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Incoming Biden chief of staff Zients is nearly wealthy enough to buy the entire White House

Jan. 23, 2023

By Steve Goldstein

Jeff Zients, then the White House’s Covid-19 response czar, speaking in April 2021.

The person widely reported to be President Joe Biden’s next chief of staff has just about enough assets to swap it for the entire White House, were it ever for sale.

The financial disclosure form for incoming White House chief of staff Jeffrey Zients lists assets ranging in value between $89 million and $442 million. That form is based on data as of May 2022, from his previous role at coordinator of the COVID-19 response. Zients according to the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and other outlets, will replace Ron Klain as White House chief of staff.

Zillow Z, +2.92% lists the valuation of the White House at $481 million, though of course 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is not for sale.

The disclosure form lists a mix of funds, including such broad based investments such as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, +1.20% and the Vanguard Total Stock Market VTSAX, +1.25% index fund. Other funds he held invested in bonds and gold.

Zients started his business career at the consulting firm Bain & Co., and later held a similar role at Mercer Management Consulting. He was also the former chief executive of the Advisory Board Company, a healthcare consulting firm that is now a unit of UnitedHealth UNH, -0.19%.

The vast wealth of Zients has led to criticism from groups including the Revolving Door Project, which said he became “astonishingly rich by profiteering in healthcare.” It pointed to settlements in firms he either controlled or invested in which paid millions to settle allegations of Medicare and Medicaid fraudulent billing.

In President Obama’s White House, Zients was director of the National Economic Council and acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. He helped lead the effort to repair the Healthcare.gov website after a botched rollout.

AP sources: Biden to pick Zients as his next chief of staff





ZEKE MILLER, MICHAEL BALSAMO and SEUNG MIN KIM
Sun, January 22, 2023 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is expected to name Jeff Zients, who ran the administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the start of Biden's term, as his next chief of staff, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Biden's current top aide, Ron Klain, is preparing to leave the job in the coming weeks.

Since serving as COVID-19 response coordinator, Zients has returned to the White House in a low-profile position to work on staffing matters for the remainder of Biden's first term.

The two people familiar with the matter were not authorized to publicly discuss Biden's plans before an official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Washington Post first reported on Zients' expected appointment. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

The change at the highest levels of senior staff comes as Biden passes his two-year mark in office and pivots to a defensive stance against a House Republican majority hungry to investigate his administration's actions and his family. The White House remains mired in controversy over discoveries of classified documents at Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former institute in Washington, with the latest tranche of found records disclosed Saturday evening.

Biden, 80, is also preparing to launch his reelection campaign in the coming weeks, bolstered by a string of legislative accomplishments in the first two years of his presidency when Democrats controlled both chambers of Capitol Hill. He is confronting a Republican presidential field that is far from formed but for now is led by former President Donald Trump, whom Biden defeated in 2020.

The president's main sphere of advisers, in addition to Zients, on politics and legislation will continue to include presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti, senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn, legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell, and Jen O'Malley Dillon and Bruce Reed, who are deputy chiefs of staff.

Klain will remain in Biden's political orbit, according to a person familiar with his plans — not unlike the role played by Cedric Richmond, who was the president's first director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and now is a senior adviser at the Democratic National Committee.

The outgoing chief of staff was also known to be friendly with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But some liberal critics of Zients swiftly went on the attack against the appointment even before it was official, highlighting in particular his private-sector ties.

Jeff Hauser, the founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, a progressive group that advocates for liberal appointees in government, said Sunday that the selection of Zients as the top White House aide did not jibe with Biden’s “Scranton Joe” political image.

“Unfortunately, Zients is a veteran of private equity, rapacious health care providers, and Big Tech, which sets up a fundamental question that could determine Biden’s political future: Will a Zients-led executive branch pursue the unpopular misconduct of people like Jeffrey Zients?” Hauser said. “It would be against Zients’ character to pursue corporate lawbreaking, but it is also the only way Biden can retain the mantle of populist against the likes of (Florida Gov. Ron) DeSantis and Trump.”

“Ron Klain has been an open ear and even-handed engager of actors across the Democratic Party," said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "Whomever the next Chief of Staff is, that will be the continued hope and expectation. There will likely be an early relationship and trust building stage.”

Zients, vice chairman of Biden’s transition operation after his November 2020 election, brings significant managerial expertise in government and the private sector. He was the director of the National Economic Council during the Obama administration and acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The longtime management consultant developed a Mr. Fix It reputation, tapped to lead the Obama administration's effort to repair HealthCare.gov after the bungled initial rollout of the site in fall 2013. Zients served as top executive at the Advisory Board Co., a Washington consulting firm.

Former President Barack Obama also enlisted Zients in 2009 to eliminate the backlog in applicants for the Cash for Clunkers program, which offered rebates to drivers who swapped old cars for fuel-efficient vehicles. Zients later took on a similar challenge to smooth sign-ups for an updated version of the GI Bill.

Another coming perk for White House aides: Zients, who was an initial investor in Call Your Mother, a bagel shop in Washington, had a penchant for hosting “Bagel Wednesdays” for staff. (Zients divested his shares before joining the White House in 2021).

Zients and his deputy on the White House’s pandemic response team, Natalie Quillian, left the Biden administration last April before returning quietly in the fall of 2022. As they left, Biden thanked him for “stunning” and “consequential” progress battling the pandemic.

“When Jeff took this job, less than 1% of Americans were fully vaccinated; fewer than half our schools were open; and unlike much of the developed world, America lacked any at-home COVID tests,” Biden said when the White House announced Zients' departure last year. “Today, almost 80% of adults are fully vaccinated; over 100 million are boosted; virtually every school is open; and hundreds of millions of at-home tests are distributed every month.”

___

Kim reported from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Scientists Have a Genius Plan: Turn Abandoned Mines Into Gravity Batteries

Darren Orf
Mon, January 23, 2023 

Turning Abandoned Mines Into Gravity BatteriesEnergy Vault

Gravity batteries use gravity and regenerative braking to send renewable energy to the grid.

Scientists created a battery that uses millions of abandoned mines worldwide (with an estimated 550,000 of them being in the U.S. alone) to store energy.

Some companies are trying to build gravity batteries that can be dropped anywhere, regardless of if there are mines in the area.

Supplying the world with renewable energy is a two-fold problem. The first is making technologies like wind and solar as robust and affordable as coal and natural gas. With recent estimates suggesting solar will outpace coal in 2025, that first problem is quickly being solved. The second one, figuring out how to store that energy, is a bit trickier.

Unlike fossil fuels, solar and wind can’t provide an uninterrupted stream of energy. After all, the sun sets and winds die, but scientists and engineers have developed myriad ways to store that renewable energy for when the grid needs it. One idea is to supplement lithium-ion batteries with iron-air batteries that could charge our homes via rust (yes, rust), or transform existing coal-fired power plants into nuclear ones. But another much talked about technology is what’s known as “gravity batteries,” which use regenerative braking and, well, gravity to send energy to the grid.

The big problem is exactly that—they’re big—making them unfeasible (and unattractive) for certain areas. However, earlier this month, scientists revealed a gravity battery that takes advantage of vestiges of dirty energy’s past by using millions of abandoned mines worldwide (with an estimated 550,000 of them being in the U.S. alone) to store energy.

The research into these new batteries, led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), examined a technology known as Underground Gravity Energy Storage (UGES). At its most basic, this battery lowers large containers of sand into a mineshaft when energy is expensive (aka peak hours). Using regenerative braking, these mines would transform the sand’s potential energy into actual energy, and the bigger the mine, the bigger the battery.

To recharge, the mine then brings sand back to the surface when energy is cheap. Unlike conventional batteries such as lithium-ion, gravity batteries experience zero self-discharge, which is the slow loss of energy over time while being stored. That means these mines can be on standby to provide much needed energy for months or even years. Using abandoned mines also provides tons of benefits as it preserves jobs, hides unsightly infrastructure underground, and leverages connections to the grid that already exist.

“Mines already have the basic infrastructure and are connected to the power grid, which significantly reduces the cost and facilitates the implementation of UGES plants,” IIASA researcher Julian Hunt said in a statement. The researchers published their results in the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute journal on Thursday.

According to the BBC, some companies are already investigating ways to transform abandoned coal mines into next-gen batteries. However, others find the geographic limitations of mine-based gravity batteries could limit the adoption of the technology worldwide. The IIASA even admits that the world’s greatest benefactors of this technology would be countries like Russia, India, and the U.S., where a lot of mines already exist. That’s why outfits like Energy Vault, a Swiss-based gravity battery company, are trying to build aesthetically pleasing gravity batteries that can be dropped anywhere and even feel at home in urban and suburban settings.

Just like how humanity’s green energy future will likely be a mix of solar, wind, and next-gen nuclear power stations, energy storage will also be an eclectic mix of chemical and gravity batteries — both above and below ground.

SERIAL RAPIST IN A LAB COAT

Prosecutor: Doctor sexually abused patients entire career

LARRY NEUMEISTER
Mon, January 23, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — A prosecutor urged a New York jury Monday to convict a doctor of federal sex trafficking charges, saying that he hid behind his white coat and the prestige of Columbia University to sexually abuse patients for decades. His defense lawyer countered that acquittal was appropriate because he'd already been punished for those crimes.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Kim described the evidence against former gynecologist Robert Hadden, 64, as “devastating” and “damning” as she recounted testimony by nine victims as well as two nurses who worked with Hadden during a career that stretched from the late 1980s until 2012.

“He donned his white coat and took the oath all doctors do to ‘do no harm’ and then he did the exact opposite,” Kim told the Manhattan federal court jury.

She said he tried to “hide behind his white coat" and the prestige of Columbia University as he won over vulnerable patients before sexually abusing them.

“The defendant had a plan, a strategy,” Kim said. “This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

She said he would ask patients about their sex lives and would conduct lengthy breast examinations that should only last 30 seconds to a minute on every visit for some women. Then, she said, he “hid behind the cover of gynecological exams ... to keep pushing the envelope, to see how far he could go.”

Defense attorney Kathryn Wozencroft agreed that what some of Hadden's patients endured at his hands was “disgusting and horrible” and deeds that made it appropriate for a doctor to lose his medical license.

“The harm they suffered is real," she said, adding that “we're not challenging what happened in the exam rooms.”

But she said his guilty plea to charges in New York state court seven years ago was for all of those abuses and it would be wrong to convict him of the new charges based on those same crimes. After that plea, Hadden, of Englewood, New Jersey, surrendered his medical license but wasn’t required to serve any jail time.

Wozencroft said the sex trafficking charges require that Hadden knew that the four patients the charges pertain to were traveling over state lines and that he enticed them to do so because he wanted to sexually abuse them.

The defense has maintained throughout the two-week trial that Hadden wasn't aware of where his clients were traveling from or the roster of his appointments each day.

According to the indictment against Hadden, the doctor sexually abused patients from 1993 through at least 2012 while he was working at two prestigious Manhattan hospitals, Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

The institutions have already agreed to pay more than $236 million to settle civil claims by more than 200 former patients.

Among the former patients who have spoken publicly was Evelyn Yang, whose husband, Andrew Yang, ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for president in 2020 and for New York City mayor in 2022.

In 2020, she said Hadden sexually assaulted her eight years prior, even when she was seven months pregnant. She had called the sentence in the state case a “slap on the wrist.”

The Associated Press generally withholds the names of sexual abuse victims from stories unless they have decided to tell their stories publicly, which Yang and others have done.

Hadden has remained free on $1 million bail since his 2020 arrest

Nigeria opens 'game changer' billion-dollar deep seaport

Mon, January 23, 2023 
By Seun Sanni

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria opened a billion-dollar Chinese-built deep seaport in Lagos on Monday, which is expected to ease congestion at the country's ports and help it become an African hub for transshipment, handling cargoes in transit for other destinations.

President Muhammadu Buhari has made building infrastructure a key pillar of his government's economic policy, and hopes that this will help his ruling party win votes during next month's presidential election.

The new Lekki Deep Sea Port is 75% owned by the China Harbour Engineering Company and Tolaram group, with the balance shared between the Lagos state government and the Nigerian Ports Authority.

"This is a transformative project, game changer project. This project could create at least 200,000 jobs," Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria Cui Jianchun told Reuters after the port was commissioned by Buhari.

China is among the largest bilateral lenders to Nigeria and has funded rail, roads and power stations.

(Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Jan Harvey)

Scrub Hub: Passing a wind farm, I see some turbines spinning and others motionless. Why?

Karl Schneider, Indianapolis Star
Mon, January 23, 2023 

Wind farms are becoming more common in Indiana. The state already boasts the fourth largest "farm" in the U.S. and produces nearly 3,500 megawatts of wind energy, with more on the horizon.

The towering windmills reaching up to the sky produce slightly more than 9% of all the electricity used in the state. That's enough to power more than 1 million homes, according to the American Clean Power Association.

With more projects in the works that will produce another 302 megawatts, and a handful of bills proposed in this session of the General Assembly, wind power is likely to continue to grow across the state. And with the increasing presence of the conspicuous energy generators comes some curiosity.

So, for this edition of Scrub Hub, we took to our trusty submission form and chose a question from Teresa, who asked: Why are the wind turbines not turning right now?

Wind turbines operate in a rural area north of Lafayette, Indiana, on Wednesday, August 4, 2021.

It’s possible for the blades on wind turbines to reach up to speeds of 200 mph, so it may seem odd when some are spinning very quickly while the blades on others nearby are not moving.


We dug around in some state, federal and industry reports and reached out to academic experts in energy technology to determine why some turbines in a wind farm spin while others remain still.

Short Answer: The turbine is down for maintenance

Wind turbines, like all machines, need both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. In some instances that explains why some are operating but not others.

The basic components of a wind turbine are the visible tower and rotor blades, as well as the gearbox and generator located at the top of the tower.

Scheduled maintenance helps prevent wear and tear from breaking parts and unscheduled maintenance occurs when the turbine experiences any of a number of failures.

Regular preventative maintenance can include periodic equipment inspection, oil and filter changes, calibration and adjustment of various parts, as well as replacing brake pads and seals. General housekeeping and blade cleaning can also temporarily keep a turbine from spinning.

In larger wind farms, several turbines on a circuit can be inoperable and not spinning because they are all down for maintenance, said John Roudebush, program chair of Ivy Tech College’s Energy Technology program.

More Scrub Hub:Hoosiers may not be able to plant the same trees they used to

Long answer: Curtailment, congestion and wind speed

Energy transmission in Indiana is run through the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, commonly known as MISO. The group manages the flow of electricity by balancing demand versus what’s being generated, which means there are times where excess electricity is being produced.

“(Sometimes) we don’t need the power as demand is down or another power plant is selling power to the customers instead,” Roudebush wrote in an email. “Power plants compete on the grid. A coal plant, a natural gas plant, or a wind farm will all bid to sell power during some part of the day and MISO will pick the cheapest bid for the day. Generally, wind is the cheapest but not always.”

John Hall, assistant professor at the University of Buffalo’s Engineering and Applied Sciences, focuses his research on the technical aspects of wind energy. While some wind turbines will operate normally, he said others may be stopped to match production with grid demand.

“Basically, you have the utility company distributing power and buying and selling in real time,” Hall said. “Based on how much they need, wind farms would turn turbines off accordingly.”

The industry calls a wind turbine that is not spinning “parked,” Hall said, and this is done with a braking system that holds the rotor in place. Once energy demand rises, the brake is released and almost immediately the turbine starts delivering electricity to the grid again.

Another obvious answer to why the turbines may not be spinning is that the wind speed is not high enough.

Generally, turbines can generate power with wind speeds as low as 5 mph. If speeds fall below that, there just isn’t enough to turn the sometimes massive blades.

On the other hand, wind that is too fast can cause damages to the turbines, so operators of wind farms will park the rotors until the wind calms down. Turbines generally shut down when wind speeds hit about 55 mph.

“The system is not designed for that, so they shut it down,” Hall said. “That’s OK because we rarely get winds over that speed, and it would not be worthwhile to design for that for the few instances.”

To help improve the efficiency of wind farms, Hall said banking excess power is a huge research area right now.

“There are studies on new battery technology and super capacitors and different ways to get around that issue,” Hall said.

More:Toxic pollution, fossil fuels, floodplains: Top environmental bills to watch this session

Another solution for storing excess electricity is by making hydrogen, Hall said. Wind farm operators would be able to create hydrogen and store it for use later when the grid demand increases.

While fossil fuel plants may be more responsive to the constantly moving supply and demand for electricity, Hall said the future depends on renewables.

"If folks are concerned about climate and want a better future for the next generation and everything, renewable energy like wind and hydro-electric and tidal power are all really not just sources of energy but vital to perhaps our existence," Hall said.

Karl Schneider is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach him at karl.schneider@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @karlstartswithk

IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why do some wind turbines spin as others nearby stand still?

ARYAN FASCISM
Why India Is Using Emergency Laws to Ban a Documentary About Prime Minister Modi
Astha Rajvanshi
Mon, January 23, 2023 

Narendra Modi - 2002 - Gujarat - Chief Minister - Prime Minister - India

Narendra Modi (then Chief Minister and now Prime Minister of India) heading to riot-affected areas in Ahmedabad Gujarat, India on February 28, 2002. Credit - Kalpit Bhachech—Dipam Bhachech/Getty Images

Last Tuesday, the British Broadcasting Corporation released the first episode of “The Modi Question,” a two-part documentary series that tracks how the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi climbed the political ranks of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party during his time as the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat.

The documentary was originally broadcasted in the U.K., but it quickly generated hype in India after unauthorized video clips began circulating on social media platforms, reminding viewers of Modi’s controversial role in the 2002 Gujarat riots—and prompting the Indian government this week to block it from being aired on Indian platforms.

What is the documentary about?

The 59-minute documentary takes an in-depth look at the 2002 Gujarat riots—one of the worst outbreaks of religious violence in India since the country’s Independence in 1947. It traces how the riots erupted after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims in the northern state of Gujarat was set on fire and killed 59 people. The Muslim community was held allegedly responsible for the incident, leading to heightened retaliatory attacks and the deaths of over 1,000 Muslims.

The riots took place under Modi’s watch, who at the time was Gujarat’s Chief Minister. Raw and chilling footage reveals how the police stood by as Hindu mobs attacked Muslims and religious attacks took hold of the state.

Why is the documentary so controversial?

In India and abroad, questions about Modi’s complicity in abetting the violence have generated controversy for decades, but the BBC documentary goes a step further in highlighting his role through expert commentary — it reveals that a previously unpublished report from the British Foreign Office held Modi “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity” that enabled the violence and said it had “all the hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing.” The BBC also uncovers other memos by the British government and Western diplomats, including the former British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who unequivocally criticizes Modi’s conduct at the time.

However, the documentary also features interviews with former BJP politicians who support Modi and strongly deny his involvement in the riots. They cite the Indian Supreme Court’s verdict in 2013, which stated that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Read More: How India’s Record-Breaking Population Will Shape the World

According to Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of the NGO Human Rights Watch, Gujarat has always been one of the most sensitive issues for Modi because he demonstrated “passivity in the face of large-scale ethnic violence.” But, Roth adds, Modi shows intolerance towards a range of criticism due to fear of reputational harm, and his reaction to this documentary is no different.

“People tend to assume that India is a democracy, that there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to free expression,” says Roth. “But Modi is not abiding by the requirements of free expression in the way that a Democratic leader should.”

Representatives for the BBC and India’s foreign affairs ministry did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment.

401733 09: A mob of Hindus wielding swords and sticks back off after Indian Rapid Reaction Force officers stopped them from attacking a small group of Muslims March 1, 2002 in Ahmadabad, India.Ami Vitale—Getty Images

Can the government block the documentary from being aired in India?

Under the emergency powers granted by the country’s information and technology law, the Indian government has already issued orders to YouTube and Twitter demanding that they block any content related to the documentary from being published on their platforms.

Kanchan Gupta, a senior adviser to the Indian government, announced the news on Twitter on Saturday, calling the documentary “vile propaganda” which undermined “the sovereignty and integrity of India” and had the potential to “adversely impact India’s friendly relations with foreign countries.” The decision was backed by various Indian ministries, including the Ministry of External Affairs, which found the documentary pushed a discredited narrative, cast “aspersions on the authority and credibility” of the Supreme Court, and created “divisions among Indian communities.”

So far, YouTube and Twitter are complying with the Indian government’s orders. Over 50 tweets containing links to the documentary have been taken down, according to the Lumen database. They include tweets by Derek O’Brien, a member of the Indian Parliament, as well as Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan and American actor and political activist John Cusack.

Media organizations and digital rights activists have long criticized the IT laws that enable the Indian government to censor social media content. The laws have been challenged in the Supreme Court, as well as multiple High Courts, with proceedings currently underway.

What has the Indian response to the documentary and the government’s decision been?

Critics of Modi say the block affirms Modi’s ardent base of supporters, who have decried it as “colonial” and “white” propaganda. “The bias and lack of objectivity and frankly continuing colonial mindset are blatantly visible,” Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for the foreign affairs ministry told reporters at a press conference last Thursday.

But according to Roth, the “principal victims” of Modi’s censorship are Indian citizens. Therefore, minimizing valid concerns raised about Modi in the documentary as colonial partisanship “shirks responsibility for his own intolerance of legitimate criticism.”

This is compounded by the fact that banning a documentary that was not otherwise popular in India has only invited more viewers, says Hartosh Singh Bal, the political editor of Indian magazine The Caravan, who also appears in the documentary as a commentator. “Frankly, the ban has been pretty stupid because it’s attracted far more attention to the documentary than would have been otherwise possible,” says Bal. He adds that it is now being screened across school campuses as “an act of resistance” among teenagers who previously viewed these events as a dated chapter in history.

“In some senses created far more awareness than the government could have expected,” adds Bal, noting that it has brought new relevance to the conflict.

While the events of 2002 catapulted Modi into his current position, Bal says he remains extremely sensitive about his international reputation and still wants to be viewed as a statesman. But clamping down on this documentary in what Bal calls a “ham-handed fashion” will only confirm the expectations of his fiercest critics.

India blocks YouTube videos and Twitter posts on BBC Modi documentary


Manish Singh
Sat, January 21, 2023

The Indian government has ordered YouTube and Twitter to take down videos and tweets about a BBC documentary that is critical of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued the directions “for blocking multiple YouTube videos” and "over 50 tweets" linked to the videos of the first episode of the BBC documentary, Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to the ministry, said Saturday.

The ministry issued the directions under the IT Rules, 2021 that gives the ministry the authority to take down posts that it deems undermines the sovereignty and integrity of India, and has "potential to adversely impact India's friendly relations with foreign countries as also public order within the country," Gupta said. Both YouTube and Twitter complied with the directions, he said.

Gupta called the BBC documentary a “hateful propaganda.” Multiple ministries, including MEA, MHA and MIB, examined BBC's "malicious documentary" and found it "casting aspersions on the authority and credibility of Supreme Court of India, sowing divisions among various Indian communities, and making unsubstantiated allegations," he wrote in a Twitter thread.

The BBC has not broadcasted the documentary in India.

BBC aired the first episode of the two-part documentary, "India: The Modi Question" on January 17. The series addresses the 2002 communal riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat, where Modi was the Chief Minister at the time. Nearly 800 Muslims and over 250 Hindus died in the riots, according to official figures.

The violence erupted after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims caught fire.

A Special Investigation Team appointed by India's apex court a decade later said Modi had taken the steps to control the riots. Another petition questioning Modi's exoneration was dismissed last year.

The BBC series says Modi's governance has been "dogged by persistent allegations about the attitude of his government towards India’s Muslim population," according to the description on its website.

"This series investigates the truth behind these allegations and examines Modi’s backstory to explore other questions about his politics when it comes to India’s largest religious minority."

Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson for the Indian foreign ministry, said this week that the documentary is a "propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative. The bias, the lack of objectivity, and frankly a continuing colonial mindset, is blatantly visible."

"If anything, this film or documentary is a reflection on the agency and individuals that are peddling this narrative again. It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise and the agenda behind it and frankly we do not wish to dignify such efforts."

BBC said in a statement that the documentary examines the tensions between India's Hindi majority and Muslim minority and explores the politics of India's PM Modi in relation to those tensions.

"The documentary was rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards. A wide range of voices, witnesses and experts were approached, and we have featured a range of opinions – this includes responses from people in the BJP [India’s ruling party]. We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series – it declined to respond,” a BBC spokesperson said.

This isn't the first time a documentary on Modi has stirred debate. Disney-owned Hotstar, India’s largest on-demand video streaming service with more than 300 million users, blocked an episode of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” that was critical of Modi. An uncensored version of that episode aired on YouTube in India.

Russian tycoon tells Kremlin: Tolerate, don't punish dissident remote workers

YOU CAN'T EXILE THEM FURTHER THEN THEY WORK

VY NE MOZHETE IZGNAT' IKH DAL'SHE, POTOM ONI RABOTAYUT

Vladimir Potanin  Russian entrepreneur

St. Petersburg International Economic Forum

Andrew Osborn and Alexander Marrow
Mon, January 23, 2023 

By Andrew Osborn and Alexander Marrow

LONDON (Reuters) - One of Russia's richest tycoons called on the authorities on Monday to tolerate rather than punish hundreds of thousands of workers who have fled abroad due to Moscow's war in Ukraine, arguing that the country needs their brain power.

"People who work for our economy from abroad - remotely or otherwise - should not be punished," billionaire metals executive Vladimir Potanin told the online RBC news portal, calling for an end to talk of punitive measures against them, something he called "demagoguery".

He said Moscow had to be tolerant even if remote workers held views which Russian patriots disliked, a reference to the fact that many of those who left - including IT specialists - did so to avoid being drafted into the army or because they disagreed with what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, launched on Feb. 24 last year.

Potanin is estimated to be Russia's richest or second richest person thanks to his stake in metals giant Nornickel.

The scale of the exodus - put at up to 700,000 people by some Russian media, a figure the Kremlin has suggested is exaggerated - has fuelled fears of a brain drain at a time when Russia is under tough Western economic sanctions.

Maksut Shadaev, the head of Russia's ministry of digital affairs, told parliament in December that around 100,000 IT specialists had left Russia in 2022.

'TRAITORS'

A sometimes vitriolic debate about how to treat such people has gripped Russia's political and business elite for weeks.

Hardliners such as former president Dmitry Medvedev have called some of those who fled "traitors" who should never be allowed back home.

Other hawkish politicians have advocated hitting remote workers and emigres with higher taxes and stripping them of their passports and Russian assets. They are mulling legislation that would ban remote working in some sectors altogether.

Conversely, reports in Russia's business daily Kommersant about plans being examined by the ministry of digital affairs, suggest it wants to lure specialists back with relocation packages and exemptions from being drafted into the army.

The ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment, but has made clear it opposes proposals to ban IT workers from leaving the country or levying higher taxes on those who do.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in comments last week to online news portal Life, said that while the state must fight its "enemies" it must also ensure that Russians who had not adopted a hostile stance to their country and its policies should be able to return home.

Potanin said Moscow badly needs remote workers including computer programmers to help its battered economy recover.

"Most of them continue to work for our country, our economy, our companies. Some of them will come back, some will not. So why push them away and persecute them?" Potanin told RBC.

Programmers working remotely are "our strength, not our weakness, their brains, their ability to produce a product, which, incidentally, we are woefully short of," he said, estimating that Russia was able to supply only 20% of its own software needs.

Suggestions that they should have their apartments or other assets confiscated amount to theft and would weaken Russia's investment potential, Potanin added.

One doctor who fled Russia for a country in the European Union last February said he was sceptical of any sweeteners the authorities might offer to lure people back.

"No-one is convinced these measures will work," said the doctor, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.

"Stop the war first and then make people feel like they are masters of their own destiny."

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn and Alexander Marrow; Editing by Gareth Jones)

ВЫ НЕ МОЖЕТЕ ИЗГНАТЬ ИХ ДАЛЬШЕ, ПОТОМ ОНИ РАБОТАЮТ

Afghanistan professor on girls' education: 'Men must stand up for women'

Yalda Hakim - BBC News, Kabul
Mon, January 23, 2023

Prof Mashal says he will protest against the ban on women's education even if it means his death

"I call on fathers to take the hands of their daughters and walk them to school, even if the gates are shut."

Professor Ismail Mashal, who runs a private university in Kabul, says he has had enough of the restrictions women face in Afghanistan.

Slender and well dressed, he is a mixture of defiance and raw emotion.

"Even if they're not allowed in - they should do this daily. It's the least they can do to prove they are men," he tells me, holding back tears.

"This is not me being emotional - this is pain. Men must stand up and defend the rights of Afghan women and girls."

In December the Taliban government announced female students at universities would no longer be allowed back - until further notice.


They said they were doing this to enable them to create an Islamic learning environment aligned with Sharia law practices, including changes to the curriculum.

Not long after the ban was announced, Prof Mashal went viral on social media after tearing up his academic records live on television, saying there was no point in gaining an education in today's Afghanistan.

He says he won't stay silent.

"The only power I have is my pen, even if they kill me, even if they tear me to pieces, I won't stay silent now," Prof Mashal says.

"I know what I am doing is risky. Every morning, I say goodbye to my mother and wife and tell them I may not return. But I am ready and willing to sacrifice my life for 20 million Afghan women and girls and for the future of my two children."

Prof Mashal's university had 450 female students studying there and they took courses in journalism, engineering, economics and computer science. The Taliban's education minister says these degrees should not be taught to women because they are against Islam and Afghan culture.

Prof Mashal ran a private university in Kabul where 450 female students studied journalism, engineering and economics among other subjects.

Prof Mashal says he could have kept his institution open for male students only - but instead decided to shut it completely.

"Education is either offered to all, or no one. The day I closed the doors of my institution, I was in a lot of pain.

"These people are playing with the future of our girls. My students call me and ask me when I think they'll be able to go back.

"I have no answers for them. I have no answers for my 12-year-old daughter who won't be able to go to high school next year. She continues to ask me what crime she has committed?"

Since he went on TV, he has received many threats. Despite this, Prof Mashal appears on local media almost daily.

He's hoping his advocacy will lead to a nationwide campaign. But in this deeply conservative society, how likely is it that other men will join him?

Even within the Taliban government, there are those who oppose the ban on girls' education - but most have not gone public

In response to the decrees, Afghan women across the country have continued to come out onto the streets to demand their rights.

Afghan female students walk near Kabul University in Kabul, Afghanistan, December 21, 2022

While the protests have been predominantly led by Afghan women, male students and professors over the past few weeks have also begun risking their lives by speaking out - either by refusing to sit their final exams or by resigning from their positions.

Prof Mashal says since the Taliban took over the country, he can't understand their focus on restricting women.

"Leave these poor women alone. It's enough. There are much bigger issues that need to be dealt with. There is no law and order in this country, it's like being in a jungle."

The former journalist, 37, says he keeps in regular contact with his female students who are heartbroken by these decisions and he worries about their mental health.

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One of his students, Shabnam, who was studying economics - a degree the Taliban say is inappropriate for women - says she'll never forget the day armed Taliban soldiers arrived at their school to tell them it would be the last day they could attend classes.

"We were so afraid and left our classrooms with heavy hearts not knowing when or if we'd ever return. I haven't been able to sleep properly since. I have three sisters and many female cousins and they're all in the same situation. We feel we are trapped inside a cage or prison. Afghanistan is no country for women."

Another student, Shabana, who was in her first semester of journalism - another degree disapproved of by the Taliban - says she is struggling to cope with the transformation the past year and a half has brought to the lives of women and girls.

"My heart is shattered. I was hoping to be a newsreader, a good reporter some day but it feels like that dream is over. For as long as I remain in this country, I don't think we will be going back to our universities.

"We changed the way we dressed. Classrooms were segregated. We did exactly as we were told. But it was still not enough. We feared they would do this to us and they did.

"Everything feels incredibly bleak for me and my sister now. We are stuck at home, night turns to day and it all feels dark and bleak."

Despite Shabana's anguish, she praised Prof Mashal for taking a stance.

"It is a very lonely time for the women and girls of my country. There aren't many men who have spoken out. We worry about his safety but we are also so grateful for his support."

U.S. Supreme Court spurns attorney-client privilege fight in crypto tax probe

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan  jokingly asked a lawyer for the law firm to comment on "the ancient legal principle of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

 Bitcoin are seen in this illustration picture

Mon, January 23, 2023 
By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out a case about the scope of attorney-client privilege involving a law firm's bid to withhold records from prosecutors related to a cryptocurrency-promoting client in a tax investigation.

The unsigned one-sentence ruling "dismissed as improvidently granted" an appeal by an unnamed law firm of court orders holding it in contempt for not turning over records related to one of its clients in response to a federal grand jury subpoena.

The justices did so only two weeks after hearing arguments in the case. Many of the details of the case are unclear, as the names of the law firm and client have been kept from the public record during the normally secretive grand jury probe.

According to court papers, the law firm specializes in international tax issues and advised a client the U.S. Department of Justice says was an early promoter of bitcoin who expatriated himself from the United States in 2014.

The law firm says it prepared the client's tax returns and also provided legal advice on how to determine ownership of cryptocurrency assets and value them.

In response to a grand jury subpoena seeking records related to the preparation of the client's tax returns, the firm produced over 20,000 pages of records but withheld others, citing attorney-client privilege.

When a court ordered it to turn over about 54 others, it resisted. Those records, the firm said, were "dual-purpose" communications that contained legal advice as well as non-legal, advice concerning the preparation of its tax returns.

But the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower-court judge in saying legal advice had to be the "primary" purpose of the communication to qualify for attorney-client privilege.

That ruling was at odds with what some other federal appeals courts have ruled in similar cases, and several lawyers' groups like the American Bar Association filed briefs urging the justices to adopt a more expansive standard for privilege.

During arguments on Jan. 9, some justices questioned why the 9th Circuit's standard was wrong, with liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor noting that "the vast majority of states use the primary purpose test."

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan noted that no federal appeals court until 2014 had suggested a different standard should apply. She jokingly asked a lawyer for the law firm to comment on "the ancient legal principle of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Supreme Court rejects appeals by ex-Deutsche Bank traders convicted of 'spoofing'


U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington

Mon, January 23, 2023 
By John Kruzel

(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away appeals by two former Deutsche Bank AG commodities traders convicted of manipulating precious metals prices by placing "spoof" orders.

The court denied petitions by James Vorley and Cedric Chanu, who were each sentenced to just over a year in prison after being found guilty of wire fraud for spoofing, or placing orders with the intent to cancel them before trades are executed.

The pair were convicted in 2020 for carrying out what prosecutors said was a yearslong spoofing scheme between 2008 and 2013. Their trades created a false sense of supply and demand, and induced other traders to make trades they would otherwise not have made, prosecutors said.

On appeal, Vorley and Chanu argued they had not made the kind of explicit false statements targeted by wire-fraud law.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld the convictions last July, saying that "spoofing of this kind falls under the wire fraud prohibition."

The Biden administration had asked the justices to reject the appeals.

Lawyers for Vorley and Chanu did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; editing by Jonathan Oatis)