Modi opponent to challenge arrest ahead of India election

ByAFP
March 22, 2024

Arvind Kejriwal (C), chief minister of Delhi, was arrested ahead of India's election - Copyright AFP/File NARINDER NANU

Abhaya SRIVASTAVA

A top Indian opposition politician was expected to fight his arrest in court Friday in a case supporters say is aimed at sidelining challengers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi before next month’s election.

Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of the capital Delhi and a key leader in an opposition alliance formed to compete against Modi in the polls, was detained on Thursday in connection with a long-running corruption probe.

He is among several leaders of the bloc under criminal investigation and one of his colleagues described his arrest as a “political conspiracy” orchestrated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Supreme Court said it would hear a plea challenging the legality of Kejriwal’s arrest on Friday by lawyers for his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Police were out in force in front of the BJP’s Delhi headquarters where they had erected barricades in anticipation of AAP’s call for public protests against the arrest.

Kejriwal’s government was accused of corruption when it implemented a policy to liberalise the sale of liquor in 2021, ending a lucrative government monopoly.

The policy was withdrawn the following year, but the resulting probe into the alleged corrupt allocation of licences has since seen the jailing of two top Kejriwal allies.

Kejriwal, 55, has been chief minister for nearly a decade and first came to office as a staunch anti-corruption crusader. He has resisted multiple summons from the Enforcement Directorate to be interrogated as part of the probe.

Delhi education minister Atishi Marlena Singh said Thursday that Kejriwal had not resigned his office.

“We made it clear from the beginning that if needed, Arvind Kejriwal will run the government from jail,” she told reporters.

– ‘Decay of democracy’ –

Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin, a fellow member of the opposition bloc, said Kejriwal’s arrest “smacks of a desperate witch-hunt”.

“Not a single BJP leader faces scrutiny or arrest, laying bare their abuse of power and the decay of democracy,” he said.

Modi’s political opponents and international rights groups have long sounded the alarm on India’s shrinking democratic space.

US democracy think-tank Freedom House said this year that the BJP had “increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents”.

Rahul Gandhi, the most prominent member of the opposition Congress party and scion of a dynasty that dominated Indian politics for decades, was convicted of criminal libel last year after a complaint by a member of Modi’s party.

His two-year prison sentence saw him disqualified from parliament for a time until the verdict was suspended by a higher court, but raised further concerns over democratic norms in the world’s most populous country.

Kejriwal and Gandhi are both members of an opposition alliance composed of more than two dozen parties that is jointly contesting India’s national election running from April to June.

But even without the criminal investigations targeting its most prominent leaders, few expect the bloc to make inroads against Modi, who remains popular a decade after first taking office.

Many analysts see Modi’s reelection as a foregone conclusion, partly due to the resonance of his assertive Hindu-nationalist politics with the members of the country’s majority faith.

Hundreds protesin India against arrest of leading opposition figure

HINDU NATIONALISM IS FASCISM

Clothing giant Shein in focus as France targets fast fashion


By AFP
March 22, 2024

Shein has taken the world by storm with its jaw-droppingly low prices and a seemingly endless selection of trendy clothes 

- Copyright AFP/File Christophe ARCHAMBAULT

Jing Xuan Teng, with Peter Catterall in Beijing

With jaw-droppingly low prices and a seemingly endless selection of trendy clothes, Shein has taken the world by storm — and found itself in the crosshairs of French lawmakers who want to curb the excesses of fast fashion.

Customers love the Chinese-founded firm’s massive catalogue of ultra-cheap items, from $8 sundresses to 48-cent bracelets, at a time when inflation has shrunk purchasing power around the world.

Like H&M and Zara, Shein has been accused of using factories staffed by underpaid and overworked garment makers, and of causing widespread harm to the environment.

Critics also accuse the company of promoting hyperconsumerism and selling clothes designed to be discarded after a few wears — a charge also levelled at its rivals.

But what sets Shein apart, analysts say, is a hyper-efficient supply chain and product development process.

“In theory, Bangladesh could probably sell garments for cheaper than Shein. However there’s no ecosystem there to market it, to brand it, to sell it overseas, to ship it,” Allison Malmsten, China market analyst at Beijing-based Daxue Consulting, told AFP.

“China has all of these elements.”

Shein moved its headquarters to Singapore between 2021 and 2022 to dodge increasing global scrutiny of Chinese firms, according to analysts.

Still, it benefits from China’s unique combination of a massive low-cost textile manufacturing industry with highly developed e-commerce technology and logistics networks.

That ecosystem has also spawned the online shopping app Temu — while it is frequently compared to Shein, it acts as more of a discounted Amazon-like marketplace offering third-party home goods, tools and gadgets.

– ‘Extremely agile’ –

Shein offered an astounding 1.5 million different apparel items for sale last year, according to research by University of Delaware fashion expert Sheng Lu — far surpassing pioneering Spanish fast-fashion brand Zara, which stocked 40,000 styles.

While such a large variety usually comes with huge risk and production costs, Shein reported $23 billion in revenue and $800 million in net profit in 2022, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“The only reason Shein is able to get away with this is because they’re extremely agile and they have very little waste in their warehouse,” Rui Ma, China business expert and founder of the Tech Buzz China newsletter, told AFP.

“By testing and producing new products in small initial batches of 100 to 200 items, we gather and evaluate customer feedback in real time, and restock only the products that our consumers truly want,” Shein told AFP in a statement, adding that this avoided “the pitfalls of overproduction”.

This on-demand strategy depends heavily on a tightly engineered supply chain of more than 5,000 third-party manufacturers, largely in China, where local media reports describe Shein as dominating entire districts of small workshops.

The company ranks suppliers by their flexibility and ability to deliver urgent orders, and regularly eliminates the poorest performers, according to a 2021 Zhongtai Securities report.

At the same time, it tracks users’ search data and social media trends to generate designs that are almost guaranteed to sell — often appearing to simply copy from other brands.

A recent lawsuit filed by Japanese retail giant Uniqlo over an alleged copycat bag design is one of a slew of intellectual property disputes involving Shein.

“You can imagine their design team more as data people, and less as design people,” Malmsten said. “They’re not sitting there with sketchbooks, they’re sitting there with computers and data.”

– ‘Micro-influencers’ –

The world’s biggest fast fashion brands, including Shein, have come under fire in recent years for alleged labour exploitation and its contribution to environmental pollution and waste.

The French parliament last week approved measures to make low-cost fast fashion less attractive to customers, especially because of sustainability concerns.

Shein says it conducts regular third-party audits to ensure fair wages, and it says its on-demand model avoids overproduction and thus “dramatically reduces waste”.

Even as it fights these allegations, it has developed an army of fans who praise it for making fashion accessible to those on tight budgets, especially in plus-size styles.

This inclusive image has been carefully cultivated by Shein, which enlists small-time video bloggers and social media users to represent the brand in exchange for free products and cash.

Unlike luxury brands that use celebrity ambassadors, Shein has sought out “micro-influencers” in the form of “everyday people”, according to Malmsten.

The company uses the tactic to “bombard consumers, so everywhere that you look online you’ll see Shein products”, she said.

But the strategy has occasionally backfired, with a sponsored factory tour for a group of Western influencers last year sparking a strong backlash for glossing over alleged labour violations.

Ma cautioned against giving social media too much credit for Shein’s success.

“It’s not like there weren’t plenty of companies trying to mimic Shein (on social media),” she told AFP.

“The marketing aspect is the easiest to copy and also the most useless as it’s not their foundational competitive advantage.”

Zara owner Inditex workers protest after record profits


By AFP
March 22, 2024

Copyright AFP Patrick T. Fallon

Workers at Inditex’s Zara and other big name stores protested outside the company shops across Spain on Friday to demand better benefits after the world’s biggest fashion retailer reported record profits and raised shareholder payouts.

Blowing whistles and waving union flags, around 100 people demonstrated outside the flagship Bershka store on Madrid’s main avenue, the Gran Via, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

“It seems very unfair to us because Inditex has had a huge profit. So we want it to redistribute that,” said Juan Becerra, a 44-year-old worker at an Oysho store in the Spanish capital.

Similar protests were held outside Inditex stores in seven other cities, including Barcelona, Seville and Valencia.

The protests were organised by Spain’s two largest unions, UGT and CCOO, which want a bonus for Inditex workers with more than four years service and other benefits.

The unions say just over half of Inditex’s 27,000 employees in Spain have signed a petition demanding that “the group’s profits be returned in a fair and equitable manner to those who make them possible: all the group’s workers”.

Monica Donoro, a CCOO representative, said negotiations with Inditex managers had stalled.

“We are not making any progress. They are not listening to us,” she said.

Inditex, which has seen a strong performance on Spain’s stock market over the past year, posted net profits of 5.4 billion euros ($5.9 billion) in 2023, up 30 percent from 4.1 billion euros, the previous record, in 2022.

The company, whose eight brands include Pull and Bear and upmarket label Massimo Dutti, said it would pay shareholders a dividend of 1.54 euros, a 28 percent increase from 2022, and the highest in the group’s history.

“We, the staff, have the impression that we are not taken into account, that our work is not recognised even though we contribute to generating the profits, which are so high, through our work,” Beatriz Aliaga, a 44-year-old Zara employee, told AFP at the Madrid demonstration.

French news editor suspended over Macron-related headline

ByAFP
March 22, 2024

La Provence belongs to a billionaire businessman 

- Copyright AFP Patrick T. Fallon

The news editor of a regional French daily has been suspended after a front-page headline critical of President Emmanuel Macron, management said Friday, causing outrage across the newsroom.

Macron on Tuesday launched a major operation against drug trafficking in the southern port city of Marseille and elsewhere.

Following Macron’s Marseille visit, La Provence daily published a front page Thursday showing two people, watching a police patrol. The accompanying headline said “He’s gone, but we’re still here”.

On the basis of the front page, La Provence’s news editor Aurelien Viers was suspended for a week, for failing to follow its “values and editorial line”, said the paper’s managing editor Gabriel d’Harcourt.

The front-page quote and picture “could lead people to believe that we agree to give drug dealers a voice so they can mock the public authority”, wrote d’Harcourt in a “To Our Readers” article published Friday.

In an article inside Thursday’s La Provence, the front-page quote was actually attributed to a resident of a poor Marseille neighbourhood, named only as Brahim.

He said that the city had “found the means necessary to protect the president during his visit. He’s gone, but we’re still here, in the same hell”.



– ‘Editorial interference’: union –



D’Harcourt told AFP that his paper’s coverage of the visit had been “very good” except for the front page, “where you get the impression that we’re spokespeople for the dealers”.

The front page was “contrary to our roles and the role we want to play in Marseille and the surrounding region”, he said.

The SNJ, the main journalists’ union at La Provence, told AFP that the paper’s journalists were “scandalised” by Viers’s suspension, and called d’Harcourt’s justification for the suspension “surreal”.

A general staff assembly Friday voted in favour of a strike in protest.

“This is an inadmissable act of editorial interference,” SNJ representative Audrey Letellier told AFP.

La Provence, published in Marseille, has a daily circulation of around 62,000. It is owned by CMA CGM Medias, which belongs to Franco-Lebanese billionaire businessman Rodolphe Saade.

Saade, who has other high-profile media interests, this month announced that he would also buy Altice Media, which owns broadcasters BFMTV and RMC.

Asked during an Altice staff meeting whether he would seek to censor unfavourable news about his media interests, Saade replied: “I wouldn’t like it, and I would let that be known”.

But, added the media mogul, “I wouldn’t interfere”.

Rights court condemns Peru over one of world’s most polluted towns

By AFP
March 22, 2024

The Andean city of La Oroya, situated in a high-altitude valley at 3,750 meters (12,300 feet), is home to a heavy metal smelter that has poisoned residents and the environment for almost a century -

 Copyright AFP/File Ernesto BENAVIDES

Alberto PEÑA

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights said Friday that Peru had violated residents’ “right to live in a healthy environment” in an Andean mining town considered one of the most polluted places on earth.

The city of La Oroya, situated in a high-altitude valley at 3,750 meters (12,300 feet), is home to a heavy metal smelter that has poisoned residents and the environment for almost a century.

A group of La Oroya residents filed suit against the Peruvian government, demanding it take action against the pollution.

The town has often featured on lists of the most polluted places on the planet, rubbing shoulders with sites like Ukraine’s nuclear-sullied Chernobyl and Russia’s Dzerzhinsk, the site of Cold War-era factories which produced chemical weapons.

In its ruling, which is binding, the Costa Rica-based court blamed the Peruvian State “for the violation of the rights to a healthy environment, health, personal integrity, a dignified life… to the detriment of the 80 victims” who filed the lawsuit.

The court ordered that Peru carry out an analysis of the contamination of the air, water and soil in La Oroya, provide free medical care to the victims, and adapt the allowed standards for lead, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, mercury and particulate matter.

“We have waited for this for more than 20 years,” said Yolanda Zurita, one of the plaintiffs, who now lives in the town of Matahuasi about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from La Oroya.

The 65-year-old said pollution in her former home did not “allow her to be a mother,” without giving further details. She also suffers from seizures and problems with her lungs and pancreas.

“We have achieved our justice, the ruling is in favor of the people who were contaminated,” plaintiff Manuel Enrique Apolinario, a 68-year-old retired teacher, told AFP by telephone from La Oroya.

“Now the Peruvian State has to fully comply with the sentence.”

– ‘Significant risk to health’ –

Since 1922, the gigantic smelter that was long the economic heartbeat of La Oroya has processed copper, zinc, lead, gold, selenium, and other minerals from nearby mines.

The court said the complex “has had a significant impact on the environment, contaminating the air, water and soil.”

The ruling also said that “exposure to lead, cadmium, arsenic and sulfur dioxide constituted a significant risk to the health of the victims, and they did not receive adequate medical care from the State.”

In 2013, the International Federation for Human Rights said that 97 percent of La Oroya children aged between six months and six years, and 98 percent aged between seven and 12, had elevated levels of lead in their blood.

The smelting complex went bankrupt in 2009 — crippling the town’s economy — but re-opened last year under the management of a company made up of almost 1,300 shareholders — many of whom are former foundry workers.

The new administration has promised not to further pollute the town, where small houses cluster around towering black chimneys, surrounded by ashen mountain slopes corroded by heavy metals and long devoid of vegetation.

Venezuela MPs approve creation of state in disputed Essequibo

The region is home to 125,000 of Guyana’s 800,000 citizens, but Caracas has long claimed the region should be under its control.

ByAFP
March 22, 2024

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro (L) shakes hands with Guyana's President Irfaan Ali during a meeting this month 

- Copyright Venezuelan Presidency/AFP Zurimar CAMPOS

Venezuela’s parliament has approved a law creating a federal state in the disputed oil-rich area of Essequibo across the border in Guyana, which on Friday slammed a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.

Caracas has long laid claim to Essequibo, which makes up about two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, but started taking active steps to retrieve the land after massive offshore oil deposits were discovered there in 2015.

Lawmakers unanimously approved a law on Thursday that was drawn up after a December referendum in which 95 percent of voters, according to officials, supported declaring Venezuela the rightful owner of Essequibo.

“This National Assembly vindicates the right of the Venezuelan people to defend their territory,” said MP Diosdado Cabello after the vote to make Essequibo the 24th state in the country.

The law that was passed has been submitted to the Supreme Court to validate its constitutionality.

Guyana’s foreign ministry said in a statement the government was “gravely concerned over the adoption of a law by the Venezuelan National Assembly declaring the Essequibo region … to be a constituent part of Venezuela.”

“This is a flagrant violation of Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said the statement, which called on the international community to “uphold the rule of law by rejecting Venezuela’s illegal expansionism.”

Essequibo has been administered by Guyana for more than a century and is the subject of border litigation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Venezuela rejects the court’s jurisdiction in the matter.

The region is home to 125,000 of Guyana’s 800,000 citizens, but Caracas has long claimed the region should be under its control.

The row was revived in 2015 as US energy giant ExxonMobil discovered huge crude reserves in Essequibo and reached fever pitch last year after Georgetown started auctioning off oil blocks in the region.

The December referendum sparked international concern over a potential military conflict in largely peaceful South America.

Tensions were further inflamed when Britain sent a warship to the area, prompting Maduro to mobilize 5,600 troops in military exercises near the border.

However, friction abated after a meeting between the countries’ foreign ministers in Brazil in January, following earlier face-to-face talks between Maduro and Guyana President Irfaan Ali, who agreed not to resort to force.

The two leaders also exchanged gifts in a relaxed encounter at a summit in the Caribbean in March, during which Maduro said he hoped for a “healthy, peaceful and diplomatic solution” to the dispute.

RED TORIES

UK Labour party turns to Thatcher in courtship of right


By AFP
March 23, 2024

Labour leader Keir Starmer, likely the UK's next prime minister, with his finance spokeswoman Rachel Reeves - Copyright AFP Paul ELLIS
Peter HUTCHISON

Margaret Thatcher remains despised by many on the left of British politics, but the main Labour opposition seems comfortable citing her as it woos the right before this year’s election.

Labour leader Keir Starmer and senior colleagues have recently referenced the Conservative icon, highlighting the party’s shift to the centre since Starmer succeeded left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.

In December, Starmer described Thatcher as effecting “meaningful change” in the UK during her controversial 1979-1990 premiership while foreign affairs spokesman David Lammy this week called her “a visionary leader”.

Such comments would have been unthinkable under Corbyn.

He also cited Thatcher in the 2019 general election but said her government “waged a war against working class communities in the 1980s” and warned that “Boris Johnson’s Tories are more of the same.”

Corbyn lost by a landslide to Johnson and then quit as Labour leader.

Citing Thatcher is “a good way to signal that you are a completely changed party,” Sophie Stowers, a British politics researcher at the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, told AFP.

The approach is also reminiscent of former prime minister Tony Blair’s “New Labour” party of the 1990s and 2000s which embraced some Thatcherite policies.

His successor Gordon Brown even welcomed her to Downing Street.

“It shows a Labour party that is a lot more pragmatic than ideological,” noted Stowers.

Labour enjoys double-digit leads over the Conservatives in opinion polls as the UK waits for current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to announce the date of the election, likely in the second half of the year.

The centre-left outfit is pitching itself as friendly towards business and as responsible stewards of the economy — historically not always seen by voters as the party’s strengths.

It is also drawing parallels between today’s Britain and the one Thatcher — who died in 2013 — took over when she became the UK’s first woman prime minister in May 1979.



– ‘Iron Lady’ –



Then, Britain had just endured the “Winter of Discontent” when widespread industrial action calling for pay rises amid steep inflation resulted in rubbish piled high on streets and bodies left unburied in graveyards.

Today, Britons are feeling the pinch of a cost-of-living crisis sparked by high energy prices and inflation, stifling economic growth and triggering widespread strikes.

Harsher critics say the effect of Tory austerity policies going back to 2010 are still being felt.

Labour’s finance spokeswoman Rachel Reeves said this week that the UK stood “at an inflection point” like it did “at the end of the 1970s,” which paved the way for Thatcher’s radical free-market economic reforms.

Starmer, 61, wrote in the right-wing Sunday Telegraph last year that Thatcher had “sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism”.

The “Iron Lady” remains beloved by the right for privatising state-owned companies, reducing the influence of trade unions and deregulating Britain’s financial markets.

She is disliked in equal measure by the left for her perceived callous disregard for working-class communities as she closed down swathes of heavy industry, particularly mines.

Experts consider Labour’s recent remarks about her to be nuanced, given the strength of feeling she still provokes.

Reeves did not mention Thatcher specifically while Starmer’s article cited her alongside Blair and Clement Atlee, Labour prime minister from 1945-51.



– ‘Rewriting’ history –



Starmer later clarified that he was only stressing Thatcher’s “sense of purpose” and did not agree with her.

Lammy caveated his remarks to Politico by adding that “you can take issue with Mrs Thatcher’s prescription”.

“You will struggle to find something that looks like an endorsement or big praise for Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. They are very careful with their language”, Karl Pike, politics expert at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP.

Nevertheless, left-wingers were angered. Campaign group Momentum, which backed Corbyn, said the current Labour leadership was “out of touch with the Labour movement and Labour values”.

“We want to overturn Thatcher’s disastrous settlement, not recreate it,” it said of Reeves’s speech.

Richard Leonard, the former leader of Scottish Labour, added: “No rewriting of history. Thatcher didn’t renew the economy, she broke it.”

The comments have also given the pro-independence Scottish National Party an attack line as it tries to remain the largest party in Scotland, where Thatcher remains deeply unpopular.

The SNP leader in the UK parliament, Stephen Flynn, mocked the Labour frontbench as “born-again Thatcherites” this week.

Stowers said Labour’s approach risks alienating some voters but it is one the polls suggest they can afford to take.

“They’ve got quite a lot of leg room,” she added.

Hit by worker shortage, German city gets students to drive trams


By AFP

March 23, 2024


Benedikt Hanne is one of five student recruits of the Nuremberg public transport service - Copyright afp/AFP Daniel Karmann

Pauline CURTET

Seated before the tram’s control panel, Benedikt Hanne, 24, deftly steered the red and white wagons, hours before heading to Nuremberg university to study for a social work degree.

As an apprentice, Hanne was watched closely by a trainer, and the tram he drove had no passengers.

But if all goes well, he will soon become a fully-fledged tram driver moving people across Nuremberg in the evenings or at weekends, when he does not have classes to attend.

Squeezed by a serious manpower shortage, public transport operators like Nuremberg’s city service VAG have had to find new sources to expand their pool of workers.

The VAG needs to recruit 160 new drivers annually to run its metro, trams and buses.

For Harald Ruben, who heads the company’s recruitment and training team, it was clear that “we won’t reach this target unless we explore all possible possibilities”.

The transport company put out an advert targeted at university students, offering a part-time job to drive trams outside school hours.

To qualify, they need a regular driver’s licence, be above 21 years of age, and be “reliable and suitable for driving and shift work”.

Many sectors in Germany, like other European countries, are suffering from a serious manpower shortage which is expected to worsen unless urgent measures are taken.

Public transport operators have warned they may have to reduce the number of buses, trams or metros as tens of thousands of jobs are expected to remain vacant in the coming years.

The worker gap has led public transport employees across the country to go on strike in the last weeks to underline their plight, with union Verdi warning of deteriorating conditions.

Many operators are reporting up to 20 to 30 percent unfilled posts, with shortages contributing to a vicious circle of overworked employees who are then falling ill, exacerbating the situation.

Other German cities like Mannheim and Munich have also begun tapping students as potential part-timers to fill public transport gaps.

– ‘Really cool’ –

Hanne never thought he would be driving a tram, until a few weeks back, when he spotted the VAG ad.

He applied immediately, he said, and became one of five recruited. In all, the VAG received 36 applicants.

Dressed in the red and blue uniform of the company, the apprentice drivers are put through an accelerated four-week course that is held during school holidays.

After several hours of theory lessons, the trainees practise on a tram simulator, before moving on to a real tram.

They are also expected to take on extra homework to make up for the accelerated pace of the course, which is half the length of regular training.

After passing a driving test and several days accompanied by a trainer, Hanne will be driving a tram alone for 20 hours a week.

Hanne, whose previous part-time jobs included working at a gas station, said he is unfazed about juggling university courses and work.

“If I can choose, I’d prefer to drive the tram before going to university, so that the day ends with classes,” he said, adding however that he wants “to also work at other times of the day to see different people and situations”.

“It’s just a great feeling, to have all these wagons behind you,” said Hanne.

“My classmates find it really cool, my family too. They’ll catch my tram some day, that’s for sure.”

Scotland’s tech-driven recycling project rescues old smartphones


By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL

March 23, 2024


According to research, 11 percent of smartphones sold worldwide are reconditioned models

 - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP MARIO TAMA

The World Health Organization reports that electronic waste is rapidly increasing. Of this, smartphones are a significant component, making them one of the largest contributors to e-waste.

The demand for new smartphones means that millions of old devices end up discarded, contributing to a mounting pile of electronic waste. A report revealed that 5.3 billion phones in 2022 may have ended up in landfills.

To partly counter a portion of this e-waste, group of researchers in Scotland are working on a new project to recycle e-waste. If successful, this could be a game-changing solution.

The University of Aberdeen has received a grant of £140,000 from the AXA Research Fund. The research is based around green solvents and the method in the development involves a flow electrochemical cell, engineered for optimal element extraction.

If successful, this technology could reduce some of the problems of e-waste. Experts predict that, by 2030, our world may witness an alarming surge in electronic waste, approximately 75 million metric tons annually.

Beyond this environmental concern, there is also the potential to extract rare elements necessary for the manufacturing industry and other sectors (like cobalt, tungsten, and nickel). The aim is to separate these elements from those electricals efficiently, safely, and environmentally friendly.

By fostering such recycling techniques, products like smartphones are broken down, and their valuable materials are recovered and reintegrated to solve a more critical problem.

Philipp Pratt, a recognized Innovation Expert at Geonode, tells Digital Journal: “This is a revolution towards sustainable practices. As an expert, I can see an incredible potential in recycling and repurposing old smartphones and other electrical waste into an innovative solution.”

Pratt adds: “As we epitomise the potential of this game-changing project, let us be hopeful that soon, your retired smartphone might breathe new life. It’s not only as e-waste but as a harbinger of a greener, more equitable future. It’s a win-win situation: we reduce the environmental damage caused by new extraction and lessen our reliance on finite natural resources while contributing to the supply of essential materials for homes and manufacturing.

AI and the spread of fake news sites: How can we counteract them?


ByDr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL

March 22, 2024


This online disinformation campaign blamed on Russia involves not just the spreading of anti-Ukrainian fake news but also challenges Western media outlets to verify it - Copyright AFP Federico Parra

Around the world concerns are growing about types of misinformation spread through the use of artificial intelligence. In particular, malicious sites are becoming more sophisticated and distinguishing genuine news sites from fake ones can be challenging.

According to the BBC: “There are hundreds of fake news websites out there, from those which deliberately imitate real life newspapers, to government propaganda sites, and even those which tread the line between satire and plain misinformation.”

The advance of AI programs, especially Large Language Models (LLMs), which train to write fluent-reading text using vast data sets, have made the task of differentiating between sites more difficult. For example, the instant video generator Sora, which produces highly detailed, Hollywood-quality clips, further raises concerns about the easy spread of fake footage.

Virginia Tech researchers have outlined two different facets of the AI-fuelled spread of fake news sites. Then researchers have provided updates to Digital Journal.

The first area comes from Cayce Myers on what legal measures can and cannot achieve. Myers says, about the current concerns: “Regulating disinformation in political campaigns presents a multitude of practical and legal issues. Despite these challenges, there is a global recognition that something needs to be done. This is vitally important given that the U.S., U.K., India, and the E.U. all have important elections in 2024, which will likely see a host of disinformation posted throughout social media.”

Myers highlights deepfakes, which are easy to create and disseminate, as posing logistical problems. He states: “Technological developments such as Sora show why so many people are concerned about the connection between AI and disinformation.”

The second point comes from Julia Feerrar, concerning how to guard against disinformation. Feerrar notes: “AI-generated and other false or misleading online content can look very much like quality content. As AI continues to evolve and improve, we need strategies to detect fake articles, videos, and images that don’t just rely on how they look.”

Feerrar recommends assessing whether news comes from a reputable, professional news organization or from a website or account that looks suspicious.

Feerrar recommends the following approaches when evaluating the veracity of digital news articles:Fake news content is often designed to appeal to our emotions — it’s important to take a pause when something online sparks a big emotional reaction.
Verify headlines and image content by adding fact-check to your Google search.
Very generic website titles can be a red flag for AI-generated news.
Some generated articles have contained error text that says things along the lines of being ‘unable to fulfill this request’ because creating the article violated the AI tool’s usage policy. Some sites with little human oversight may miss deleting these messages.
Current red flags for AI-generated images include a hyper-real, strange appearance overall, and unreal-looking hands and feet.


Pixelated traces: Is your digital footprint putting you at risk of a scam?


By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL; JOURNAL
March 23, 2024


The new law will safeguard journalists' sources and their content published online - Copyright AFP/File Roslan RAHMAN

During Spring many people tidy up and deep clean their houses. Yet it’s not only the physical world where you need to tidy up; the virtual realm is full of cybercriminals and would-be scammers waiting to steal data and money, and a messy digital footprint could be all the opening they need.

When we go online, we inevitably leave a data trail behind us. This includes information about the websites we have visited, the emails we’ve sent, and our social media activity. This trail of information can reveal our individual preferences, professional networks, habits, and even where you live – none of which you want to fall into a scammer’s hands.

Some useful advice has been sent to Digital Journal via the firmIncreditools.

Cookies

If a box pops up on a new website asking you to accept cookies, do not click ‘accept’ without thinking. If you do, you will be freely giving away your data, which may then be sold on. Your personal information is invaluable to businesses for targeted advertising.

To protect yourself, click ‘reject all’ or ‘manage’, and refuse as many cookies as you can.

Data theft

Cybercriminals want you to reveal sensitive information so they can steal your identity and obtain credit in your name, or log into your bank account and steal your money. Some also try to get you to download malware so they can control your computer and ransom money from you to get control back.

Update

To start to digitally spring clean, begin by reviewing and updating online accounts, deleting or deactivating any that you no longer use. Update your privacy and security settings on Google, making them as secure as possible, and then do the same across the social media platforms you use, making sure your personal information will only be shared with those you trust.

The importance of regularly changing your passwords and using a random password generator to make sure your password is uncrackable. Storing all your passwords in a password manager will let you have super-secure accounts without having to remember hundreds of strings of random letters and numbers.

Exercise an extreme amount of caution with any email or message that requests personal information or urges immediate action.

Furthermore, you should also update your software and applications regularly with the newest patches, as many of these updates are designed to defend you against malware and hacking attempts. Always choose to activate two-factor authentication if you can, and research reputable cybersecurity tools, such as antivirus software and secure browsers