MPS MUST OPPOSE US/UK NUCLEAR ARMS ACCORD

A little known but long standing nuclear weapons agreement between Washington and London is up for renewal – and must be challenged.

KATE HUDSON
15 FEBRUARY 2024

Sunak visits Biden in the Oval Office. (Photo: Simon Walker / No 10)

The “special relationship” is a longstanding refrain in British politics, used to justify so much that’s bad in UK foreign policy choices.

I recall in 2002 when Tony Blair agreed Britain had to pay a “blood price” to secure its special relationship with the US. We all know how that ended up. 

But it wasn’t Blair who paid the blood price – it was 179 British service personnel, killed in an illegal war, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and countless more injured, displaced and traumatised.

Much that feeds war can be notched up to the US/UK special relationship, but it goes far beyond providing diplomatic and military cover and assistance to US enterprises. 

That relationship is also responsible for the development of the UK’s nuclear arsenal and its continued possession of these weapons of mass destruction. 

The special nuclear relationship is facilitated by the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) – the world’s most extensive nuclear sharing agreement. 

Even though it comes up for renewal in parliament every ten years, few seem to know of its existence.  

Neither do many know the extent to which it makes us dependent on the US – or indeed that it underpins the wider relationship between the US and UK.

Nuclear weapons

Its full name is the “Agreement between the UK and the USA for cooperation in the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes”.

The agreement initially enabled both countries to exchange classified information to develop their respective nuclear weapon systems.

But at the start, the MDA prohibited the transfer of nuclear weapons. However, an amendment in 1959 allowed for the transfer of nuclear materials and equipment between both countries up to a certain deadline.

This amendment is extended through a renewal of the treaty every ten years, most recently in 2014 without any parliamentary debate or vote.

The British public and parliamentarians initially found out about that extension and ratification when President Obama informed the US Congress. The next renewal is due in parliament later this year, and we are determined that this time it will not go unchallenged.

Renewing such agreements on the nod, without transparency or accountability is never a good thing. When it ties us so tightly to nuclear cooperation with the White House, at a time of increasing nuclear risk, this is an even greater cause for concern.

Usable nukes

Recent US policies have pursued “usable” nukes, for deployment in an increasing range of scenarios, with a bottomless pit of funding available for nuclear modernisation. The time has come to really vigorously oppose this Agreement.

It also puts us at odds with our commitments under the international Non-Proliferation Treaty, which seeks to stem the spread of nuclear technology.

The relationship and activities which are enshrined by the MDA confirms an indefinite commitment by the US and UK to collaborate on nuclear weapons technology and violates both countries’ obligations as signatories to the NPT.

The NPT states that countries should undertake “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to… nuclear disarmament”. Rather than working together to get rid of their nuclear weapons, the UK and US are collaborating to further advance their respective nuclear arsenals.

Indeed, a 2004 legal advice paper by Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin concluded that it is “strongly arguable that the renewal of the Mutual Defence Agreement is in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”.

This was so since it implies “continuation and indeed enhancement of the nuclear programme, not progress towards its discontinuation”.

Independent foreign policy

It’s just not possible for the UK to have an independent foreign policy, or defence and security policies, if it remains attached at the hip to the US nuclear programme.

The UK government’s claim that its submarine-based Trident nuclear weapons system is independent is false. It is technically and politically dependent on the US, largely due to the MDA.

Due to the MDA, the UK relies on the US for many aspects of Trident. The UK’s nuclear warhead is a copy of the US one, with some components directly bought from the US.

With the UK’s warheads expected to be non-operational by the late 2030s, a decision on their replacement will be intrinsically linked to the work taking place as part of the MDA.

“The US exercises significant leverage over the UK’s foreign and defence policy”

The UK leases from the US the Trident II D5 missiles it uses and British submarines must regularly visit the US base in Kings Bay, Georgia, for the maintenance and replacement of these missiles.

By having such direct involvement in Britain’s nuclear weapons technology, the US exercises significant leverage over the UK’s foreign and defence policy.

Even the most establishment characters must now be able to see that unquestioning allegiance to the US is out of the question.

So with the MDA coming up for renewal again, now is the time to start asking the questions, raising the protest, and making the case for independence.

It’s time for the special nuclear relationship to end. CND will be ensuring that the issue is raised vigorously within parliament, and calling on all our supporters to lobby their elected representatives to that effect.

TAGGED: 

• Alternatives
• Nuclear
• US

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Hudson is General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the UK.

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Haiti says it is working on an agreement with Kenya to secure a long-awaited police deployment

Women and children gather outside a police station after fleeing their homes in Cite - 

Odelyn Joseph/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved

By Rédaction Africanews
with AP 

Haiti's government announced Wednesday that it is working on an official agreement with Kenyan officials to secure the long-awaited deployment of a police force from the east African country.

High-ranking officials from both countries met in the U.S. for three days this week to draft a memorandum of understanding and set a deadline for the arrival of Kenyan police forces. The closed-door meetings included top U.S. officials and were held weeks after a court in Kenya blocked the U.N-backed deployment of police to help Haiti fight a surge in gang violence, saying it is unconstitutional.

It was not immediately clear if or how a memorandum of understanding could circumvent the court's ruling, which the president of Kenya has said he would appeal.

Haiti's government said in a statement that there were "intense discussions" to bring a memorandum of understanding into compliance with legislation of both countries.

"A final decision on the text should come early next week as well as its signature by both parties," Haiti's government said.

It said the talks also focused on the mission's operations, logistics and compliance, as well as surveillance, required equipment and human rights issues.

The deployment was requested by Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in October 2022 and approved by the U.N. Security Council a year later. But it has since encountered multiple legal obstacles as gang warfare in Haiti's capital and beyond continues to rise.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk recently noted that more than 800 people were killed, injured or kidnapped across Haiti in January, more than three times the number compared with the same month in 2023.

Teaching Musk the rules of the game

Swedish trade unions have staged a historic strike to force Tesla into a collective agreement. Their success could benefit employees worldwide

DPA picture alliance/ Jonathan Ernst

WORK AND DIGITALISATION 15.02.2024 | German Bender

A little over three months ago, on 27 October last year, the electric car manufacturer Tesla was confronted with a strike for the first time ever. The Swedish trade union IF Metall called the strike after five years of refusal by Tesla to negotiate a collective agreement for its employees in repair shops across the country (Tesla has no factories in Sweden, only vehicle maintenance, repairs and charging infrastructure).

It is not surprising that the Swedish union movement is the first to take on the staunchly anti-union firm. Sweden is one of the most unionised countries in the world, with around 70 per cent of the labour force being union members. Accordingly, a vast majority of Swedes support the strike and say that Tesla’s brand has been harmed by the dispute.
Power resources

In addition, Swedish trade unions have power resources that are not available in many other countries. For example, they can strike against companies that do not have collective agreements to pressure them into signing one (the Tesla dispute is a case in point).

Furthermore, they have the right to call sympathy strikes (sometimes also called solidarity strikes or secondary strikes). These are collective action measures that can be used to support a primary dispute. For example, a union can support itself or another union that is involved in a dispute. In the Tesla case, both types have been used.

The first type has been employed by IF Metall. First, when it expanded its strike to repairs shops owned by other companies that service Tesla vehicles. And more recently, when it issued a blockade against the company Hydro Extrusion, which produces a component needed for the production of Tesla’s Model Y in Germany. By doing so, the union hopes to disrupt the production of new vehicles.

To evade the dockworkers’ blockade, Tesla first started transporting ships to other Nordic ports. This move added an international dimension to the dispute.

But the vast majority of solidarity strikes against Tesla have been called by nine other Swedish unions. These collective action measures are not strikes, strictly speaking, because workers have not stopped working altogether. Instead, the workers refrain from performing tasks related to Tesla.

For example, the electrical workers’ union refuses to perform electrical work, such as maintenance or repairs, on Tesla’s charging stations and repair shops; the building maintenance union has stopped cleaning Tesla’s shops and offices; the postal workers’ union blocks deliveries (including license plates for new vehicles) to all Tesla facilities; and the transportation union has blocked disposal of industrial waste in repair shops and also blocks all unloading of Tesla cars delivered to Sweden’s approximately 50 ports, effectively halting Tesla’s car deliveries to Sweden.

To evade the dockworkers’ blockade, Tesla first started transporting ships to other Nordic ports. This move added an international dimension to the dispute, as unions in Denmark, Norway and Finland decided to support IF Metall with solidarity measures by blocking all unloading of Tesla vehicles transported to Nordic ports. Tesla has, in turn, responded to the blockade of Nordic ports by shifting to land transport directly from its factory in Germany (Tesla’s only manufacturing plant in Europe, and the second largest outside the US). Of course, this is more cumbersome and probably more expensive than its usual shipping operations. 

Important for various reasons

The Tesla strike is exceptional both in terms of scope and duration, as it is the longest Swedish labour dispute in more than thirty years. But strikes are an extremely rare occurrence in Sweden, which has one of the most peaceful labour markets in Europe.

However, this particular conflict is of principal importance for Swedish labour unions, who see it as a necessary measure to safeguard the country’s heralded labour market model. One of the model’s institutional pillars are sectoral collective agreements, which cover 90 per cent of all employees. Collective bargaining coverage is upheld in part by the strong norm that employers sign such agreements.

Cutting labour costs by refusing to negotiate collective agreements is generally considered unfair competition by unions and employers alike. Unions also see it as a potential risk for downward pressure on wages and working conditions if a large company such as Tesla were allowed to opt out of the model, which could cause others to follow suit. This domino effect would be detrimental not only for Tesla’s employees but also for workers in other companies, and could eventually undermine the Swedish model itself. The alternative to high collective bargaining coverage would be that more regulations on wages and working conditions would have to be regulated through legislation at the national and EU level, which is a scenario that unions and employers want to avoid.

Swedish unions are not the only ones pressuring Tesla.

Another reason why the conflict is of such principal importance for labour unions is the fact that Tesla is emblematic of the rapidly growing electric vehicle market. Securing collective agreements for jobs created in the industrial transition is one of the most reliable ways to make sure that green jobs will also be good jobs, a vital concern for unions.

But the conflict has symbolic significance for Tesla, too. Not for the costs of a Swedish union contract. These would be negligible, given that it would only cover 130 of Tesla’s almost 130 000 employees worldwide. But a concession to the union in Sweden could bolster union demands in countries where a larger portion of Tesla’s employees work, like the US and Germany.

In fact, Swedish unions are not the only ones pressuring Tesla. In the US, the United American Autoworkers’ union is aiming to organise at least one of Tesla’s enormous American factories. And, a week before the Swedish strike, the newly elected president of the powerful German industrial union IG Metall, Christiane Benner, made a sharp statement directed at Elon Musk: ‘you need to be careful. The rules of the game are different here’, she said in reference to Tesla’s attempts to obstruct union organising at its factory in Grünheide (State of Brandenburg, Germany), with almost 12 000 employees.

According to IG Metall, union membership in the factory is growing ‘faster than expected’. Membership numbers are vital for winning upcoming works council elections at the plant and to pressure Tesla to bargain with the union or eventually call a strike.

The rhetoric support by IG Metall for the Swedish strike is both welcome and necessary. But, unfortunately, it is not sufficient.

At the moment, however, no German unions have joined their Nordic fellow unions in launching solidarity action in support of IF Metall. Such measures could include, for example, blocking truck shipments of new Tesla cars from Germany to Sweden, or halting factory production of vehicles for the Swedish market. They would constitute important countervailing forces to the international mobility of capital and provide invaluable support to the Nordic union movement. They would also bolster IG Metall’s own chances of getting a collective agreement for Tesla workers in Germany.

The question is whether or not such solidarity strikes would be allowed under German labour law. The right to solidarity action was confirmed in Germany in 2007 after a decision by the Federal Labour Court, but a case like the Swedish Tesla dispute has not been tried legally.

Therefore, IG Metall and other German unions should urgently perform a detailed legal analysis of the possibility of calling solidarity strikes to support IF Metall’s struggle to achieve a collective agreement for Tesla workers. If the analysis finds that the legal status of such solidarity strikes is unclear, one option would be to let the Federal Labour Court set a precedent, which could prove hugely important.

The rhetoric support by IG Metall for the Swedish strike is both welcome and necessary. But, unfortunately, it is not sufficient. Not when you are dealing with Elon Musk.

Vietnam’s Climate Solutions Are Decimating the Mekong Delta


Shrimp farming along the Mekong may be an economic win in the short term, but it is ultimately unsustainable.

By Quinn Goranson
February 09, 2024


A traditional rice field on an island in the Mekong river near Tra Vinh City that will be harvested and transitioned into a shrimp pond at the end of the wet season.Credit: Quinn Goranson


In the delta region of South Vietnam, where the Mekong River flows into the South China Sea, locals fear that their mother is dying. They see her banks swell and collapse; salt infiltrates higher and farther than it ever has before. The Mekong is sinking.

The Mekong River stretches for 4,350 kilometers, flowing from Tibetan glaciers through six countries and eventually through Vietnam to the sea. The river’s name comes from Mae Nam Khong, a Thai and Lao phrase meaning “Mother Water.” This is fitting, as it brings vital resources to more than 70 million people across mainland Southeast Asia. The Mekong’s banks have historically provided perfect conditions for rice production, with the southern delta provinces affectionately named the “rice basket” of Vietnam.

Now, climate change and environmental degradation from human development present an existential threat to the Mekong. Salt intrusion into the freshwater river, rising sea levels, land subsidence, sand mining, lower base flow, and upstream damming have all contributed to a decline in agricultural productivity in recent years. In 2020, rice farmers in the provinces most impacted by saline intrusion were expected to lose at least 30 percent of their harvest from lack of fresh water.

Recently, international organizations and government programs have encouraged agricultural diversification toward greater economic and climate resilience. For many, this manifests as maintaining traditional rice paddies in the wet season, when the Mekong can provide enough fresh water to sustain the crops, and then transitioning those same fields to shrimp or prawn farms in the dry season. Having shown initial success, this specific model is being touted as a textbook adaptation “win” in the Mekong Delta region.

Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to the negative environmental impacts of this mass transition to shrimp farming, an ultimately unsustainable move.

An Ancient River Cycles From Life Giver to Liability

For more than a century, the Mekong delta has been a space of global contestation, with Vietnamese governments and other outside powers treating it both as a desirable resource and a battleground. French colonial perspectives that prioritized “mastery over nature” through extensive hydraulic works and the heavy-handed American use of tactical arsenic- and dioxin-based herbicides during the Vietnam War predisposed the Mekong Delta to great environmental vulnerability, for which few international powers have taken responsibility.

Coupled with present day mismanagement, government corruption, and developmental errors, the Mekong is ill-equipped to adapt. The appearance of the delta has changed dramatically over the centuries, during which time it has seen rapid urbanization, agricultural intensification, and devastating environmental destruction. Recently, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, addressing the country’s National Assembly, said that the greatest concerns in the Mekong delta region were land subsidence, landslides, drought, and saltwater intrusion.

Land subsidence refers to the decompression of the land from the weight of infrastructure and/or destabilizing impacts of depleting ground water. This hinders drainage, leading to flooding and increased erosion. Saltwater intrusion refers to the contamination of fresh water sources as saline water is able to flow further upstream. This natural phenomenon has presented a significant issue in the Mekong delta, one that is being worsened by illegal sand mining and impediments to river discharge from upstream dams, combined with downstream sea level rises and intense storm surges.

Pointing the Finger: Climate Change or Environmental Degradation?

There is an interesting dichotomy within this framing. In North Vietnam, where the central government resides, and within much international discourse, the greatest threat to Mekong ecosystems is climate change. However, in the South, and among those worst hit by the changing environment, the problem is environmental degradation that has been directly caused by development and exploitation practices like illegal sand mining and unregulated fishing.

When it comes to climate change, Vietnam can see itself as a passive victim. The country contributes just 0.8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet suffers from both the current and historical decisions and emissions of the Global North (and neighboring China). In contrast, environmental degradation refers to Vietnam’s active abuse of its ecosystems through unregulated extraction, contamination inputs, and rapid, unsustainable development as the government prioritizes economic growth, and achieving the status of a middle income country by 2030, over the environment.

While Vietnam has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050, its greatest emissions come from the energy sector. Numerous environmental activists and civil leaders, critical of Vietnam’s contradicting priorities, have been recently arrested and jailed on tax evasion charges. While the country’s increased attention to climate mitigation and adaptation internationally reflects an acute awareness of the economic costs of unsustainable resource exploitation, those who voice concern over Vietnam’s heavy energy sector reliance on coal (49.7 percent) justifiably fear arrest.

This illustrates the tense atmosphere that surrounds the questions of environmental education and transparency in Vietnam, which in turn taints agricultural transition and climate policies. This will ensure further ecosystems damage while making long-term adaptation more difficult.


A farmer removing shrimp from a cast net. The shrimp were caught in her pond for guests visiting her farmstay on Con Chim Island, Tra Vinh. Photo by Quinn Goranson.

Profit and Loss: The Economics of “Sustainable” Development

While the funding landscape in the Mekong delta remains fragmented, especially regarding agricultural issues, farmers and research institutes like Can Tho University are receiving support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, United Nations Development Program, and bilateral aid from countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Netherlands. Much of this funding supports delta-wide adoption of new livelihood models, including the prawn rice rotational crop (PRRC) model.

The PRRC model sees farmers plant and harvest their rice crops during the wet season, when the Mekong is abundant with fresh water, and transition to crops that are not adversely impacted by salt water in the dry season, when saline intrusion creeps up into the delta. Shrimp are the most common aquaculture crop, as they can survive salinities of up to 45 grams per liter.

In 2020, when saline water intruded as much 40 kilometers inland, and lingered for months longer than expected in the dry season, 240,000 hectares of rice crops were destroyed. Since this disaster, some farmers have transitioned to exclusively farming shrimp, as 45 percent of the agricultural land in the Mekong Delta region now experiences salinity levels well above 4 g/l, the average upper tolerance for rice crops.

The government in Vietnam has encouraged this transition, and initial research has described these models as climate successes. One riparian province, Bac Lieu, is aiming to increase its shrimp production to $1.3 billion in exports alone by 2025, transitioning the industry toward a 95 percent contribution of its total export revenue by that date. Reports show that on average, through rapid industry and export expansion, PRRC farmers see 65 percent higher annual profits than traditional rice farmers.

Studies of these transitions exclusively focus on economic drivers and adaptive capacity instead of long-term environmental impacts.

The True Costs of Lucrative Agricultural Transitions

Shrimp cultivation is not only far more resource intensive than rice farming; it also produces significantly more greenhouse gas emissions at 13 kilograms of CO2e per kg compared to 0.9 kg of CO2e for rice. Many farmers are still using low-efficiency, high energy-intensity paddlewheel aeration systems to manage shrimp pond water quality, which often fare better at introducing disease-carrying airborne particles than distributing oxygen and nutrients. In larger, non-organic farms, chemicals and antibiotics are used to prevent disease and increase yields, causing groundwater contamination and runoff that taints organic aquaculture ponds and the surrounding ecosystem. PRRC farmers have begun noticing the long-term impacts of shrimp ponds on soil quality, as climate change limits the capacity of the Mekong to flush out the salt, making the land less fertile.

Eventually, as saline intrusion worsens from continued sea level rise and ground subsidence, salinity levels will surpass that which is tolerable even to these shrimp species. This observation has encouraged groundwater extraction to dilute the salinity levels of the shrimp ponds. Aquifer depletion has contributed to land subsidence cross the Mekong delta for decades, accelerating delta sinking to an unprecedented rate at 18 centimeters over the last 25 years. This perpetuates a negative feedback loop where saline intrusion encourages agricultural diversification into shrimp aquaculture, depleting the aquifer below the delta. This further contributes to land subsidence, one of the key initial drivers for saline intrusion.


A ferry along the Cổ Chiên River, a tributary of the Mekong, in the Delta province of Tra Vinh. This boat brings tourists from the banks of Tra Vinh City to Cồn Chim Island. Photo by Quinn Goranson.

Moving Forward: Putting the Needs of the Ecosystem at the Center

Further studies are needed to better understand impacts on the Mekong delta’s ecosystem. Currently, proposed climate adaptation policies that encourage drastic agricultural transitions to models like PRRC, while being more profitable, are not environmentally sustainable over the long term. Though difficult, it is important for local governments and the international community to acknowledge the dissonance between dual priorities. Given the existential threats facing the Mekong rice basket, teetering between priorities of economic prosperity and environmental survival, policy alternatives for more sustainable agriculture must be explored.

Some bright spots in agricultural development come from Tra Vinh University, which has conducted research into Alternate Wetting and Drying technology, which allows for traditional rice production using 20 percent less water. Likewise, in the aquaculture sector, companies like Rynan Technologies are developing innovative solutions to nutrient supply and energy intensity with their Pressure Swing Adsorption Unit.

Through policy implementation, research and development, and investment in local initiatives, Vietnam may be able to achieve the concomitant goals of economic growth and climate resilience, while diversifying and intensifying its agricultural sector. But we must remember that the water of the Mekong is the vital thread that knits together all life along the river: respect and humility in the presence of such a great life-giving force should guide all pursuits.

Why the US and China Should Work Together to Solve the Global Scam Crisis

Both nations have a shared interest in cracking down on online “pig butchering schemes.” It could show that the two nations can still work together for mutual benefit.

By Jan Santiago and Alvin Camba
February 15, 2024


A publicity still from the Chinese film “No More Bets,” which details the workings of a cyberscam operation in Southeast Asia.Credit: IMDB


The rise of cyber-scam syndicates in Southeast Asia constitutes a global crisis. CNN and The New York Times recently ran exposés on these operations, which extract billions of dollars from victims across the world, often through cryptocurrency. One type of cyber-scam, the “pig butchering scam” – shazhupan in Mandarin Chinese – involves the grooming of victims over months, a process akin to the fattening up of a pig for slaughter. Their perpetrators lurk in dating apps and social media, often weaving romance and gambling psychology into their modus operandi.

While existing writings focus on the role of the nature of these operations and China’s recent crackdowns, we argue that the U.S. and China, as the world’s two great powers, should come together in combatting these transnational criminal organizations. In working together, they will have greater effectiveness than they would working separately.

We make the following three points. First, the impact of these crime syndicates has been economically, psychologically, and socially devastating to hundreds of thousands of individuals from the U.S., China, and many other countries. Based on voluntary reports to the FBI, at least $2.57 billion was lost in 2022 to pig butchering scams. The victims are commonly driven into borrowing and exhausting their savings, assets, and 401k accounts. California prosecutor Erin West posits that true losses could be three to 10 times higher. In China, police reports of pig butchering scams totaled $5.7 billion in losses in 2020. In both societies, victims are additionally shamed and maligned for falling victims.

Furthermore, many cases of cyber-scams go unreported, ignored, or miscategorized. This is why Chainalysis’ claim that only $5.9 billion was lost in 2022 to all crypto scams, including pig butchering, can be misleading. In the U.S., underreporting is particularly acute among Chinese speakers and immigrants, who often refuse to contact the authorities after falling victim to a scam. Local police often dismiss pig butchering scams as civil disputes with online friends and are generally resistant to taking in cyber, especially cryptocurrency, scam cases.

Underreporting aside, the monetary losses to pig butchering scams impose massive psychological and opportunity costs for their victims, which disproportionately include entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals in all fields. Their victim demographic, mostly people in their 30s and 40s, is distinct from elderly frauds who constitute some of the most productive members of society. In other words, these scam operations sap the productivity and long-term outlook of targeted countries.

Second, these transnational criminal organizations directly harm regional stability. Many perpetrators have been victims of human trafficking themselves, toiling in sprawling casino cities and “technology parks” to meet quotas under duress. They are lured in through promises of job opportunities, involuntarily detained and forced to run scams for 12-16 hours a day with little hope of escape. This involuntary imprisonment comes along with workplace violence, torture, and sexual abuse. These compounds have recently been established across several Southeast Asian countries.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other international institutions have been unable to come up with a cross-cutting and regional solution to these problems. Countries have individually approached the problems in their own domestic political system. Singapore last year arrested 10 formerly Chinese citizens and seized more than $2.8 billion tied to cyber-scamming in Cambodia, as part of a money-laundering probe. A single raid last year on a cyber-scam compound in the Philippines netted 2,700 workers, and a further 1,400 in another. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime has estimated that 100,000 people in Cambodia and 120,000 in Myanmar have been trafficked into online scam operations. Chinese authorities have argued that 400,000 Chinese nationals are working for Southeast Asian cyber-fraud operations.

In a typical scenario, scam compounds are raided by police, and dozens to thousands of indentured workers are freed, but the principal owners simply relocate and are soon back in business. A major reason why scam compounds prop up continuously after raids is that these organizations are as powerful as some states themselves. They likely earn billions of dollars annually, rivaling the GDP of ASEAN nations such as Laos and Cambodia.

These scam organizations negatively affect regional security and stability. In Myanmar, the ethnic armed groups and the junta have both been infiltrated by these organizations. In Cambodia, political elites have long been connected to these criminal groups. In Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, business elites have directly invested in cyber-fraud operations. The criminal organizations perpetuate development problems in the region by short-circuiting law enforcement and perpetuating corruption. Since these groups have private military forces, they can enact laws in their own compounds, leading to the rise of money laundering, sex work, smuggling, human trafficking, drugs, and other issues.

Third, the U.S. and China can have synergy on this issue of mutual interest, i.e., the two countries can positively influence Southeast Asian countries in different ways.

The U.S. is a strategic partner to many Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand, providing military exercises, weapons upgrades, and capacity-building programs.

The U.S. can add to these partnerships by training Southeast Asian police to combat cyber-fraud operations, cybersecurity threats and cryptocurrency-mediated crimes of transnational syndicates. The U.S. experience in fighting against narcotics and drug triads in Latin America can be helpful. Suppressing these criminal organizations can go a long way to promoting good governance and regional stability. The U.S. can also assist in the protection of trafficking victims through human rights training. A greater U.S. role in combating cyber-scam syndicates in Southeast Asia is consistent with the White House’s National Cybersecurity Strategy.

China is a similarly important player in the region. It is the region’s largest trading partner and the second most important economic player in Southeast Asia in terms of direct investments and development finance. Politically, China is becoming a far more important actor in the region. In recent years, China has increased its security presence in Southeast Asia, and shown a greater willingness to intervene beyond its own borders in order to ensure its own security. This presence is particularly strong in the mainland countries lying directly to its south, where the bulk of the scam operations are concentrated. Beijing’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) will likely see these relationships deepen further, as will the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation platform, which was initially formed to manage transboundary water flow between China and the riparian states but has recently become a forum for discussing security issues.

China has long grappled with telecom fraud and illegal online gambling syndicates in its Southeast Asian backyard. China can deliberately leverage this experience. It also has greater leverage in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos than the U.S. Some have argued that the cyber-scam operations in this region loom as a “test case” for the GSI.

There is another reason that the U.S. and China should work together to combat cyber-scam syndicates: it is another avenue for trust-building between the two superpowers, showing that they can work together for mutual benefit. While law enforcement cooperation may be a casualty of U.S.-China tensions, the challenges of deeper cooperation in this realm are not insurmountable. The recent summit between Presidents Biden and Xi yielded a tentative agreement to cooperate on counternarcotics. This cooperation should be extended to cyber-scam syndicates.

Erratic weather fueled by climate change will worsen locust outbreaks, study finds

A farmer watches swarms of desert locusts that invaded his farm in Elburgon, -
Copyright © africanewsBrian Inganga/Copyright 2021 The AP. All rights reserved

By Rédaction Africanews
with AP 
CLIMATE CRISIS


Extreme wind and rain may lead to bigger and worse desert locust outbreaks, with human-caused climate change likely to intensify the weather patterns and cause higher outbreak risks, a new study has found.

The desert locust — a short-horned species found in some dry areas of northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia — is a migratory insect that travels in swarms of millions over long distances and damages crops, causing famine and food insecurity.

A square kilometer swarm comprises 80 million locusts that can in one day consume food crops enough to feed 35,000 people. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization describes it as "the most destructive migratory pest in the world."

The study, published in Science Advances on Wednesday, said these outbreaks will be "increasingly hard to prevent and control" in a warming climate.

Xiaogang He, author of the study and an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, said more frequent and severe extreme weather events due to climate change could add unpredictability to locust outbreaks.

But he hoped that the study could help countries understand and address "the impacts of climate variability on locust dynamics, particularly in the context of its repercussions on agricultural productivity and food security" and urged better regional and continental cooperation among countries and control organizations to respond quickly and build early warning systems.

To assess the risk of locust outbreaks in Africa and the Middle East and the connection to climate change, scientists analyzed incidents of desert locust outbreaks from 1985 to 2020 using the Food and Agriculture Organization's Locust Hub data tool.

They created and used a data-driven framework to examine the insects' patterns to find out what may cause outbreaks to happen across long distances.

They found that 10 countries, including Kenya, Morocco, Niger, Yemen, and Pakistan, experienced the majority of locust outbreaks among 48 affected nations.

The worst outbreak of desert locusts in 25 years struck East Africa in 2019 and 2020, when the insects ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and damaged crops, trees and other vegetation, impacting food security and livelihoods.

Elfatih Abdel-Rahman, a scientist at International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology who wasn't part of the study, said widespread desert locust outbreaks due to climate change will substantially threaten livelihoods in the affected regions due to reduced food production and increase in food prices.

The researchers also found a strong link between the magnitude of desert locust outbreaks and weather and land conditions like air temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, and wind. Desert locusts are more likely to infest arid areas that receive sudden extreme rainfall, and the number of the insects in an outbreak is strongly impacted by weather conditions.

El Nino, a recurring and natural climate phenomenon that affects weather worldwide, was also strongly tied to bigger and worse desert locust outbreaks.

University of Delaware entomology professor Douglas Tallamy, who wasn't part of the research, said erratic weather and rainfall trigger spurts in vegetation and therefore fuels enormous population growth in locusts.

"As such variability increases, it is logical to predict that locust outbreaks will increase as well," said Tallamy.

The study is "yet another example of what should be a very strong wake-up call that societies across the globe need to come together to reduce climate change and its impacts but also to implement strategies in response to global events such as increasing threats of desert locusts," said Paula Shrewsbury, an entomology professor at the University of Maryland. Shrewsbury was not involved in the study.

The study found that especially vulnerable locations like Morocco and Kenya remain high-risk but locust habitats had expanded since 1985 and projects that they will continue growing by at least 5% by the end of the 21st century, predictably to west India and west central Asia.

It gives the example of the Rub' al Khali, or Empty Quarter, a desert in the southern Arabian Peninsula, as a place that was historically uncommon for desert locust outbreaks but then became a hotspot. The desert experienced locust outbreaks in 2019 after uncontrolled breeding following cyclones, which filled the desert with freshwater lakes.

Major locust outbreaks can have huge financial impacts. It cost more than $450 million to respond to a locust outbreak that happened in West Africa from 2003 to 2005, according to the World Bank. The outbreak had caused an estimated $2.5 billion in crop damage, it said.

Countries affected by desert locust outbreaks are already grappling with climate-driven extremes like droughts, floods and heat waves, and the potential escalation of locust risks in these regions could exacerbate existing challenges, said research author Xiaogang.

"Failure to address these risks could further strain food production systems and escalate the severity of global food insecurity," he said.

Mongolia’s livestock losses top half a million in devastating ‘dzud’
This winter's dzud — a phenomenon unique to Mongolia — has caused a crisis in the animal husbandry sector. / IBolat on Unsplash

By bne IntelliNews February 15, 2024

The Mongolian government has put the state on a high level of preparedness for disaster protection at the national level, as decided at a meeting on February 14.

The decision was made based on the extreme cold winter, known as a dzud — a phenomenon unique to Mongolia — which has caused a crisis in the animal husbandry sector.

There have been high numbers of animal deaths in the Sukhbaatar, Khentii, Dornogovi, Arkhangai and Dornod provinces in particular. As of February 10, 508,039 heads of livestock had died in the country, a government statement said.

Prime Minister L. Oyun-Erdene ordered all necessary measures to be taken to overcome the problems in the livestock sector at the meeting on February 14.

Orders were also given to evacuate households that may be affected by flash floods. clear snow-covered roads and passes, and to help herdsmen.

The Mongolian authorities are working with international organisations and foreign donors to include herders in early detection and diagnosis, carry out surveys of herders who have lost their source of livelihood and have no livestock, and include them in livestock, social security and welfare projects and programme.

According to the Information Institute of Water, Climate and Environment Research, as of February 10, more than 80% of the country was under snow.

Earlier in February, the International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said the dzud had affected 245,005 families across the country.

Many herders, it added, had to resort to the migratory Otor Movement as their main coping mechanism. The Otor Movement is a nomadic practice of domestic herders migrating to seek pasture. It occurs throughout the country, but this year it is affecting many more families, including those who were not prepared for it.

The report also noted several other factors that have been contributing to humanitarian impacts for herder households this year.

A concurrent fuel shortage between early November and December across the country hindered herders from transportation for hay and fodder supply, which did not happen in previous years, it said.

The report also pointed to how, as of December, inflation was a high 8.6% in Mongolia, with a 14.4% increase in prices for food products, soft drinks, and mineral water, a 5.5% increase in housing services, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, and a 7.6% increase in medicines and medical services. Inflation has particularly reduced the buying power of herder households, as their main asset is livestock. The cost of hay and fodder has been surging as a result of both inflation and availability, as well as fuel price increases.

Cameron urges US to pass Ukraine aid, warns against repeating ‘weakness displayed against Hitler’

BY SARAH FORTINSKY

- 02/14/24 

Britain’s former prime minister David Cameron leaves Downing Street, in London, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday fired Home Secretary Suella Braverman, a divisive figure who drew anger for accusing police of being too lenient with pro-Palestinian protesters. In a highly unusual move, former Prime Minister David Cameron was named foreign secretary. It’s rare for a former leader, and a non-lawmaker, to take a senior government post. The government said Cameron will be appointed to Parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords. 

(James Manning/PA via AP)


U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron issued a stark warning to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, urging swift passage of the Senate-passed Ukraine aid package that now faces an uphill battle as the legislation heads to the Republican-controlled House.

In an op-ed in The Hill on Wednesday, Cameron, the former U.K. prime minister, underscored the stakes in the Russian-led war against Ukraine and stressed the importance of defeating Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Now, we face a choice. A simple test,” Cameron wrote. “On the one side is Putin, hoping to enlarge his empire simply by outlasting the West. He believes we are weak. He believes he can get away with the most shocking act of national aggression we have seen in our lifetimes.”

“On the other side are all of us. We have the resources, the economic might, the expertise. Our economic strength outweighs Russia’s by a factor of around 25 to one. They are having to turn to Pyongyang for help. All we need to do is make our strength pay. The question is: Do we have the will?” Cameron continued.

Cameron’s plea comes as support for Ukraine aid has begun to wane particularly among GOP lawmakers, who have begun to embrace more isolationist tendencies in recent years.

The Senate passed a foreign aid package that included what national security officials have described as essential foreign aid for Ukraine. Most Democrats supported the bill, and less than half of Republicans did.

The bill now heads to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a staunch supporter of former President Trump’s, has said he would not bring it to the floor for a vote. As supporters of the bill seek alternatives to bypass Johnson’s blocking of the bill, the bill’s fate remains uncertain.

“As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it,” Cameron wrote. “I want us all — U.S., U.K., European and other allies — to support Ukraine in fighting against completely unjustified aggression. It is hard to think of a clearer case of one country being invaded by another without the slightest justification.”

OPINION: David Cameron says Congress should pass Ukraine funding for sake of global security

Cameron cautioned lawmakers against repeating mistakes made in the 1930s, when European leaders made territorial concessions to Adolf Hitler, erroneously thinking it would prevent Germany from seeking further expansion. Ultimately, those concessions helped pave the way for World War II.

“I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force,” Cameron wrote. “I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in the 1930s. He came back for more, costing us far more lives to stop his aggression.”

Cameron addressed some concerns that have come to define the “America first” position on foreign aid – specifically denying arguments that European countries have not contributed their fair share to the defense alliance.

“Since I last visited Washington before Christmas, Europe has proven its determination to stay the course. European states have provided more than half the support to Ukraine, with aid collectively totaling $170 billion to date,” he wrote, adding, “The European Union has just agreed on a €50 billion multi-year funding package of its own. Germany doubled its military aid to Ukraine last month. And Britain has become the first country to sign a bilateral security agreement with Kyiv — an example which we expect several partners to follow in the coming weeks.”

Still, however, some GOP lawmakers sharply criticized Cameron’s op-ed, characterizing it as an attack on the Republican position.

In a statement reported by British tabloid the Daily Mail, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) called Cameron’s op-ed “hilarious,” adding, “David Cameron can kiss my a**.”

The backlash comes after Trump made controversial remarks this weekend, relaying a conversation he claimed he had with a foreign leader of a NATO country, in which Trump allegedly told the leader he wouldn’t defend alliance members who didn’t pay at least 2 percent of economic output.

“I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want,” he said, referring to a hypothetical attack from Russia. “You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”

The dead end of history: no peace for Ukraine means more war for the West

#CriticalThinking
Peace, Security & Defence

15 Feb 2024

Dmytro Zolotukhin

As predicted, insufficient Western military support to Ukraine has led to a war of attrition and stalemate on the battlefield.

Ukraine depends on military and financial support from Western countries, but some Western politicians are hesitating over whether to maintain that support or reduce assistance, potentially pushing Ukraine towards a ‘compromise’ with the Russian Federation?

In their eyes, such a compromise could involve Ukraine relinquishing the goal of liberating its occupied territories and their citizens. Moscow’s stated negotiating position includes recognition of Ukraine’s ‘territorial status, in conformity to amendments of the Russian Constitution’ that includes the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson oblasts and Crimea.


Instead of bringing peace, pushing Ukraine towards compromise and negotiation would signify the normalisation of war in Europe


Vladimir Putin banks on winning a game of chicken with the West by threatening a wider war or even nuclear strikes in response to their continued support for Ukraine.

Western leaders fear escalation more than Putin. The illegal annexation of Crimea and full-scale invasion of Ukraine have shown that he is willing to take the risks that war entails. As the warfighting scenario is less a contest of forces, but more is about a risk-taking competition.

Those hoping for a compromise will be encouraged by media reports indicating Putin is quietly signalling his readiness for peace talks. Yet Russia’s actions suggest the opposite. The Russian military is intensifying missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, resulting in civilian casualties and the destruction of residential buildings.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in his new-year press conference stated that victory is the only acceptable outcome for Russia in 2024. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s National Security and Defence Council, says Ukraine should not exist in any form. The former Russian president has called Ukraine a ‘cancerous growth’ that will always be illegitimate, no matter who its leader is.

Instead of bringing peace, pushing Ukraine towards compromise and negotiation would signify the normalisation of war in Europe. That could persist for generations, claiming lives and draining resources.

Such an outcome may be inevitable without a serious discussion of how sustained Western support could underpin a Ukrainian victory to ensure lasting peace.

The ‘Sustainable Peace Manifesto’, crafted by Ukrainian civil society representatives and public experts, and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ‘Peace Formula’, unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, are both relevant in this context. Both documents converge on the necessity of respecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Since Russia shows no interest in compromise, the only realistic scenario for ending the war is Russian military defeat and Russian Federation’s subsequent transformation in respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states.

Such a transformation in Russian attitudes is crucial to dismantling future threats to security and peace in Europe.

Unfortunately, many in the West fail to understand the way to achieve this transformation in Russia. When they talk about the need for the ‘future of the Russian Federation to be decided by Russians’, they fail to realise there is more than one meaning of the word ‘Russian’ in the Russian language.

The adjective ‘Russkiy’ (‘русский’) draws its orgins from the people who spoke the language and followed the traditions of Kyivan Rus, the medieval Slavic state centred around Kyiv. Putin manipulates this historical explanation to argue that the Ukrainian nation never existed, and Kyiv is essentially a Russian city.

Then there is the adjective ‘Rossiyskiy’ (‘российский’) and the noun ‘Rossiyanin’ (‘россиянин’) referring more generally to all citizens of the Russian Federation.

This formulation grew in usage following the collapse of the Soviet Union when Russian President Boris Yeltsin sought language that signified unity among the different ethnic groups living within the Federation. He could not use the word “Russkiye”, when appealing to Tatars or other nations. Thus, the Russian constitution says: “the bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in the Russian Federation is the multinational people of it.” That echoes a formula from Soviet legislation.


Only military defeat and the dismantling of the Kremlin’s power vertical can pave the way for the normalisation of the Russian Federation, rather than the normalisation of the war


Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin and his propagandists rarely addressed the topic of the country’s multi-ethnic nature. That changed dramatically when the Kremlin needed to create the illusion that Russia’s ‘the multinational people’ are supporting its military aggression against Ukraine. Fostering unity around the flag was deemed necessary to mobilise new waves of soldiers to sustain the conflict.

Like the old term ‘Soviet people’, use of the the word ‘rossiyanie’ to mean Russians is an artificial concept. It implies that Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, Kalmyks and other peoples can be part of the constitutionally stated multinational people of the Russian Federation, but cannot be labelled as Russians. This is why the idea that ‘the future of the Russian Federation should be decided by Russians’ makes no sense.

After taking power, Putin curtailed the autonomy and influence of the regions. Rather than representing regional interests, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, became Putin’s puppet. It immediately approved his plan to use military force beyond Russia’s borders and invade Ukraine.

Putin’s power is backed by a strategy of conservative traditionalism, imperialism, political orthodoxy and the nationalist ideology of the Russian (that’s Russkiy, rather than Rossiyskiy) world.

Amendments to the constitution have cemented the status of Russian (Russkiy) as the national language. Without explicitly saying so, it has given ethnic Russians (Russkiye) the official status of a titular nation or nationality.

In November 2023, Russian parliament member Sultan Khamzayev proposed to pass a law about the Russian (“Russkiy”) people, which would replace the constitutional term “the multinational people of the Russian Federation.” According to Khamzayev, Yeltsin’s term “rossiyanie” disoriented the society.

In his press conference, Lavrov referenced the topic of Russian Federation decolonisation, accusing the West of seeking to dismantle Russia. This is pure propaganda. Decolonisation would entail dismantling Russia’s vertical power structures, which seek to suppress nationalities and ethnic groups in order to enforce unity for military purposes. Dismantling the power vertical does not equate to dismantling the state.

Normalisation and decolonisation of the Russian Federation would allow the country’s diverse peoples to freely express and promote their interests, rather than being terrorised by the vertical power structure and Putin’s apparatus of violence.

The Federation Council should make decisions based on the interests of the people, rather than the will of one individual whether it’s Putin or Navalny.

If that had been the case in 2022, it’s unlikely the war would have started. Now, only military defeat and the dismantling of the Kremlin’s power vertical can pave the way for the normalisation of the Russian Federation, rather than the normalisation of the war.

Dmytro Zolotukhin

Founder of the Institute of Post-Information Society and former Ukrainian deputy minister of information policy

This article is part of Friends of Europe’s Ukraine Initiative series, find out more here. The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.