Hackers crash internet as 'Russian Davos' adjusts to new reality






Fri, June 17, 2022

(Reuters) -Hackers on Friday delayed the start of President Vladimir Putin's speech to Russia's flagship economic forum, shorn of strong Western participation as Russia adjusts to the "new reality" of life under Western sanctions.

State companies made a point of publicly signing deals and many firms had stalls with floor-to-ceiling display screens and glamorous attendants at the 25th St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which aims to rival the Davos World Economic Forum.

But the Western investors and investment bankers who had turned up in previous years were conspicuously absent.

"New business from the Italian side is just frozen," Italian businessman Vincenzo Trani told Reuters on the sidelines of a session titled "Western investors in Russia: new realities".

"New investment is just impossible and people are not increasing investments."

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said a denial of service attack, which works by flooding servers with bogus traffic, had struck the forum's accreditation and admission systems. He did not apportion blame but the situation in Ukraine loomed large.

As Russian forces moved into Ukraine on Feb. 24, Kyiv called on "hacktivists" to help. There was no immediate response from Ukraine to what is known as a "distributed denial of service", a basic form of digital disruption that has been used heavily by both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Internet connectivity and speeds suffered at the forum, and Putin's speech, in which he accused the West of trying to crush his country with an economic "blitzkrieg", was delayed by a little over 100 minutes.

Western sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine combined with related supply chain issues have starkly altered Russia's export-import dynamics, with the country now looking to the likes of China and India and turning away from the West.

Key banks have lost access to the global payments system SWIFT, Western brands are shunning the country and selling up in a hurry, writing off billions of dollars in assets - and the European Union has promised an embargo on Russian oil.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko lamented Russia's backwardness in technology, and said the "painful process" of Russia switching to its own technology was under way.

"You are competing with global companies that have overtaken you by whole generations," he told an audience of Russian business representatives.

BUSINESS OUTLOOK GLOOMY

The CEO of Russia's top lender Sberbank summed up the situation with grim irony.

"They say all is well with business in Russia, there are just small problems: there is no one to buy from and no one to sell too, it's impossible to pay and impossible to supply," German Gref said on Friday. "This is a joke, but it reflects reality."

Tadzio Schilling, head of the Association of European Businesses, which groups hundreds of firms inside and outside Russia, said the losses for those doing business in Russia "can be colossal nowadays".

"Short-term prospects for companies are gloomy," he said.

Leonid Mikhelson, chief executive of the Russian energy giant Novatek called for more state support.

A global price squeeze in gas had created a window of opportunity that Russia, heavily reliant on its vast fossil fuel exports, needed to seize before it closed, he said.

But his company could not commission a compression line - a key part of his industry, without components that are now restricted by sanctions from sale to Russia.

"We have to create a domestic liquefaction technology for this," he said. "A full-fledged localisation program is required, provided with full funding."

'LOUDLY KEEPING SILENT'

Russian companies usually offer interviews and make big announcements at the forum, the main event in Russia's corporate calendar, but this year speakers were thin on the ground.

Many Russian firms are grappling with how to handle their communications, said Ksenia Kasyanova, R&D Director at PR company CROS.

She said they were torn between wanting to restore demand and the fear that any comments might not be publicised with as much context as they would like.

"Faced with this dilemma, businesspeople are eventually settling on the complicated task of ‘loudly keeping silent’,” Kasyanova said - putting the company in the public field but minimising communications and advertising.

Italian investor Trani, who founded one of Russia’s largest car-sharing firms, Delimobil, said Russian and international companies were craving stability.

“No company can have aggressive development in this period,” he said. “We have to wait for peace.”

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Philippa Fletcher)

 Filipino woman allegedly abused by her employers pleads to stop her family's deportation from Canada

Michelle De Pacina

NEXTSHARK
Fri, June 17, 2022

Supporters of a Filipino mother and her 6-year-old daughter who requires special medical attention are pleading with the federal government to stop their deportation from Canada.

Evangeline Cayanan, who entered Canada in 2010 as a temporary foreign worker, is set to be deported to the Philippines with her Canadian citizen daughter, McKenna Rose, on July 8.

The Filipino mother raised concerns of abuse during her time working; her employers allegedly promised to regularize her status as a way to exploit her. She reported two of her employers for harassment and discrimination.

Cayanan was charged with theft in 2014, which she alleged was retribution from one of the employers, according to federal court documents. The mother was not in the country at the time of the alleged theft, according to her lawyer.

“She was abused by her employer and abused by a system that has abused many people and throws people away back to their home country just to bring in a new batch of people to do the same jobs,” Whitney Haynes, a family friend, told CTV News.

When Cayanan was fired from her job, she lost her work permit and became undocumented in 2015, the same year her daughter was born. Cayanan’s application for a new work permit was denied, and she has been living in Canada without status since then. She filed applications on compassionate and humanitarian grounds in 2016 and 2019, which were both also rejected.

Cayanan volunteers with the foreign worker advocacy organization Migrante Alberta to support migrant workers. She also became an activist who fought to secure health-care access for children of undocumented parents. As a result, she was granted the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights award in 2018.

McKenna was reportedly diagnosed with severe ADHD and other medical conditions that require special attention. Cayanan fears her 6-year-old daughter will not have the same healthcare access in the Philippines.

“I really need help for her,” Cayanan said. “I really need the school support, her doctor’s support, my friends’ support. My biggest fear right now is going back home bringing McKenna back to where I came. It’s so hard because on my daughter’s condition there is no pre-access to Medicare.”

Migrante Alberta, started a petition to call on Ministers Marco Mendicino and Sean Fraser to stop their deportation and grant them permanent resident status. The petition has garnered nearly 3,000 signatures as of this writing.

“It’s very complicated because Immigration would say, yes, the child is Canadian, and that she can stay,” Marco Luciano, the director of Migrante Alberta, told Taproot Edmonton. “But for a six-year-old child, going through foster care because the mom is deported is also not in the best interest of the child. Essentially, McKenna is being deported with her mom. The issue is not just about deportation. It’s about splitting the family – the mother and daughter – and bigger issues will come up when that happens, particularly for McKenna.”

Manraj Sidhu, Cayanan’s lawyer, hopes the Canada Border Services Agency will stay the deportation decision pending the mother’s latest application along with further evidence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Her original date of removal in May was moved to July, when the final decision on her case will be made.

“I don't want to beg, I just want to fight for her rights. McKenna deserves everything, just like other Canadian children here in Canada,” Cayanan said during a news conference in Edmonton on Thursday. “I'm asking for all the support to stay here. McKenna belongs here. I belong here. We belong here. This is our home.


Featured Image via CTV News

SIGN THE PETITION

Edmonton mom facing deportation makes impassioned plea for her and her daughter to stay in Canada

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/06/edmonton-mom-facing-deportation-makes.html

Students protest school's anti-LGBTQ policies during graduation: 'This is not a new fight'

Katie Mather
Fri, June 17, 2022

Graduating seniors at Seattle Pacific University (SPU) protested their school’s anti-LGBTQ policies by handing rainbow flags to the school’s president when receiving their diplomas.

SPU students have been protesting the school’s stance on “Employee Lifestyle Expectations,” which, the policy states, must align with what it calls “the University’s understanding of Biblical standards.” This authorizes it to fire full-time employees who date, marry or live with partners of the same sex and to reject job applicants for similar reasons.

At graduation, seniors handed Pride flags to Dr. Pete Menjares, the interim president of SPU, instead of shaking his hand. Video of the protest went quickly viral

For months leading up to graduation, SPU students have been protesting the policy. In May, students staged a sit-in that lasted 19 days, after the school’s Board of Trustees voted to uphold the policy against employees in same-sex relationships.

“This is not a new fight — this has been an ongoing fight for 30 years,” Laur Lugos, the student body president and a recent graduate of the school, told the NPR affiliate KUOW.

“We want the community of SPU to know that this was a thorough and prayerful deliberation,” the board chair, Cedric Davis, said on May 23, the day the decision was made. “The Board made a decision … and chose to have SPU remain in communion with its founding denomination, the Free Methodist Church.”

SPU, a Christian school, was originally founded as the Seattle Seminary and is associated with the Free Methodist Church, according to the school’s student-run newspaper.

The school’s statement on Human Sexuality — which is linked to the Employee Lifestyle Expectations section posted on its site — aligns with Methodist beliefs and reads, “We believe it is in the context of the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman that the full expression of sexuality is to be experienced and celebrated … Within the teaching of our religious tradition, we affirm that sexual experience is intended between a man and a woman.”

“Eternally proud of the student body,” one commenter wrote on TikTok of the graduation footage.

“This is giving me so much joy,” another said.

“symbolism with action to back it up,” a person commented. “y’all are doin the damn thing!!”

engaygetheculture

EnGAYage TheCulture

 · 5d ago

We’ve also been sleeping outside his office for 19 days in a gay sit-in but he usually doesn’t say hi to us. #pride #pridemonth #lgbtq #gay #graduation #fyp #seattle #changethepolicy #hiregayprofs

Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

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‘Tonight, it’s my turn’: Chinese PhD student attacked by 5 men near University of Wisconsin-Madison



Carl Samson
Fri, June 17, 2022

A Chinese doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was reportedly assaulted by five young men near the campus, triggering a student protest against anti-Asian hate and violence.

The student, 26, shared his account of the incident on Weibo, which was then also translated and posted on the r/UWMadison subreddit.

The student said he was walking home along University Avenue on Tuesday night when a group of men surrounded him, struck him in the face, shoved him to the ground and repeatedly punched and kicked him.

His attackers fled after he screamed for help twice, the victim said. The assault left him with a bleeding ear and multiple “spots” on his head.

The victim said he kept calling for help. A group of witnesses who were partying across the street helped him in the aftermath, followed by what appeared to be a medical student who checked his injuries and made sure he was conscious.

A Chinese male student was beaten by FIVE random young men yesterday on University Ave. close to @UWMadison campus. We feel extremely disappointed about what happened to him. And this isn't the first Asian hate crime at UW-Madison. @uwchancellor #StopAsianHate #HateCrime pic.twitter.com/G6o0RNhlDo

— Luhang SUN (@luhang_sun) June 16, 2022

The entire attack lasted no more than 40 seconds, the victim said. He described his assailants as both white and Black men who were all “very well dressed” and “very fit.”

Despite his unfortunate experience, the victim said he feels no hate for his attackers.

“They are just those who have lost their basic rationalities and common sense under certain ideologies/hatred/cultures. The limited resources in society/education almost decided that it’s impossible to raise everybody into a decent person with common sense,” the victim said. “Tonight it's my turn, and I'm glad it's my turn and not the turn of anyone else’s, at least I could still take a few punches.”

Meanwhile, the same assailants are also accused of attacking a South Asian victim earlier that night. The incident allegedly occurred just a few blocks away from where the Chinese student was assaulted.

The incidents are now under investigation by the Madison Police Department. On Thursday, UW-Madison released a statement saying they are aware of the attacks and that campus police are cooperating with the investigation.

“The university has been made aware of recent acts of violence and aggression against students that took place near the UW–Madison campus,” the statement reads. “UW-Madison is committed to making our campus and nearby downtown areas safe for all.

“Initial reports came from members of our Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American communities, and we are aware that in recent years these communities have faced increased threats to their safety, well-being, and sense of belonging. We recognize the safety concerns and trauma these actions may cause, and will continue to work to create safe, equitable and inclusive working, living, and learning environments.”

Students have organized Stop Asian Hate protests in response to the attacks. A march will take place from the Capitol to Library Mall from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

A letter to the university administration — signed by current students and alumni — and a public petition were also created to call for change.

“Hatred solves no problems but creates more. United we stand, divided we fall,” the petition states. “If the attackers turn out to be UW-Madison students, we urge the university to handle the misconduct according to university conduct policies and procedures.”

Featured Image via Weibo

MUSSOLINI'S MARCH ON ROME

Trump wanted to be at the Capitol riot because his presence would have been the key to a successful coup, historian speculates

Former President Donald Trump said he had wanted to visit the Capitol on January 6, 2021,

but was stopped by the Secret Service.

Matthew Loh
Sun, June 12, 2022

An expert on fascism said Trump would have needed to be at the Capitol to pull off a coup.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat said that explained why he wanted to march with supporters last year on January 6.

She said a coup required the leader to be present to anoint them under a "new order."

Former President Donald Trump's presence at the Capitol during the January 6, 2021, attack would have been a critical factor in accomplishing a successful coup that day, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and a professor at New York University who studies fascism and authoritarian leaders, said.

Ben-Ghiat told CNN's Jim Acosta on Saturday that it was "interesting" how recent reports said Trump had wanted to march with his supporters to the Capitol but was stopped by the Secret Service.

That revelation was first published in an April interview that the former president gave to The Washington Post.

Last week, The Post also reported that the Secret Service initially formed a quick plan to transport Trump from the White House to the Capitol following his speech at the Ellipse on the day of the attack. Despite pressure from the then-president, the effort did not come to fruition, and Trump was taken back to the White House instead.

"This is consistent with if you're having a coup, and you've summoned everybody, and you expect to be anointed as the head of illegitimate government. You have to be there," Ben-Ghiat said, referring to Trump.

"There's a phase in coups — they're violent, they're quick, and then you have your pronouncement of the new order," she added. "And so that's why he was trying to get there."



Ben-Ghiat said she agreed with the assessment made by Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chair of the January 6 House select committee, that the Capitol attack was an attempted coup.

"I was really pleased to see Chairman Thompson use that word because it's the right word for something that's the result of a process that started, in a sense, it started before November 2020 because Trump had been trying to discredit elections for several years," Ben-Ghiat said.

"Coups can take months or years to plan, and this was a multipronged attempt to overthrow our democracy," she added.

During a public hearing on Thursday, the January 6 committee outlined a seven-point plan that it said Trump and his most powerful loyalists wanted to use to overturn the 2020 election. Summoning a violent mob and directing them to the Capitol, while failing to speak against the violence, were two of the points in the plan the committee laid out.

Some of the other points involved pressuring high-ranking officials and leaders to discount or discredit the election results.

Ben-Ghiat told CNN on Saturday that Trump went "nuclear" when many of these officials refused his demands and that he then did "what autocrats have done in the past," which involved using violence and calling on his supporters to "right this 'monstrous wrong' on his behalf."

Her latest book, "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present," covers Trump's deeds alongside those of authoritarian leaders such as Benito Mussolini, Vladimir Putin, Muammar Gaddafi, and Augusto Pinochet.

Who is Milo Yiannopoulos, the far-right troll interning for Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Kieran Press-Reynolds
Sat, June 11, 2022, 

Milo Yiannopoulos rose to prominence as a far-right voice in the mid-2010s.Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Milo Yiannopoulos was a far-right influencer, but bans and backlash faded him into obscurity.


Now he's interning for Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has a history of spreading conspiracy theories.


An expert said it's "incredibly hypocritical" Greene would hire Yiannopoulos after his past remarks.

Milo Yiannopoulos was one of the most prominent voices in far-right media during the mid-2010s, until his comments appearing to defend sex between adults and children as young as 13-years-old led publishers and former backers to cut their ties. But the 37-year-old British commentator re-emerged in headlines this week after announcing that far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene hired him as an unpaid summer intern.

That Greene, who frequently attacks her opponents and critics as pedophiles, would hire someone who infamously minimized pedophilia may seem like an obvious contradiction. But Greene's decision to employ Yiannopoulos is a stunt that fits her strategy to attract media attention and troll her colleagues, one expert told Insider.


"Marjorie Taylor Greene is also someone who's very good at online trolling, she's perhaps the most online troll member of congress," Ari Drennen, the LGBTQ Program Director for Media Matters, told Insider. "Hiring Milo, even as an unpaid intern, shows that she's really doubling down on her strategy of headlines over everything."
Yiannopoulos gained online attention as a Breitbart editor and far-right troll

Yiannopoulos began writing for the far-right media outlet Breitbart in 2014, and soon became the site's tech editor. He had a significant media influence during the lead up to the 2016 US presidential election — promoting far-right movements, sourcing story advice from white nationalists, and writing articles engineered to stoke controversy for viral attention.

Yiannopolous specifically targeted Muslims, Transgender people and numerous other minorities with bigoted statements that appeared intended to court backlash and attention. He called feminism "cancer" and said Islam is "way worse than cancer," comparing the religion to a sexually transmitted disease. He was also a major voice in the Gamergate harassment campaign, where internet trolls and men's rights activists launched coordinated misogynistic attacks against female journalists and game developers.

"Milo, first and foremost, is an internet troll. He's had a long series of media jobs and other kinds of right-wing grifts," Drennen said. "He is an expert at getting attention by saying or doing extreme things on the internet."

Despite his associations with the far-right and hateful rhetoric, access to mainstream platforms and figures allowed him to reach a growing audience. Comedian Bill Maher hosted him on his widely watched HBO show, publisher Simon & Schuster gave him a book deal and he gained hundreds of thousands of followers on platforms like YouTube and Twitter. He headlined a Gays for Trump during the Republican National Convention in 2016, and a year later was invited to speak at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

But Yiannopolous faced a rapid decline back into obscurity in early 2017, when comments he made appearing to defend pedophilia resurfaced. Discussing relationships between adult men and 13-year-old boys, and referencing his personal experience, Yiannopoulos said, "those older men help those young boys to discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable sort of rock."

"We're talking about 13 [year-olds and] 25 [year-olds]. 13 [year-olds and] 28 [year-olds]. These things do happen perfectly consensually," Yiannopoulos said in one clip from a recording of the Drunken Peasants politics podcast. He also referenced what he called "the arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent," and stated "we get hung up on this child abuse stuff."

The resurfaced clip, originally recorded in January 2016, and accusations of him supporting pedophilia set off a wave of backlash. In the span of a few days in February 2017, Yiannopoulos' invitation to speak at CPAC was rescinded, and Simon & Schuster dropped his deal. He also resigned from his position at Breitbart. Yiannopoulos attempted to apologize, blamed "sloppy phrasing" and stated he condemned pedophilia—saying "I said some things on those Internet live streams that were simply wrong," but it did not stem the backlash.

Months before his pedophilia scandal, Twitter had already permanently banned his account after he attempted to lead a harassment campaign against comedian Leslie Jones. Facebook banned him in 2019 along with a number of other far-right influencers and conspiracy theorists, including Alex Jones.

Yiannopoulos' precipitous fall became held up by many extremism researchers as an example of how deplatforming—blocking people from using mainstream social media platforms or other avenues to propagate ideas—can limit access to funding and mainstream audiences. In 2018, Yiannopoulos wrote on Facebook that he owed millions in debt and said he was "pretty broke, relatively speaking" after "two years of being no-platformed, banned, blacklisted and censored," according to Vox.

Yiannopoulos remains banned on major social media platforms, including on Parler, an alternative social hub often used by far-right influencers who have been deplatformed. He still has a following of 30,000 users on the communications app Telegram, and in 2021 he started writing articles for the fringe, right-wing Catholic blog Church Militant. He has since tried to shift his persona to heavily promote conservative Christianity, and has described himself as "ex-gay."
Yiannopoulos and Greene's style of trolling have a number of similarities

Though it's surprising that Yiannopoulos would suddenly intern for Congress after falling out of the spotlight for several years, his desire for attention is a match for Greene, Drennen told Insider.

Greene, who has a long history of espousing baseless far-right conspiracy theories, has been one of the most prominent voices in a recent right-wing narrative baselessly framing the LGBTQ community—and people who support LGBTQ education and rights—as pedophiles.

Yiannopoulos announced the internship in a post on Telegram Monday, saying he had "finally been persuaded out of retirement" and "the best role I could land was an unpaid internship with a friend."

Greene previously confirmed the internship in a statement to Insider, saying she had hired "an intern that was raped by a priest as a young teen, was gay, has offended everyone at some point, turned his life back to Jesus and Church, and changed his life."

Drennen said it's "incredibly hypocritical" of Greene to hire Yiannopoulos now considering his past comments about pedophilia.

"The right-wing used to care about not wanting to have an association with somebody who defended pedophilia," Drennen said. "But Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't seem to care, she just is looking for anything she can do to harm LGBTQ people and get herself in the headlines, and this is her latest plan."

Drennen said that despite Yiannopoulos' status in Greene's office as an intern, he's a veteran of the alt-right sphere and it's likely a sign of where Greene is looking to make connections.

"You just really have to wonder, what is that workplace like?" Drennen said. "If this is the kind of person that she's bringing on."

Biden juggles principles, pragmatism in stance on autocrats





AAMER MADHANI
Sat, June 11, 2022,

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a candidate for president, Joe Biden was not shy about calling out dictators and authoritarian leaders as he anchored his foreign policy in the idea that the world is in a battle between democracy and autocracy.

But Biden's governing approach as president has been far less black and white as he tries to balance such high-minded principles with the tug toward pragmatism in a world scrambled by the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, concerns about China's global ambitions, heightened tensions about Iran's advancing nuclear program and more.

Those crosscurrents were evident this past week when Biden played host at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, where his decision to exclude leaders he considers dictators generated considerable drama and prompted a number of other world leaders to boycott the event.

“We don’t always agree on everything, but because we’re democracies, we work through our disagreements with mutual respect and dialogue,” Biden told summit participants as he tried to smooth over the disputes.

Even as Biden was excluding a trio of leaders from the gathering, his national security team was making preparations for a possible visit to Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich kingdom that the president labeled a “pariah” state in the early days of his successful White House run.

After Biden took office, his administration made clear the president would avoid direct engagement with the country's de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, after U.S. intelligence officials concluded that he likely approved the 2018 killing and dismemberment of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. If the visit to Saudi Arabia goes forward as anticipated, Biden is expected to meet with Mohammed.

The tough talk by Biden during the campaign — and earlier in his presidency — toward the Saudis was part of a broader message he pitched to Americans: The days of blank checks for dictators and strongmen must end if the United States is to have credibility on the world stage.

Of late, though, such sharply principled rhetoric has given way to a greater nod to realpolitik.

At a time of skyrocketing prices at the gas pump, an increasingly fragile situation in the Middle East and perpetual concern that China is expanding its global footprint, Biden and his national security team have determined that freezing out the Saudis is simply not tenable, according to a person familiar with White House thinking on the yet-to-be-finalized Saudi visit who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

The blurred lines over with whom the U.S. will and will not engage have left the White House facing a difficult question: How can the president cite principle for spurning engagement with dictators in his own backyard even as he considers paying a call on Saudi officials who have used mass arrests and macabre violence to squelch dissent?

“President Biden committed to putting human rights and democracy at the heart of our foreign policy. It is," Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at a summit closing news conference Friday. “That doesn’t mean that it’s the totality."

But Edward Frantz, a presidential historian at the University of Indianapolis, sees signs that Biden “has fallen into the same trap” as his predecessors when it comes to the Middle East.

President Jimmy Carter, who said human rights were central to his foreign policy, looked past the blood-thirsty reputation of the shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. President George H.W. Bush held off supporting an uprising against Saddam Hussein as his advisers warned Iraq would plunge into civil war without the strongman. U.S. administrations from Presidents Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama overlooked the Hosni Mubarak government's torture and arbitrary detention in Egypt for the sake of a reliable strategic partner in a difficult corner of the world.

“It's notable that Biden is being forced from his position on the Saudis in large part because he held a principled stance on Ukraine,” Frantz said. "But it's hard not to see the same patterns here as have been established over the last 80 years."

Human rights advocacy groups and even some of the president's Democratic allies are warning Biden that a Saudi visit could be perilous.

Six House Democrats, including the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, wrote to Biden this past week that if he decides to move forward with the visit, he must follow through on a pledge of “recalibrating that relationship to serve America’s national interests” and press Saudi officials on oil production, human rights and reported ballistic missile sales by China to the kingdom.

“President Biden should recognize that any meeting with a foreign official provides them instant credibility on a global stage, whether intended or not,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Meeting Mohammed bin Salman without human rights commitments would vindicate Saudi leaders who believe there are no consequences for egregious rights violations.”

Even as Biden was warming to the Saudis, he was committing to keeping the Western Hemisphere's dictators out of the summit in his own backyard.

The decision was seen as heavy-handed by some allies. Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and leaders of Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Bolivia all opted to skip the summit over Biden's decision to exclude the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, and Belize's prime minister, John Briceño, were among those to show up but publicly criticize Biden's move.

“Geography, not politics, defines the Americas," Briceño said.

Before taking office, Biden did not hold back about what he saw as some of his fellow leaders' shortcomings, particularly those who had less than stellar records as champions of democracy but were in the good graces of President Donald Trump.

During the 2020 campaign, Biden argued that Brazil should face “significant economic consequences” if President Jair Bolsonaro continued deforesting the Amazon. Biden labeled Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an “autocrat” and waited more than three months into his presidency to speak with the fellow NATO leader. Most notably, Biden said Saudi Arabia was a “pariah” that would “pay a price" for its human rights abuses, including the brutal killing of Khashoggi.

When Biden met with Bolsonaro o n the sidelines of the Americas summit on Thursday, the engagement was decidedly civil. Biden made no mention of the Brazilian leader's baseless claims about his own country’s voting systems and about unsupported claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 U.S. election.

During the two leaders' appearance before reporters, Biden even commended Brazil for making “real sacrifices” in protecting the Amazon. The White House said that in their private talks, they discussed working together on “sustainable development" to reduce deforestation.

Bolsonaro, the most prominent Latin American leader to attend the summit, had agreed to take part on the condition that Biden grant him a private meeting and refrain from confronting him over some of the most contentious issues between the two men, according to three of the Brazilian leader’s Cabinet ministers who requested anonymity to discuss the issue. White House officials said no preconditions were set for the talks.

In recent weeks, top Biden advisers and NATO officials have been working to persuade Erdogan to back down from his threats to block historically neutral Sweden and Finland from joining NATO.

Last week, Biden and his administration were effusive as they praised Saudi Arabia for its role in nudging OPEC+ to increase oil production for July and August. Biden even called the kingdom “courageous” for agreeing to extend a cease fire in its seven-year war with Yemen.

Douglas London, a former CIA officer who spent 34 years in the Middle East, South and Central Asia and is a scholar at the Middle East Institute, said Biden’s tone shift represents an uncomfortable reality: Prince Mohammed, widely known as MBS, is someone the U.S. will likely have to deal with for years to come.

“Yes, we’re reminded how the president referred to MBS as the dictator of a pariah state who the U.S. was going to teach a lesson,” London wrote in an analysis. “Timing in politics and foreign policy, as in life, has great bearing, and it’s important to recall that the average price of oil when then candidate Biden said that was $41 per barrel.”

Now, it's hovering around $120 per barrel.

___

Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in Los Angeles and Mauricio Savares in Sao Paolo, Brazil, contributed to this report.

Mexico Hits Road Bumps En Route to Nationalizing its Energy Industry

By The Daily Upside - Jun 12, 2022 

Mexican President ​​Andrés Manuel López Obrador wants energy independence. Not from possibly hostile foreign nations, but from multinational firms operating within his country's borders.

Now, his populist campaign to reclaim the oil-and-gas industry from private firms, has flipped the nation's energy paradigm on its head. The consequences: spiking energy costs, weak economic growth, a slowing transition to clean power, and a possible cessation from the global community.

Public Enemy Number One

Mexico's post-pandemic revival has been stuck in the mud. Its economy lags behind the US and Canada at levels not seen since the mid-1990s, and the International Monetary Fund estimates project Indonesia will overtake it as the world's 15th-biggest economy next year. Still, President Obrador is carrying out a crusade against multinational energy firms -- whom he alleges, mostly without evidence, illicitly paid their way into the Mexican market -- even as critics say it will only make matters worse.

Now, he's taking sharp action to return the power, literally, back to the government -- consequences be damned:

Last year, a new law went into effect forcing the national electric grid to prioritize electricity produced by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) -- a study by the US government's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, however, claims this may raise Mexico's overall energy bill by over 50%, worth roughly $5.5 billion a year, and increase carbon emissions by 65%.

CUTTING NOSE TO SPITE FACE

The Mexican government has also halted all new auctions for private oil-and-gas exploration, as well as investments into private electricity generation -- including wind and solar farms that could produce power at 33% of the CFE's average cost, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal.

In sum, according to environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the moves will likely prevent Mexico from achieving the carbon reduction goals outlined in the Paris Climate Agreements.

Arbitration Nation: Private equity giant KKR says it will sue the government for $667 million in damages, after one of its fuel-importing terminals was seized and closed by Mexico's energy regulator last year. Talos Energy, a Houston-based firm, also says it is pursuing legal recourse after Mexico seized operating control of an oil field it discovered last year.

FEMICIDE
Former Amazon Mexico CEO accused of paying hitmen to shoot dead his wife

Shweta Sharma
Sun, June 12, 2022

The murder of Abril Pérez Sagaón in November 2019 sparked massive outrage in the country (Screengrab/Nmas)

A former CEO of Amazon Mexico allegedly paid two hitmen $9,000 to gun down his estranged wife in 2019, one of the assassins testified in a court.

Juan Carlos García, who is on the run since the murder, has arrest warrants issued against him in 190 countries after he was accused of orchestrating the murder of his wife Abril Pérez Sagaón.

Pérez was shot in the head by a motorcyclist in Mexico City in front of two children in her car, days before a scheduled hearing for the divorce case, authorities said.

His wife had filed for divorce after she accused him of trying to kill her in her sleep with a baseball bat and then beating her with it in January 2019. Following the attack, the graphic images of her face covered in blood went viral on social media, sparking outrage in the country.

Almost 10 months later, she was killed in cold blood on 25 November, the day marked by the UN as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, sparking massive outrage in the country as feminist groups carried out demonstrations and raised slogans.

One of the assassins who was hired to kill Pérez testified in a Mexico city court that Mr Garcia offered an extra $2500 to kill his wife before the hearing, reported El Pais.

Mr Garcia, who was a businessman, was named the CEO of Amazon in Mexico when the e-commerce giant opened its first office in 2014 and remained on the role until 2017.

He was taken into pre-trial detention for 10 months after his wife formally accused him of attempted femicide but a judge released him in November following a controversial order downgrading the charge to domestic violence.

Judge Federico Mosco González raised questions over the intent of the alleged crime and said Mr Garcia would have killed her when she was sleeping if he wanted to do that.

Before the murder, she had a restraining order against Mr García and was fighting to get legal custody of her three children.

At the time of the murder, Pérez had returned to Mexico City from Nuevo Leon for a court-ordered mental evaluation in relation to the case.

She was travelling with her lawyer and children when a man walked up to the car that had stopped at the traffic light and shot her. She died later that night in the hospital.

Days after the murder, Mr García allegedly fled Mexico and entered the US, crossing into San Diego via Tijuana on foot, Mexican outlet La Jornada reported.

Mr García denied the charges and claimed his innocence in a letter he sent to Mexico City officials in 2019.

From Australia to the UK, here's how other countries have responded to mass shootings

Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

The U.S. is in a class of its own when it comes to gun violence.

The U.S.'s rate of firearms homicides is 4.14 per 100,000 people, the highest among wealthy nations with a population of 10 million or more, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization based at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Firearms homicide rates in the U.S. are 22 times greater than in the 27 countries that comprise the European Union, for example.

As of Friday there were 254 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there were more than 45,000 firearm-related deaths in the U.S. in 2020, the most recent period for which data are available. That equates to about 124 people dying from a firearm-connected injury in the U.S. each day, according to the CDC.

After each new mass shooting incident in the U.S., there have been calls to change gun laws, which are far less restrictive compared to other developed nations. Most changes have been incremental at best and taken place at the state level. Other countries have been more successful at adopting new legislation following mass shootings.

Here are some of them:

Australia

Just weeks after a lone gunman in 1996 killed 35 people at a cafe in the tourist town of Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australian authorities – despite fierce opposition from the gun lobby – passed strict gun control legislation, including a ban on semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns.

As part of the reforms, thousands of unlicensed firearms were surrendered. All licensed gun owners were required to take a safety course. Some 650,000 firearms were confiscated and destroyed.

A 2011 study concluded Australia's policy saved lives. There were 13 mass shootings in Australia in the 18 years before the legislation was adopted, resulting in more than 100 deaths. There were no mass shootings for 14 years after the laws were passed. There have been few incidents in Australia since the laws were enacted.

A mass shooting, then a change: How Australia changed its gun laws

Canada

In 1989 after 14 female college students studying engineering were killed in a Montreal classroom, Canada adopted legislation mandating background checks, safety courses and harsher penalties for some gun-related crimes.

And in 2020, after a gunman killed 22 people in Nova Scotia, Canada's government banned over 1,500 models of military-grade assault-style weapons. According to the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research group, there are about 121 firearms for every 100 residents of the U.S. In Canada, the figure is 35 guns per 100 residents, according to the survey. There have been no mass shootings reported in Canada in 2022.

In the wake of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two teachers, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proposed a sweeping new bill aimed at a "national freeze" on the sale and purchase of handguns. Some toys that resemble guns will also be subject to a ban.

The measure is not expected to take effect before the fall.

McConaughey:There's a difference between gun control and gun responsibility

New Zealand

Firearms-related deaths in New Zealand are quite rare. However, on March 15, 2019, 50 people were killed in mass shootings at mosques in Christchurch, on New Zealand's South Island. Within days, the country's parliament moved to ban the sale of assault weapons.

Legislators also later voted to prohibit the circulation and use of most semi-automatic firearms and parts that convert firearms into semi-automatic firearms. Magazines over a certain capacity and some shotguns were also banned.

"When we saw something like that happen, everyone said never again, and so it was incumbent on us as politicians to respond to that," New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said during an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on May 25. She was in the U.S. shortly after the Uvalde massacre.

"We have legitimate needs for guns in our country, for things like pest control and to protect our biodiversity – but you don’t need a military-style semi-automatic to do that," Ardern said.

Opinion: Why do mass shootings keep happening?: Because this is what we've allowed America to become

United Kingdom

One of Britain's deadliest mass shootings took place on March 13, 1996, when 16 children ages 5 and 6 were targeted, along with their teacher, by a former Scout leader in the Scottish town of Dunblane. In direct response to the incident, British lawmakers effectively banned private ownership of all handguns in mainland Britain, giving the country some of the strictest anti-gun legislation in the world. Authorities also introduced a firearm amnesty, resulting in the surrender of thousands of guns.

Members of the public are allowed to own rifles for sports and shotguns, provided they are licensed to do so. There have been no reported shootings in schools since. The U.K's firearms homicide rate is 0.04 per 100,000 people, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

A police officer arranges bouquets of flowers in rows at a side entrance to Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, Scotland, on March 15, 1996. One of Britain's deadliest mass shootings took place at the school.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How mass shootings changed gun control laws in other countries

Sat, June 11, 2022