Fake Content Industry, AI Poses Threat to Fact-Based Journalism Worldwide

"The unprecedented ability to tamper with content is blurring the lines between true and false," said Reporters Without Borders in its annual report on press freedom.


An Internet user checks ChatGPT on his mobile phone in Suqian, Jiangsu province, China on April 26, 2023.
(Photo: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

JULIA CONLEY
May 03, 2023

Along with the threats to journalists' safety that watchdog groups have documented for years, the 2023 World Press Freedom Index on Wednesday warned that the rapidly growing artificial intelligence and fake content industries are endangering the livelihoods of journalists around the world and cutting down on people's ability to access fact-based news.

The annual report, released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), includes a section titled "Effects of the fake content industry," which notes that out of 180 countries evaluated by the group, 118 of them reported "massive disinformation or propaganda campaigns" in which political figures have been involved.

"The unprecedented ability to tamper with content is blurring the lines between true and false," RSF said in a video shared on social media as it released the report.




The report points to recent, realistic-looking viral images that were shared widely on social media showing former U.S. President Donald Trump being accosted by police and imprisoned Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a comatose state, which were produced by the AI program Midjourney.

After the Trump photo went viral, journalist and researcher Arthur Holland Michel warnedPBS Newshour in March that the technology could just as easily be used to make fake photos or videos, also known as deepfakes, of private citizens for any number of reasons.

"From a policy perspective, I'm not sure we're prepared to deal with this scale of disinformation at every level of society," Michel wrote in an email. "My sense is that it's going to take an as-yet-unimagined technical breakthrough to definitively put a stop to this."

Blurred lines between fact and fiction are among the factors that are "jeopardizing the right to information," RSF reported, along with the "arbitrary, payment-based approach to information" that Twitter CEO Elon Musk has pushed, charging $8 per month for verified accounts which were once given to users including news outlets that had demonstrated merit.

Both developments are turning social media platforms into "quicksand for journalism," said RSF.

The report was released two days after NewsGuard published its own analysis, Rise of the Newsbots: AI-Generated News Websites Proliferating Online. That report showed that along with artificial intelligence (AI) companies that create fake images, dozens of websites populated entirely with AI-generated content have begun to "churn out vast amounts of clickbait articles to optimize advertising revenue."

"In April 2023, NewsGuard identified 49 websites spanning seven languages—Chinese, Czech, English, French, Portuguese, Tagalog, and Thai—that appear to be entirely or mostly generated by artificial intelligence language models designed to mimic human communication—here in the form of what appear to be typical news websites."

The websites publish hundreds of articles per day in some cases, about topics including politics, health, and finance—without ever disclosing their ownership or control or ensuring a human employee reads the information before it's shared with millions of internet users.

The lack of human input led at least one of the inauthentic websites analyzed by NewsGuard, CelebrityDeaths.com, to publish a false obituary of U.S. President Joe Biden in April, which stated that Vice President Kamala Harris was acting as president before continuing, "I'm sorry, I cannot complete this prompt as it goes against OpenAI's use case policy on generating misleading content."

OpenAI is the company behind ChatGPT, currently the fastest-growing app in the world. New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote last month that the app, which launched in November is "already changing" journalism by offering assistance with finding synonyms, writing whole paragraphs of articles for journalists at Insider, and summarizing complicated documents.

"In short, as numerous and more powerful AI tools have been unveiled and made available to the public in recent months, concerns that they could be used to conjure up entire news organizations—once the subject of speculation by media scholars—have now become a reality," said NewsGuard.

RSF wrote that the challenges posed by AI and fake content—both for journalists and news consumers—are compounding "volatility" in the world of journalism, where reporters around the globe are also still in danger of being imprisoned, persecuted, or murdered for their work.

Threats to press freedom were classified as "problematic" in 68 countries in the last year, "difficult" in 38 countries, and "very serious" in 20 countries.

The safest countries for journalists were found to be Norway—in the top spot for the seventh year running—followed by Ireland and Denmark.

Among the worst nations for press freedoms, according to the report: Vietnam, where independent reporters and commentators have been targeted and jailed by the government; China, the world's biggest jailer of journalists and a top source of propaganda and fake content, and North Korea.

"The World Press Freedom Index shows enormous volatility in situations, with major rises and falls and unprecedented changes, such as Brazil's 18-place rise and Senegal's 31-place fall," said RSF Secretary-General Christiophe Deloire. "This instability is the result of increased aggressiveness on the part of the authorities in many countries and growing animosity towards journalists on social media and in the physical world. The volatility is also the consequence of growth in the fake content industry, which produces and distributes disinformation and provides the tools for manufacturing it."

Federal Lawsuit Aims to Protect Texas From 'Exploding Rockets' of Elon Musk

"It's vital that we protect life on Earth even as we look to the stars in this modern era of spaceflight."


Debris litters the ground on April 22, 2023, two days after the SpaceX Starship exploded in Boca Chica, Texas.
(Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)


JESSICA CORBETT
May 01, 2023

In the wake of a SpaceX explosion that coated coastal Texas in ash, environmental organizations on Monday filed a federal lawsuit intended to safeguard local wildlife from more "exploding rockets" and ensure residents' access to regional beaches and parks.

"It's vital that we protect life on Earth even as we look to the stars in this modern era of spaceflight," declared Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Federal officials should defend vulnerable wildlife and frontline communities, not give a pass to corporate interests that want to use treasured coastal landscapes as a dumping ground for space waste."


The Center for Biological Diversity, American Bird Conservancy, Surfrider Foundation, Save RGV, and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas are suing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—and Billy Nolen, the acting administration planning to leave the post this summer—for permitting billionaire Elon Musk's space company to conduct 20 rocket launches over the next five years.

"For the sake of future generations, let's protect the healthy habitats we have left instead of treating them as wasteplaces for pollution and fuselage."

The Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, collectively called Starship, is "the world's most powerful launch vehicle ever developed," according to SpaceX—which conducted the first test flight on April 20, an event ending with an explosion that sent debris raining down miles away from the launch site.

The green groups' complaint argues that the FAA "has authorized the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at Boca Chica, Texas, without complying with bedrock federal environmental law, without fully analyzing the significant environmental and community impacts of the SpaceX launch program—including destruction of some of the most vital migratory bird habitats in North America—and without requiring mitigation sufficient to offset those impacts."

American Bird Conservancy president Mike Parr pointed out that "by now, most people know that birds are in serious declines—and shorebirds like those that rely on Boca Chica are among the fastest-disappearing."

"Overall, we've lost nearly 3 billion birds from the United States and Canada since 1970. At what point do we say, 'Space exploration is great, but we need to save habitats here on Earth as a top priority?'" Parr asked. "For the sake of future generations, let's protect the healthy habitats we have left instead of treating them as wasteplaces for pollution and fuselage."

The region is vital to not only bird species such as piping plovers and northern aplomado falcons but also Gulf Coast jaguarundi, ocelots, and critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles. The launch site is located near state and federal conservation, park, and recreation lands.




"The administration's failure to fully analyze the dangers of a rocket test launch and manufacturing facility mere steps from the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge and two state parks is an astonishingly bad decision," said Mary Angela Branch, a board member at Save RGV. "So many threatened and endangered species are counting on the agency to get this right."

The SpaceX project will shut down a roadway used to access spots such as the Boca Chica Beach for up to hundreds of hours per year. Sarah Damron, senior regional manager for the Surfrider Foundation, said that "800 hours of closure fly in the face of the Texas Open Beaches Act, the state constitution, and Texans' rights to free and unrestricted access to Texas beaches."

"That's the equivalent of 20 40-hour work weeks every year that Texans and visitors will be deprived of access to Boca Chica Beach," Damon explained. "What's worse is that these closures can happen at almost any time with little to no notice to the public, so the beach, park lands, and refuge lands are ostensibly closed to anyone who needs to make plans. This is an unacceptable loss to area residents and to the people of Texas."

Juan Mancias, tribal chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, highlighted how the SpaceX project also impacts the ability of his people to hold ceremonies and leave offerings for their ancestors.

"The Carrizo/Comecrudo people's sacred lands are once again being threatened by imperialist policies that treat our cultural heritage as less valuable than corporate interests," said Mancias. "Boca Chica is central to our creation story. But we have been cut off from the land our ancestors lived on for thousands of years due to SpaceX, which is using our ancestral lands as a sacrifice zone for its rockets."

Alaska Oil and Gas Projects Harming One of World's Most Vital Bird Nesting Areas


"In the face of current uncertainty, to protect migratory birds, the U.S. government should ensure the most important bird areas continue to be set aside," the co-author of a new study asserted.


This Pacific loon was photographed in Alaska's North Slope on July 8, 2018.
(Photo: Nick Athanas/flickr/cc)

BRETT WILKINS
May 02, 2023

Migratory bird nest survival "decreased significantly" near fossil fuel extraction sites in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, a study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society revealed Tuesday.

WCS analyzed 17 years of migratory bird nesting data in Prudhoe Bay and found that "nest survival decreased significantly near high-use oil and gas infrastructure and its related noise, dust, traffic, air pollution, and other disturbances."

"Prudhoe Bay is the site of intensive energy development and is located on the Arctic Coastal Plain, one of the most important avian breeding grounds in the world," WCS noted. "Millions of birds nest here, with some then migrating through every state in the nation to wintering grounds in Central and South America, even Africa, with others crossing the Pacific Ocean to Russia, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica."



According to the study, which was published in the Journal of Avian Biology:
The Arctic Coastal Plain is one of the most important avian breeding grounds in the world; however, many species are in decline. Arctic-breeding birds contend with short breeding seasons, harsh climatic conditions, and now, rapidly changing, variable, and unpredictable environmental conditions caused by climate change. Additionally, those breeding in industrial areas may be impacted by human activities. It is difficult to separate the impacts of industrial development and climate change; however, long-term datasets can help show patterns over time.

We evaluated factors influencing reproductive parameters of breeding birds at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, 2003–2019, by monitoring 1,265 shorebird nests, 378 passerine nests, and 231 waterfowl nests. We found that nest survival decreased significantly nearer high-use infrastructure for all guilds. Temporally, passerine nest survival declined across the 17 years of the study, while there was no significant evidence of change in their nest density. Shorebird nest survival did not vary significantly across years, nor did nest density. Waterfowl nest density increased over the course of the study, but we could not estimate nest survival in all years.

"Tundra-breeding birds contend with short breeding seasons, harsh climatic conditions, and now, rapidly changing, variable, and unpredictable environmental conditions caused by climate change," Martin Robards, regional director of WCS' Arctic Beringia Program and an author of the study, said in a statement.



"Additionally, as we demonstrate here, those breeding in industrial areas are impacted by human activities too," Robards added. "The urgency to better understand these relationships and mitigate impacts cannot be expressed strongly enough, given widely acknowledged declines in these species [and] our national and global obligations to protect migratory birds."

WCS said that "factors associated with industrial development that may directly or indirectly affect nesting include: habitat degradation via hydrology alteration and road dust, vehicle and aircraft traffic, noise, air pollution, and increased nest predator populations associated with development, including glaucous gulls, ravens, Arctic fox, and other species."


The study comes two weeks after the Biden administration approved the Willow Project, an $8 billion oil drilling project on federal lands in Alaska's largest remaining unspoiled wilderness, as well as the Alaska LNG Project, which the Department of Energy admits will unleash 10 times the greenhouse emissions of Willow.

Deadly Dust Storm in Illinois Blamed on Shortsighted Industrial Farming Methods

"This tragedy should be a wake-up call to Congress to take action in the 2023 Farm Bill," said one advocacy group. "We urge them to shift funds toward practices like cover cropping and conservation buffers, which protect soil from erosion."


A car is seen after a crash on Interstate 55 in Illinois during a dust storm on May 1, 2023.
(Photo: WICS ABC Newschannel 20)

JULIA CONLEY
May 02, 2023

Agricultural policy experts on Tuesday said the deadly dust storm that led to "zero visibility" for highway drivers this week in Illinois should be a "wake-up call" for lawmakers as advocates fight against industrial farming practices.

A day after at least six people were killed and more than 30 were injured in a pileup on Interstate 55 outside Springfield, the research and advocacy group Farm Action said the dust storm may have been driven by the chronic erosion of soil in rural areas, which has resulted as agribusiness pushes practices such as monocropping—a profitable method which can trigger the depletion of soil nutrients and the weakening of soil.

"Incidents like these are a tragic consequence of the shortsighted practices demanded by the monopoly corporations that control our agriculture system," said the organization in a statement. "Industrial practices which limit crop rotation in favor of monocropping and heavy herbicide application have resulted in unprecedented soil erosion and severe weather events—which cost us not only our agricultural system's resilience but human life itself."

Monocropping became more common in the middle of the 20th century, and herbicide applications increased from 18% of crops in 1960 to 76% of crops in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, further eroding soil.

Along with Farm Action, experts including Matt Wallenstein, chief soil scientist for gricultural company Syngenta, pointed to profit-driven industrial farming methods as a possible cause of the dust storm.

"Let's take this as a wake-up call to prioritize regenerative agriculture practices that can help prevent soil erosion and build healthier soils," said Wallenstein.





Farm Action has called on lawmakers to include in the 2023 Farm Bill provisions that would offer subsidized insurance programs and disaster payments for farmers and companies that use regenerative farming practices that limit mechanical disturbances and reduce the use of chemical herbicides and fertilizers.

Methods include "cover cropping," or planting crops in soil that would otherwise be bare after cash crops are harvested, in order to keep living roots in the soil; moving livestock between pastures for grazing; "no-till farming," in which the soil is left intact rather than plowed; and conservation buffers such as hedgerows "that act as windbreaks and habitat for beneficial organisms," according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The deadly dust storm was preventable. Our staff mourns the abrupt and senseless loss of life, and our hearts go out to the communities of central Illinois," said Farm Action. "This tragedy should be a wake-up call to Congress to take action in the 2023 Farm Bill. We urge them to shift funds toward practices like cover cropping and conservation buffers, which protect soil from erosion."

"If these sustainable practices were scaled up and supported by U.S. farm policies," the group added, "we would see a safer and more resilient system emerge."

Protest and Power in France

May 3, 2023

BRIGITTE GRANVILLE

French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to bypass the National Assembly to implement his controversial pension reform arguably fueled the violence that erupted at May Day protests this year. With the government’s legitimacy fraying, the flaws in the political structure of the Fifth Republic have become glaringly apparent.

LONDON – Too much repetition can diminish the impact of even the most dramatic events. Such is the case with mass protests in France, which erupt so often and persist for so long that much of the world hardly takes notice. But the current bout of protests – which culminated in violent clashes with police on May 1 – warrants reflection about French society’s political alienation and what can be done about it.

Financing the Common Good
MARIANA MAZZUCATO 

articulates a vision of a new paradigm for international finance centered on the common good.


Coming three years after the last major protests – an unusually long period of docility for France, brought about by the pandemic – the current wave of demonstrations was triggered by President Emmanuel Macron’s push to enact pension reform. Peaceful marches, millions-strong, were sustained for weeks, but to no avail: in March, Macron’s government raised the retirement age by decree, invoking Article 49.3 of the constitution to bypass the National Assembly.

Now, the protests have taken a violent turn. The May Day protesters clashed with police, leaving more than 100 officers injured and resulting in nearly 300 arrests. The extent to which this escalation can be blamed on Macron’s decision to bypass the legislature is impossible to say. But there is no doubt that many citizens viewed it as a slap in the face by a president who, following last year’s elections, no longer has the support of a parliamentary majority.

In fact, the move transformed France’s domestic political debate. Instead of weighing the advantages and disadvantages of a higher retirement age, people began asking simply: Who governs France?

But the trite framing of that question as a choice between the democratically elected government and the protesters obscures a more interesting issue. If the government’s actions are entirely legal, but its legitimacy is fraying nonetheless, is France’s political-constitutional system fundamentally flawed? Assuming that it is, how can we lay the groundwork for repairing the relationship between government and the people?

At the heart of the Fifth Republic, built by and for the outsize personality of Charles de Gaulle, is the directly elected president, whose wide powers rest on what de Gaulle called a powerful, almost mystical, bond “between a man [sic] and a people.” Alongside the president is a broadly neutered parliament, capable of challenging the executive only when an opposition party or parties control an overall majority of seats.

During such periods of “cohabitation,” the day-to-day business of running the country falls to the prime minister, with the president riding along in a kind of political sidecar. While exercising constitutional prerogatives in foreign and security policy, the president tries, as the French say, to put spokes in the government’s wheels (mettre des bâtons dans les roues).

Most of the time, however, the president is in charge – and able to bypass the National Assembly should he wish. French presidents have used Article 49.3 100 times since 1958, often even when they had parliamentary majorities behind them. This repeated shunning of parliament underscores an inconvenient truth about the Fifth Republic: its structure undermines its ability to mediate between competing interests within society – a central task of representative democracy.

In the philosopher and one-time presidential candidate Gaspard Koenig’s view, the Gaullist formula is “a fatal source of misunderstanding, resentment, and violence.” But Koenig’s proposed alternative – a parliamentary system resembling those of other modern European democracies – has attracted attention mostly in what is known in France as the “Anglo-Saxon media.”

Today, the consequences of a weak legislature are more apparent than ever. Since last year, the Fifth Republic has had its first hung parliament. Macron’s Renaissance party and its allies hold only 250 of 577 seats, with parties from across the political spectrum controlling the rest. As disparate as they are, Macron’s opponents did get close to blocking his ability to invoke Article 49.3 to pass the pension reform: a no-confidence motion on March 20 fell just nine votes short of the absolute majority that was needed.

France needs to improve the rules of the political game. But more than constitutional reform will be needed to get to the root of society’s alienation from its leaders.

The 2017 election that ushered Macron into the Élysée Palace wiped out the mainstream center-right and center-left parties that had dominated French politics for 40 years. This is not necessarily a bad thing; both sides displayed an incompetence and arrogance that will not be missed. But the new structure of French politics – an establishment monolith, flanked by extremist political forces that oppose everything from European integration to market-based capitalism – offers little reason to celebrate.

The voters who support these anti-establishment parties are structurally disenfranchised, much like those who voted for the pro-Soviet Communists and other far-left parties in the first three decades after World War II. Back then, rapidly rising living standards weakened support for such forces and led to higher support for more moderate leftist parties. Today, France’s economy is sputtering, and, as we saw on May 1, the risks of upheaval are once again rising.

From this perspective, healthy economic growth is likely to be more effective than constitutional reform as an antidote to political alienation. In his first term, Macron made some notable progress with growth-oriented reforms, particularly those focused on the labor market. This effort has helped lower the unemployment rate to 7% from the long-term average of 9%.

The flipside of Macron’s boldness and determination is a certain impulsiveness, which has aggravated present tensions over the pension reform. We will soon see which of these traits prevails following his declaration last month that, over the subsequent 100 days, he would act to ease tensions across France. The allusion to Napoleon’s 100-day comeback in 1815 seems inauspicious, to say the least. One can only hope that whatever political gambit Macron may be preparing does not end the same way.


BRIGITTE GRANVILLE
Writing for PS since 2000
Brigitte Granville, Professor of International Economics and Economic Policy at Queen Mary University of London, is the author of Remembering Inflation (Princeton University Press, 2013) and What Ails France? (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021).

Turkey elections: Quake survivors face up to new life and voting challenges

In Turkey's devastated south, many people are more concerned with securing new homes than with voting in this month's elections

A group of men sit in front of a tent in the Samandag district of Hatay on 10 April 2023 (Reuters/Sopa Images)

By  Yusuf Selman Inanc in
Nurdagi and Hatay, Turkey
Published date: 3 May 2023 

Nearly three months after the devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey that left more than 50,000 people dead and millions homeless, survivors are still struggling to return to normal life and access basic necessities.

In Nurdagi, a town in Gaziantep province where 2,028 people died, survivors live in a container city, which houses over 17,000 people and is equipped with a medical centre, a pharmacy, a psychological support centre, a mosque, a school, a library, a theatre, a meal centre, two barber shops and a small football pitch.

"We completed the construction of this container city within three weeks after the earthquake," an official at the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (Afad) told Middle East Eye.

"Our priority is to maintain a normal life. That’s why we employ the camp's residents in different jobs, organise football tournaments, bring in many theatre companies, and not only provide food but also domestic appliances such as refrigerators."

After getting past the initial devastating impacts of the earthquakes, people seem to be focusing on their future, pressing officials with questions about when new houses will be built.

Nurdagi has been the first earthquake-hit town where houses were built and delivered to their owners. During an opening ceremony in late April, attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 14 new detached houses, with their farming areas and cattle shelters, welcomed new residents.

Erdogan said at the ceremony that the government would build 650,000 new houses, 319,000 within a year.

"All these houses were built within 75 days. We will build more in a very short time," the mayor of Gaziantep, Fatma Sahin, told MEE.

The first family who resettled in a new house said their happiness was unprecedented.

"We were also surprised how quickly we had a new home. We are thankful to the government and the president," they said.

'First, we need running water'

Despite the positive atmosphere, people remain anxious and traumatised. Emre Ozdil, a social services expert operating within the container camp, said his team had been offering psychological support to 100 people every day, most of whom are children.

"We have been observing different types of psychological repercussions, such as insomnia, stammering, remaining indifferent to everything, or constant crying," Ozdil said.

The sadness was more acute during the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Fitr last month, as thousands of Nurdagi residents visited mass graves to observe Eid with loved ones they had lost in the quakes.

Some gravestones carry no names, only numbers.

Faruk Olcucu lost his wife, two children, brother and six other relatives in the earthquakes. He had survived under the rubble for a day when he was rescued by a search team.

The 46-year-old and his 80-year-old mother were offering tea and homemade meatballs to their neighbours when Middle East Eye visited them.

"We were not like this," the mother said, bitterly. "We used to have everything. We used to offer meat, desserts, everything to our guests." Her tears were flowing when her son cut in, saying "Nothing goes against God's will."

Faruk Olcucu (centre) lost his wife, two children and brother in the earthquake

 (Yusuf Selman Inanc/MEE)

In a neighbouring container home, another family was welcoming their relatives from a different town. Burak Aydin lost his grandparents, nephews and uncles. He now lives in the camp with his pregnant wife, three-year-old daughter and asthmatic mother.

"We thank God. We thank our government. They have given us whatever we needed. On the 10th day, we had a furnished container. Now, we wait to hear about the new houses," Aydin said.

Within the camp, Turkey's hotly contested upcoming elections are not the main topic of discussion, but rather the construction of new houses. People believe that the social aid, food delivery and containers are not a sustainable way of life; they yearn for a house, a proper job and a normal life again.

In contrast to the chaos of the first weeks after the quake, things seem to have settled down in the region. For instance, a Nato-funded tent camp in Hatay province's Serinyol town was designated for secondary school students, while the TCG Bayraktar warship has been functioning as a fully equipped hospital.

Yet, contrary to Nurdagi or Iskenderun, Hatay’s capital Antakya is a ghost town, with no residents. The earthquake was so devastating that there are almost no undamaged buildings to be seen.

The banks of the Asi River are empty, dark and depressing. Most of the rubble has been cleared, and what remains are large squares where buildings once stood. Soldiers are stationed everywhere in the city, frequently stopping visitors for identity checks and enforcing a curfew.

"Our house is gone. We still live in a tent in the upper neighbourhoods," said Serife, who was displaced with her family from their home in Antakya to a tent outside the city. "We hear about the promises of building new houses, but first we need containers, running water and electricity."

Complicated electoral process

Survivors have been focused mainly on adapting to their post-earthquake life, but the rest of the country is also concerned with how voters in the quake-hit region will be able to participate in the 14 May elections.

According to electoral regulations, in case of a change in address, a citizen must register for voting in their new location by 17 March.

It is estimated that more than three million people left their devastated cities for other areas. However, it remains unknown how many of them have registered to vote in their new cities.

An Afad official in Nurdagi said registration will not be an issue for the town's residents, because the neighbourhoods had been moved to nearby container cities.

Olcucu said, "We were told that our ballot boxes would be placed in the temporary schools. So, we will simply go and vote."

The main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has launched a campaign encouraging people to travel to their home towns in the disaster zone to vote.

'We were mourning our losses. So, were they expecting me to go and find an electoral official? Nonsense'

- Ayse Arli, Hatay resident

The party announced that buses, rented by the CHP, would transport eathquake survivors to their towns for free, but has also asked the government to facilitate other means of travel, such as increasing the number of flights or trains.

But given that hotels, restaurants and other main facilities are still dysfunctional, people feel discouraged from making such a journey.

In the quake-hit region, where 96 deputies will be elected, nine million voters are registered. The voting process in Hatay appears to be the most complicated, since almost all residents have had to leave the city centre.

Hatay governorate said in March that all the residents who were relocated, including to containers or tents, still needed to register to vote.

Hatay's mayor, Lutfu Savas, said last month that 200,000 of the city's residents will not be able to vote after failing to register by the March deadline, while 150,000 will be voting in other cities.

Ayse Arli, a resident of Hatay city, told MEE that she did not register after moving to a tent.

"We were looking for our missing relatives. We were mourning our losses. So, were they expecting me to go and find an electoral official? Nonsense," she said in disbelief.

Meanwhile, Hatay airport suspended regular flights last month, after Turkish Airlines said the runway had to be shortened due to quake damage, putting take-off and landing at risk. However, the opposition believes the move is aimed at barring residents from voting, because Hatay city is a stronghold for the opposition.
'What else could Erdogan do?'

The impact of the earthquakes on the elections remains unpredictable for a number of reasons.

Mehmet Ali Kulat, head of MAK Consultancy, a social research company, told MEE that it was impossible to conduct a survey in the region due to the current circumstances.

"Moreover, millions of people have left their cities and failed to register themselves. Therefore, we can’t produce concrete data," he said.

"Yet, this emigration would definitely have an impact on the results, since hundreds of thousands of voters would technically not be able to participate."

Still, the observations on the ground indicate that political parties may preserve their dominance from the last elections.

For instance, in Nurdagi, where Erdogan received 76 percent of the votes in the 2018 elections, people were openly declaring their support for the government.

Turkey elections: Votes from overseas may tilt the balance in a tight race

Read More »

Olcucu was confident that Erdogan would prevail.

"We have everything. There is nothing missing in our containers. We have the schools, medical facilities, whatever we need. How can people still put the blame on the government? What else could Erdogan do?"

His ailing mother added: "Young people don’t know the pre-Erdogan era. If any other party were ruling Turkey, we would still be staying in the street."

Burhan Aydin, a retired police officer, said: "They even sent new shoes for our children, saying that it had been almost three months, and children grow quickly. Do you see this courtesy? Which state would do that? We will definitely vote for Erdogan."

Kulat argued that there were no major changes in the political choices of voters who did not leave the earthquake-hit region.

"People criticised the government over the response to the earthquake, but their answer to the question of ‘Who could build their houses again?’ was Erdogan."

For Burak Ersoy, a CHP supporter who has been living with his family in a tent near Antakya for months, however, frustration with the government is clear.

"We want this incompetent government to go," he said.

"After this failure to handle the earthquake crisis, I don't understand how people still vote for the government."

Police swoop on ‘Ndrangheta mafia across Europe

By AFP
Published May 3, 2023

Europol said 132 alleged members of the 'Ndrangheta had been taken into custody during an "action day" involving 10 countries -

Alice RITCHIE with Matthieu DEMEESTERE in Brussels and Sophie MAKRIS in Berlin

Police across Europe staged a vast, coordinated operation on Wednesday against the ‘Ndrangheta, Italy’s most powerful and wealthy mafia that controls the bulk of cocaine flowing into Europe.

Some 132 people were taken into custody in early morning raids as part of a blitz involving eight European countries plus Brazil and Panama, according to EU law enforcement agency Europol.

“It is likely the biggest operation ever carried out in Europe against the Calabrese mafia,” said Eric van Duyse, spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutors’ office, which began the investigation five years ago.

The prosecutors said around 150 addresses were raided across Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Romania.

Separately, Italian authorities said assets and property worth 25 million euros ($27.6 million) had been seized in Italy, Portugal, Germany and France.

The suspects were accused of crimes including mafia association, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering and tax fraud, following a top-secret probe that confirmed the global reach of the ‘Ndrangheta.

Rooted in the southern Italian region of Calabria, the crime organisation is Italy’s most powerful mafia, operating in more than 40 countries.

Besides its main source of wealth — drug trafficking — it is involved in money laundering, extortion, trafficking of illegal waste and other criminal activities, using shell companies to invest illegal gains in the legitimate economy worldwide.


– Links with cartels –


Most of the arrests were in Italy, the others concentrated in Germany and Belgium, in an operation Europol said involved more than 2,770 police officers.

Operation Eureka “now stands as the largest hit involving the Italian poly-criminal syndicate to date”, the agency said in a statement.

The operation was focused on a criminal network led by several ‘Ndrangheta families based in the town of San Luca, in the southern Italian province of Reggio Calabria.

A bloody feud between rival clans from San Luca had helped raise global awareness about the ‘Ndrangheta in 2007, when six people were killed outside a pizzeria in the German town of Duisburg.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Wednesday’s raids dealt “a significant blow” to the mafia group.

The network targeted “was mainly devoted to international drug trafficking from South America to Europe, as well as Australia”, Europol said.

They had links with Colombia’s “Gulf Clan” cartel and an Albanian-speaking group operating in Ecuador and across Europe, it said.

Between May 2020 and January 2022, investigators tracked more than 6,000 kilogrammes of cocaine passing through ports of Gioia Tauro in Italy, Antwerp in Belgium and Colon in Panama — more than half of which was seized, Italian prosecutors said.

This trade resulted in an estimated 22.3 million euros changing hands, spent on cars and luxury goods, as well as in businesses in France, Portugal and Germany, including car-washing, they said.


– Holidays in San Luca –


Details also emerged Wednesday on the activities of ‘Ndrangheta boss Rocco Morabito, one of Italy’s most wanted fugitives, who was arrested 2021 in Brazil following his escape from a prison in Uruguay in 2019.

His associates offered to sell a container of weapons via Pakistani intermediaries to Brazilian paramilitaries, in exchange for cocaine to be delivered to Gioia Tauro, Italian prosecutors said.

Belgian prosecutors said the raids were triggered by an investigation that opened there five years ago “under the greatest secrecy”.

Italian authorities confirmed they had begun their investigations in June 2019, at the request of the Belgians, focusing on one San Luca family active in the Belgian town of Genk.

A Belgian police officer told a news conference organised by Italian authorities how he and his team befriended some of the suspects at a port in Belgium before being “invited to join them on their holidays in San Luca”.

That friendship allowed them to gather key evidence against them, he said.

UK’s diverse communities ambivalent about king’s coronation

by SYLVIA HUI

 Associated Press

May 3, 2023

Buckingham Palace (Photo by Debbie Fan on Unsplash)

LONDON (AP) — Musician Deronne White is ready to play on King Charles III’s coronation day. The flautist and his fellow young musicians aren’t playing anything regal or solemn — they’re planning to parade through south London’s streets entertaining crowds with an uplifting “coronation carnival” set mixing gospel, jazz, grime, disco and rap. There’ll even be a calypso take on the U.K. national anthem.

While he’s excited about the gig, White says he has mixed feelings about the coronation. Like some others at the Brixton Chamber Orchestra, White is a descendant of migrants from Jamaica — a former British colony and Commonwealth member that wants to cut its ties with the monarchy and has called for the U.K. royals to address their historical ties to slavery.

“Personally it’s a little bit hard to connect to the whole occasion,” he said. “I think that the coronation could possibly allow people like me to try and connect to (the monarchy). But it can be a bit tough.”

Towns, cities and villages across the U.K. will be awash with Union flags and patriotic decorations to celebrate Charles’ coronation at Westminster Abbey this weekend, and officials say the festivities will bring Britain’s diverse communities together. But the event is viewed with a large dose of ambivalence by some in the U.K., not least those with African Caribbean backgrounds and other minorities for whom the British Empire’s past wrongs still loom large.

While slavery and the heyday of colonialism may be long gone, the royal family has in recent years struggled to grapple with new accusations of institutional racism – most notably from Prince Harry’s wife, Meghan.

The Duchess of Sussex, a biracial American actress, reopened the debate about the monarchy and race when she said last year that an unnamed member of the royal household had asked her how dark her baby’s skin might be when she was pregnant with her first child, Archie.

Last year, there was outrage when Ngozi Fulani, a Black charity executive, complained that a close aide of Queen Elizabeth II’s repeatedly questioned her at a party about where she was “really” from. Palace officials apologized and the aide, Susan Hussey, resigned.

Charles, 74, has on many occasions spoken about how much he values diversity in modern, multicultural Britain. He has paid tribute to Britain’s “Windrush generation” — the West Indians, like White’s great-grandparents, who helped rebuild Britain after World War II. In 2021, Charles won praise for acknowledging “the darkest days of our past” and the stain of slavery.

More recently, the monarch expressed for the first time his support for research into the links between the U.K. monarchy and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

“I think he’s definitely trying — maybe not in the best way or the fastest way, but from what I’ve seen, it’s kind of a step in the right way,” said Teigan Hastings, 17.

But Hastings, a British Jamaican who plays the tuba alongside White, said that Meghan’s claims about how she was treated by her in-laws “opened up a bit of truth within the royal family.”

“I guess it wasn’t totally unexpected, but at the same time you think there’d be some form of acceptance … and there hasn’t really been,” he said. “It’s like there’s nothing like us normal people can really do about it except hope for change.”

The musicians say they hope that their vibrant blend of musical styles will help draw in the crowds, whatever they may think of Charles.

Across the capital in Southall, known as “Little India” — the west London neighborhood is home to one of the largest Indian populations outside India — local politician Jasbir Kaur Anand said the area’s British Asians also plan to mark the coronation in their own way.

About 6,000 tickets were snapped up for a coronation shindig complete with a huge television screen broadcasting the ceremony, funfair rides and bands playing Jewish, South American and gospel music, Anand said.

She added that she will attend a street party organized by a group of local women that promises to feature “lots of Punjabi food, Punjabi dancing and singing.”

Anand, whose family moved to Britain from Singapore when the city-state gained independence, said many immigrants of her generation feel gratitude to the U.K. monarchy for embracing them and giving them the opportunities to settle and prosper.

Gulu Anand, who owns Southall’s Brilliant curry house and has cooked for Charles several times over the years when he visited the neighborhood, is one vocal supporter of Charles.

Charles “actually listens to you,” he said, recalling the royal’s demeanor when he ate at his restaurant. “I think he is the people’s king.”

But Janpal Basran, who heads local charity Southall Community Alliance, said that many communities in the area are from former colonies and “remember what it was like to be ruled by others.”

“So they look at the monarchy, they remember all of the associated historical baggage, for want of a better word,” Basran said. “There will be people who will be thinking that the monarchy represents an institution which was repressive, discriminatory and violent. Is this something that we want to be supporting to the future?”

Patrick Vernon, a Black activist campaigning for justice for scores of Caribbean migrants who lost their rights as U.K. citizens because of a legal loophole, said Charles could do so much more to show his subjects that the monarchy takes diversity seriously.

He drew attention to a 2021 investigation by the Guardian newspaper that revealed the royal household is still exempt from equality laws preventing race and sex discrimination.

“I think Charles could be in a unique position to start to actually influence that agenda,” he said. “It’s important to demonstrate change, demonstrate that there’s a clear marker that we’re different, that we’re moving towards the 21st century.”

AI systems process data ‘startlingly like’ human brain, finds UC Berkeley study

The newly documented similarities in brain waves and AI waves are a benchmark on how close researchers are to building mathematical models that resemble humans as closely as possible 

03 May, 2023

By: Pramod Thomas

A new study has revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) systems are capable of processing data in a manner that is remarkably comparable to how the brain decodes speech.

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, tracked individuals’ brain activity as they listened to the word “bah” only once. The signals produced by an AI system that had been taught to understand English were then matched to the brain activity.

The two signals’ side-by-side comparison graph revealed a startling likeness. The researchers claimed that the data was unaltered and that it was raw.

“Understanding how different architectures are similar or different from humans is important,” said Gasper Begus, assistant professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study published recently in the journal Scientific Reports.

That is because, he said, understanding how those signals compare to the brain activity of human beings is an important benchmark in the race to build increasingly powerful systems.

For example, Begus said, having that understanding could help put guardrails on increasingly powerful AI models. It could also improve our understanding of how errors and bias are baked into the learning processes.

To do so, Begus turned to his training in linguistics.

He said that the sound of spoken words enters our ears and gets converted into electrical signals, which then travel through the brainstem and to the outer parts of our brain.

Using electrodes, researchers traced that path in response to 3,000 repetitions of a single sound and found that the brain waves for speech closely followed the actual sounds of language.

The researchers transmitted the same recording of the “bah” sound through an unsupervised neural network – an AI system – that could interpret sound. They then measured the coinciding waves and documented them as they occurred.

Begus said he and his colleagues are collaborating with other researchers using brain imaging techniques to measure how these signals might compare. They’re also studying how other languages, like Mandarin, are decoded in the brain differently and what that might indicate about knowledge.

Many models are trained on visual cues, like colours or written text – both of which have thousands of variations at the granular level. Language, however, opens the door for a more solid understanding, Begus said.

The English language, for example, has just a few dozen sounds.

“If you want to understand these models, you have to start with simple things. And speech is way easier to understand,” Begus said.

In cognitive science, the researchers said, one of the primary goals is to build mathematical models that resemble humans as closely as possible.

The newly documented similarities in brain waves and AI waves are a benchmark on how close researchers are to meeting that goal, they said.

(PTI)

Euronaut cadets all set for space mission by 2030

The cohort will be the last European crew to visit the International Space Station.

All of the cadets "will have had the chance to fly to space and the International Space Station” by 2030, said Frank De Winne 

| Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

BY JOSHUA POSANER
MAY 3, 2023

COLOGNE, Germany — The European Space Agency wants to make sure that all five of its new astronaut cadets get a mission to the International Space Station before the orbital outpost is retired at the end of the decade.

Late last year, the Paris-based ESA selected its final list of five new career astronauts whittled down from 22,000 applicants. The roll call includes prospective space explorers from the U.K., Belgium, Switzerland, Spain and France.

“The aim is that before 2030, all of them will have had the chance to fly to space and the International Space Station,” said Frank De Winne, a former Belgian astronaut who now runs the European Astronaut Center.

This week, the ESA cadets are closing out the first month of their basic training at the training hub just south of Cologne’s city airport, with a hard deadline to get them mission-ready by May 31 next year.

The aim is to have at least one of the five assigned to a specific mission to fly in 2026, De Winne said.

The plan to get the cohort into space as quickly as possible underscores renewed interest in mission opportunities, including the NASA-led Artemis lunar landing and associated plans for new space station infrastructure.

Amid increased competition in orbital affairs and the development of a new station orbiting the moon called Gateway, the plan is to retire the ISS at the end of the decade.

Separately to the ESA program, Sweden and Hungary are also looking to pay to privately send their astronauts on missions over the next few years. But without its own ability to launch astronauts into space, an independent panel of experts convened by the ESA recently called on countries to fund a local human spaceflight program.

“Europe needs to step up and intensify its capability in space,” said the ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher at the astronaut center, adding that he will raise the issue with space ministers at a summit on November 6.