U$ Strikes Were Up Significantly Last Year

New numbers show that the number of strikes and the number of workers on strike both went up last year. Labor is still incredibly weak, but more workers walking off the job is a very good thing.

Subcontracted YouTube Music workers employed by Alphabet outsourcing partner Cognizant strike outside Google's office in Austin, Texas, on February 3, 2023.

 (Photo by Suzanne Cordeiro / AFP via Getty Images)

02.25.2023

BYALEX N. PRESS
Jacobin

The 2022 numbers are in: last year saw a 52 percent increase in the number of work stoppages from the previous year, with 60 percent more workers participating in such stoppages. The exact numbers: 272 work stoppages in 2021 grew to 424 in 2022; that number consists of 417 strikes and seven lockouts. While around 140,000 workers took part in a work stoppage in 2021, 224,000 workers did the same last year.

These numbers come from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) Labor Tracker annual report. The ILR Labor Tracker has the advantage of including work stoppages by fewer than one thousand workers; thanks to funding cuts during the Reagan administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) only tracks major strikes of one thousand or more workers

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(Cornell University ILR School)

A 52 percent increase over 2021 is worth noting, but it should be contextualized within broader trends in US strike activity. Labor lawyer and author Tom Geoghegan wrote in 1991: “A few years ago, when labor was dying, that was interesting. But now it’s dead, and it has been dead.” When a number is small, it can increase by 52 percent but still remain very small indeed. Such is the case when one takes the longer view of work stoppages in the United States.

Union researcher Eric Dirnbach offers a few charts illustrating the longer-term trends in strike activity, among other data points, in his own roundup of last year’s data:


The 1950s had an average of 352 large work stoppages per year involving 1.6 million workers. Incredibly, the entire time period from the 1950s–1970s had over 300 large work stoppages per year on average (nearly one per day!) involving over 1.4 million workers annually. However, the 2010s only had an average of about 15 per year involving 150,000 workers. The huge drop in the 1980s happened in the era of the failed PATCO [Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization] strike, leading to the term “PATCO Syndrome,” describing unions’ fear of striking and losing.

That broader view is not meant to dampen enthusiasm or dismiss the importance of workers’ activity but to bring a sense of perspective when analyzing the trends. Despite the uptick in strike activity, BLS numbers show that union density continued to fall, from 10.3 percent in 2021 to 10.1 percent in 2022. In other words, a significantly greater number of unionized workplaces saw strikes, but nonunion workers are struggling to overcome the myriad obstacles to unionizing even as nearly half of all workers say that they want to be in a union.

Nonunion workplaces comprise a significant proportion of the work stoppages that took place last year. The ILR report finds that 31 percent of the 424 work stoppages were by nonunion workers (though, it’s worth noting, those strikes were small, comprising only 3 percent of the 224,000 workers who struck last year)

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(Cornell University ILR School)

As for where these work stoppages are taking place, 80 percent of workers who went on strike in 2022 were in either health care (60 percent) or education (20 percent). These sectors comprise less than 20 percent of the US labor force, meaning these sectors’ workers are far more strike-prone than any others. There is a story to tell here: these are comparatively well-unionized sectors, meaning these workers are largely striking over new contracts rather than for a union or a first contract. As one can see by the fact that 97 percent of the workers who struck in 2022 were unionized, it is far easier to strike if workers already have a union.

Reflecting one of 2022’s biggest labor movement stories, the spread of the Starbucks Workers United union campaign, the overwhelming majority of strikes in the accommodation and food services sector were by Starbucks workers or fast-food workers in the Fight for $15 campaign (131 or 91 percent of the sector’s total number of work stoppages).

(Cornell University ILR School)

A few final data points worth noting: most workers were involved in work stoppages that lasted between five and nine days, while the overwhelming majority of strike days were from strikes that lasted over a month; of the 224,000 workers involved in work stoppages, the vast majority were in stoppages involving more than a thousand people.

One last thing driven home by the 2022 numbers: the looming strike by nearly 350,000 Teamsters at UPS, which will begin as soon as their current contract expires on July 31 of this year unless the workers have a tentative agreement, would be significantly larger than all of last year’s work stoppages combined.

CONTRIBUTOR
Alex N. Press is a staff writer at Jacobin. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Vox, the Nation, and n+1, among other places.

US Lawmaker Concern Over Mexico Steel Revives Trump-Era Conflict

Eric Martin, Bloomberg News

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(Bloomberg) -- Steel is threatening to become the latest area of commercial conflict between the US and Mexico after a bipartisan group of US lawmakers called on the Biden administration to restore Trump-era tariffs if necessary to stem a surge in imports.

A group of more than a dozen US senators, including Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio, wrote to and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai last week, asking them to engage Mexico in talks over rising US steel imports. They cited an almost sevenfold jump in imports of steel conduit used in construction. 

The lawmakers suggest applying quotas, but raised the possibility of reimposing duties used previously by the Trump administration that were removed in May 2019.

Mexican senators shot back this week, passing a resolution calling on the nation’s economy ministry to start gathering information about US exports to Mexico in order to consider retaliatory measures if Washington were to reimpose the duties.

Despite the senators’ complaints, it would be surprising if USTR or Commerce move forward on requesting consultations given the number of disputes already in progress, said Juan Carlos Baker, a founding partner of consulting firm Ansley Consultores Internacionales and one of the top negotiators for the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement that took effect in 2020.

“Mexico and the US are already discussing some serious issues,” he said. “I’m sure that nobody really wants to add more trouble to a relationship that already is being tested.” 

A Commerce official said that the department had received the senators’ letter and will respond through appropriate channels. A USTR spokesman also confirmed receipt, saying the agency is reviewing it.

List of Issues 

Should the US request consultations, steel would join a growing list of trade issues between the neighbors: talks on Mexico’s nationalist energy policy are now in their sixth month, and there is a brewing dispute over corn. 

Mexico is the second-largest US trade partner, with the nations trading almost $800 billion of goods in 2022 alone.

While the percentage of US steel imports arriving from Mexico has risen, it’s because Covid-19 disruptions and the Ukraine war have made Mexico a more reliable provider, replacing other exporters like Russia, Mexican industry association Canacero said on Friday.

The US lawmakers “appear to be threatening to disrupt efforts by both countries to cooperate in shortening supply chains to enhance national security, economic growth and employment,” the Mexican chamber said.

The complaints come as US steelmakers are seeing profits cool significantly from the records they enjoyed in 2021 and 2022. Domestic steel prices are down about 47% from historic highs reached in August 2021. And steel mill-utilization is now at just 74% of full capacity, according to American Iron and Steel Institute data. 

Steel executives have long argued that utilization must be above 80% for the industry’s long-term viability and financial health. Compounding the issue is that monthly raw-steel production by the nation’s mills are at the lowest since the pandemic, when demand all but evaporated as countries across the globe shuttered economic activity and imposed lockdowns.

The Trump administration imposed 25% tariffs on steel from Mexico and a number of countries under section 232 of America’s Trade Expansion Act of 1962, saying that the imports posed a threat to national security. Those duties were dropped in 2019, with the caveat that they could be reimposed if imports from Mexico surged “meaningfully beyond historic volumes of trade.”

The US lawmakers cite a 73% increase in the volume of US iron and steel imports since the 2015-17 period, while inward-bound shipments of semi-finished steel and long products have more than doubled.

They say that Mexican imports have contributed to the loss of more than 200 steel jobs in California and led to the closing of one of fewer than a dozen American factories that produce steel conduit.

“Many steel producers are concerned that additional production cuts, layoffs and plant closures are imminent,” the senators said. “The administration must act now to avoid further damage.” 

The US senators’ appeal was cheered by the Coalition for a Prosperous America, an organization that represents import-threatened companies and unions.

--With assistance from Joe Deaux.

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

AUTHORITARIANISM ON THE RISE

Mexicans are mobilizing to protect their eroding democracy

A set of reforms to the country’s independent elections agency are the latest anti-democratic move by Mexico’s president.

By Christian Paz@realcpaz 

VOX

 Feb 25, 2023

Luis Barron / Eyepix Group/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Christian Paz is a senior politics reporter at Vox, where he covers the Democratic Party. He joined Vox in 2022 after reporting on national and international politics for the Atlantic’s politics, global, and ideas teams, including the role of Latino voters in the 2020 election

This Sunday, for the second time in less than a year tens of thousands of Mexicans will fill their capital city’s main public square to protest their president’s goal of remaking Mexico’s independent elections agency, sounding a siren that Mexican democracy is at a tipping point.

These reforms would severely cut the agency’s budget and its staffing (and thereby its ability to administer local elections), limit its autonomy, and restrict its ability to punish political candidates who break electoral laws.

Unlike the first protest in November, this time the demonstration might be too late: the changes to the elections agency, the National Electoral Institute (el INE, as it’s known by its Spanish acronym), have already been approved by the Mexican Congress (the senate passed the proposal on Wednesday). Commonly known as the “Plan B,” the legislation is headed to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s desk for final passage, and upon signing, would amount to the biggest overhaul of the country’s election system in nearly a decade.

The reforms are the culmination of “a very clear political strategy, to sell the INE as a biased, partial authority,” the INE’s director told the New York Times after the vote. And they fit into a broader effort by López Obrador, known also by his initials, AMLO, to consolidate power in the executive branch during his term and with his political party, which controls both chambers of Congress, a majority of the country’s governorships, a plurality of state legislatures, and the influential mayoralty of Mexico City.

Opposition parties, civil society groups, and citizens who oppose the measure still have one hope to hold off the implementation of the changes. Mexico’s Supreme Court is likely to take up a challenge to the reform in the coming months.

If the changes are carried out, electoral officials, academics, and activists say the future of free and fair elections in Mexico, including the presidential and congressional elections next year, will be in jeopardy and may be marred by the distrust and corruption that sparked the INE’s creation in the first place.

American observers also view the reforms with distrust.

“By approving President López Obrador’s proposal to slash the National Electoral Institute’s funding and oversight capabilities, the Mexican Congress has imperiled the future of its country’s democratic institutions,” the Democratic and Republican chairmen of both the Senate and House foreign affairs committees said in a statement early Friday evening. “Returning Mexico to its dark past of presidentially controlled elections not only sets the clock back on its democracy, but also U.S.-Mexico relations.”

What Mexico’s “Plan B” does, and how it will impact elections in 2024

These changes are the second time AMLO has attempted to use the legal process to interfere with and adjust the way the highly respected oversight body operates. Attacking the institute has been a theme of his candidacy that he has carried into office. He first proposed a constitutional reform to the electoral system last year that was blocked by the lower house of Congress in December.

That first effort would have replaced the INE with a National Electoral and Consultation Institute (INEC) in charge of administering and overseeing all federal and state-level elections with a seven-member panel directly elected by the public (a third of the candidates standing in that election would be selected by the president, congress, and the supreme court). Currently, the 11 members of INE’s leadership board are selected by a nominating committee and confirmed by Congress to staggered 9-year terms, which are meant to outlast congressional and presidential tenures (Mexican presidents serve for six years and cannot be reelected) and restrain political influence. Four of the 11 members of this current board were appointed during AMLO’s presidency.

Thousands of people join a march from the Angel of Independence statue to the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City to protest against AMLO’s electoral reforms in November 2022. Marco Rodriguez / Eyepix Group/Future Publishing via Getty Images

The measure was likely to fail even before being formally proposed in Congress: though AMLO’s party, Morena, and two allied parties control both houses of the legislature, constitutional changes in Mexico require a two-thirds majority vote in Congress, which he does not have. Still, he came up with a “Plan B” — keep the INE, but severely hamper its operations, budget, and internal processes through the standard lawmaking process in Congress that only requires a simple majority.

AMLO and his allies say the cuts are an attempt to save millions of dollars, improve a bloated bureaucracy, eliminate avenues for possible corruption, and make voting easier, including for Mexicans living abroad. Those specific budget cuts fit into the fiscal austerity that AMLO frequently invokes when talking about his economic agenda: “They have a large bureaucratic apparatus with very high salaries,” he said in December, after the senate passed the first version of the Plan B. “With this reform some areas will be shrunken so that more can be done with less.”

But the savings may be modest, while still delegitimizing the agency as it oversees two gubernatorial elections this year and general elections next year.

The INE, which has been fighting back against the president’s criticisms and attacks, said in a report it commissioned that the budget cuts would mean losing up to 85 percent of its professional staff. That loss of staffing would, in turn, hamstring the agency’s ability to staff and administer polling places, keep voter rolls up to date, and carry out civic education programs — amounting to a violation of civil rights and harming the legitimacy of elections.

“The efforts to restrain INE’s ability to carry out elections under the guise of saving money are really worrisome,” Andrew Rudman, the director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, said in an earlier interview. “Most of the time you’re not going to be able to cut the budget of an independent agency enough to make an impact. But more importantly, INE is such a highly trusted independent agency in Mexico that it’s essential that it retains its autonomy because that’s what gives people faith in elections.”

AMLO’s reforms fit a broader erosion of democratic norms in Mexico

These reforms are not the first time that AMLO has lashed out at the oversight body. Before winning the presidency in 2018, he had lost presidential elections twice before in 2006 and 2012 — losses certified by the INE (at the time, it was known as the IFE, the Federal Election Institute). Both defeats still sting him — but the 2006 loss holds particular sway both with him and his supporters.

Since the turn of the century, the INE has been broadly popular (about 60 percent of Mexicans view it favorably, despite AMLO’s attacks last year) and celebrated internationally for facilitating the rise of Mexico’s modern democracy. Autocrats and juntas have ruled Mexico for most of its post-colonial history, but the 2000 election saw an opposition party candidate win the presidency after decades of one-party rule. That peaceful transfer of power was only possible because of the INE.

Then came the bitter 2006 election, which AMLO lost by less than a percentage point and which he still holds, without hard evidence, was stolen from him. Many have tried to compare that “stolen election” narrative to the voter-fraud conspiracies that have taken root in western democracies since 2020, but the 2006 election and its aftermath was a whole other beast that tested the foundations of Mexican democracy: AMLO, who was mayor of Mexico City before running for president, seemed like the favorite to win the election. But as the race tightened, he grew more conspiratorial, raising the specter of voter fraud and ballot stuffing. On election night, the IFE found the race too close to call; days later, it declared Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, the candidate from the incumbent president’s party, the winner by a tiny margin. AMLO demanded a recount saying he’d respect the IFE’s review, but called his supporters to occupy key parts of the capital city. He ultimately rejected the results, calling the whole process “old-school fraud,” and led a monthslong effort to delegitimize Calderón and his government: he appointed his own shadow cabinet, held his own inauguration in Mexico City’s central plaza, and AMLO’s allies in Congress even tried to prevent Calderón’s inauguration.

To this day, the “fraud of 2006” is etched into the memories of many Mexicans, especially AMLO’s most hardcore supporters. He has turned it into a cornerstone of his ongoing “fourth transformation” of Mexico: his effort to remake Mexican politics, economics, and society by improving public safety, helping the poor, and ending political corruption and the grip of elites and those who he deems “conservatives” (anyone who opposes him and his party’s agenda).

But that populist, revolutionary framework has clashed with Mexico’s institutions, press, opposition parties, and foreign obligations, like the free trade agreements Mexico signed with the United States and Canada. In the face of his fourth transformation, democratic norms have tended to get in the way, and AMLO has spent countless hours attacking journalists and columnists, non-governmental organizations, civil rights groups, and independent agencies like the National Commission on Human Rights, the Transparency and Freedom of Information Institute, and, now, the INE — all of which he lumps together as the faces of the old regime he’s trying to end.

Under this lens, it makes sense to still dwell on the 2006 election, “not just because they stole the presidency from me,” as AMLO said in 2019, but because of what came next: more than a decade and half of violence and death in Mexico, spurred by a struggle against drug cartels, criminal syndicates, and American demand for illegal drugs. “If we hadn’t had the fraud of 2006, the country wouldn’t be like it is … They installed Calderón, and his first decision, his first act, was to declare war on narcotrafficking without understanding the root causes,” AMLO has said.

AMLO’s case was boosted this week with the guilty verdict of Genaro García Luna in a Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday: convicted of taking millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel, García Luna was Calderon’s top law enforcement officer, charged with leading the war against the criminal syndicate whose payroll he was on. “Justice has arrived for the former squire of Felipe Calderón,” tweeted AMLO’s spokesman. “The crimes against our people will never be forgotten.”

In the senate the next day, members of AMLO’s party unfurled posters and carried signs lumping the INE protestors in with García Luna, Calderón, and Mexico’s first president elected in a free and fair election, Vicente Fox Quesada.

This week demonstrates the interconnected problems of violent crime, drug trafficking, democracy, and rule of law — something the Biden administration has been hesitant to discuss directly or publicly with Mexico and AMLO (the White House did not reply to requests to comment on the approval of the INE reforms). The US needs AMLO’s cooperation to address the flow of deadly drugs and migrants into the country — all American presidents have needed the help of their southern neighbor. But as AMLO slowly erodes Mexico’s democracy, “that presidency presides over less and less of Mexico,” David Frum has written at The Atlantic. Over the last three presidencies, the Mexican state has lost more and more influence and control over its country. As the recent violent uprising by the Sinaloa cartel in Culiacan state demonstrated, armed criminal syndicates have the power and numbers to take on the Mexican military and state head on. Violence, in turn, fuels distrust in democracy and the rule of law, which is already taking a hit by the slow but constant assaults of Mexico’s head of state. Though these problems might not seem to have a direct impact on the average American’s daily life, they have trickle down effects through increased migration and illicit drug availability and thus – overdoses.

On Sunday, Mexicans will chant two slogans: “El INE no se toca” and “Mi voto no se toca” — both calls for the government to keep its hands off the INE and the right to vote. What comes next may either be a rebuke of AMLO’s tendencies, or the first step in securing even more power for his political party and a populist movement that will outlast his six-year term.

POSTAPOCALYPTIC REWILDING

No go for humans but wildlife find sanctuary in DMZ between North and South Korea

Golden eagles, goats and wild cats are among the 6,168 wildlife species found between the two nations which technically remain at war.

The Hantan river gorge which sits between North and South Korea.

Feb. 25, 2023
By Isaac Lee and Leila Sackur

Laden with landmines and surrounded by fences, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea is not at all welcoming for humans. On the other hand, wildife appears to be thriving.

Golden eagles, goats and wild cats are among the 6,168 wildlife species were found in new street view images released by Google this week which offer a rare glimpses into life behind the civilian control line.

A native long-tailed goat, that has been classified as endangered by South Korea’s environment ministry.

Created in collaboration with several Korean institutions to mark the 70th anniversary of the armistice between North and South Korea, the project allows viewers to take a “virtual tour” of the 160-mile-long buffer zone between the two countries.

Slicing across the entire peninsula, the DMZ includes a range of environments from rocky mountains to rivers and tidal swamps.

Away from landmines buried beneath the border zone’s soil, otters and endangered Manchurian trout swim freely in the Imjin river which flows from North to South Korea.

A swertia wilford , one of the rare flora found within the demilitarized zone. 

And animals such as long-tailed mountain goats, classified as endangered by South Korea’s environment ministry, can be spotted in the rocky terrain of the Taebaek mountains.

Virtual tours on Google street view show the untouched volcanic landscapes of the Hantan river gorge, with high granite walls and sandy beaches, and the grassy high moors of Yongneup, a haven for wetland flora.

An endangered Golden eagle.

Peace talks between North and South Korea in 2018 raised hopes amongst ecologists that the two states might work together to preserve the wildlife habitats of the narrow strip of land between them.

And in 2019, South Korea opened a number of “peace trail” hiking routes that traversed the south side of the DMZ.

However, seven decades after the Korean War, the two countries remain officially at war because the fighting ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty in 1953.

A Wildcat captured at night.

However, tensions have escalated in recent weeks as Kim Jong Un continues his program of nuclear development and weapons testing. In 2022, North Korea had a record year in weapon demonstrations, with more than 70 ballistic missiles fired.

On Monday, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward Japan on Monday in its second weapons test in three days.

North Korea has insisted its testing activities are meant as a warning amid increased U.S. presence in the region. But some experts worry that Pyongyang also uses the drills as a chance to test new weapons, strengthen its nuclear capability, and increase its leverage in future dealings with Washington and Seoul.

PHOTOS National Institute of Ecology / Google Arts & Culture

THE CATHOLIC HEGEMON NEEDS HELP

Why Washington Should Care About South Sudan


If Joe Biden were to steer the formidable might of the American foreign policy apparatus toward achieving peace in South Sudan, he might well find that Africa’s nations will welcome America’s moral leadership

by Anthony J. Tokarz

In 1908, a young member of the British Parliament named Winston Spencer Churchill was trekking through Uganda when a tsetse fly settled on his shoulder. Though he knew he was traveling through a region where the tsetse fly had already killed hundreds of thousands of people, Churchill had nonetheless tired of the protective veil he and the other members of his party had been obliged to wear, and so took it off to better enjoy the view of Murchison Falls on the Victoria Nile. As he recounted in My African Journey, the sight of the tsetse, with its distinctive, long proboscis and large wings folded peculiarly on top of each other, frightened him into redonning his veil. Then, as now, the tsetse fly carried sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease that attacks the patient’s nervous system until he or she becomes totally insensible and eventually impossible to wake up. The formidable young rising star of British politics found himself humbled by nature’s power and corrected course. Had he not, the British Empire might never have found the hero it needed in its hour of crisis thirty-two years later, and present-day readers might not have stumbled upon this colorful analogy for present-day American policy in East Africa.

Observers of the United States’ listless Africa policy might well conclude that American policymakers are suffering from sleeping sickness, which is characterized by a brief period of feverish activity before the patient grows lethargic and ever harder to rouse. In Africa, nations are broadly realigning away from the United States and toward Russia or China. This is especially true of sub-Saharan Africa, where cycles of increasingly frequent droughts and intense floods have exacerbated long-simmering tensions from ethnic conflict to Islamic insurgencies. Now, just a few weeks after President Joe Biden’s much-vaunted U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Russia looks set to replace France as the guarantor of West African security, China is touting the transformative impact of its infrastructure projects, and the United States, despite all its money and military might, finds itself overshadowed by Pope Francis’s visit to East Africa in early February.

However, the worsening crisis in an oft-ignored African nation, the world’s youngest, has the potential to catapult the United States back into a position of influence in Africa. That country is an oil-rich and strife-ridden nation which briefly entered global news cycles as part of Pope Francis’s pilgrimage to it and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That country is South Sudan.

A Neglected Strategic Player

South Sudan, though somewhat obscure in comparison to its more notorious northern neighbor, enjoys an important geostrategic position: it bridges East and North Africa, and possesses vast reserves of oil, copper, and gold, in addition to fertile soil, a sizable stretch of the Nile River, and its immense hydroelectric potential. Yet currently, South Sudan sits at the bottom of every human development ranking—for the most part, due to protracted conflict between rival ethnic groups that receive funding from countries with an interest in the region’s resources.

Part of America’s strategy for containing China’s growth involves denying China access to Africa’s mineral wealth, so South Sudan should loom large on the Biden administration’s list of priorities in Africa. Furthermore, just as Burkina Faso is the linchpin of West African security because it separates the Islamic State in Africa from Boko Haram, South Sudan’s stability is necessary to prevent the Somali jihadist organization Al-Shabab from spreading into more of East Africa.

Yet the United States’ current approach leaves much to be desired. Consider, for example, the results of its de facto approach of handing off responsibility for addressing many of the country’s various ills to non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Though some humanitarian organizations and NGOs have a presence in South Sudan, their investment has proven ineffective. As the New Humanitarian reports, donors prefer to see their funds invested in short-term projects, such as random conferences and dialogues that do not involve any real power players. Additionally, the restrictions imposed upon NGOs on where they can go and whom they can invite to their events means that individuals that are actually involved in local conflicts, such as militants and tribal leaders, who often have divergent interests, are excluded from engaging in dialogue. Compounding this situation is the fact that, as reported earlier this month in the Guardian, local NGOs increasingly find their aid distribution programs hamstrung by an overabundance of short-term grants and a scarcity of long-term contracts. These long-term contracts, if they were available, would enable NGOs to plan more effective campaigns, or make the investments necessary to increase their impact, particularly in the most isolated and at-risk communities.

What America Can Do

The present situation represents a strong opportunity for the United States to both address the needs of the South Sudanese people and fortify America’s strategic position on the African continent. There are five ways this can be done.

First, the United States can provide military and security assistance that can act as a force multiplier for local initiatives already underway in South Sudan but otherwise almost certainly doomed due to lack of funding and poor management. Such assistance and expertise can help provide a stable context in which productive and peace-seeking dialogues, such as between armed youths and people from communities long hostile to each other, can occur.

Second, the United States can use its diplomatic strength to help facilitate negotiations between the South Sudanese government and its neighbors. For example, since 1963, South Sudan has been locked in a border dispute with Kenya over the Ilemi Triangle—a disputed region rich in petroleum and water. Despite peace initiatives managed by the African Union, the region often erupts in violent border skirmishes, much like South Sudan’s decades-long standoff with Sudan over the Abiyei oil fields.

Third, the United States can help fund the long-term contracts that local NGOs need to maximize aid delivery and programmatic effectiveness. Moreover, America can deploy homegrown programs and funding to incentivize cooperation between Sudanese elites and hold them accountable to any agreements they might reach. South Sudan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, as evinced by a report promulgated by The Sentry, an advocacy organization.

Fourth, the United States can provide development assistance—which is essential to security, as robust economies provide options for youths who might otherwise join an insurgent group out of desperation. Here, Washington would do well to replicate the success of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) model, and provide expertise and training to local leaders before handing off the day-to-day administration of programs to them as part of a focus on leadership and community development.

Fifth, the United States should call upon a powerful, globally respected figure with unmatched moral authority for help. In this, they will find an ally in his holiness Pope Francis, who has set his sights on achieving peace in South Sudan. As reported in the New York Times, the two-day visit of Pope Francis in early February, as part of an ecumenical pilgrimage with the leaders of the Church of England and Church of Scotland, shone a light on the deep divisions and seemingly intractable problems facing the fledgling nation.

Roman Catholics constitute 52.4 percent of South Sudan’s population, while other Christian denominations make up roughly 8 percent. Cooperation with the Pope and other major figures in the Christian world would help to make up for the United States’ lack of moral authority in the region, which is still reeling from the abortive American intervention in Somalia of 1992–1993, its limited response to the 2004 genocide in Darfur, and other embroglios. Additionally, the Catholic Church has a strong presence on the ground in South Sudan, as do churches in the Anglican Communion and various ecumenical groups. Many in the religious community have undertaken heroic efforts to help communities recover from the violence, including a single nun, Sister Gracy, who managed to establish several schools and medical facilities with minimal international support. The United States could greatly assist South Sudan by helping identify and support such driven and talented individuals. The Catholic Church—with its distributed networks of churches, community centers, almshouses, and other initiatives—would prove indispensable to such deeply local work.

In short, the United States alone has the material resources to match the Pope’s spiritual authority; together, they could help impose order and begin to restore South Sudan by building basic infrastructure such as sewage systems, roads, and electric grids.

The President Following the Pope?

The ingredients for success in South Sudan are undoubtedly present if President Joe Biden decides to take on a larger role in East Africa. Military solutions to social problems have not yielded lasting peace in recent years, if the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are any indication. Indeed, while its oldest ally, France, waged a heroic, decade-long counterterrorism operation in the continent, the United States fell back on its default position of militarizing the surrounding regions and wringing its hands when underequipped militants overpowered government forces and upgraded their equipment on Uncle Sam’s dime.

On the Hardships of the ROC Mission on the Promising African ContinentPrintable version

Evangelization and politicization

Tags: Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate, Africa, evangelization, Copts, Ethiopians

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 Photo by Reuters

The Moscow Patriarchate has intensified its activities in Africa. New reports appear: regular graduates of Russian theological schools from equatorial countries went to their homeland to create communities of Russian tradition there. Relations are also developing with the so-called ancient Eastern churches, especially with the Ethiopian Church, which is going through hard times today. There is a real shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Addis Ababa.

Perhaps this is due to the limited capabilities of the Russian Orthodox Church in other areas: Europe is actually closed, and in Asia, where non-Christian and very passionate religious trends dominate, evangelism is not welcome.

It is noteworthy that the African "onslaught" of the Russian Orthodox Church coincided with the visits to the continent of the main spiritual leaders of Western Christianity. Pope Francis recently visited the two countries and was visited by The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Both leaders, who lead the largest Christian communities in Africa, seemed to act in sync.

But if for Western Christians Africa, with its growing population and many social problems, remains the most important direction for preaching, then the missionary nature of the activities of the special exarchate created by Patriarch Kirill after he quarreled with the Church of Alexandria raises some doubts. First of all, emissaries of the Russian Orthodox Church are less focused on the territory of North Africa, where Orthodox Christianity in its orthodox form is widespread. Here the position of the Church of Alexandria, represented mainly by ethnic Greeks, is strong. Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church prefer those places where alexandrian communities are very scattered. But even here the great sophistication of the Greeks is manifested. For example, Patriarch Theodore II poses on camera in the traditional jewelry of one of the African tribes, where he was allegedly "elevated" to chief. Clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church have not yet been seen in such a deep penetration into the deep life of local nationalities.

Bypassing the Greeks on difficult turns, Russian clerics prefer to establish relations with the so-called pre-Chalcedonian churches: Copts and Ethiopians. From the point of view of doctrine, their closeness to Russian orthodoxy is doubtful, and it is also doubtful that the ROC is aimed at changing their religious beliefs. Relations with the ancient churches can be described as exclusively allied, not missionary.

With regard to potential followers from among the local population in Equatorial Africa, emissaries from the Moscow Patriarchate also do not show much zeal. They prefer to establish relations with political elites, are absorbed in the legal registration of communities of the Russian tradition and are happy to report on such successes.

If we consider this activity in the context of competition not only with hostile Alexandrians, but also with non-monotheistic, but neutral Catholics, then here too there are more diplomatic than missionary goals. It is no coincidence that Pope Francis spoke on new forms of colonialism during an African visit. It should be noted that official Russian diplomacy on the continent has also made anti-colonialism the main topic of appeal to developing countries. In this regard, the statements of the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church are secondary to the activities of the Russian Foreign Ministry. All this is happening against the backdrop of the world community's discussion of the global conflict between the North and the South.

There is a serious political struggle for influence on a promising Africa in terms of resources. The Russian Church still has a lot to learn in order to compete on an equal footing with sophisticated Jesuits or Anglicans. The administrative resource is important, but it is not enough. The RoC should prepare for real missionary feats and considerable hardships.

Russia’s Ruling Class Sees No Alternative to Putin or Support for His War, Preobrazhensky Says

Putin’s Claim that Lenin Created Ukraine Alarming Non-Russians whose Republics Bolshevik Leader Also Set Up, Solovyeva Says

Saturday, February 25, 2023

            Staunton, Feb. 20 – Vladimir Putin has said repeatedly that Ukraine exists only because Lenin established the Ukrainian SSR, statements that are alarming people in the non-Russian republics whose state structures were also set up by the Bolshevik leader, according to Elena Solovyeva.

            In a commentary for Posle media, she says that some of the non-Russians fear that what Putin is now doing in Ukraine will be the opening of a new attack on their republics, a worry that has been exacerbated by Moscow’s increasing extraction of resources from them and its installation of outsiders to run them (posle.media/komi_colony/).

            There is a growing sense, Solovyeva continues, that they are colonies, especially in paces like the Komi Republic where the feeling is that “we send all our resources to Moscow and Moscow sends us its trash,” a reference both to the planned trash dump that sparked the Shiyes protests and, it appears, a judgment about those Moscow sends as its rulers.

            Such concerns have grown in anger over the last year, the commentator says, not just because of Putin’s comments about Ukraine but also because there is growing evidence that Russian census takers falsified the results of the 2021 enumeration, artificially reducing the number of Komis by refusing to list them as such or even by listing them as ethnic Russians.

            As a result, there is a coalescence of environmental and economic concerns with political ones in places like Komi and other non-Russian republics, a coming together that has been overshadowed by protests about Putin’s war in Ukraine but has led to the rejection by the Komi of Moscow-nominated politicians and to large demonstrations.

            Without attracting much attention outside the republic, she continues, “the national question in Komi as a whole has become so sensitive that any further pressure from the center can and will provoke an increasingly fierce response,” transforming the current low boil to something more radical.

            “Can the separation of the republic from Russia be the result of the anti-colonial rhetoric now heard in Komi?” she asks. “Theoretically, yes. Formally, the republic already as a state structure including a constitution. “But geographically, it may turn out to be  in the position of an enclave state,” surrounded by Russian territories.

            For the time being at least, Solovyeva suggests, “the internal demand for Komi statehood is not that great.” But real demands for “greater federalization and greater economic and political freedoms” exist” and “as soon as the federal government begins to weaken, the republic, along with other regions and republics, will more actively seek to win back its rights.”

Russia’s Ruling Class Sees No Alternative to Putin or Support for His War, Preobrazhensky Says

            Staunton, Feb. 20 – Russia’s ruling class sees no alternative to supporting Putin or his war in Ukraine, Ivan Preobrazhensky says. “There’s nowhere for it to run,” and the dangers of protest are all too real. As a result, the elite in Russia remains “monolithic” in that regard, something Putin chose to underline by scheduling his address to the nation on February 21.

            Despite the expectations of many in the West and the fact that many in the Russian elite have suffered because of Putin’s policies, the Deutsche Welle commentator says, “the Russian ruling class approaches the anniversary of the start of the war perhaps even more monolithic than it was” a year ago (dw.com/ru/kommentarij-u-elit-v-rossii-vyhoda-net-ili-vmeste-za-putina/a-64746718).

            In both the Russian and European media there is talk about “a Party of February 23” which supposedly consists of those who “would like to return to the re-war period. But in the Russian ruling class,” Preobrazhensky says, “there is much more strongly represented what one might call “the Party of February 21.”

            “It is no accident,” he continues, that Putin chose this date to deliver his address because exactly a year ago, on February 21, 2022, Putin assembled the Russian Security Council and forced his inner circle to “publicly support the aggression that was beginning. For him then this date is clearly very important.”

            By taking that action, Putin himself “openly showed that he is most afraid not of popular risings for which he has large repressive resources to suppress but a split in the elites.” By forcing them to commit as he did, the Kremlin leader left them with no chance to oppose him in the future about the war or about his remaining in power.

            In working to keep the elites around him monolithic, Putin has also employed carrots as well as sticks. Most prominent among the former over the last year was his decision to cancel much of the anti-corruption efforts his regime had made. Now, the elite, as long as it remains loyal, can enrich itself with less worry about the future.

            Putin can thus look to the future with confidence as far as his domestic situation is concerned, Preobrazhensky says, “because after a year of war, he has been able to maintain the main thing, the loyalty of the ruling class.”

LGBTQ+ Mardi Gras: Australia's PM Anthony Albanese first to join march

This year's event coincides in Sydney with WorldPride, which promotes LGBTQ+ rights globally.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is the first sitting leader to march in Sydney's Mardi Gras parade

By Kathryn Armstrong
BBC News

Anthony Albanese has become Australia's first sitting prime minister to take part in Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade - one of the biggest events of its kind in the world.

Huge crowds packed the city's Oxford Street as more than 12,000 participants and 200 floats passed by.

It is the first time the parade has been held in its traditional form since 2019 due to Covid restrictions.

"This is a celebration of modern Australia," Mr Albanese said.

He added that it was "unfortunate" that he was the country's first leader to march in the parade while in office.

"People want to see that their government is inclusive and represents everyone no matter who they love, no matter what their identity, no matter where they live."

It is the first time since the coronavirus pandemic that Sydney's Mardi Gras has been held as a parade

Penny Wong, the first openly gay female in Australia's parliament, also took part in the celebrations.

The presence of the prime minister, who has marched in the parade in the past as an MP, was greeted with cheers but his critics have accused him of pandering to a minority that's hijacking Australia's social agenda.

Opposition MP, Barnaby Joyce, criticised Mr Albanese for attending a party instead of dealing with a crime crisis in Alice Springs - a remote town in Australia's Northern Territory.

Mr Albanese wasn't the only politician to attend Mardi Gras - members of other parties, including the Greens and Liberals, also came to show their support.

Thousands of people have taken part in this year's Mardi Gras parade

It's not the first time an Australian prime minister has attended the event - Malcolm Turnbull was present in 2016 but did not march.

The Mardi Gras parade has been running since 1978 and grew out of a protest marking the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots - an uprising by members of the LGBT community in New York more than 50 years ago.

For the past two years the parade has been held as a seated event at the Sydney Cricket Ground due to the pandemic.

This year's event coincides in Sydney with WorldPride, which promotes LGBTQ+ rights globally.

Other world leaders who have taken part in pride parades in the past include Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his former New Zealand counterpart, Jacinda Ardern.

Pakistani brothers to reunite with family after 20 yrs in Guantanamo

Written By: ANI
| Published on: Feb 25, 2023

ANI Photo | Pakistani brothers to reunite with family after 20 yrs in Guantanamo

Two brothers, who were jailed in the infamous Guantanamo prison camp in the United States without any charges for a period as long as two decades, will finally reunite with their family in Pakistan, Dawn reported.

The US Department of Defence on Friday announced that it has repatriated two Pakistani brothers after a prolonged period of 20 years.

Mohammed Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani (53) and his brother Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani (55), were held by the US police over their alleged links to terrorism.

Dawn reported, citing The New York Times, that during their 20 years of custody, the two detained brothers were never charged with a single crime.

The Foreign Office of the US said that the brother duo was released following “an extensive inter-agency process”.

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantanamo, GTMO.

The prison, which was opened by President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects captured overseas after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks came to symbolize harsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture.

The prison with high walls and barbed wires was opened in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the US by then president, George W Bush, to jail terrorism suspects captured overseas.

Soon, Guantanamo became notorious with harsh practices, opening the United States to criticism of torture. However, over the few years, the inmate population came down.
The Rabbani Brothers were arrested in Karachi in 2002.

Another Pentagon statement read that on May 13, 2021, a review committee came to the conclusion that the elder brother’s detention was “no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

The committee’s findings were later approved by a review board on August 17, 2021. The board determined that the “national security risk” from Mohammad could be “adequately mitigated”.

US Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin, on January 18 had told the Congress that the two Pakistani brothers would be sent back to their country and that the formalities necessary for their transfer were completed, reported Dawn.

The Department of Defence’s statement said that the US appreciates the Pakistan government’s and of other partners’ willingness to extend support to the US efforts on responsibly reducing the inmates’ population and finally closing the Guantanamo Bay facility.
Even as their transfer was finalised in 2021, it is yet to be ascertained why the two brothers remained in prison, the NYT report said. With the release of this brother duo, the number of Pakistani prisoners repatriated from Guantanamo Bay prison rose to four.

Another Pakistani inmate, Majid Khan (42) was shifted from Guantanamo Bay prison to Belize in Central America by the Biden administration. The facility’s oldest inmate, Saifullah Paracha (75), was repatriated to Pakistan in October 2022.

The prison still has 32 detainees, of which 18 are eligible for transfer, three are eligible for consideration of the Periodic Review Board, nine are in the military commission’s process and two are convicted by the military commission, according to the Dawn newspaper. 

(ANI)