BC Moves Closer to Gig Worker Protection Laws
Local Journalism Initiative
Fri, August 11, 2023
British Columbia’s labour minister plans to soon pass new laws guaranteeing basic pay, rights and protections for tens of thousands of gig workers.
Harry Bains’s office has launched a call for proposals that could see new requirements placed on companies like Uber, DoorDash and Lyft, whose drivers and delivery workers work without minimum pay, sick leave or other basic benefits.
Bains says new legislation may come as soon as this fall, following years of government promises and months of consultations.
“The goal here is that these workers, like any other workers, they need basic protection when it comes to minimum wage, when it comes to health and safety, and how they are protected when they are injured at the workplace,” Bains said.
The particulars of how Bains accomplishes that will likely be a political and economic minefield for a provincial government trying to balance demands from organized labour and tech companies.
Academics, companies and labour advocates have all proposed widely different versions on how to improve working conditions in the sector — and, most vitally, on who should pay for it.
Uber, the largest of those companies, has promised retaliation against jurisdictions that have tried to impose new costs. Earlier this year, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz vetoed a bill setting minimum pay standards for Uber drivers after that company threatened to pull service in most of the state.
Labour economist Jim Stanford said the fact the province is opening a second round of consultations indicates they are proceeding carefully.
“Because these deep-pocketed global companies have been allowed for years to operate in B.C. without oversight and appropriate accountability, they will now fight like hell to preserve the free pass they have been given on labour standards so far,” Stanford said in an email.
The BC NDP has promised to address the rising prevalence of gig work since 2017 and promised to develop a “precarious work and gig economy strategy” shortly after it was re-elected in 2020.
That has come slowly. The province held a series of meetings with drivers for those apps last fall and winter and collected more than 1,400 survey responses from the public, most of them from current or former drivers. They also had closed interviews with more than 20 stakeholders, including companies, labour organizations and academics like Stanford.
The results paint a stark picture of the reality of such work in B.C. More than half of workers who responded to the province’s survey said they relied on that income; for nearly 40 per cent, it was their only source of money.
Many complained they had no transparency on how they were paid and felt pressured to accept low-pay assignments. Workers say they can be removed from the apps without notice or pay. They also felt they could not refuse unsafe work.
Kuljeet Singh, an Uber driver in Metro Vancouver, has become part of a group of drivers who have demanded better pay and transparency from the company.
“Year by year, the fare is still the same. It never increases. But we don’t have any benefits from Uber,” said Singh in a previous interview with The Tyee.
A key point in the debate has become whether drivers like Singh should be considered contractors, employees or occupy some third category.
Currently, drivers for such apps in British Columbia are considered independent contractors. That means they are not guaranteed minimum pay. They also may not receive payment from WorkSafeBC if they are injured on the job.
The BC Federation of Labour has advocated for a test that would likely see most drivers classified as employees. That would require companies to pay towards WorkSafe BC coverage, pensions and other benefits just like other employers.
Companies, though, have argued making drivers employees would endanger the “flexible” nature of their work. DoorDash, a food delivery company, claimed in an email to The Tyee that most of its workers in B.C. had said they would stop working for the app if they could not choose their own hours.
Uber and the United Food and Commercial Workers union, or UFCW, have instead lobbied provinces asking for a separate, minimum list of standards for drivers, including pay set at 120 per cent of the minimum wage and the right to join a union.
The company and the union have argued that represents a workable, progressive compromise that allows companies to maintain their core business models while also opening the door to improving labour standards for drivers.
Records obtained via freedom of information request show many organizations have put their weight behind that proposal, including several with only tangential relationships to the gig economy.
The B.C. Food and Restaurant Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada, the BC Tech Association and the Ending Violence Association of BC all penned very similar letters to the provincial government in support of the joint proposal from Uber and UFCW.
Some academics the province consulted are critical of such proposals. They say that creating a new “category” of worker opens the doors to other industries to whittle away at basic working standards.
“Once you get there, you start making exceptions. And it never stops,” said Mark Thompson, a professor emeritus of the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. Thompson has called on the provincial government for years to impose further regulations on app-based gig work.
“As a Canadian citizen, I fail to understand why a business should be permitted to operate while denying its workers the basic protections that virtually other worker has,” Thompson argues.
Another criticism of Uber and UFCW’s proposal is that its minimum pay standard would only apply to “engaged time” when a driver is actively on an assignment.
Bains said some drivers do work for multiple apps at a time. For example, someone who delivers food for Uber Eats may also do deliveries for DoorDash. App companies have argued this makes paying an hourly minimum wage outside of “engaged time” problematic.
“The uniqueness of the work, sometimes you are engaging in two or three apps to maximize their earnings. So who are they employees of, and who is the employer?” Bains said.
Stanford, though, argues that only paying for “engaged” time would set workers too far back. The Centre for Future Work, of which Stanford is the executive director, argued in its submission to the B.C. government that only paying for “engaged time” meant employees have no certainty on how much they can earn, even with a higher minimum wage.
Stanford argues part of the problem is that unlike other companies, there is no limit to how many people can drive for platform-based apps, meaning the cost of labour is constantly in fluctuation. And while the work hours may be “flexible,” Stanford said that is not helpful if workers are idling and going without pay.
He argued a better solution would be to implement a “true” minimum wage and then have companies restrict the number of drivers on the app at a given time, something that New York City has already done.
“This may be inconvenient for the companies, but results in a much more efficient operation in economic terms,” Stanford wrote.
Bains, for his part, has been tight-lipped about his own opinion on how to regulate this part of the gig economy.
In an interview with The Tyee, Bains suggested that it was not relevant whether or not workers were employees so long as they enjoyed certain minimum protections.
“We are looking to make sure these workers have basic, minimum protections, whether that is wages or whether that is health and safety. What you call them is academic, in my view, as long as they enjoy the same rights and protections, the transparency of pay, how they paid and how their pay is calculated,” Bains said.
When pressed on whether B.C. might see a new category of worker established, he said, “We’re not talking about creating a new category (of worker). Our goal is to make sure they have the same basic protection as all workers in B.C.”
The ministry’s consultation closes next month and Bains said he hopes to introduce new legislation in the coming fall or spring sessions.
“We want to do it as early as possible,” Bains said.
Stanford said he hoped the B.C. government would take a “strong, progressive approach to regulating gig work in a way that allows these companies to continue operating,” though he acknowledged it would likely be at a higher cost.
“Both the government, and labour advocates, will have to gear up for a big policy and political battle over those issues,” Stanford said.
Zak Vescera, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee
Saturday, August 12, 2023
St. Louis activists praise Biden's support for compensation over Manhattan Project contamination
ST. LOUIS (AP) — St. Louis-area activists have been fighting for years to get government compensation for people with cancer and other serious illnesses potentially connected to Manhattan Project nuclear contamination. This week marked a major victory, with support coming from the president.
Uranium was processed in St. Louis starting at the onset of World War II as America raced to develop nuclear bombs. In July, reporting as part of an ongoing collaboration between The Missouri Independent, the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock and The Associated Press cited thousands of pages of documents indicating decades of nonchalance and indifference for the risks posed by uranium contamination. The government documents were obtained by outside researchers through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the news organizations.
Since the news reports, bipartisan support has emerged to compensate those in St. Louis and elsewhere whose illnesses may be tied to nuclear fallout and contamination. On Wednesday, that support extended to President Joe Biden.
“I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,” Biden said during a visit to New Mexico.
Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, who lead the activist group Just Moms STL, said they’re optimistic but not letting up.
“It’s a great day,” Chapman said. “We feel incredible. But we don’t take the time to celebrate it. For us, it’s like we have a strong wind at our back. Now who do we push? We don’t let up for a moment.”
The push for compensation has united politicians with virtually nothing else in common. Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri, is an ardent supporter. So is U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a St. Louis Democrat.
Hawley introduced legislation last month to expand an existing compensation program for exposure victims. The Senate endorsed the amendment, but the proposed changes to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act are not yet included in a House-approved defense bill amid negotiations toward final legislation.
St. Louis is far from alone in suffering the effects of the geographically scattered national nuclear program. Advocates have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of radiation exposure on the Navajo Nation, where millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.
Months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. in St. Louis began processing uranium into a concentrated form that could be further refined elsewhere into the material that made it into weapons.
By the late-1940s, the government was trucking nuclear waste from the Mallinckrodt plant to a site near Lambert Airport. It was there that the waste was dumped into Coldwater Creek, contaminating a waterway that was a popular place for kids to play. Just last year, Jana Elementary School, which sits near the creek, was shut down over possible contamination, even though studies conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers found none.
In 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission demolished and buried buildings near the airport and moved the waste to another site, contaminating it, too. Documents cited by AP and the other news organizations showed that storage was haphazard and waste was spilled on roads but that mistakes were often ignored.
Uranium waste also was illegally dumped in West Lake Landfill, near the airport, in 1973. It's still there.
Cleanup in St. Louis County has topped $1 billion, and it's far from over.
Meanwhile, uranium was processed in neighboring St. Charles County starting in the 1950s, creating more contamination. The government built a 75-footmound, covered in rock, to serve as a permanent disposal cell, and the area is considered remediated.
Some experts are skeptical about the connection between diseases and the contamination. Tim Jorgensen, a professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, told the AP in July that the biggest risk factor for cancer is age and that local radiation’s contribution would be so low as to be hard to detect.
Still, in 2019, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued a report that found people who regularly played in Coldwater Creek as children from the 1960s to the 1990s may have a slight increased risk of bone cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. The agency determined that those exposed daily to the creek starting in the 2000s, when cleanup began, could have a small increased risk of lung cancer.
Many of those with direct connections to illnesses are far more convinced. Kyle Hedgpeth's young daughter and niece both were diagnosed with cancer in 2020, within a month of each other. Both have since recovered.
Hedgpeth's wife and her brother grew up near a creek that flows from the St. Charles County site. He believes they picked up something from exposure to the creek and passed it down to their girls.
“It seems all too coincidental,” Hedgpeth said. “I just think there's too many red flags literally putting it in their backyard to ignore it.”
Jim Salter, The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — St. Louis-area activists have been fighting for years to get government compensation for people with cancer and other serious illnesses potentially connected to Manhattan Project nuclear contamination. This week marked a major victory, with support coming from the president.
Uranium was processed in St. Louis starting at the onset of World War II as America raced to develop nuclear bombs. In July, reporting as part of an ongoing collaboration between The Missouri Independent, the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock and The Associated Press cited thousands of pages of documents indicating decades of nonchalance and indifference for the risks posed by uranium contamination. The government documents were obtained by outside researchers through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the news organizations.
Since the news reports, bipartisan support has emerged to compensate those in St. Louis and elsewhere whose illnesses may be tied to nuclear fallout and contamination. On Wednesday, that support extended to President Joe Biden.
“I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,” Biden said during a visit to New Mexico.
Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, who lead the activist group Just Moms STL, said they’re optimistic but not letting up.
“It’s a great day,” Chapman said. “We feel incredible. But we don’t take the time to celebrate it. For us, it’s like we have a strong wind at our back. Now who do we push? We don’t let up for a moment.”
The push for compensation has united politicians with virtually nothing else in common. Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri, is an ardent supporter. So is U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a St. Louis Democrat.
Hawley introduced legislation last month to expand an existing compensation program for exposure victims. The Senate endorsed the amendment, but the proposed changes to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act are not yet included in a House-approved defense bill amid negotiations toward final legislation.
St. Louis is far from alone in suffering the effects of the geographically scattered national nuclear program. Advocates have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of radiation exposure on the Navajo Nation, where millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.
Months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. in St. Louis began processing uranium into a concentrated form that could be further refined elsewhere into the material that made it into weapons.
By the late-1940s, the government was trucking nuclear waste from the Mallinckrodt plant to a site near Lambert Airport. It was there that the waste was dumped into Coldwater Creek, contaminating a waterway that was a popular place for kids to play. Just last year, Jana Elementary School, which sits near the creek, was shut down over possible contamination, even though studies conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers found none.
In 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission demolished and buried buildings near the airport and moved the waste to another site, contaminating it, too. Documents cited by AP and the other news organizations showed that storage was haphazard and waste was spilled on roads but that mistakes were often ignored.
Uranium waste also was illegally dumped in West Lake Landfill, near the airport, in 1973. It's still there.
Cleanup in St. Louis County has topped $1 billion, and it's far from over.
Meanwhile, uranium was processed in neighboring St. Charles County starting in the 1950s, creating more contamination. The government built a 75-footmound, covered in rock, to serve as a permanent disposal cell, and the area is considered remediated.
Some experts are skeptical about the connection between diseases and the contamination. Tim Jorgensen, a professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, told the AP in July that the biggest risk factor for cancer is age and that local radiation’s contribution would be so low as to be hard to detect.
Still, in 2019, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued a report that found people who regularly played in Coldwater Creek as children from the 1960s to the 1990s may have a slight increased risk of bone cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. The agency determined that those exposed daily to the creek starting in the 2000s, when cleanup began, could have a small increased risk of lung cancer.
Many of those with direct connections to illnesses are far more convinced. Kyle Hedgpeth's young daughter and niece both were diagnosed with cancer in 2020, within a month of each other. Both have since recovered.
Hedgpeth's wife and her brother grew up near a creek that flows from the St. Charles County site. He believes they picked up something from exposure to the creek and passed it down to their girls.
“It seems all too coincidental,” Hedgpeth said. “I just think there's too many red flags literally putting it in their backyard to ignore it.”
Jim Salter, The Associated Press
Fri, August 11, 2023
Cyberattack on government service provider exposes records of 1.4 million Albertans
EDMONTON — An Alberta government service provider says the records of more than 1.4 million residents were the target of a cyberattack last month.
Alberta Dental Service Corporation says in a news release that a third party gained unauthorized access to part of its information technology infrastructure.
It says that third party was able to obtain some personal information of people enrolled in provincial government health benefit programs and health providers.
The corporation says that includes names, addresses and, potentially, banking information.
Corporate information of certain health providers also appears to be affected.
The dental services corporation administers low-income health benefit programs such as Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped and the Dental Assistance for Seniors Program.
"We take the security of information in our care very seriously. Unfortunately, even with the most stringent measures in place, these incidents are not always preventable," chairman Lyle Best said in a statement.
"ADSC would like to sincerely apologize to our valued clients and health providers and appreciates the worry this incident may cause."
The corporation said the information of a total of 1.47 million people was compromised. Of those, less than 7,300 had personal banking information on file.
It said it will contact affected Albertans directly with tips on how to safeguard their personal information. Those whose banking information was accessed will be offered complimentary credit monitoring, it added.
The corporation said the data breach has been reported to law enforcement and enhanced safeguards have been put in place.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 11, 2023.
The Canadian Press
EDMONTON — An Alberta government service provider says the records of more than 1.4 million residents were the target of a cyberattack last month.
Alberta Dental Service Corporation says in a news release that a third party gained unauthorized access to part of its information technology infrastructure.
It says that third party was able to obtain some personal information of people enrolled in provincial government health benefit programs and health providers.
The corporation says that includes names, addresses and, potentially, banking information.
Corporate information of certain health providers also appears to be affected.
The dental services corporation administers low-income health benefit programs such as Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped and the Dental Assistance for Seniors Program.
"We take the security of information in our care very seriously. Unfortunately, even with the most stringent measures in place, these incidents are not always preventable," chairman Lyle Best said in a statement.
"ADSC would like to sincerely apologize to our valued clients and health providers and appreciates the worry this incident may cause."
The corporation said the information of a total of 1.47 million people was compromised. Of those, less than 7,300 had personal banking information on file.
It said it will contact affected Albertans directly with tips on how to safeguard their personal information. Those whose banking information was accessed will be offered complimentary credit monitoring, it added.
The corporation said the data breach has been reported to law enforcement and enhanced safeguards have been put in place.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 11, 2023.
The Canadian Press
'Existential crisis’ for Northern Ireland police after data leak
Neil Johnston
Fri, 11 August 2023
Police stock
More than 1,000 police officers and staff members in Northern Ireland have been referred to an emergency threat assessment group set up to provide security advice in the wake of the biggest security breach in the province’s history.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said there have been 1,200 staff referrals to the service, which is providing support to people whose circumstances may put them or their families at risk of harm.
Northern Irish policing is facing an existential crisis as officers will be forced to flee in the wake of the breach, a senior official warned on Friday.
Mike Nesbitt, who sits on the policing board which quizzed Northern Ireland’s most senior officers for four hours on Thursday, said he feared the leak could leave the region with too few staff to police properly.
The force is reeling after details of 10,000 officers and staff were mistakenly published online. Simon Byrne, the embattled chief constable, has admitted dissident republicans have claimed to have obtained some of the data.
The spreadsheet included officers based at MI5 and hundreds working in intelligence, the riot squad and involved in close protection or bodyguard duties for senior politicians or judges.
Mr Nesbitt, who is also an Ulster Unionist Party member of the Northern Irish Assembly, said that even before the leak the force struggled to hold onto officers.
‘Attrition rate is very high’
“The attrition rate in terms of particularly probationary officers is very high. I know one who was in a class of 56 and before the data breach ten had already left,” he said.
“They are losing a good 300 per annum. This breach will just accelerate all that, those leaving or looking to leave, Police Scotland being a favourite for a lot with the cultural links.”
He said the issue of officers leaving was discussed at the police board meeting on Thursday and there was agreement the leak would have “consequences”.
“In the four hours with the chief and his team we did talk about attrition rates, we did talk about morale is going to be worse because of this,” he said. “It was everybody nodding and saying yes, these will be the consequences of this catastrophic error.”
He added that officers working with partner organisations such as MI5 and the National Crime Agency would likely be re-allocated but for some officers most exposed the “place is too small” to stay in the force safely.
“There is probably a number of police officers of which below you can’t keep Northern Ireland safe...I think this pushes us closer to that point,” he added.
One officer told BBC News NI on Friday they had made the “devastating” decision to leave Northern Ireland over the breach which they described as “the straw broke the camel’s back”.
Mr Nesbitt added that he feared an attack was imminent and expected intelligence to “dry up” after to the leak as informants would not trust the force with their data.
He spoke as Deirdre Toner, the chair of the policing board, refused to back Mr Byrne over his handling of the breach.
She failed three times to show confidence in the chief constable as she was asked about the breach on Radio 4’s Today programme.
The Catholic Police Guild, which represents a significant number of Catholic members of the PSNI, has called for a full response from senior ranks.
Some police staff have also been angered that they were not told about the leak.
‘We heard about it on the news’
One staff member told the Belfast Telegraph: “We didn’t get any communication from work at all; we were arriving in the next day, everyone having heard it on the news the night before.”
They also claimed that management had threatened to “weed out” staff who had passed on the information that was shared online.
“It’s a horrible phrase,” they said. “Now a questionnaire has come out asking if we were on the site, if we viewed it, if we shared it, and people are worried about being hauled over the coals of Professional Standards.
“Everyone I’ve spoken to has seen the document, but nobody wants to say that they have because they are terrified of the ramifications.
“Senior officers are saying it’s just our names and initials, downplaying how people feel. They are trying to make [staff] feel like they are overreacting — and they really are not.”
As of Friday, a group set up for officers and staff worried about risk had more than 900 referrals.
Cumbria Police became the second force to admit a data breach after the names and salaries of all its staff were accidentally published online. It said that on March 6 it found out information about pay and allowances had been uploaded on its website following a “human error”.
Neil Johnston
Fri, 11 August 2023
Police stock
More than 1,000 police officers and staff members in Northern Ireland have been referred to an emergency threat assessment group set up to provide security advice in the wake of the biggest security breach in the province’s history.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said there have been 1,200 staff referrals to the service, which is providing support to people whose circumstances may put them or their families at risk of harm.
Northern Irish policing is facing an existential crisis as officers will be forced to flee in the wake of the breach, a senior official warned on Friday.
Mike Nesbitt, who sits on the policing board which quizzed Northern Ireland’s most senior officers for four hours on Thursday, said he feared the leak could leave the region with too few staff to police properly.
The force is reeling after details of 10,000 officers and staff were mistakenly published online. Simon Byrne, the embattled chief constable, has admitted dissident republicans have claimed to have obtained some of the data.
The spreadsheet included officers based at MI5 and hundreds working in intelligence, the riot squad and involved in close protection or bodyguard duties for senior politicians or judges.
Mr Nesbitt, who is also an Ulster Unionist Party member of the Northern Irish Assembly, said that even before the leak the force struggled to hold onto officers.
‘Attrition rate is very high’
“The attrition rate in terms of particularly probationary officers is very high. I know one who was in a class of 56 and before the data breach ten had already left,” he said.
“They are losing a good 300 per annum. This breach will just accelerate all that, those leaving or looking to leave, Police Scotland being a favourite for a lot with the cultural links.”
He said the issue of officers leaving was discussed at the police board meeting on Thursday and there was agreement the leak would have “consequences”.
“In the four hours with the chief and his team we did talk about attrition rates, we did talk about morale is going to be worse because of this,” he said. “It was everybody nodding and saying yes, these will be the consequences of this catastrophic error.”
He added that officers working with partner organisations such as MI5 and the National Crime Agency would likely be re-allocated but for some officers most exposed the “place is too small” to stay in the force safely.
“There is probably a number of police officers of which below you can’t keep Northern Ireland safe...I think this pushes us closer to that point,” he added.
One officer told BBC News NI on Friday they had made the “devastating” decision to leave Northern Ireland over the breach which they described as “the straw broke the camel’s back”.
Mr Nesbitt added that he feared an attack was imminent and expected intelligence to “dry up” after to the leak as informants would not trust the force with their data.
He spoke as Deirdre Toner, the chair of the policing board, refused to back Mr Byrne over his handling of the breach.
She failed three times to show confidence in the chief constable as she was asked about the breach on Radio 4’s Today programme.
The Catholic Police Guild, which represents a significant number of Catholic members of the PSNI, has called for a full response from senior ranks.
Some police staff have also been angered that they were not told about the leak.
‘We heard about it on the news’
One staff member told the Belfast Telegraph: “We didn’t get any communication from work at all; we were arriving in the next day, everyone having heard it on the news the night before.”
They also claimed that management had threatened to “weed out” staff who had passed on the information that was shared online.
“It’s a horrible phrase,” they said. “Now a questionnaire has come out asking if we were on the site, if we viewed it, if we shared it, and people are worried about being hauled over the coals of Professional Standards.
“Everyone I’ve spoken to has seen the document, but nobody wants to say that they have because they are terrified of the ramifications.
“Senior officers are saying it’s just our names and initials, downplaying how people feel. They are trying to make [staff] feel like they are overreacting — and they really are not.”
As of Friday, a group set up for officers and staff worried about risk had more than 900 referrals.
Cumbria Police became the second force to admit a data breach after the names and salaries of all its staff were accidentally published online. It said that on March 6 it found out information about pay and allowances had been uploaded on its website following a “human error”.
We've Been Accidentally Geoengineering the Earth for Decades
ACCIDENTS ARE PREVENTABLE INCIDENTS
Tony Ho Tran
Fri, 11 August 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
For the past few decades, the entire planet has been conducting an experiment that could save us from climate change disaster. It’s the kind of experiment that would never be allowed to happen under normal circumstances, due to how dangerous it is and how catastrophic the results could be.
In fact, we didn’t even realize we were conducting it until recently. In 2020, the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) imposed a regulation requiring ships to cut down on sulfur pollution emitted by the fuel it burnt by more than 80 percent to improve air quality. A few years afterwards, scientists began studying the clouds formed from the exhaust of these vessels known as ship tracks.
What they found was a double-edged sword. While the number of ship tracks were greatly reduced (indicating that the IMO regulation was working), this also resulted in something else: the warming of the planet. It turned out that the sulfur dioxide being emitted by the ships wasn’t simply making air quality worse; it was also seeding low-lying ocean clouds—brightening them and causing them to reflect sunlight away from the planet and cool things down.
Tony Ho Tran
Fri, 11 August 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
For the past few decades, the entire planet has been conducting an experiment that could save us from climate change disaster. It’s the kind of experiment that would never be allowed to happen under normal circumstances, due to how dangerous it is and how catastrophic the results could be.
In fact, we didn’t even realize we were conducting it until recently. In 2020, the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) imposed a regulation requiring ships to cut down on sulfur pollution emitted by the fuel it burnt by more than 80 percent to improve air quality. A few years afterwards, scientists began studying the clouds formed from the exhaust of these vessels known as ship tracks.
What they found was a double-edged sword. While the number of ship tracks were greatly reduced (indicating that the IMO regulation was working), this also resulted in something else: the warming of the planet. It turned out that the sulfur dioxide being emitted by the ships wasn’t simply making air quality worse; it was also seeding low-lying ocean clouds—brightening them and causing them to reflect sunlight away from the planet and cool things down.
REAL CHEM TRAILS
Ship tracks over the Pacific Ocean caused by shipping container vessels. It turned out that the sulfur dioxide being emitted by the ships wasn’t simply making air quality worse; it was also seeding low-lying ocean clouds—brightening them and causing them to reflect sunlight away from the planet and cool things down.
NASA, Terra, MODISMore
“You had a reflection effect that reflected sunlight back into space and produced a cooling,” Michael Diamond, an assistant professor of meteorology and environmental science at Florida State University, told The Daily Beast. “If we look before the regulation went into effect and after, we can already see the clouds changed. They’re not brightening as much as they used to be.”
Diamond authored a paper published on July 25 in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics examining the changes in clouds over major shipping corridors in the Atlantic Ocean. He found evidence that suggests that the loss of cloud brightness resulted in a 50 percent increase of sunlight hitting the ocean surface—causing warming temperatures as a result.
These findings—along with a number of other studies conducted examining the loss of high-sulfur ship tracks over the ocean—may help bolster the case for geoengineering, a term to describe the technologies that can be used to artificially alter the Earth’s climate. While it’s a controversial and potentially dangerous strategy, proponents say that it’s rapidly becoming one of the few options we have to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.
“It’s really only natural to ask the question of should we be doing this deliberately to buy us time for decarbonization or to scale up carbon renewal technologies,” Diamond said.
While it seems like an idea torn from the pages of a sci-fi novel, the idea of blocking the sun to cool down the planet is quickly gaining steam. Not only has the White House announced funding for a five-year research plan into geoengineering but it came in response to a Congressional mandate developed with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
These initiatives typically come in a variety of different forms. The most common typically include some form of solar radiation management (SRM), which are systems to reflect sunlight away from the Earth to cool down temperatures. We’ve seen this happen before in nature during large volcanic eruptions that throw massive clouds of debris and gasses like sulfur dioxide into the air that block sunlight and can cause global temperatures to drop.
Similarly, the ship tracks had previously been cooling down the Earth, all while poisoning the air. Decreased ship tracks resulted in a drop in sulfur dioxide emissions, but also caused temperatures to spike.
Meet the People Who Want to Stop the Next Hurricane by Hacking the Ocean
Of course, this brings up an odd and uncomfortable question: If reducing greenhouse gasses actually warms the planet, why would we want to do so? Diamond is quick to point out that the deleterious effects of greenhouse gas emissions are far more destructive than the warming temperatures caused by the diminished ship tracks. Moreover, the benefits of getting rid of greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and methane will eventually provide a much stronger cooling effect.
“If you reduce [carbon dioxide], methane, and other aerosols, you do get a short term acceleration in warming, but that will cancel out over the longer term,” he said.
Using this idea, researchers can develop their own artificial marine cloud brightening systems to replicate the effects of ship tracks—but without toxic sulfur dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions. One method would involve using nozzles specifically engineered to spray specifically sized seawater aerosols into the atmosphere atop ships to mimic the ship tracks. A few fleets of these vessels saturating the skies above our oceans would have a near immediate effect in cooling down our oceans.
However, the ramifications of such a measure might be severe such as accidentally causing massive rainfall in ecosystems ill-prepared for them, or causing the world to cool down too much resulting in a “Little Ice Age” scenario where crops fail causing worldwide famine.
Blocking the Sun Is a Risky Gambit for Fighting Climate Change. It May Also Be Our Best Option.
There’s also the question of whether or not it would actually work at all—something scientists are already asking when it comes to the latest ship tracks research.
This might seem to be a clear indicator that solar geoengineering is not only a viable option, but one that we’ve already been inadvertently employing to cool our planet for decades. But experts are actually split on what the data actually means. Though Diamond believes that the evidence should encourage more scientists and institutions to invest more into geoengineering research efforts, he and other atmospheric scientists say it falls well short of providing any conclusive evidence that marine cloud brightening could be a panacea or even just an effective tool for our climate woes.
“There’s been some dimming—but not as much as we expected,” Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told The Daily Beast. He co-authored a number of different studies in the past few years regarding the impact of ship tracks on marine cloud brightening, and has seen his beliefs on the matter evolve over the years.
A 2022 Nature study Watson-Parris helped lead used ship tracking data to analyze the clouds over where these vessels traveled to assess their impact on nearby clouds with no ship pollution. He and his team found that it resulted in the increase of cloud volume and brightened marine clouds causing a cooling effect.
Could Cooling the Planet Through Geoengineering Lead to More Disease Outbreaks?
But, in a preprint published May 16 in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, the same researchers looked at the brightening effects before and after 2020—and discovered that there actually wasn’t much of a change between the two. This shows that the clouds are “pretty much saturated,” according to Watson-Parris.
“Even by reducing 80 percent of the emissions, the clouds themselves don't get much darker because they've already had plenty of aerosol,” he explained. “This leads me to think that actually, the clouds are already fairly saturated with aerosol and pollution. And therefore, the emissions reductions probably didn't have a massive effect.”
The effects of the lessening sunlight hitting the Earth due to the IMO regulation are also difficult to quantify, according to Rob Wood, an atmospheric scientist and principal investigator for the University of Washington’s Marine Cloud Brightening Project. He noted that carbon dioxide emissions have increased over this time and has a much longer lifetime in the atmosphere when compared to sulfur dioxide, “so comparing the effect of the IMO regulation with the increasing [carbon dioxide] is hard to do,” he told The Daily Beast.
Shocking Before-and-After Pics Show Hawaiian Town Obliterated by Deadly Wildfires
“In addition, on timescales of a decade or less, the natural variability of the climate system tends to control the temperature fluctuations,” he added. “In short, we are going to have to wait for a few more years to determine the impact of the IMO 2020 regulation.”
So it’s still fairly early after the IMO regulation to draw any hard conclusions about its impact. While solar geoengineering experts are hopeful about the new research, they caution that it all should be taken with a grain of salt.
“Our takeaway is that reduction in aerosols from ship emissions, and in fact, all emissions, is a critical near-term climate risk that we do not understand well enough,” Kelly Wanser, co-founder and senior adviser of the Marine Cloud Brightening Project at the University of Washington, told The Daily Beast. “In particular, we have not had sufficient observational coverage to gather the data needed to understand and quantify these effects.”
Despite this, both Wood and Wanser believe that this should encourage stakeholders such as world governments and academic institutions to invest in geoengineering research. More needs to be understood before deploying—especially when the consequences of doing so could be immense.
“This is controversial,” Diamond said. “There are potential downsides to the technology like maybe changing the circulations and rainfall patterns in ways that are potentially harmful to certain communities and ecosystems.”
“We lack sufficient information about both the effectiveness and the side effect risks of marine cloud brightening to know whether to try to use marine cloud brightening, or how it might be used to maximize effectiveness and minimize risks,” Wanser said. “A great deal of research is needed.”
Like the clouds above our oceans, we want to look towards a brighter future. We just don’t want to do it at the expense of our lives—but then again, we might soon not have much of a choice.
The Daily Beast.
Ship tracks over the Pacific Ocean caused by shipping container vessels. It turned out that the sulfur dioxide being emitted by the ships wasn’t simply making air quality worse; it was also seeding low-lying ocean clouds—brightening them and causing them to reflect sunlight away from the planet and cool things down.
NASA, Terra, MODISMore
“You had a reflection effect that reflected sunlight back into space and produced a cooling,” Michael Diamond, an assistant professor of meteorology and environmental science at Florida State University, told The Daily Beast. “If we look before the regulation went into effect and after, we can already see the clouds changed. They’re not brightening as much as they used to be.”
Diamond authored a paper published on July 25 in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics examining the changes in clouds over major shipping corridors in the Atlantic Ocean. He found evidence that suggests that the loss of cloud brightness resulted in a 50 percent increase of sunlight hitting the ocean surface—causing warming temperatures as a result.
These findings—along with a number of other studies conducted examining the loss of high-sulfur ship tracks over the ocean—may help bolster the case for geoengineering, a term to describe the technologies that can be used to artificially alter the Earth’s climate. While it’s a controversial and potentially dangerous strategy, proponents say that it’s rapidly becoming one of the few options we have to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.
“It’s really only natural to ask the question of should we be doing this deliberately to buy us time for decarbonization or to scale up carbon renewal technologies,” Diamond said.
While it seems like an idea torn from the pages of a sci-fi novel, the idea of blocking the sun to cool down the planet is quickly gaining steam. Not only has the White House announced funding for a five-year research plan into geoengineering but it came in response to a Congressional mandate developed with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
These initiatives typically come in a variety of different forms. The most common typically include some form of solar radiation management (SRM), which are systems to reflect sunlight away from the Earth to cool down temperatures. We’ve seen this happen before in nature during large volcanic eruptions that throw massive clouds of debris and gasses like sulfur dioxide into the air that block sunlight and can cause global temperatures to drop.
Similarly, the ship tracks had previously been cooling down the Earth, all while poisoning the air. Decreased ship tracks resulted in a drop in sulfur dioxide emissions, but also caused temperatures to spike.
Meet the People Who Want to Stop the Next Hurricane by Hacking the Ocean
Of course, this brings up an odd and uncomfortable question: If reducing greenhouse gasses actually warms the planet, why would we want to do so? Diamond is quick to point out that the deleterious effects of greenhouse gas emissions are far more destructive than the warming temperatures caused by the diminished ship tracks. Moreover, the benefits of getting rid of greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and methane will eventually provide a much stronger cooling effect.
“If you reduce [carbon dioxide], methane, and other aerosols, you do get a short term acceleration in warming, but that will cancel out over the longer term,” he said.
Using this idea, researchers can develop their own artificial marine cloud brightening systems to replicate the effects of ship tracks—but without toxic sulfur dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions. One method would involve using nozzles specifically engineered to spray specifically sized seawater aerosols into the atmosphere atop ships to mimic the ship tracks. A few fleets of these vessels saturating the skies above our oceans would have a near immediate effect in cooling down our oceans.
However, the ramifications of such a measure might be severe such as accidentally causing massive rainfall in ecosystems ill-prepared for them, or causing the world to cool down too much resulting in a “Little Ice Age” scenario where crops fail causing worldwide famine.
Blocking the Sun Is a Risky Gambit for Fighting Climate Change. It May Also Be Our Best Option.
There’s also the question of whether or not it would actually work at all—something scientists are already asking when it comes to the latest ship tracks research.
This might seem to be a clear indicator that solar geoengineering is not only a viable option, but one that we’ve already been inadvertently employing to cool our planet for decades. But experts are actually split on what the data actually means. Though Diamond believes that the evidence should encourage more scientists and institutions to invest more into geoengineering research efforts, he and other atmospheric scientists say it falls well short of providing any conclusive evidence that marine cloud brightening could be a panacea or even just an effective tool for our climate woes.
“There’s been some dimming—but not as much as we expected,” Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told The Daily Beast. He co-authored a number of different studies in the past few years regarding the impact of ship tracks on marine cloud brightening, and has seen his beliefs on the matter evolve over the years.
A 2022 Nature study Watson-Parris helped lead used ship tracking data to analyze the clouds over where these vessels traveled to assess their impact on nearby clouds with no ship pollution. He and his team found that it resulted in the increase of cloud volume and brightened marine clouds causing a cooling effect.
Could Cooling the Planet Through Geoengineering Lead to More Disease Outbreaks?
But, in a preprint published May 16 in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, the same researchers looked at the brightening effects before and after 2020—and discovered that there actually wasn’t much of a change between the two. This shows that the clouds are “pretty much saturated,” according to Watson-Parris.
“Even by reducing 80 percent of the emissions, the clouds themselves don't get much darker because they've already had plenty of aerosol,” he explained. “This leads me to think that actually, the clouds are already fairly saturated with aerosol and pollution. And therefore, the emissions reductions probably didn't have a massive effect.”
The effects of the lessening sunlight hitting the Earth due to the IMO regulation are also difficult to quantify, according to Rob Wood, an atmospheric scientist and principal investigator for the University of Washington’s Marine Cloud Brightening Project. He noted that carbon dioxide emissions have increased over this time and has a much longer lifetime in the atmosphere when compared to sulfur dioxide, “so comparing the effect of the IMO regulation with the increasing [carbon dioxide] is hard to do,” he told The Daily Beast.
Shocking Before-and-After Pics Show Hawaiian Town Obliterated by Deadly Wildfires
“In addition, on timescales of a decade or less, the natural variability of the climate system tends to control the temperature fluctuations,” he added. “In short, we are going to have to wait for a few more years to determine the impact of the IMO 2020 regulation.”
So it’s still fairly early after the IMO regulation to draw any hard conclusions about its impact. While solar geoengineering experts are hopeful about the new research, they caution that it all should be taken with a grain of salt.
“Our takeaway is that reduction in aerosols from ship emissions, and in fact, all emissions, is a critical near-term climate risk that we do not understand well enough,” Kelly Wanser, co-founder and senior adviser of the Marine Cloud Brightening Project at the University of Washington, told The Daily Beast. “In particular, we have not had sufficient observational coverage to gather the data needed to understand and quantify these effects.”
Despite this, both Wood and Wanser believe that this should encourage stakeholders such as world governments and academic institutions to invest in geoengineering research. More needs to be understood before deploying—especially when the consequences of doing so could be immense.
“This is controversial,” Diamond said. “There are potential downsides to the technology like maybe changing the circulations and rainfall patterns in ways that are potentially harmful to certain communities and ecosystems.”
“We lack sufficient information about both the effectiveness and the side effect risks of marine cloud brightening to know whether to try to use marine cloud brightening, or how it might be used to maximize effectiveness and minimize risks,” Wanser said. “A great deal of research is needed.”
Like the clouds above our oceans, we want to look towards a brighter future. We just don’t want to do it at the expense of our lives—but then again, we might soon not have much of a choice.
The Daily Beast.
It’s Time to Give Kamala Harris Her Due
David Rothkopf, Bernard L. Schwartz
Fri, 11 August 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
It appears that it is, at long last, time to acknowledge the extraordinary and vital role being played by Vice President Kamala Harris on behalf of the Biden administration and the United States.
Finally, the narratives in the press that had for too long been colored by the political agenda, misogyny and racism of critics, have begun to change to reflect reality.
That said, there is still an aspect to Harris’ performance as vice president that remains underappreciated—the substance of her record as a full partner to the president, at the lead on domestic and international issues. That record not only makes her one of the most effective vice presidents in modern U.S. history, it has been part of President Joe Biden’s active effort to ensure that no one is better qualified to succeed him as President of the United States.
It is a subject that is especially significant to many voters given President Biden’s age, and it is one that should be addressed directly. That is both because it is our responsibility as voters to assess the issue carefully and because, in so doing, we see the real strengths Harris brings to her role.
Recently, positive stories about the role being played by Vice President Harris have become much more common in the media. The New York Times ran a major piece entitled, “Kamala Harris Takes on a Forceful New Role in the 2024 Campaign.” Bloomberg ran a piece citing the fact that she is now the most in-demand speaker at Democratic fund-raising events. Politico ran a piece arguing Harris “is a better VP than you think.”
What is more, you can tell this about-face in the press is real and not just the result of some White House press campaign because of the outsized attention Republican presidential candidates have placed on the vice president. As argued in the Boston Globe, a “re-energized” Harris is living “rent free” in the heads of Republicans. GOP candidates from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley have targeted Harris. And Harris has proved very effective in responding to those attacks, a factor that has no doubt played a role in the current reappraisal of her.
The president’s faith in Harris is not just offered in the form of public expressions of support. He has made the choice to place her out front and in the lead on a wide array of the issues that will be central to deciding the 2024 election. These include abortion, affirmative action, LGBTQ rights, the right to be safe from gun violence, and voting rights.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced that 43 non-profit, community-based organizations, private sector entities and institutions of higher education will receive $125 million American Rescue Plan-funded Capital Readiness Program (CRP) awards, aimed at helping "underserved entrepreneurs launch and scale their small businesses—a key pillar of Bidenomics."
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesMore
Further, she also has taken the lead in outreach to the communities that are likely to be most important to determining the outcome of the election—including young voters, women, people of color, and other communities targeted by discrimination and hate groups in the U.S.
But digging deeper shows that the press coverage of the past few weeks is not simply based on her new role as the administration prepares for campaign 2024. Indeed, the role itself is not new.
Not long ago, Harris traveled coast-to-coast and played a leading role in the media as the administration commemorated the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. As EMILY’s List president Laphonza Butler characterized it to Vanity Fair, Harris is seen as “the convener, the leader, the empathizer, and the fighter that we need.” White House officials have told us that they see this as one of the most crucial issues in the coming election.
Last year, immediately after the Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action, Harris spoke out, calling the issue “a step backward for our nation.” She specifically cited the importance of affirmative action to college students, a group with which she has been actively engaged in outreach. In the past year alone, she has visited a dozen college campuses, and her aides say many more such programs can be expected throughout the next 18 months. Her message, tailored for young voters, has been extremely well-received at all the colleges she has visited.
Another of the hot button issues on which Harris has been leading for the White House is gun violence. This role, of course, draws directly on her strength and years of experience as a prosecutor—two terms as San Francisco’s district attorney, two terms as attorney general of California, and her time in the U.S. Senate.
In addition, throughout her time as vice president, Harris been an effective and impassioned Biden administration point person on LGBTQ issues, advancing efforts to enhance equality and fight hate both internationally and in the U.S.—including very recently at gay pride celebrations including at New York’s Stonewall Inn, a landmark location in the battle to ensure gay rights in America.
Kamala Harris visited the Stonewall Inn in New York City in June this year.
Angela Weiss/Getty Images
Her work against hate has also been amplified by the unique and wide-reaching efforts played by her husband, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, who has assumed the lead on administration efforts to combat anti-semitism.
At a recent White House meeting, she focused on the urgency of combating hate in an atmosphere of growing intolerance in some parts of the United States with such passion that some in the audience were moved to tears. This role, of course, fits with the reputation she’s built throughout her career—and especially in the U.S. Senate—as a fighter. Indeed, many agree that when Harris champions causes in which she deeply believes that she is at her impassioned best.
She is, and has been throughout her career, an advocate. Remember her tough questioning of Brett Kavanaugh and others. But it is also clear, especially if you see her up close, that she is always acting from empathy, from a desire to protect the vulnerable.
The centrality of her role however, extends beyond her role as a political spokesperson or champion—even as she has already completed trips to 35 states, primarily focused on the questions cited above. She also plays a prominent, active role in Oval Office and cabinet-level discussions on these issues, and has special influence, of course, through her frequent one-on-one meetings with the president.
Further, some of the most significant work she has done has not been on domestic issues at all. During her time as vice president, she has met with over 150 foreign leaders. She is typically at the president’s side during the morning intelligence briefings that take place on average several times a week and she regularly intervenes. She has a reputation for regularly asking tough, incisive questions during these sessions as a way to test policy proposals. Building on this, her role has included active leader-level diplomacy on issues from immigration to counterbalancing China and next-generation national security threats.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador outside the Vice Presidents residence at Naval Observatory in July of 2022.
Kent Nishimura/Getty ImagesMore
Harris’ designation as the lead on immigration and border issues was a particular focus of the media early in the administration when plans were being developed and implemented.
Receiving much less note ever since are the areas in which she was instrumental in achieving real progress—which included new levels of cooperation with Mexico, brokered in her discussions with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and her work helping to mobilize and direct $4 billion in U.S. investment to “northern triangle” countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) as part of an effort to create jobs within them and thus keep their residents from seeking to emigrate to the United States. Nothing defuses the critiques of her role on immigration issues quite so much as the fact that Mexican border crossings are down 50 percent since the expiration of Title 42.
Also on the international front, she has twice led U.S. delegations to the Munich Security Conference and participated in other bilateral meetings helping to build support for the U.S.-led effort to back Ukraine as it fights Russian aggression. It was she who met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022, five days before the invasion, offering him the latest U.S. assessments of Russia’s intentions and helping to shape plans for future cooperation.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris walk back to the Oval Office after an event about gun violence in the Rose Garden of the White House in April 2022.
Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesMore
Another area in which her efforts have been vital (though not well understood) has been in the active diplomacy associated with countering China’s influence worldwide. She has traveled throughout the Indo-Pacific (on three separate trips), as well as to Africa, Europe, and Latin America at the vanguard of the Biden team’s effort to coordinate the creation of closer ties that will be central to our efforts to engage partners to help offset China’s own efforts at deepening its ties worldwide. These included a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bangkok on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meeting.
The vice presidency is often a low-profile job. It is seldom well understood by the public. But it is clear as the Biden-Harris team begins its efforts at seeking reelection that the relationship between our current president and his barrier-breaking vice president has grown into a genuine partnership.
She has gradually—and with too little credit—emerged as a significant, accomplished asset for the administration as the person, after Biden, who is best equipped to meet the challenges of the presidency.
That, in turn, suggests yet another area in which Vice President Harris shares something significant with the president. The two are among the most underappreciated yet most successful American leaders of our times. Fortunately, gradually, thanks to their records people are waking up to their aligned, complementary and significant strengths.
Daily Beast.
David Rothkopf, Bernard L. Schwartz
Fri, 11 August 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
It appears that it is, at long last, time to acknowledge the extraordinary and vital role being played by Vice President Kamala Harris on behalf of the Biden administration and the United States.
Finally, the narratives in the press that had for too long been colored by the political agenda, misogyny and racism of critics, have begun to change to reflect reality.
That said, there is still an aspect to Harris’ performance as vice president that remains underappreciated—the substance of her record as a full partner to the president, at the lead on domestic and international issues. That record not only makes her one of the most effective vice presidents in modern U.S. history, it has been part of President Joe Biden’s active effort to ensure that no one is better qualified to succeed him as President of the United States.
It is a subject that is especially significant to many voters given President Biden’s age, and it is one that should be addressed directly. That is both because it is our responsibility as voters to assess the issue carefully and because, in so doing, we see the real strengths Harris brings to her role.
Recently, positive stories about the role being played by Vice President Harris have become much more common in the media. The New York Times ran a major piece entitled, “Kamala Harris Takes on a Forceful New Role in the 2024 Campaign.” Bloomberg ran a piece citing the fact that she is now the most in-demand speaker at Democratic fund-raising events. Politico ran a piece arguing Harris “is a better VP than you think.”
What is more, you can tell this about-face in the press is real and not just the result of some White House press campaign because of the outsized attention Republican presidential candidates have placed on the vice president. As argued in the Boston Globe, a “re-energized” Harris is living “rent free” in the heads of Republicans. GOP candidates from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley have targeted Harris. And Harris has proved very effective in responding to those attacks, a factor that has no doubt played a role in the current reappraisal of her.
The president’s faith in Harris is not just offered in the form of public expressions of support. He has made the choice to place her out front and in the lead on a wide array of the issues that will be central to deciding the 2024 election. These include abortion, affirmative action, LGBTQ rights, the right to be safe from gun violence, and voting rights.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced that 43 non-profit, community-based organizations, private sector entities and institutions of higher education will receive $125 million American Rescue Plan-funded Capital Readiness Program (CRP) awards, aimed at helping "underserved entrepreneurs launch and scale their small businesses—a key pillar of Bidenomics."
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesMore
Further, she also has taken the lead in outreach to the communities that are likely to be most important to determining the outcome of the election—including young voters, women, people of color, and other communities targeted by discrimination and hate groups in the U.S.
But digging deeper shows that the press coverage of the past few weeks is not simply based on her new role as the administration prepares for campaign 2024. Indeed, the role itself is not new.
Not long ago, Harris traveled coast-to-coast and played a leading role in the media as the administration commemorated the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. As EMILY’s List president Laphonza Butler characterized it to Vanity Fair, Harris is seen as “the convener, the leader, the empathizer, and the fighter that we need.” White House officials have told us that they see this as one of the most crucial issues in the coming election.
Last year, immediately after the Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action, Harris spoke out, calling the issue “a step backward for our nation.” She specifically cited the importance of affirmative action to college students, a group with which she has been actively engaged in outreach. In the past year alone, she has visited a dozen college campuses, and her aides say many more such programs can be expected throughout the next 18 months. Her message, tailored for young voters, has been extremely well-received at all the colleges she has visited.
Another of the hot button issues on which Harris has been leading for the White House is gun violence. This role, of course, draws directly on her strength and years of experience as a prosecutor—two terms as San Francisco’s district attorney, two terms as attorney general of California, and her time in the U.S. Senate.
In addition, throughout her time as vice president, Harris been an effective and impassioned Biden administration point person on LGBTQ issues, advancing efforts to enhance equality and fight hate both internationally and in the U.S.—including very recently at gay pride celebrations including at New York’s Stonewall Inn, a landmark location in the battle to ensure gay rights in America.
Kamala Harris visited the Stonewall Inn in New York City in June this year.
Angela Weiss/Getty Images
Her work against hate has also been amplified by the unique and wide-reaching efforts played by her husband, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, who has assumed the lead on administration efforts to combat anti-semitism.
At a recent White House meeting, she focused on the urgency of combating hate in an atmosphere of growing intolerance in some parts of the United States with such passion that some in the audience were moved to tears. This role, of course, fits with the reputation she’s built throughout her career—and especially in the U.S. Senate—as a fighter. Indeed, many agree that when Harris champions causes in which she deeply believes that she is at her impassioned best.
She is, and has been throughout her career, an advocate. Remember her tough questioning of Brett Kavanaugh and others. But it is also clear, especially if you see her up close, that she is always acting from empathy, from a desire to protect the vulnerable.
The centrality of her role however, extends beyond her role as a political spokesperson or champion—even as she has already completed trips to 35 states, primarily focused on the questions cited above. She also plays a prominent, active role in Oval Office and cabinet-level discussions on these issues, and has special influence, of course, through her frequent one-on-one meetings with the president.
Further, some of the most significant work she has done has not been on domestic issues at all. During her time as vice president, she has met with over 150 foreign leaders. She is typically at the president’s side during the morning intelligence briefings that take place on average several times a week and she regularly intervenes. She has a reputation for regularly asking tough, incisive questions during these sessions as a way to test policy proposals. Building on this, her role has included active leader-level diplomacy on issues from immigration to counterbalancing China and next-generation national security threats.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador outside the Vice Presidents residence at Naval Observatory in July of 2022.
Kent Nishimura/Getty ImagesMore
Harris’ designation as the lead on immigration and border issues was a particular focus of the media early in the administration when plans were being developed and implemented.
Receiving much less note ever since are the areas in which she was instrumental in achieving real progress—which included new levels of cooperation with Mexico, brokered in her discussions with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and her work helping to mobilize and direct $4 billion in U.S. investment to “northern triangle” countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) as part of an effort to create jobs within them and thus keep their residents from seeking to emigrate to the United States. Nothing defuses the critiques of her role on immigration issues quite so much as the fact that Mexican border crossings are down 50 percent since the expiration of Title 42.
Also on the international front, she has twice led U.S. delegations to the Munich Security Conference and participated in other bilateral meetings helping to build support for the U.S.-led effort to back Ukraine as it fights Russian aggression. It was she who met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022, five days before the invasion, offering him the latest U.S. assessments of Russia’s intentions and helping to shape plans for future cooperation.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris walk back to the Oval Office after an event about gun violence in the Rose Garden of the White House in April 2022.
Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesMore
Another area in which her efforts have been vital (though not well understood) has been in the active diplomacy associated with countering China’s influence worldwide. She has traveled throughout the Indo-Pacific (on three separate trips), as well as to Africa, Europe, and Latin America at the vanguard of the Biden team’s effort to coordinate the creation of closer ties that will be central to our efforts to engage partners to help offset China’s own efforts at deepening its ties worldwide. These included a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bangkok on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meeting.
The vice presidency is often a low-profile job. It is seldom well understood by the public. But it is clear as the Biden-Harris team begins its efforts at seeking reelection that the relationship between our current president and his barrier-breaking vice president has grown into a genuine partnership.
She has gradually—and with too little credit—emerged as a significant, accomplished asset for the administration as the person, after Biden, who is best equipped to meet the challenges of the presidency.
That, in turn, suggests yet another area in which Vice President Harris shares something significant with the president. The two are among the most underappreciated yet most successful American leaders of our times. Fortunately, gradually, thanks to their records people are waking up to their aligned, complementary and significant strengths.
Daily Beast.
Britain could let Saudi Arabia join fighter jet building programme
James Rothwell
Fri, 11 August 2023
MoD
Britain is considering a Saudi request to become a full partner in a next-generation fighter jet project alongside Italy and Japan, it has emerged.
The Daily Telegraph understands that Britain and Italy are eager to help the Kingdom play a greater role in Western defence partnerships, and are studying a proposal for it to join the Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP.
Signed in December, the GCAP aims to produce a highly advanced, exportable fighter jet by 2035. The announcement of Japanese involvement was deemed significant at the time as Tokyo has never collaborated on such a project before, and typically restricts defence exports.
Now Saudi Arabia, which the West wants to coax away from Chinese influence and bring deeper into Western defence strategy, wants to play its own role by offering major funding for the project.
Joining GCAP ‘a boon for the Saudis’
Neil Quilliam, a fellow at Chatham House’ Middle East programme, said joining GCAP would be a “boon” for the Saudis which suggested that their “ambition to transform Saudi Arabia from consumer to producer is beginning to gain traction, though the path to success will be long and winding.”
“The fact that Saudi Arabia might join the UK and Italy also shows that major powers are taking the country more seriously than before, though Japan is dragging its heels, and this would represent a diplomatic and commercial turning point for the kingdom,” he added.
Dr William Reynolds, a security analyst at King’s College War Studies department, said a key advantage of GCAP was spreading the cost and risk of development across multiple contributing countries - which would make Saudi investment an attractive prospect.
But the question of whether Japan would allow Saudi Arabia to join, even if Britain and Italy are keen on the idea, remained unanswered.
“There is room for Saudi Arabia in the group as a financer, but as an equal partner I don’t see it,” he said. “And it could delay the programme significantly.”
He added that letting Saudi Arabia join might create domestic political trouble for the government in Japan. “It’s a boat they don’t want to rock in terms of Japanese domestic politics. There is a significant anti-war segment in Japanese society still,” he said.
James Rothwell
Fri, 11 August 2023
MoD
Britain is considering a Saudi request to become a full partner in a next-generation fighter jet project alongside Italy and Japan, it has emerged.
The Daily Telegraph understands that Britain and Italy are eager to help the Kingdom play a greater role in Western defence partnerships, and are studying a proposal for it to join the Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP.
Signed in December, the GCAP aims to produce a highly advanced, exportable fighter jet by 2035. The announcement of Japanese involvement was deemed significant at the time as Tokyo has never collaborated on such a project before, and typically restricts defence exports.
Now Saudi Arabia, which the West wants to coax away from Chinese influence and bring deeper into Western defence strategy, wants to play its own role by offering major funding for the project.
‘Strategic partner’
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the UK’s strategic partnerships and UK Defence is keen to deepen work on GCAP. We see Saudi Arabia as a key partner in the fighter programme and we are working to ensure strong progress as soon as possible,” a senior defence source told the Daily Telegraph.
According to the Financial Times, Riyadh is hoping to pledge tens of billions of dollars to finance the GCAP as well as potential engineering expertise.
By taking part in the project, Saudi Arabia hopes to advance a long-term goal of becoming a domestic producer of defence technology and weapons, moving away from its current status as a major importer.
Riyadh’s eagerness to join the programme may also be influenced by delays to a second delivery of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft due to resistance from Germany - one of the four partners in the Eurofighter project. Germany imposed a weapons embargo against Saudi Arabia in 2018 in response to the Kingdom’s involvement in the Yemen conflict and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s biggest spenders on defence imports, which it mostly secures from the United States. But in recent years, Riyadh has funneled billions of dollars into domestic defence projects.
Earlier this week, the Kingdom signed an agreement with Turkish drone firm Baykar which will begin manufacturing its drones on Saudi soil.
However, Saudi entry to the GCAP could potentially be scuppered by Japan, the Financial Times reported. Tokyo is said to be concerned that letting Saudi Arabia join the project will complicate discussions on who it can sell its weapons to. It was also suggested that the late addition of Saudi funding and expertise might delay the completion of the project.
If Britain approved a Saudi request to join GCAP it would be the latest step towards a major thaw in relations with Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.
After the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the Crown Prince, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Western leaders shunned Mohammed bin Salman. President Joe Biden vowed to make him a “pariah” in 2019 while campaigning for the US election.
But in more recent years, the West has sought to bring the man known by his initials, MBS, back into the fold on grounds of pragmatism and economic interests. Last summer, Mr Biden visited the Saudi leader in Riyadh in an embarrassing volte face, while Britain is reportedly due to host him this Autumn.
Italy and Japan did not immediately respond to the reports of a Saudi request to join GCAP on Friday.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the UK’s strategic partnerships and UK Defence is keen to deepen work on GCAP. We see Saudi Arabia as a key partner in the fighter programme and we are working to ensure strong progress as soon as possible,” a senior defence source told the Daily Telegraph.
According to the Financial Times, Riyadh is hoping to pledge tens of billions of dollars to finance the GCAP as well as potential engineering expertise.
By taking part in the project, Saudi Arabia hopes to advance a long-term goal of becoming a domestic producer of defence technology and weapons, moving away from its current status as a major importer.
Riyadh’s eagerness to join the programme may also be influenced by delays to a second delivery of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft due to resistance from Germany - one of the four partners in the Eurofighter project. Germany imposed a weapons embargo against Saudi Arabia in 2018 in response to the Kingdom’s involvement in the Yemen conflict and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s biggest spenders on defence imports, which it mostly secures from the United States. But in recent years, Riyadh has funneled billions of dollars into domestic defence projects.
Earlier this week, the Kingdom signed an agreement with Turkish drone firm Baykar which will begin manufacturing its drones on Saudi soil.
However, Saudi entry to the GCAP could potentially be scuppered by Japan, the Financial Times reported. Tokyo is said to be concerned that letting Saudi Arabia join the project will complicate discussions on who it can sell its weapons to. It was also suggested that the late addition of Saudi funding and expertise might delay the completion of the project.
If Britain approved a Saudi request to join GCAP it would be the latest step towards a major thaw in relations with Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.
After the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the Crown Prince, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Western leaders shunned Mohammed bin Salman. President Joe Biden vowed to make him a “pariah” in 2019 while campaigning for the US election.
But in more recent years, the West has sought to bring the man known by his initials, MBS, back into the fold on grounds of pragmatism and economic interests. Last summer, Mr Biden visited the Saudi leader in Riyadh in an embarrassing volte face, while Britain is reportedly due to host him this Autumn.
Italy and Japan did not immediately respond to the reports of a Saudi request to join GCAP on Friday.
Joining GCAP ‘a boon for the Saudis’
Neil Quilliam, a fellow at Chatham House’ Middle East programme, said joining GCAP would be a “boon” for the Saudis which suggested that their “ambition to transform Saudi Arabia from consumer to producer is beginning to gain traction, though the path to success will be long and winding.”
“The fact that Saudi Arabia might join the UK and Italy also shows that major powers are taking the country more seriously than before, though Japan is dragging its heels, and this would represent a diplomatic and commercial turning point for the kingdom,” he added.
Dr William Reynolds, a security analyst at King’s College War Studies department, said a key advantage of GCAP was spreading the cost and risk of development across multiple contributing countries - which would make Saudi investment an attractive prospect.
But the question of whether Japan would allow Saudi Arabia to join, even if Britain and Italy are keen on the idea, remained unanswered.
“There is room for Saudi Arabia in the group as a financer, but as an equal partner I don’t see it,” he said. “And it could delay the programme significantly.”
He added that letting Saudi Arabia join might create domestic political trouble for the government in Japan. “It’s a boat they don’t want to rock in terms of Japanese domestic politics. There is a significant anti-war segment in Japanese society still,” he said.
BRINGING THE WAR HOME
Kyiv’s drone strikes on Moscow mean Kremlin’s war can’t be ignored by Russians
Andrew Roth, Pjotr Sauer and Daniel Boffey
Kyiv’s drone strikes on Moscow mean Kremlin’s war can’t be ignored by Russians
Andrew Roth, Pjotr Sauer and Daniel Boffey
THE GUARDIAN
Fri, 11 August 2023
A new campaign of drone strikes has targeted the Russian capital in recent days as Kyiv has demonstrated its ability to hit Moscow and to keep the Kremlin’s war in the hearts and minds of the Russian elites and others seeking to ignore the invasion of Ukraine.
Video on Friday showed a drone slamming into the ground and exploding near a residential area in the north-west of the city, as rowers nearby participated in a national championship in the Krylatskoye district.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed to have downed other drones on Friday and earlier in the week on the south-west approaches of the city, illustrating Kyiv’s ability to target the Russian capital on a weekly or even daily basis, although with mixed success.
Earlier waves of drone strikes have hit military and energy infrastructure, the Moscow city financial centre, other residential buildings, or targeted areas in the wealthy western suburbs of the Rublyovka district, just miles from where Vladimir Putin keeps his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. Video from earlier this year also showed a UAV hitting a building inside the Kremlin walls.
Samuel Bendett, an expert on military drones at the Center for Naval Analyses, said Kyiv had a “strategy to demonstrate Ukrainian capability. Last year Ukraine lacked a lot of the capability to strike deep inside Russia. Starting late last year and all of this year, Kyiv has demonstrated that it has the technology, the UAVs and the drones, to actually bring the war to the Russian territory. A lot of Russian military and civilian targets were struck, along with attacks on civilian territories, in a response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians.”
He noted that striking Moscow, which is supposed to be Russia’s most well-defended city, and a centre of political, economic and social life, put some pressure on both the Russian government and the population, and showed that Ukraine would not leave devastating attacks on its civilians unanswered.
“It’s a social-cultural response to Russia’s attacks on civilian targets,” he said.
Related: The war is coming to Russia, Zelenskiy warns after latest drone attack
Ministry of defence sources in Kyiv said the drone attacks had the twin aims of raising morale at home at a time when successes at the fronts were scarce and raising a question among the Russian public over whether Putin was able to protect them.
The raids into the bordering Belgorod region, by both dissident Russian units and Ukrainian saboteurs with a loose link to the official military, were said to have the same purpose, with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, increasingly talking up the reach of his country’s forces.
Ukraine’s western partners, once extremely sensitive to the charge that Nato weaponry was being used in attacks on Russian soil, had come to accept that Kyiv had the right to use its own resources to destabilise Putin’s regime, officials in Kyiv said.
Yet the documented psychological impact so far has been dubious, with polling indicating little shift in the way Russians feel about the war and anecdotal evidence from psychologists and reports by journalists showing that many Russians have simply decided to ignore the attacks.
“Society is not as worried about drones as when they first started hitting Moscow,” said a Moscow-based psychologist, Alexander Kichaev. “There is some frustration and anger, but it is not overwhelming at all … the pain threshold has been passed and now people are used to it.”
According to Kichaev, the issue of drone attacks had slowly become normalised over time. Officials have tried to downplay their effect. The number of injuries from the drone strikes in Russia have been small, especially when compared with the hundreds of deaths caused by Russian missile strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine. In some cases, they entrench views on the war.
“In the beginning, some of my clients living in Rublevka and other elite areas said they were uncomfortable about the drones,” he said. “They knew the drones flew over their neighbourhood. But they have since stopped bringing the topic up. When I talked to them about the drones, I just told them there isn’t much they can do to change the situation, and that helps them tackle anxiety.”
Anecdotal evidence has shown the same. “It is awful but also it’s very unlikely that you are there when the drone lands. You just have to continue to live, to work. I think the military is doing well to stop most of them,” said Maksim, a business consultant who had worked at Moscow City, where several drones hit the IQ-Quarter last month.
Even at Vnukovo airport in western Moscow, where air traffic has been regularly halted because of reports of drone activity, officials have grown used to the situation. “Not a big deal, everyone is used to it already,” one Vnukovo official said.
Russians, who have largely shrugged their way through the war despite a large-scale mobilisation and growing repressions, appear to be unmoved by the occasional Ukrainian strikes on the capital.
“Yes, Ukraine can strike Moscow, everybody knows that now. But so what? The society is not going to change its attitude toward Ukraine at this point, that’s it, we’ve reached this point of no return,” said Bendett. “That’s what I’m trying to understand right now.”
A new campaign of drone strikes has targeted the Russian capital in recent days as Kyiv has demonstrated its ability to hit Moscow and to keep the Kremlin’s war in the hearts and minds of the Russian elites and others seeking to ignore the invasion of Ukraine.
Video on Friday showed a drone slamming into the ground and exploding near a residential area in the north-west of the city, as rowers nearby participated in a national championship in the Krylatskoye district.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed to have downed other drones on Friday and earlier in the week on the south-west approaches of the city, illustrating Kyiv’s ability to target the Russian capital on a weekly or even daily basis, although with mixed success.
Earlier waves of drone strikes have hit military and energy infrastructure, the Moscow city financial centre, other residential buildings, or targeted areas in the wealthy western suburbs of the Rublyovka district, just miles from where Vladimir Putin keeps his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. Video from earlier this year also showed a UAV hitting a building inside the Kremlin walls.
Samuel Bendett, an expert on military drones at the Center for Naval Analyses, said Kyiv had a “strategy to demonstrate Ukrainian capability. Last year Ukraine lacked a lot of the capability to strike deep inside Russia. Starting late last year and all of this year, Kyiv has demonstrated that it has the technology, the UAVs and the drones, to actually bring the war to the Russian territory. A lot of Russian military and civilian targets were struck, along with attacks on civilian territories, in a response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians.”
He noted that striking Moscow, which is supposed to be Russia’s most well-defended city, and a centre of political, economic and social life, put some pressure on both the Russian government and the population, and showed that Ukraine would not leave devastating attacks on its civilians unanswered.
“It’s a social-cultural response to Russia’s attacks on civilian targets,” he said.
Related: The war is coming to Russia, Zelenskiy warns after latest drone attack
Ministry of defence sources in Kyiv said the drone attacks had the twin aims of raising morale at home at a time when successes at the fronts were scarce and raising a question among the Russian public over whether Putin was able to protect them.
The raids into the bordering Belgorod region, by both dissident Russian units and Ukrainian saboteurs with a loose link to the official military, were said to have the same purpose, with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, increasingly talking up the reach of his country’s forces.
Ukraine’s western partners, once extremely sensitive to the charge that Nato weaponry was being used in attacks on Russian soil, had come to accept that Kyiv had the right to use its own resources to destabilise Putin’s regime, officials in Kyiv said.
Yet the documented psychological impact so far has been dubious, with polling indicating little shift in the way Russians feel about the war and anecdotal evidence from psychologists and reports by journalists showing that many Russians have simply decided to ignore the attacks.
“Society is not as worried about drones as when they first started hitting Moscow,” said a Moscow-based psychologist, Alexander Kichaev. “There is some frustration and anger, but it is not overwhelming at all … the pain threshold has been passed and now people are used to it.”
According to Kichaev, the issue of drone attacks had slowly become normalised over time. Officials have tried to downplay their effect. The number of injuries from the drone strikes in Russia have been small, especially when compared with the hundreds of deaths caused by Russian missile strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine. In some cases, they entrench views on the war.
“In the beginning, some of my clients living in Rublevka and other elite areas said they were uncomfortable about the drones,” he said. “They knew the drones flew over their neighbourhood. But they have since stopped bringing the topic up. When I talked to them about the drones, I just told them there isn’t much they can do to change the situation, and that helps them tackle anxiety.”
Anecdotal evidence has shown the same. “It is awful but also it’s very unlikely that you are there when the drone lands. You just have to continue to live, to work. I think the military is doing well to stop most of them,” said Maksim, a business consultant who had worked at Moscow City, where several drones hit the IQ-Quarter last month.
Even at Vnukovo airport in western Moscow, where air traffic has been regularly halted because of reports of drone activity, officials have grown used to the situation. “Not a big deal, everyone is used to it already,” one Vnukovo official said.
Russians, who have largely shrugged their way through the war despite a large-scale mobilisation and growing repressions, appear to be unmoved by the occasional Ukrainian strikes on the capital.
“Yes, Ukraine can strike Moscow, everybody knows that now. But so what? The society is not going to change its attitude toward Ukraine at this point, that’s it, we’ve reached this point of no return,” said Bendett. “That’s what I’m trying to understand right now.”
The Guardian view on China and Ukraine: beware great expectations
Editorial
Thu, 10 August 2023
Photograph: Getty Images
Straddles are, by their nature, uncomfortable positions to maintain. So it isn’t surprising that China’s attempt to hold together conflicting interests on the war in Ukraine – maintaining its “no limits” partnership with Russia, without damaging its relationship with western nations and its tarnished global brand too greatly – has proved awkward.
Attention increased when its special envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, joined talks in Jeddah last weekend, having avoided similar talks in Copenhagen earlier this summer. European officials described China’s involvement as “active” and said that it “appeared constructive”. The verb may be as important as the adjective: China is manoeuvring around the conflict, not fundamentally repositioning itself.
Xi Jinping finally held a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in April – but only after a senior diplomat caused outrage by questioning the sovereignty of former Soviet republics. The Jeddah talks were immediately followed by reassurance to Moscow that nothing had changed.
Many in China view the invasion not in moral terms, but more cynically, especially given their suspicion of the US and, by extension, Nato. But the conflict has usefully diverted US energy from tackling the tense bilateral relationship. It has made Moscow more reliant on Beijing – and more clearly subordinate. China also perceives that Russia is not looking for a swift exit, but bedding itself in for a long war, not least because a second term for Donald Trump would dramatically improve its position, and Ukraine’s counteroffensive is not making the headway that many hoped for. That allows Beijing to monitor both a modern war and western responses to it – information that would be helpful were it to move against Taiwan.
The head of MI6, Richard Moore, said last month that Beijing was “absolutely complicit” on Ukraine, supporting Moscow diplomatically and pushing Russian talking points. China has not criticised the invasion – or even acknowledged it as such – but attacks “unilateral sanctions”. It has thrown Russia an economic lifeline. Chinese firms are providing equipment that is useful to the military as well as civilians, such as body armour and drones.
But China has not supplied arms and does not want the conflict to escalate, or to spill over into the broader region. Nor does it want to see further consolidation of the west, for both security and economic reasons. It knows that its partnership with Russia has hardened European attitudes towards it. The Wagner mutiny will also have given it pause for thought. And it wants to be regarded, especially by representatives of the global south such as those present in Jeddah, as a peacemaker standing above the fray.
Its expressions of concern about the use of nuclear weapons look like hints to the west as well as warnings to Moscow: don’t push Vladimir Putin too far. Nonetheless, if they have any effect in restraining Russia, that can only be welcome. China, the biggest importer of Ukrainian grain, also has entirely pragmatic reasons for encouraging Russia to return to the Black Sea grain deal. It has highlighted the need to address the safety of nuclear power plants. And some hope it could play a useful, if marginal, role in negotiations eventually. The most important question, however, may still be what it does not do: whether it holds back from increasing support for Russia. That is why Kyiv is stepping carefully itself, as it seeks to avoid antagonising Beijing.
Editorial
Thu, 10 August 2023
Photograph: Getty Images
Straddles are, by their nature, uncomfortable positions to maintain. So it isn’t surprising that China’s attempt to hold together conflicting interests on the war in Ukraine – maintaining its “no limits” partnership with Russia, without damaging its relationship with western nations and its tarnished global brand too greatly – has proved awkward.
Attention increased when its special envoy for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, joined talks in Jeddah last weekend, having avoided similar talks in Copenhagen earlier this summer. European officials described China’s involvement as “active” and said that it “appeared constructive”. The verb may be as important as the adjective: China is manoeuvring around the conflict, not fundamentally repositioning itself.
Xi Jinping finally held a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in April – but only after a senior diplomat caused outrage by questioning the sovereignty of former Soviet republics. The Jeddah talks were immediately followed by reassurance to Moscow that nothing had changed.
Many in China view the invasion not in moral terms, but more cynically, especially given their suspicion of the US and, by extension, Nato. But the conflict has usefully diverted US energy from tackling the tense bilateral relationship. It has made Moscow more reliant on Beijing – and more clearly subordinate. China also perceives that Russia is not looking for a swift exit, but bedding itself in for a long war, not least because a second term for Donald Trump would dramatically improve its position, and Ukraine’s counteroffensive is not making the headway that many hoped for. That allows Beijing to monitor both a modern war and western responses to it – information that would be helpful were it to move against Taiwan.
The head of MI6, Richard Moore, said last month that Beijing was “absolutely complicit” on Ukraine, supporting Moscow diplomatically and pushing Russian talking points. China has not criticised the invasion – or even acknowledged it as such – but attacks “unilateral sanctions”. It has thrown Russia an economic lifeline. Chinese firms are providing equipment that is useful to the military as well as civilians, such as body armour and drones.
But China has not supplied arms and does not want the conflict to escalate, or to spill over into the broader region. Nor does it want to see further consolidation of the west, for both security and economic reasons. It knows that its partnership with Russia has hardened European attitudes towards it. The Wagner mutiny will also have given it pause for thought. And it wants to be regarded, especially by representatives of the global south such as those present in Jeddah, as a peacemaker standing above the fray.
Its expressions of concern about the use of nuclear weapons look like hints to the west as well as warnings to Moscow: don’t push Vladimir Putin too far. Nonetheless, if they have any effect in restraining Russia, that can only be welcome. China, the biggest importer of Ukrainian grain, also has entirely pragmatic reasons for encouraging Russia to return to the Black Sea grain deal. It has highlighted the need to address the safety of nuclear power plants. And some hope it could play a useful, if marginal, role in negotiations eventually. The most important question, however, may still be what it does not do: whether it holds back from increasing support for Russia. That is why Kyiv is stepping carefully itself, as it seeks to avoid antagonising Beijing.
India repeals outdated British-era sedition law. Experts call it a ‘repackaging’ exercise
Maroosha Muzaffar
Fri, 11 August 2023
India’s outdated British-era sedition law will be entirely abolished, the government has announced.
The government has called the decision a comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system, but experts have criticised it saying it could introduce intricacies and have ramifications for thousands of ongoing trials.
Addressing the Lok Sabha or the lower house of the Indian parliament on Friday, the country’s federal home minister Amit Shah announced the complete repeal of the sedition offence from one of the three forthcoming bills set to replace the current criminal code, known as the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Crafted by the British in 1860, the IPC has served as the foundation of the nation’s criminal justice system for over 160 years.
Yet, legal experts have pointed out that the government is proposing a new bill that criminalises any acts that threaten the “sovereignty or unity and integrity of India”.
Under the new proposed bill, anybody who “excites or attempts to excite, secession or armed rebellion or subversive activities, or encourages feelings of separatist activities or endangers sovereignty or unity and integrity of India, or indulges in or commits any such act” could face either life imprisonment or imprisonment for up to seven years.
The dated sedition law has been abused by governments till date for decades to shut down any kind of dissent in the country.
Chitranshul Sinha, a legal expert, said the government’s new provision “doesn’t get rid of the British-era [sedition] law. They (the government) have rearranged the provision”.
“It’s just a change of name. Essentially, nothing has changed,” he told the Associated Press.
The three bills Mr Shah introduced are called the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita Bill, 2023, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanita Bill, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshva Bill, 2023.
They are aimed at replacing the existing framework, namely the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 respectively.
A standing committee has been asked to review all three proposed bills.
Legal analysts voiced concerns that if sanctioned by the legislature, the bills could trigger disruptions and introduce intricacies into the legal system. Experts also pointed out that courts would grapple with several procedural ramifications on the thousands of ongoing trials.
Mr Shah called the outdated 19th-century criminal laws in India as emblems of “gulami [subjugation]”, drawing a parallel to India’s history under British colonial rule.
Additionally, the home minister also disclosed the federal government’s intention to introduce capital punishment in cases of mob lynching.
While introducing one of the three bills to replace the old laws, Mr Shah underscored 313 changes being implemented within India’s criminal justice system.
“The laws that will be repealed... the focus of those law was to protect and strengthen the British administration, the idea was to punish and not to give justice. The new three laws will bring the spirit to protect the rights of the Indian citizen.”
Gang-rape can lead to imprisonment ranging from 20 years to a life term, while the new bills uphold the option of the death penalty.
The opposition and critics of the government have, however, lashed out at the Narendra Modi government, terming the new bills vague and for unveiling them without any discussion or consultation with the public.
One critic pointed out on X, formerly Twitter, that the government has just “repackaged and rebranded” the sedition law in the new proposed bill “with a pinch of nationalism in free India”.
“Wow! Three hugely important laws which will affect all of us, are introduced at the end of this session, without any disclosure or discussion. The colonial wolf of sedition brought back in sheep’s clothing,” Prashant Bhushan, a renowned lawyer and activist, wrote on X.
“This is New Democracy in Modi’s New India!”
Last year, Kapil Sibal, a prominent Indian lawyer and politician, informed the Supreme Court that approximately 13,000 individuals were facing charges under India’s current sedition law.
According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, out of the 548 individuals charged with sedition from 2015 to 2020, merely a dozen faced convictions.
Under India’s outdated sedition law, numerous scholars, writers and activists have been detained for expressing any kind of dissent.
The country’s Supreme Court in May last year asked the government to reconsider and reexamine the provisions of the law and urged the state to refrain from registering any First Information Reports – the first step to a police complaint – under the said provision of the law.
“The court should respect government, legislature, so as government should also respect the court. We have clear demarcation of boundary,” Kiren Rijiju, Mr Modi’s law minister, said at the time.
The Law Commission of India, in June this year, advocated for the retention of the sedition law, citing concerns over potential severe repercussions for national security and unity if the provision is revoked.
The commission had suggested that the provision – under section 124A that describes the sedition law – be amended instead, “so as to bring about more clarity in the interpretation, understanding and usage of the provision”.
Maroosha Muzaffar
Fri, 11 August 2023
India’s outdated British-era sedition law will be entirely abolished, the government has announced.
The government has called the decision a comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system, but experts have criticised it saying it could introduce intricacies and have ramifications for thousands of ongoing trials.
Addressing the Lok Sabha or the lower house of the Indian parliament on Friday, the country’s federal home minister Amit Shah announced the complete repeal of the sedition offence from one of the three forthcoming bills set to replace the current criminal code, known as the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Crafted by the British in 1860, the IPC has served as the foundation of the nation’s criminal justice system for over 160 years.
Yet, legal experts have pointed out that the government is proposing a new bill that criminalises any acts that threaten the “sovereignty or unity and integrity of India”.
Under the new proposed bill, anybody who “excites or attempts to excite, secession or armed rebellion or subversive activities, or encourages feelings of separatist activities or endangers sovereignty or unity and integrity of India, or indulges in or commits any such act” could face either life imprisonment or imprisonment for up to seven years.
The dated sedition law has been abused by governments till date for decades to shut down any kind of dissent in the country.
Chitranshul Sinha, a legal expert, said the government’s new provision “doesn’t get rid of the British-era [sedition] law. They (the government) have rearranged the provision”.
“It’s just a change of name. Essentially, nothing has changed,” he told the Associated Press.
The three bills Mr Shah introduced are called the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita Bill, 2023, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanita Bill, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshva Bill, 2023.
They are aimed at replacing the existing framework, namely the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 respectively.
A standing committee has been asked to review all three proposed bills.
Legal analysts voiced concerns that if sanctioned by the legislature, the bills could trigger disruptions and introduce intricacies into the legal system. Experts also pointed out that courts would grapple with several procedural ramifications on the thousands of ongoing trials.
Mr Shah called the outdated 19th-century criminal laws in India as emblems of “gulami [subjugation]”, drawing a parallel to India’s history under British colonial rule.
Additionally, the home minister also disclosed the federal government’s intention to introduce capital punishment in cases of mob lynching.
While introducing one of the three bills to replace the old laws, Mr Shah underscored 313 changes being implemented within India’s criminal justice system.
“The laws that will be repealed... the focus of those law was to protect and strengthen the British administration, the idea was to punish and not to give justice. The new three laws will bring the spirit to protect the rights of the Indian citizen.”
Gang-rape can lead to imprisonment ranging from 20 years to a life term, while the new bills uphold the option of the death penalty.
The opposition and critics of the government have, however, lashed out at the Narendra Modi government, terming the new bills vague and for unveiling them without any discussion or consultation with the public.
One critic pointed out on X, formerly Twitter, that the government has just “repackaged and rebranded” the sedition law in the new proposed bill “with a pinch of nationalism in free India”.
“Wow! Three hugely important laws which will affect all of us, are introduced at the end of this session, without any disclosure or discussion. The colonial wolf of sedition brought back in sheep’s clothing,” Prashant Bhushan, a renowned lawyer and activist, wrote on X.
“This is New Democracy in Modi’s New India!”
Last year, Kapil Sibal, a prominent Indian lawyer and politician, informed the Supreme Court that approximately 13,000 individuals were facing charges under India’s current sedition law.
According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, out of the 548 individuals charged with sedition from 2015 to 2020, merely a dozen faced convictions.
Under India’s outdated sedition law, numerous scholars, writers and activists have been detained for expressing any kind of dissent.
The country’s Supreme Court in May last year asked the government to reconsider and reexamine the provisions of the law and urged the state to refrain from registering any First Information Reports – the first step to a police complaint – under the said provision of the law.
“The court should respect government, legislature, so as government should also respect the court. We have clear demarcation of boundary,” Kiren Rijiju, Mr Modi’s law minister, said at the time.
The Law Commission of India, in June this year, advocated for the retention of the sedition law, citing concerns over potential severe repercussions for national security and unity if the provision is revoked.
The commission had suggested that the provision – under section 124A that describes the sedition law – be amended instead, “so as to bring about more clarity in the interpretation, understanding and usage of the provision”.
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