Singles Project: For the Love of Activism

by Alexandria Schaner / February 13th, 2024

Photo credit: El Payo/Flickr | “All the great movements for social justice in our society have emphasized a love ethic.” – bell hooks

Does getting involved in social change work help you meet people, make friends and even find love? And would it matter if it did?

If the goal is to grow resilient people-powered movements, then it is essential that participation improves lives, not just after we win, but now, as a direct benefit of participation.

I’d like to think that any activity through which we embody positive vision through action would lead to such communal and personal enrichment. Though if we’re honest, that isn’t always the case… yet.

The Singles Project is a new values-based dating app that aims to facilitate just this kind of social enrichment through activism while simultaneously channeling funds into liberatory organizations. It’s the startup concept of a virtuous circle aimed at movement building instead of profit. Perhaps it’s even mutual aid.

Over 30 percent of adults in the U.S. have used online dating services at some point, with numbers growing each year. Like most commodified products and services, we’re told there is “something for everyone” in the dating-app scene.

Yet what if what we want is to decommodify love while still being able to take advantage of the technological and fundraising potential of a dating app? What if there was a convenient tool available for people interested in social change to meet each other while participating in activism?

In this interview, Niclas Widmark, activist and co-founder of the Singles Project, discusses these possibilities.

Please introduce yourself and the Singles Project.

I’m Swedish but I grew up in New England and now live in Sweden again, so I’m fairly well versed in both cultures. I realized that change was possible about 10 years ago and have been increasingly involved in various movements since then. Mainly in the climate justice movement, but since all areas of justice are inextricably linked, I work in a variety of them. My main focus is on raising awareness about ways of exercising democracy and power through collective democratic participation.

I’m especially inspired by a Gandhian understanding of change, where the real challenge isn’t just making people realize what is wrong but mobilizing them to act on what they already know to be wrong. This mobilization can only be achieved if people understand the power they have. Beyond organizing, one of the ways this realization can be had is through participation. It becomes a symbiotic loop.

This leads to our app. Singles Project is a fundraising and volunteering platform in the form of a values-based dating app. We invite you to join our app once you’ve donated through our site to any of the participating nonprofits. The volunteering function facilitates participation beyond donating.

Our company is self-financed and structured as a worker cooperative here in Sweden, where we’re based, and as a public benefit corporation in New York (turns out international coops are quite tricky). We’re hoping to advocate for economic democracy by becoming a popular example ourselves.

What are your thoughts on the wider dating-app scene versus the Singles Project?

There are around 5,000 dating apps/sites in the U.S. alone, so I’m honestly not very well acquainted with it. Our goal is to appeal to the very best in people by asking them to engage in an act of goodwill to join our community of common causes and hoping that they carry that sense of goodwill and solidarity with them when interacting with others who share their values and interests. We also encourage members to go beyond a donation and get involved in the community, which can hopefully be harnessed into a form of movement building. I’ll let readers form their own opinions as to how that sets us apart from other dating apps.

What was the inspiration for the Singles Project and how did you get started? What was the process and experience like going from idea to launch?

I’ve been working on this for nearly 15 years in various team constellations, so it’s taken a lot of twists and turns. The fundraising aspect came about in conversation with a friend who mentioned the idea of bundling local newspaper subscriptions with donations to community causes, which I adapted to the context of a dating app as there’s a natural symbiosis between goodwill and love. I’ve always wanted to meet someone who dedicates themselves to humanity, so creating a forum aimed at attracting that particular crowd was a real driving force.

There have been lots of challenges along the way, but the most daunting was probably finding a co-founding programming partner who was willing and, perhaps even more importantly, able to work on this as a side project until we were ready to launch. Luckily I found that in Jørgen Teunis.

Where is the project now and where do you hope to go? Have there been any significant changes in the vision along the way?

We’re in the process of onboarding nonprofits and aiming for a launch around Valentine’s Day here in Sweden, followed by New York, Washington D.C. and California. This phase has focused a lot on seeking out and developing relationships with others who get excited about potentials for more love in activism and more shared activism in relationships.

For example, regarding their collaboration with us, Pia Björstrand, an attorney in Sweden and spokesperson for the climate justice organization Klimataktion [Climate Action] says, “We need more love; both on and for the earth. Klimataktion is happy to help spread love while also getting an opportunity to increase awareness about how we can help protect the earth.”

If readers know of any nonprofits registered in these mentioned regions that are seeking an extra fundraising channel and more volunteer engagement while also helping their supporters connect with one another, let us know.

In addition to sowing the seeds of love and solidarity, we’re looking to address urgent problems that require immediate attention, while also highlighting solutions to systemic failures in our political economy.

I’d like to explore more about how you see this project connecting with vision and strategy for social change — could you speak to that?

Generally speaking, businesses, and especially startups, are supposed to have one main focus. We have five.

Our most immediate goals are to be an effective fundraising incentive for nonprofits while helping our donor-members make meaningful connections based on mutual values and common causes. We also want to boost collective participation through our volunteering function, which we hope can be a conduit for movement building. As a company, we want to promote and advocate for the concept of the democratic solidarity economy by serving as a popular example thereof. All in all, we hope this combination adds to a more participatory and democratic society in general.

Most social change-oriented organizations engage in fundraising and for many, it’s a significant part of their workload and it even guides strategy. What are your thoughts on fundraising for social change? How does this relate to building community and collective power?

There’s a great quote from MLK that guides our broader thinking: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

So taken in isolation, we naturally understand that getting more people to be monthly donors won’t change the world. But there are plenty of causes, like homelessness and the climate crisis, that are extremely urgent and desperately need financial support. That’s a starting point, and needs to be kept up until such time as we manage to collectively solve these crises. We think the incentive of gaining access to our community of common causes can mobilize a major and rolling source of donations for organizations doing this work.

Building on this, we hope that our volunteering function can be one of many ways to catalyze mass collective democratic participation. A step toward movement building. Once you get involved you start to realize that your efforts do in fact make a difference. This realization is empowering and can lead to sustained participation.

There are plenty of examples of building community and exercising collective power through people-powered campaigns with profound effect, like Obama and Bernie’s campaigns. Unfortunately, they both pulled the plug on those movements once their campaigns were over, but there’s nothing stopping us from gathering behind a common vision and doing it on our own.

How do you see the value of love and connection in a time of rising fascism?

We know that fascism, racism and sexism, just to name a few, are based on fear, “othering” and disconnection. In a word, hate. But as Mandela observed: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Well, love and connection also foster solidarity, which is the basis for democracy. It’s worth remembering that democracy isn’t just a mechanism or method, it is a value in and of itself. It is when a group of people collectively decide to codify everyone’s equality. What we need to do now is expand democracy, not limit it. This means increasing participation, which brings with it solidarity. Any approach that can help get people involved should be pursued.

So while you’re right that fascism is on the rise, so too is activism, and there’s no reason that our wave of solidarity and humanity can’t prevail. Like Mandela said, love comes more naturally than its opposite.

This article is co-published by ZNetwork.org & Waging Nonviolence.

Alexandria Shaner (she/her) is a sailor, writer, & organizer. She is a staff member of ZNetwork.org and active with Extinction Rebellion, Caracol DSA, & the Women’s Rights & Empowerment Network. Read other articles by Alexandria.

Musk’s X feeds monetization of wartime misinformation

By AFP
February 13, 2024

Influencers are seeking to profit off wartime misinformation on X.

 - Copyright AFP/File Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV

Daniel Funke and Anuj Chopra

Influencers on X are monetizing misinformation about conflicts in the Middle East, leveraging the platform’s contentious policies that researchers say prioritize engagement over accuracy.

Since Elon Musk’s turbulent 2022 acquisition of X, formerly Twitter, the site has restored thousands of once-banned accounts and introduced a paid verification system that critics say has boosted conspiracy theorists.

X also rolled out an ad revenue-sharing program for verified users, who often peddle hateful and false information to profit from the platform.

“Cynical pay-for-play controversialists today deliberately induce anger for engagement to game Musk’s platform into giving them more visibility, and therefore more revenue for their views,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), told AFP.

X has seen a tsunami of falsehoods about the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, fueled partly by prominent US influencers such as Jackson Hinkle, who last month falsely claimed a video showed Iran bombing American military bases in Iraq.

The incendiary post came amid widespread concerns about a wider conflagration in the Middle East.

Using a reverse image search, AFP fact-checkers found the video actually depicted an attack in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

In another provocative post debunked by AFP, Hinkle wrongly claimed that Yemen had declared “war with Israel” in support of the Palestinians.

While Yemen’s Huthi rebels have targeted Israel with missiles and drones, neither they nor the country’s internationally recognized government has formally declared war.

– ‘Topsy-turvy’ –

In addition to raising tens of thousands of dollars on crowdfunding sites, Hinkle offers “premium content” to subscribers on X for $3 per month.

“Your support helps me continue exposing the Deep State after I was banned & demonetized by YouTube, Twitch, PayPal & Venmo,” his appeal says.

When reached by AFP, Hinkle — whose false posts have garnered millions of views — refused to say how much revenue he was generating on X, instead criticizing coverage of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Hinkle makes at least $3,000 a month from paid subscribers, according to a rough CCDH estimate based on the engagement data of his subscriber-only posts.

Last August, Hinkle disclosed on X that he also earned $1,693 through the ad revenue-sharing scheme, while complaining that other users with smaller engagement were getting bigger payouts.

Britain-based creator Sulaiman Ahmed and Danish physician Anastasia Maria Loupis — both of whom AFP has repeatedly fact-checked for war-related misinformation — are also reaping the benefits of X’s verification and paid subscriber programs.

Neither responded to requests for comment.

CCDH’s Ahmed said Musk has “created a topsy-turvy platform on which authoritative sources struggle to be heard above the noise — while liars and hate actors are put on a pedestal, generating revenue for themselves and the platform.”

X did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

– ‘Unrealistic’ –

To be eligible for ad revenue sharing, users must meet requirements such as subscribing to X’s $8 per month premium subscription and having at least 500 followers.

Last year, Musk said posts with Community Notes — an X feature that allows users to refute claims and offer additional context — would be “ineligible for revenue share.”

“The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism,” Musk wrote on X.

But Jack Brewster, from the media watchdog NewsGuard, told AFP that “viral posts advancing misinformation frequently do not get flagged by Community Notes.”

In October, NewsGuard analyzed 250 of the most popular posts promoting one of 10 prominent false or unsubstantiated narratives about the Israel-Hamas war.

Only 32 percent of them had been flagged by a Community Note, it found.

The following month, NewsGuard identified ads from 86 major companies — including top brands, governments, and nonprofits — on viral posts advancing “false or egregiously misleading claims about the Israel-Hamas war.”

That included an ad for the FBI on a post from Hinkle that falsely claimed a video showed an Israeli military helicopter firing on its own citizens.

The video actually showed Israeli war planes over Gaza, NewsGuard said, adding that the post — viewed nearly two million times — did not have a Community Note.

“Community Notes as currently structured is not a system that scales to cover all contexts,” Jacob Shapiro, a Princeton University professor who served on the program’s advisory group before Musk’s acquisition, told AFP.

“To expect volunteer labor alone to capture… deceptive content as a defense against allowing people to monetize that content reflects unrealistic expectations for what the tool can do.”

 AI and jobs market: Is it a time for hope or fear?

By Dr. Tim Sandle
February 13, 2024

Will AI or robots take over? Image (C)Tim Sandle

Will artificial intelligence lead to a significant loss of employment? This is the concern with many politicians, economists and workers. Much of the focus on AI and its impact on the labour market is based on a fear-driven narrative that “thinking machines” will eventually replace many of the routine tasks performed by humans.

Under the worse-case scenarios, AI is poised to profoundly change the global economy with advanced economies at greater risk of disruption.

One country with a strong technology sector is Canada. The extent of AI’s impact on the labour force in Canada has been assessed by HCLTech Canada. The assessment warns that companies need to focus less on downsizing and more on upskilling their workforce if they are to have success in the new era of AI.

HCLTech is a global IT brand; in Canada it employees more than 2,600 Canadians at global delivery centers in Mississauga, Edmonton, Vancouver and Moncton.

The HCLTech assessment is that if companies want to succeed, they need to move past fear and train staff to leverage rapidly evolving AI automation. Furthermore, the assessment indicates that without that basic level of competence, GenAI will not provide the sort of performance boost longevity that the technology is capable of delivering.

This approach is in keeping with the World Economic Forum (WEC) Future of Jobs Report findings. These indicate that many businesses are becoming more sceptical about the potential for artificial intelligence to fully automate work tasks.

It also stands that future expectations for automation are also being revised down, as markets climb the human-machine landscape more slowly than previously anticipated. In alignment with this, respondents to a WEC 2023 survey forecast that an additional 9 percent of operational tasks will be automated in the next five years – a reduction of five percentage points compared to expectations in 2020.

While AI may not lead to a loss of jobs, research from LinkedIn suggests the rise of AI across the workforce is set to significantly transform many roles, including replacing some current roles with new ones. Hence, more than half of all jobs, and the skills required to do all jobs will change by up to 65 percent by 2030.

“While there were fears that this tool could replace a large number of workers and lead to efficiencies, business leaders are now grasping that automation will expand much slower than expected and therefore we’ll see a smaller impact on the labour market,” HCLTech Canada country leader Dave Chopra indicates in a statement.

Chopra adds that the advent of these changes should drive companies to view jobs as collections of skills and tasks, not just titles, anticipating how AI advancements will impact various tasks. In addition, the skills needed will constantly change.

“Finding an employee that has the perfect set of skills no longer makes sense. Those skills may work today, but as AI evolves, that employee will need a set of new skills. Training and upskilling are crucial if a company is to remain sustainable and competitive,” Chopra adds.

There is no proof that AI can be controlled, according to extensive survey

Book Announcement

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

There is no current evidence that AI can be controlled safely, according to an extensive review, and without proof that AI can be controlled, it should not be developed, a researcher warns.

Despite the recognition that the problem of AI control may be one of the most important problems facing humanity, it remains poorly understood, poorly defined, and poorly researched, Dr Roman V. Yampolskiy explains.

In his upcoming book, AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable, AI Safety expert Dr Yampolskiy looks at the ways that AI has the potential to dramatically reshape society, not always to our advantage.

He explains: “We are facing an almost guaranteed event with potential to cause an existential catastrophe. No wonder many consider this to be the most important problem humanity has ever faced. The outcome could be prosperity or extinction, and the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.”

Uncontrollable superintelligence

Dr Yampolskiy has carried out an extensive review of AI scientific literature and states he has found no proof that AI can be safely controlled – and even if there are some partial controls, they would not be enough.

He explains: “Why do so many researchers assume that AI control problem is solvable? To the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence for that, no proof. Before embarking on a quest to build a controlled AI, it is important to show that the problem is solvable.

“This, combined with statistics that show the development of AI superintelligence is an almost guaranteed event, show we should be supporting a significant AI safety effort.”

He argues our ability to produce intelligent software far outstrips our ability to control or even verify it.  After a comprehensive literature review, he suggests advanced intelligent systems can never be fully controllable and so will always present certain level of risk regardless of benefit they provide. He believes it should be the goal of the AI community to minimize such risk while maximizing potential benefit.

What are the obstacles?

AI (and superintelligence), differ from other programs by its ability to learn new behaviors, adjust its performance and act semi-autonomously in novel situations.

One issue with making AI ‘safe’ is that the possible decisions and failures by a superintelligent being as it becomes more capable is infinite, so there are an infinite number of safety issues. Simply predicting the issues not be possible and mitigating against them in security patches may not be enough.

At the same time, Yampolskiy explains, AI cannot explain what it has decided, and/or we cannot understand the explanation given as humans are not smart enough to understand the concepts implemented. If we do not understand AI’s decisions and we only have a ‘black box’, we cannot understand the problem and reduce likelihood of future accidents.

For example, AI systems are already being tasked with making decisions in healthcare, investing, employment, banking and security, to name a few. Such systems should be able to explain how they arrived at their decisions, particularly to show that they are bias free.

Yampolskiy explains: “If we grow accustomed to accepting AI’s answers without an explanation, essentially treating it as an Oracle system, we would not be able to tell if it begins providing wrong or manipulative answers.”

Controlling the uncontrollable

As capability of AI increases, its autonomy also increases but our control over it decreases, Yampolskiy explains, and increased autonomy is synonymous with decreased safety.

For example, for superintelligence to avoid acquiring inaccurate knowledge and remove all bias from its programmers, it could ignore all such knowledge and rediscover/proof everything from scratch, but that would also remove any pro-human bias.

“Less intelligent agents (people) can’t permanently control more intelligent agents (ASIs). This is not because we may fail to find a safe design for superintelligence in the vast space of all possible designs, it is because no such design is possible, it doesn’t exist. Superintelligence is not rebelling, it is uncontrollable to begin with,” he explains.

“Humanity is facing a choice, do we become like babies, taken care of but not in control or do we reject having a helpful guardian but remain in charge and free.”

He suggests that an equilibrium point could be found at which we sacrifice some capability in return for some control, at the cost of providing system with a certain degree of autonomy.

Aligning human values

One control suggestion is to design a machine which precisely follows human orders, but Yampolskiy points out the potential for conflicting orders, misinterpretation or malicious use.

He explains: “Humans in control can result in contradictory or explicitly malevolent orders, while AI in control means that humans are not.”

If AI acted more as an advisor it could bypass issues with misinterpretation of direct orders and potential for malevolent orders, but the author argues for AI to be useful advisor it must have its own superior values.

“Most AI safety researchers are looking for a way to align future superintelligence to values of humanity. Value-aligned AI will be biased by definition, pro-human bias, good or bad is still a bias. The paradox of value-aligned AI is that a person explicitly ordering an AI system to do something may get a “no” while the system tries to do what the person actually wants. Humanity is either protected or respected, but not both,” he explains.

Minimizing risk

To minimize the risk of AI, he says it needs it to be modifiable with ‘undo’ options, limitable, transparent and easy to understand in human language.

He suggests all AI should be categorised as controllable or uncontrollable, and nothing should be taken off the table and limited moratoriums, and even partial bans on certain types of AI technology should be considered.

Instead of being discouraged, he says: “Rather it is a reason, for more people, to dig deeper and to increase effort, and funding for AI Safety and Security research. We may not ever get to 100% safe AI, but we can make AI safer in proportion to our efforts, which is a lot better than doing nothing. We need to use this opportunity wisely.”

---

DOI

10.1201/9781003440260 

Fears that pirates are returning to seas off Somalia

By AFP
February 13, 2024

Indian commandos stand guard over Somali pirates who kidnapped an Iranian fishing vessel off the Somali coast, on January 30

 - Copyright INDIAN NAVY/AFP/File -

Simon VALMARY

The daring attack in December bore unsettling hallmarks of the piracy that once terrorised global shipping off eastern Africa: a cargo vessel hijacked, its crew taken to Somalia, and disappeared.

The successful capture of the foreign vessel was the first by Somali pirates since 2017, and follows a spike in armed seaborne attacks around the Horn of Africa not seen in years.

Analysts caution that Somali piracy poses nowhere near the threat it did in 2011, when navies around the world had to deploy warships to beat back the scourge and restore order at sea.

But this recent upswing in pirate activity has raised further concerns about marine security and shipping at a time when crucial trade corridors off Yemen have come under siege.

The UK Marine Trade Operations, which monitors piracy, recorded six incidents off Somalia’s coast since mid-December, from approaches by crews armed with machine guns and rocket launchers, to successful hijackings.

The MICA Center, a French maritime security agency, noted the “possible resurgence” of piracy off Somalia in a 2023 report. It recorded nine attacks over that year, describing the number as “novel”.

Many of these incidents occurred off Puntland, the historic hub of Somali piracy. The northern state wraps around the Horn of Africa and boasts long coastlines on the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Eric Jaslin, Commander of the MICA Center, said the increase occurred “almost simultaneously” as Yemen-based Huthi rebels began targeting boats headed for Israel in retaliation for the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

“Almost at the same time, we began to observe a phenomena of piracy against dhows off the coast of Puntland,” he said, referring to the traditional wooden fishing boats that sail the Indian Ocean.

– ‘Hunting ground’ –

A number of dhow hijackings last year raised the possibility that Somalia’s dormant crews could be “re-equipping” for attacks further out at sea, said Timothy Walker, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).

Somali pirates have traditionally sought to capture a “mother ship” — a motorised dhow or fishing trawler — capable of sailing greater distances where they can target larger vessels.

Since the Huthi attacks, many cargo ships have slowed down hundreds of miles out at sea to await instructions on whether to proceed to the Red Sea, Walker noted.

“It creates a hunting ground,” he said.

These ships have become especially vulnerable as some foreign navies have relocated from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea in response to the Huthi attacks, analysts say.

Local conditions in Somalia have also allowed pirates to regroup.

State elections in Puntland over December and January meant some coastal security positions were vacated, said Omar Mahmood, researcher at the International Crisis Group.

“These two reasons — on land and offshore — provided an opportunity for these criminal networks that have always been there,” he told AFP.

Puntland’s Marine Police Force did not respond to requests for comment from AFP.

– Fishing feuds –

In Eyl, a traditional pirate stronghold on Puntland’s east coast, locals say fishing trawlers from Southeast Asia, Iran and Europe plundering seas off Somalia have stirred anger in coastal communities.

“The reason why the pirates are re-emerging is because of the widespread illegal fishing on the coast,” said Ahmed Abdi Nuh, an elder from Eyl.

These attacks could still constitute piracy under global definitions and have surfaced time and again, experts say.

“A lot of justification for the pirates who were captured in the past was a kind of Robin Hood argument — that they were actually preventing illegal fishing,” Walker said.

Between January 29 and February 2 this year, four fishing boats were freed by the Indian and Seychellois navies after being hijacked, sometimes more than 800 nautical miles (1,500 kilometres) from the coast.

“The further away from Somalia the less likelihood for a connection to a fishing scenario,” said Hans Tino Hansen, CEO of Danish maritime intelligence and security company Risk Intelligence.

– Deterrence –

Analysts played down fears the bad days of Somali piracy were back, stressing the presence of foreign navies had deterred once-wanton criminality at sea.

The overall number of piracy attacks has fallen sharply from a 2011 peak, when internal chaos in Somalia, and the absence of a coast guard, allowed pirates to hijack commercial ships and hold crews to ransom.

Since then a multinational naval force from as far afield as Japan, the UK and Brazil has brought muscle to patrols around Somalia, blunting this once-lucrative trade.

Compared to the early 2000s, navies have advanced systems for detecting pirate activity and merchant ships are more aware of the risks and familiar with security procedures.

Before the hijacking of the Maltese-flagged bulk carrier MV Ruen on December 14, no cargo vessel had been successfully boarded by Somali pirates since 2017, and before that 2012.

Mahmood said the recent uptick in pirate activity was “more likely to be a flare-up than full-fledged resurgence”.

In Eyl, locals were doubtful too.

“There are warships patrolling the sea. I don’t believe any pirate in their right mind would take the chance,” said Ahmed Siyad, a fisherman in Eyl.

Haiti on brink of civil war, Dominican Republic warns

By AFP
February 13, 2024

People flee gang violence in the Petionville neighborhood of Port-au-Prince on January 30, 2024 - 

Copyright AFP/File MAHMUD HAMS

Haiti is on the verge of civil war, and if the international community does not intervene quickly, the Dominican Republic will seek to protect itself, its president warned at the United Nations Tuesday.

Haiti has been in turmoil for years, with armed gangs taking over parts of the country and unleashing brutal violence, leaving the economy and public health system in tatters.

“The international community cannot allow the Haitian catastrophe to continue for one more day,” President Luis Abinader, whose country shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti, told reporters after he addressed a UN Security Council meeting on climate, food insecurity and conflict.

He said the Dominican Republic has been warning the world body since 2021, when president Jovenel Moise was assassinated, about the spiralling security crisis in Haiti.

Now the gang-plagued nation “is on the edge of civil war,” Abinader said, pleading with the international community to fulfill its promises and send a multinational force to boost Haiti’s beleaguered security forces.

Last year, the UN Security Council gave the green light for just such a force, to be led by Kenya. But it has been held up by months of logistics, a legal challenge in Nairobi, and funding shortfalls.

Abinader said the time for “promises” to fund the force was over.

“Either the money comes now or the collapse of Haiti will be irreversible… Dominican Republic will fight with all its might to avoid being dragged into the same abyss.”

“Our slogan from now on will be: either we fight together to save Haiti, or we will fight alone to protect Dominican Republic,” he said.

No elections have taken place in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, since 2016 and the presidency has remained vacant since Moise’s slaying.

Gangs run rampant in large swaths of the country, and homicides more than doubled last year to nearly 4,800, according to a UN report released this month.

More than 1,100 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in Haiti in January alone, making it the most violent month in the country in two years of conflict, the United Nations has said.

Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince have had a tumultuous relationship due to immigration and the construction of an anti-migrant wall along their shared border by the Dominican Republic, which is much more prosperous than its neighbor.

Tensions have risen in recent months with the construction by private Haitian operators of a canal drawing water from the Dajabon, a river marking the border.

Turkey under pressure to shut down gold mine after landslide

By AFP
February 14, 2024

Anagold has been extracting gold in the remote eastern Turkey region since 2010 - Copyright AFP Richard A. Brooks

Calls grew in Turkey on Wednesday to shut down a controversial gold mine as hopes dimmed of rescuing nine workers trapped by a massive landslide that rolled over their open pit.

Officials on Wednesday also reported the arrest of four people, including the open pit’s field manager, in the opening stages of their investigation into the accident.

Hundreds of rescuers have been searching through a cyanide-laced field in eastern Turkey since Tuesday, when 10 million cubic metres of sludge suddenly crashed down from a gully.

Turkey’s Union of Chambers of Engineers and Architects urged the government to shut down the mine “immediately”, saying its past warning about a looming disaster had gone unheeded.

“All those responsible for the disaster should be held accountable before the judiciary,” it said in a statement.

“All environmental impact reports should be cancelled and the plant should be closed immediately.”

Environmentalists fear that cyanide and sulphuric acid used in the gold extraction process could spread into the Euphrates River, which runs from Turkey to neighbouring Syria and Iraq.

Turkey’s environmental ministry said it had sealed off a stream running from the pit to the Euphrates as a precaution, adding that no polluting leaks had been detected so far.

But the Ilic Nature and Environment Platform, a local pressure group, said the stream had already mixed with the Euphrates.

“Don’t seal off (the stream), seal off the mine,” the group said.

Environmental advocates and local officials sought to shut down the open pit mine after a 2022 cyanide leak caused by a burst pipe.

The plant closed for a few months but then re-opened after its operator paid a fine, prompting an outcry from Turkey’s opposition parties.

A Turkish court then fined the company 16.5 million Turkish liras ($540,000 at the current exchange rate), the maximum according to Turkish media.

But no further action was taken against the mine and a local push to shut it down failed.

The mine is run by private company Anagold, which has been extracting gold in the region since 2010.

Eighty percent of Anagold is owned by the Denver-based SSR Mining, and 20 percent by Lidya Mining.

SSR Mining’s stocks sharply fell sharply on Tuesday.

'Working is duty': French PM tells rail workers ahead of holiday strike

FRENCH FOR "ARBEIT MACHT FREI"

Paris (AFP) – French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Wednesday warned train controllers against disrupting travel during school holidays as ticket inspectors geared up to strike this weekend.


Issued on: 14/02/2024 - 

Train controllers plan to strike on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 

© MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP/File

"The French know that going on strike is a right," Attal said, while adding pointedly that "working is a duty".

Every time rail workers strike during holidays the image of the SNCF rail company "takes a hit", he said, lamenting what he said was becoming a "kind of habit".

Train controllers plan to strike on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Christophe Fanichet, SNCF's passengers division chief, said the action meant that one out of two trains would be cancelled between Friday and Sunday.

"Not all trains are going to leave," Fanichet told broadcaster Franceinfo.

He encouraged travellers to postpone their travel until Monday or Tuesday, adding that the rail company planned "exceptional compensation" for those hit by the action.

Fanichet condemned the strike as "incomprehensible".

The action was announced after a Christmas strike in December, 2022 affected some 200,000 holidaymakers.

The unions say the company has been slow to fulfil the terms of the agreement negotiated at the end of 2022, but Fanichet disputed that.

"We promised additional jobs, and those jobs are there," he said.

SNCF head Jean-Pierre Farandou has said the company has promised to pay bonuses and is also raising wages.

"I don't see why we should have to respond by disrupting the lives of French people who want to go on holiday," he has said.

tsz-ys-bpa-gbh-as/sjw/jj

© 2024 AFP

German auto supplier Continental says to cut 7,150 jobs

Berlin (AFP) – German auto supplier Continental said Wednesday it would cut some 7,150 posts worldwide by 2025 as the difficult switch to electric vehicles forces companies in the sector to retool.


Issued on: 14/02/2024 - 

Germany's auto suppliers have been facing problems as the transition to electric mobility gathers pace, after decades relying on fossil fuel vehicles for their profits. 

© Patrik STOLLARZ / AFP/File

The group, which makes tyres and supplies components to automakers, said in a statement it would shed 1,750 jobs in research and development.

It would also lose around 5,400 posts as part of a previously announced cost-cutting programme aimed at saving the group 400 million euros ($428 million) by 2025.

Continental, which currently employs around 200,000 people worldwide, announced the plan in November without putting a precise figure on the number of jobs that would go.

"We are aware of the impact on our employees and will do everything we can to find good, tailored solutions (for employees)" Continental's automotive chief Philipp von Hirschheydt said.

The cuts would allow Continental to "focus our resources even more on future technologies for software-defined vehicles", von Hirschheydt said.

Germany's auto suppliers have been facing problems as the transition to electric mobility gathers pace, after decades relying on fossil fuel vehicles for their profits.

Continental is also the latest German manufacturer to announce job cuts as the country's export-focussed industry contends with a global slowdown in growth and high rates of inflation.

Appliance maker Miele said earlier this month it would eliminate up to 2,700 posts amid low demand for its products, while Bosch announced plans in December for 1,500 job cuts.

© 2024 AFP

Furious protesting Indian farmers stalled but defiant

Shambhu (India) (AFP) – The line of tractors stretches nearly far as one can see -- thousands of protesting Indian farmers heading to the capital New Delhi, determined to bring their anger and woes to politicians.

Issued on: 14/02/2024

Police fire tear gas to disperse farmers marching towards New Delhi during a protest demanding minimum crop prices, at the Haryana-Punjab state border 

© Narinder NANU / AFP

Many have driven on slow-moving tractors across India's northern Punjab state to demand guaranteed crop prices, waving flags, honking horns and chanting protest slogans.

But they have been stalled halfway to New Delhi by a fortress-like wall of concrete.

Hundreds of baton-wielding riot police guard thick lines of barricades across the highway.

They are as determined to stop the farmers as the farmers are to smash through, using their tractors to push away the heavy concrete blocks.

From behind rolls of razor wire, police alternate between raking the crowds with water cannon and dropping tear gas from overhead by drone.

On Wednesday, the two sides stood uneasily watching each other from some 50 metres (55 yards) away, as government officials and farming union leaders talked.

Hundreds of baton-wielding riot police are guarding thick lines of barricades across the highway 

© Narinder NANU / AFP

"We work long hours in the fields and still struggle to make ends meet," said 40-year-old farmer Sandeep Kumar, from Punjab state's Mohali district.

"But when we demand something from the government, we are met with pellets and baton charges."

Heera Singh, 55, his bloody foot wrapped in white gauze, said he was hit by a tear gas canister -- but insisted he would not go home to recuperate.
Kites against drones

Dull thuds of tear gas canisters dropped from above punctuate protest chants, and the choking stench hangs heavy in the air long after the thick clouds disperse.

The farmers say they launched their "Delhi Chalo", or "March to Delhi" -- recalling a January 2021 protest when they smashed through barriers and rolled into New Delhi -- because politicians are not listening.

"We have written letters and sent petitions, but the government has failed to respond," said farmer Bhupinder Singh.

A farmer performs a fire breathing act during protests 

© Narinder NANU / AFP

"We work so hard, but we don't save anything as input costs have gone up so much," Kumar added.

On their own, the farmers say they are ignored.

But together -- with two-thirds of India's 1.4 billion people drawing their livelihood from agriculture -- they pose a potentially powerful force, with the protests coming ahead of general elections expected in April.

Thousands of farmers have crammed into tractor trailers hoping to reach parliament.

As drones hover above, the farmers fly kites, saying they are using them to "distract" the police.

"We have no arms like them," said 36-year-old farmer Karnail Singh, from Punjab's Tarn Taran district.

Others have soaked sacks in water, ready to be thrown onto tear gas canisters to dampen their impact.

While demands vary, most farmers say the key issue is ensuring a legal guarantee of a minimum price for crops.

The government in Punjab already pays a minimum price for wheat and rice, but the "system is ad hoc", said 37-year-old farmer Maan Singh.

Police fire tear gas to disperse farmers on Wednesday; others have used water cannons to push crowds back © Narinder NANU / AFP

"What we want is a law that makes it binding for the government to give us MSP (minimum support price) for all of what we grow," Singh said.

"The government buys only what it wants, forcing us to sell most of our crop to middlemen at much lower prices."

© 2024 AFP

Indian farmers march on capital in face of police repression

Farmers are demanding a minimum support price

Farmers on the march to Delhi confronting the police


By Charlie Kimber

SOCIALIST W\ORKER
Wednesday 14 February 2024

Tens of thousands of farmers on tractors and trucks have met vicious police repression as they move towards the Indian capital, New Delhi. A leading union has called for mass action this Friday by workers and small farmers to defy the authorities and keep up the fight to defend their livelihoods.

Police in Haryana state, which borders Delhi, fired tear gas at farmers on Tuesday to prevent them from reaching the city, which has been converted into a fortress.

The cops have sealed multiple entry points to the capital by building barriers of barbed wire, spikes and cement blocks.

Police had already arrested hundreds of farmers at various places. Madhya Pradesh police detained farmers who were heading to Delhi at the Bhopal railway station and in several other places on Sunday night.

The march on Delhi, called by farmers from Punjab and Haryana along with several other northern states, revives memories of the 16 months of farmers’ protests two years ago.

Farmers are demanding legal guarantees of a minimum support price (MSP), which acts as a safety net for farm incomes and relief from debts.

Debts due to crop failures mean thousands of Indian farmers die by suicide every year. Agriculture output has been reduced by extreme weather and dwindling water sources caused by climate change.

The farmers want the MSP fixed at least 50 percent higher than the cost of production of any crop.

They are also fighting against the planned privatisation of the electricity sector. State governments currently provide subsidised electricity to farmers. And they want compensation for the police murders of 750 farmers during the 2020-2021 protests.

Another demand is the dismissal of a federal minister whose son was accused of running his car over farmers in Uttar Pradesh state in October 2021. Organisers say more than 200 farm unions are participating in the March to Delhi. Union leaders have stressed their desire for peace.

Prominent union leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said on Wednesday, “Breaking barricades or getting into a confrontation with the cops and the government is not on our agenda. We only want the government to accept our genuine demands or allow us to reach Delhi to protest. This is our democratic right.”

But the state has responded with violence and repression. The protests could become a threat to prime minister Narendra Modi with a general election expected in April or May this year.

The 2020-2021 protests forced Modi to repeal three laws that favoured agribusiness and bankrupted small farmers.

But Modi then reneged on some of his pledges once protests died down. The SKM union, which is central to the protests now, has called for a nationwide rural and industrial strike on Friday this week against the government.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is leading the polls for the election and has used brutal anti-Muslim measures to shore up its rule. In January Modi presided over a lavish series of ceremonies consecrating a new Hindu temple on the site where the renowned Babri Masjid mosque stood for almost 500 years.

Hindu fundamentalist fanatics mobilised by the BJP and its fascist allies stormed the mosque in 1992. Modi seeks to make India a Hindu supremacist state which claims to stand for Hindus of all classes.

But he rules in the interests of the richest 1 percent of Indians who own more than 40 percent of all the country’s wealth. The bottom 50 percent, more than 700 million people, own just 3 percent.

The farmers’ protests are particularly worrying for Modi because they could be a focus for workers, farmers and the poor to unite across religious, ethnic and caste divides.

Film


‘A gay plumber? What a tall tale’: the film showing changing attitudes to LGBTQ+ rights in Ukraine


Lessons of Tolerance follows a family overcoming their homophobia, an education that war with Russia seems to be giving many in the country

Jeffrey Ingold

Wed 14 Feb 2024 

Arkadii Nepytaliuk grew up in a small village in Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi region under the control of the Soviet Union. “As a child, I did not know about the existence of LGBT people at all. I learned about them in Kyiv when I was studying … and they scared me a lot. I was scared to imagine that a guy could fall in love with another guy.”

Nepytaliuk, now 56, is a film director whose latest film Lessons of Tolerance hopes to challenge Ukrainian people to rethink how they treat others in society. Inspired by Igor Bilyts’ 2017 play Gay Parade, the film follows a struggling, homophobic Ukrainian family who agree to host a gay activist in exchange for funding from the EU. Like the family in his film, Nepytaliuk found his prejudices started to give way to acceptance by “studying, talking and working” with LGBTQ+ people as he got older. “I discovered that these people are just like me … and in [that] process of discovery my fear of LGBT people decreased and disappeared.”

Lessons of Tolerance hopes to hold a mirror up to Ukraine’s heterosexist societyand is aimed at heterosexual audiences. “I think it could help change people’s mindsets,” says Bohdan Zhuk, director of Ukraine’s first LGBTQ+ film festival Sunny Bunny. “In Ukraine, people’s ideas about queer people are still largely stereotypical and based on lack of information and propaganda. The great part of this film is that it encourages audiences to break down the stereotypes in their head and instead draw conclusions from meeting an actual gay person.”

Russia is trying to kill us and erase our culture. People are realising that someone being gay or bi doesn’t pose a life-threatening risk

Despite Ukraine being the first post-Soviet country to decriminalise homosexuality in 1991, legal progress and social acceptance has lagged. Although there are laws against discrimination in the workplace, there is no recognition of any form of same-sex union, nor are there any laws recognising anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes or banning conversion practices.

For much of the film, the activist, Vasyl, patiently challenges and subverts the family’s stereotypes of a gay man. For instance, the father and son are both surprised to learn Vasyl is a plumber, with the father remarking: “Uh, a gay plumber? What a tall tale.” Slowly the family’s fears about gay men start to disappear. The father who starts the film worrying about him being a “threat to kids” goes as far as to ask Vasyl for massage lessons as a surprise for his wife.

‘Marching through the streets that are blocked by the police’ … the Equality March, organized by the LGBTQ+ community in Kyiv in 2021. 

Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Lessons of Tolerance is being given a wide release across Ukrainian cinemas starting on Valentine’s Day, which is a hopeful sign it will be seen by many – though the film is coming out weeks shy of the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion. This may actually help the film’s reach and impact given the ongoing conflict has unexpectedly become a catalyst for a huge wave of political and social support for LGBTQ+ Ukrainians.

According to research by Nash Svit, Ukraine’s leading LGBTQ+ organisation, in 2023 only one third of Ukrainian people viewed the community negatively, while almost two thirds (63%) believe LGBTQ+ people should have equal rights. To put that into perspective, just eight years ago, 60% of Ukrainians felt negatively about the queer community.

This striking change of heart is understood by many activists as a direct result of the Russian invasion. “Attitudes of Ukrainians changed because of the war,” says Zhuk. “We all know we have one enemy and that’s Russia. Russia is trying to kill us and erase our culture. People are realising that someone being gay or bi doesn’t pose a life-threatening risk to them.”

As Ukrainian patriotism, sovereignty and democracy have become increasingly defined in opposition to Russia, groups such as LGBTQI Military have played a pivotal role in raising awareness of Ukrainian LGBTQ+ soldiers serving in the war. “The presence of LGBT people openly fighting Russia as part of the Ukrainian military is really helping make our community visible,” says Lenny Emson, the Ukrainian-born executive director of Transgender Europe. “We are now being seen as a responsible social group that is fighting and dying for the country.” As a result, there is growing support among the public for same-sex civil partnerships, and there is now a draft bill making its way through Ukraine’s parliament.

In many ways, Lessons of Tolerance’s message of overcoming difference through shared experience and common humanity parallels the way Russia’s invasion has changed people’s perception of who is a threat and conversely, who is an ally. For Nepytaliuk, this is why the film “is very much needed in Ukraine right now. On the one hand, we are at war with an external enemy, the aggressive Russian occupier who wants to return us to the totalitarian past. On the other hand, we desperately need to destroy our internal enemies, our ‘medieval’ prejudices.”

However, scepticism among activists suggests recent progress is quite fragile and only in relation to the war. “We must not underestimate the people and forces working against LGBTQ+ equality,” says Emson. “Pride events in Ukraine can still only happen under conditions set by the police and the streets have to be empty. We’re just marching through the streets that are blocked by the police.”

These fears are reflected in Lessons of Tolerance’s harrowing final scene, when Vasyl, having finally won the acceptance of his host family, finds limits to tolerance elsewhere. The contemporary support for LGBTQ+ people among Ukrainians appears to be similarly contingent. People who are queer might be tolerated and maybe even given equal rights insofar as they continue their patriotic duty and serve in the war effort. But what happens when it stops?

Perhaps the best hope is that tolerance can pave the way for liberation. “The world needs a queer liberation whether it knows it or not,” says Zhuk. “More queer films are one of the ways to help make that happen.”