that the concentration of US troops in the prefecture is "unfair." Among mainland Japanese, the figure was just 33%.

Despair at the failure to have the US military removed has encouraged a movement for independence, Oyakawa said, and the association is in talks with similar campaigns in Catalonia, Scotland, Guam and Hawaii.

"For a long time, the people of Okinawa were disappointed by the government in Tokyo, but they were defeatists who did not think they could change anything," she said. "That made a campaign for independence difficult. But that is changing and I think it is natural for people to want to be free when they have been colonized for such a long time."

Edited by: Leah Carter

Mexico's number of 'disappeared' people rises above 100,000

There are now over 100,000 people in Mexico's national register of the "disappeared." The UN says organized crime is among the leading causes of missing people in the country.


Human rights organizations and relatives of the missing have called on the government to step up investigations and conduct searches more effectively

Mexico's official figure of missing people on Monday surpassed 100,000 for the first time as families pushed authorities to do more to find victims of violence linked to organized crime.

The interior ministry compiles a national register of the "desaparecidos" — Spanish for missing people — which is periodically updated.

In the last two years the numbers have spiked from about 73,000 people to more than 100,000 — mostly men.

Calls for government to do more

Mexico has seen spiraling violence since the war on drugs began in 2006, with over 350,000 people having died since then.

Last year, the country of more than 129 million people saw 94 murders a day on average.

"It's incredible that disappearances are still on the rise," Virginia Garay, whose son went missing in 2018 in the state of Nayarit, told news agency Reuters.

Human rights organizations and relatives of the missing have called on the government to step up investigations and conduct searches more effectively.

"The government is not doing enough to find them," said Garay, who works in a group called Warriors Searching for Our Treasures that seeks to locate missing loved ones.

Fears that the actual number of missing is far higher

Civil society groups that help try and locate missing people stress that many families do not report disappearances because of distrust in the authorities.

The actual figure of missing people is therefore believed to be much higher than the official data.

"Organized crime has become a central perpetrator of disappearance in Mexico, with varying degrees of participation, acquiescence or omission by public servants," a report by the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances, released last month, said.

"State parties are directly responsible for enforced disappearances committed by public officials, but may also be accountable for disappearances committed by criminal organizations," the report added.

The missing people include human rights defenders, some of whom went missing because of their own involvement in the fight against disappearances.

According to the UN committee, over 30 journalists have also disappeared in Mexico between 2003 and 2021.

dvv/kb (dpa, Reuters)

Child labor on the rise in Africa

After years of child labor decline, the COVID pandemic has pushed many African children back to work. As a result, experts and children's rights activists are calling for stricter measures to protect them.

South Sudan is notoriously known for conscripting child soldiers

Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, is teeming with young vendors. Most of them are children between the ages of 7 and 14, and they occupy major intersections and markets — often working until late at night.

Kevin and Lea are among the hawkers selling their wares in Yaounde's populous neighborhoods during the school vacations. 

"I sell water to help my parents pay for my exercise books for the new school year," 8-year-old Kevin told DW.

"And I sell peanuts to pay for my school supplies," added 10-year-old Lea.

Chantal Zanga, a school principal, is concerned.

"I'm against the street trading that children do," said Zanga. "The child has a right to protection. If we send them to the streets, who will protect them?"

Many children lose valuable school time and spend much of their childhood working

Children lack protection

According to UNICEF, population growth, recurring crises, extreme poverty and inadequate social protection measures have led to an additional 17 million girls and boys engaging in child labor in sub-Saharan Africa over the past four years.

African countries are home to most of the world's 160 million working children.

The International Labor Organization estimates that more than 72 million children in sub-Saharan Africa — nearly one in five — are affected by child labor.

Experts estimate that millions more are at risk due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to UNICEF, this marks the first time in 20 years that progress toward ending child labor has stalled.

It is against this backdrop that experts and child welfare activists are meeting for the 5th World Conference on the Elimination of Child Labor in Durban, South Africa, from May 15-20, to discuss stricter measures for the protection of children. 

Danger on the streets

Distressed child street vendors face daily dangers from traffic, weather and sexual violence. Juliette Lemana, 12, sells safous, a fruit also known as a plum, and roasted plantains in Yaounde.

"Mama sent me to sell," she said, adding that recently a motorcycle ran over her classmate.

"Sometimes we come home at night and we can't find our way," the young girl told DW.

Cameroon's law prohibits child labor, according to Pauline Biyong, president of the League for the Education of Women and Children. 

"Cameroon has ratified many articles to protect children. This phenomenon should be marginal, but unfortunately we observe in our cities that children are used as labor by their parents. This is not normal," she said.

Poverty the leading cause of child exploitation

Economic hardship has forced many children to toil in the gold mines of Tanzania and neighboring Congo.

Others in countries such as South Sudan endanger their lives as child soldiers.

The International Labor Organization estimates that 2.1 million children work in cocoa production in Ivory Coast and Ghana. Around two-thirds of the cocoa produced worldwide comes from Africa.

Nestle is trying to polish its image in cocoa farming by building classrooms for children in cocoa-growing areas. In addition, the Swiss conglomerate has partnered with UNESCO to support women's literacy in the markets.

Despite all these efforts, children still work on some cocoa plantations. "The problem of child labor is real," Toussaint Luc N'Guessan, Nestle's program manager, told DW.

More and more children are working in West Africa's cocoa plantations

Parents abusing children

On the streets of Maiduguri in Nigeria's Borno State, many children work at the request of their parents.

"My father brought me here to learn tailoring," a young boy told DW. "Sometimes, I earn 150 nairas ($0.36/€0.35)."

Adamu Umar — who has 15 children — admitted to DW that he also makes his children work as street vendors to supplement the family income.

But their commitment to their families is costing them dearly, as aid organizations complain that children are denied schooling and education and thus a better life. 

According to the International Labor Organization, 43% of Nigerian children aged between 5 and 11 are child laborers, although international conventions prohibit this.

Poverty is often the cause of child labor in Africa

Severe penalties for parents

As part of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, all 193 member states have pledged to take effective action to eliminate forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking and the worst forms of child labor — including child soldiers — by 2025. 

But controls to stop the employment of minors are rare, according to children's rights organization Plan International.

"It is our responsibility as parents to take care of our children, not our children taking care of us," said Lucy Yunana, a children's rights activist in Nigeria.

Yunana called on the government to crack down on the menace with strict penalties.

She said any child caught peddling or begging should be arrested, including parents allowing their daughters to work as domestic help. Parents would then have to pay the fines.

Back in Cameroon, an extensive program called "useful vacations" was launched at the Center for the Advancement of Women and Families in Nkoldongo to keep children occupied.

But with little encouragement, some parents prefer to boost the family income by having their children work.

"The children have to learn to look for income; that's not bad," Gisele, a mother who sells safous at the Ekounou market, told DW. 

"They have nothing to do during the vacations, and it's normal that they help us prepare for the start of school, at least by buying notebooks. [Life in] Cameroon is hard."