Georgia residents are fighting efforts to build a massive monkey-breeding facility in their city

Kayla Steinberg
Updated Thu, June 13, 2024 at 8:32 AM MDT·7 min read
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A plan to build a massive monkey-breeding facility that could eventually house 30,000 long-tailed macaques in a small Georgia city has sparked a multipronged legal battle pitting residents against a company whose executives have faced scrutiny for their past handling of animals destined for medical research.

The fate of the facility is in the hands of the Georgia Court of Appeals, which will consider Thursday whether to overturn the validation for a bond that the city of Bainbridge promised to Safer Human Medicine, a company started by animal research industry veterans. It received the bond after Bainbridge leaders greenlighted the project in December.

But in the ensuing months residents, with help from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, began to push back against the project.

“It feels like somebody’s going to drop a bomb in the middle of everything that we’ve worked and built,” said lifelong Bainbridge resident June Faircloth. “We can’t sit back and let it happen.”

An artist's rendering of a planned monkey enclosure in Bainbridge, Ga. (Safer Human Medicine)

It’s not the first such project to have gotten local opposition — with support from PETA — at a time when researchers say they are running low on monkeys for medical testing. Long-tailed macaques are among the most common monkeys used in research in the U.S., and while monkeys are used in a fraction of a percent of animal studies, researchers say they’re critical.

A monkey-breeding facility in Brazoria County, Texas, planned by the company Charles River Laboratories was put on hold this year after local opposition that was aided by PETA arose. PETA also pushed back after a Chinese-owned company bought land in Florida a couple of years ago for a possible primate facility — the plan was eventually scrapped.

The battles highlight how animal rights activists, together with residents, have found some success in opposing new facilities despite the ongoing needs of scientists.

Animal testing for research purposes has a long history — as does opposition to it. And while many scientists have advocated for more humane treatment of animals used in research, they have also warned that stopping such research would seriously hinder many medical advances. Animal testing is regulated in the U.S. by the Animal Welfare Act of 1966.

Dr. Paul Johnson, the director of the Emory National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, said monkey research helped develop Covid vaccines, an HIV vaccine that’s in clinical trials and belatacept, a drug used in kidney transplantation.

The testing can be traumatic for the monkeys. Some are euthanized, while others cycle through studies.

“We study monkeys because their brains are wired very much like human brains,” Johnson said.

In Bainbridge, a town of about 14,000 in the southwest corner of Georgia, residents began to turn on the macaque project after the December vote.

Faircloth, a one of the main organizers of the Bainbridge pushback, turned her interior design office into a hub for community members fighting to, in their words, “Stop the Monkey Farm” — with signs, flyers and hats interspersed among flooring and fabrics. Many protested and spoke at town halls. Some set up a website and a Facebook group that has grown to more than a thousand members. And every Tuesday night, they get together and pray.

Safer Human Medicine intends to build multiple monkey enclosures on a property in rural Georgia. (Safer Human Medicine)

Residents have voiced concerns about the facility itself to the possibility that monkeys would escape — which has occasionally happened at other facilities in the U.S., including one run by Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, though with no reports of harm to nearby residents.

“We’re looking at a jungle: noise, stink and the possibility of diseases,” said Penny Reynolds, who lives across from the land set aside for the facility in Bainbridge.

Safer Human Medicine has assured residents that it would take every precaution to make sure all waste would be contained in its facilities and sent to the city wastewater treatment plant. It also said that most noise would stay within the facility and that there wouldn’t be a “noticeable smell.”

Greg Westergaard, the CEO of monkey breeder Alpha Genesis, says a lot goes into setting up monkey breeding facilities.

“There’s a lot of training involved; there’s a tremendous amount of infrastructure involved,” he said. “It’s going to smell, and you’re going to have runoff from the cleaning.”

Bainbridge residents have pointed to the backgrounds of some of Safer Human Medicine’s executives — two of whom previously served in leadership positions at companies that have come under scrutiny — as reasons to doubt their commitment.

Safer Human Medicine CEO Jim Harkness was the chief operating officer of Envigo, a company that pleaded guilty last week to neglecting thousands of dogs and agreed to pay a record $35 million fine. Chief Operating Officer Kurt Derfler left his job at Charles River Laboratories last year, just months after the Justice Department subpoenaed it as part of its investigation of possible wild monkey smuggling from Cambodia. Charles River Laboratories said at the time that any concerns about its role were “without merit.”

Neither Harkness nor Derfler was individually charged in relation to those cases.

Safer Human Medicine declined interview requests. It said by email, “Envigo was operating during unprecedented circumstances brought on by the pandemic.” It added, “We have been committed to operating responsibly and ethically for decades in this field and we will continue doing just that.”

A long-tailed macaque, also called cynomolgus macaques, climbs a pole in Indonesia in 2023. (Chaideer Mahyuddin / AFP via Getty Images file)

Safer Human Medicine said it wouldn’t be using wild-caught macaques — which can carry viruses like herpes B. The macaques would come from Asia, it said, without specifying where.

The community organizing in Bainbridge has moved the needle. Rick McCaskill, the executive director of the Development Authority of Bainbridge and Decatur County, said that what was once billed as a “tremendous investment” of almost $400 million and 260 jobs quickly turned sour. After backlash from the community arose, Bainbridge leaders voted in February to rescind their support for the Safer Human Medicine project.

“We felt like the divisiveness and the unrest in the community was outweighing the benefit of the project,” McCaskill said.

Research monkeys are bred at the seven National Primate Research Centers, each with its own breeding colony, as well as other facilities across the country. The National Primate Research Centers often use rhesus macaques, while pharmaceutical companies tend to use long-tailed macaques — the type Safer Human Medicine plans to breed.

There has been some movement away from animal testing for drug development, which was once required by the U.S. In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, allowing for alternatives to animals when possible. This year, several members of Congress introduced a bill to take it a step further — and facilitate a move away from animal research.

“It’s likely going to be a collection of alternatives, from AI to computer models to organs on a chip,” said Jim Newman, the communications director for Americans for Medical Progress, a group that advocates for medical testing on animals when needed. “But what we currently have available can only reduce animals by a certain amount.”

An artist's rendering of a planned monkey enclosure in Bainbridge, Ga. (Safer Human Medicine)

For now, researchers still depend on monkeys for some testing, and some animal researchers say the U.S. is experiencing a shortage of long-tailed macaques — reporting a more than 20% drop in imports in 2020 after China cut off its exports. They say prices for long-tailed macaques are skyrocketing.

Safer Human Medicine says it sees its planned facility as an answer to the shortage. It said it would start out with 500 to 1,000 monkeys and scale up. It said the money to build the facility would come from industry and private funding within the U.S. It wouldn’t share names.

It’s not entirely clear how much of the community is against the facility. Some local politicians who campaigned on opposing it didn’t win in recent elections, though it’s not apparent that their losses had anything to do with those positions.

Still, Faircloth said her group has no plans to back down.

“If we don’t stand up for our rights, then we’re just going to be rolled over,” she said. “We just can’t let that happen.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Washington state's Makah Tribe clears major hurdle toward resuming traditional whale hunts

GENE JOHNSON
Updated Thu, June 13, 2024








 Two Makah Indian whalers stand atop the carcass of a dead gray whale moments after helping tow it close to shore in the harbor at Neah Bay, Wash., May 17, 1999. Earlier in the day, Makah Indians hunted and killed the whale in their first successful hunt since voluntarily quitting whaling over 70 years earlier. The United States on Thursday, June 13, 2024 granted the Makah Indian Tribe in Washington state a long-sought waiver that helps clear the way for its first sanctioned whale hunts since 1999. 

(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, Fil

SEATTLE (AP) — The United States granted the Makah Indian Tribe in Washington state a long-sought waiver Thursday that helps clear the way for its first sanctioned whale hunts since 1999 and sets the stage for renewed clashes with animal rights activists.

The Makah, a tribe of 1,500 people on the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, is the only Native American tribe with a treaty that specifically mentions a right to hunt whales. But it has faced more than two decades of court challenges, bureaucratic hearings and scientific review as it seeks to resume hunting for gray whales.

The decision by NOAA Fisheries grants a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which otherwise forbids harming marine mammals. It allows the tribe to hunt up to 25 Eastern North Pacific gray whales over 10 years, with a limit of two to three per year. There are roughly 20,000 whales in that population.

The hunts will be timed in an effort to avoid harming endangered Western North Pacific gray whales that sometimes visit the area — about 200 to 300 remain — as well as a group of about 200 gray whales that generally spend summer and fall feeding along the Northwest coast.

Nevertheless, some hurdles remain. The tribe must enter into a cooperative agreement with the agency under the Whaling Convention Act, and it must obtain a permit to hunt, a process that involves a monthlong public comment period.

The Makah Tribe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Animal rights advocates, who have long opposed whaling, could also challenge NOAA's decision in court. DJ Schubert, a senior wildlife biologist with the Washington, D.C.-based Animal Welfare Institute, said his organization would object to the issuance of the hunt permit but likely wait until final approvals are given before deciding whether to sue.

He noted that while the Eastern North Pacific gray whale population appears healthy now, it has fluctuated wildly in recent years, and no one knows how the whales will fare as climate change continues to affect the Arctic. Scientists estimate that as much as 40% of the population died off from 2018 to last year before it began to recover.

“We completely respect the tribe's cultural practices and traditions,” Schubert said. “We just fundamentally disagree that they need to hunt whales to continue those traditions. We hope that as this decision-making process plays out, perhaps the Makah Tribe and the government could reconsider the need to hunt whales and advocate for protection instead of persecution.”

Archeological evidence shows that Makah hunters in cedar canoes killed whales for sustenance from time immemorial, a practice that ceased only in the early 20th century after commercial whaling vessels depleted the population.

By 1994, the Eastern Pacific gray whale population had rebounded, and they were removed from the endangered species list. Seeing an opportunity to reclaim its heritage, the tribe announced plans to hunt again.

The Makah trained for months in the ancient ways of whaling and received the blessing of federal officials and the International Whaling Commission. They took to the water in 1998 but didn’t succeed until the next year, when they harpooned a gray whale from a hand-carved cedar canoe. A tribal member in a motorized support boat killed it with a high-powered rifle to minimize its suffering.

It was the tribe's first successful hunt in 70 years.

The hunts drew protests from animal rights activists, who sometimes threw smoke bombs at the whalers and sprayed fire extinguishers into their faces. Others veered motorboats between the whales and the tribal canoes to interfere with the hunt. Authorities seized several vessels and made arrests.

After animal rights groups sued, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned federal approval of the tribe’s whaling plans. The court found that the tribe needed to obtain a waiver under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Eleven Alaska Native communities in the Arctic have such a waiver for subsistence hunts, allowing them to kill bowhead whales — even though bowheads are listed as endangered.

The Makah Tribe applied for a waiver in 2005. The process repeatedly stalled as new scientific information about the whales and the health of their population was uncovered.

Some of the Makah whalers became so frustrated with the delays that they went on a rogue hunt in 2007, killing a gray whale that got away from them and sank. They were convicted in federal court.

US finds Phoenix Police Dept violates civil rights of city residents

A BUSHEL OF BAD APPLES

Thu, June 13, 2024

 Police block protesters during a visit by U.S, President Donald Trump to the Dream City Church in Phoenix

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday took aim at the Phoenix Police Department, accusing its officers of systemically violating peoples' civil rights and using excessive and at times "unjustified deadly force" against city residents.

In a new investigative report, the Justice Department Civil Rights Division said it has reasonable cause to believe that police in Phoenix routinely discriminate against Black, Hispanic and Native Americans, and unlawfully detain homeless people and dispose of their belongings.

The report also found that the police frequently violate people's protected free speech, discriminate against people with behavioral disabilities and use aggressive tactics with children that could have a "lasting impact" on their wellbeing.

In a letter to Justice Department officials, Phoenix city attorney Julie Kriegh said that the city and its police department today are "materially different than the department" that was investigated.

"The Phoenix City Council has consistently, through meaningful dialogue with community members, invested in substantial public expenditures and proposed and approved significant projects," she wrote, citing the use of body-worn cameras and initiatives addressing homelessness and mental health.

The department's findings end a nearly three-year-long investigation, first announced in August 2021, that examined whether the Phoenix Police Department engaged in a "pattern or practice" of civil rights abuses.

"In the years leading up to our investigation, PhxPD officers shot and killed people at one of the highest rates in the country," the report found.

"PhxPD relies on dangerous tactics that lead to force that is unnecessary and unreasonable. PhxPD has taught officers a misguided notion of de-escalation. Rather than teaching that de-escalation strategies are designed to eliminate or reduce the need to use force, PhxPD has misappropriated the concept and teaches officers that all force—even deadly force—is de-escalation," the report said.

The report also found that police frequently retaliated against their own critics.

In one example, police created a so-called "challenge coin" that depicted the image of a protester whom an officer had shot in the groin.

The coin had a star over the image of the man's groin with the words: “Good night, left nut.”

On the back, the coin read, “Making America Great Again – One Nut at a Time.”

"Police officers abused their power to silence people asserting their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly," said Kristen Clarke, the head of the department's Civil Rights Division, during a virtual press conference.

The Justice Department's findings could possibly be met with some resistance by Phoenix city officials, who have declined prior requests by the department to enter into a court-monitored consent decree.

Some of the Justice Department's other high-profile civil rights investigations into police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville were spurred by police killings of unarmed Black citizens. The probe into Phoenix, by contrast, was not prompted by any single incident.

However, the report noted that in the years leading up to the investigation, Phoenix Police shot and killed people at one of the highest rates in the nation.

Thursday's report by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division was delivered to Phoenix without any agreement between the parties on how to implement policing reforms.

In a January 2024 letter to Justice Department officials, the city's outside counsel Michael Bromwich accused the department of a "lack of transparency" and failing to share any of the tentative conclusions from the investigation.

He added that the city was already implementing policing reforms and asked the Justice Department to consider an alternative approach to a consent decree.

Clarke on Thursday called the department's findings "severe."

She said the department is prepared to sit down with the city to identify a "mutually beneficial path" toward reform.

"This is one instance where we can't count on the police to police themselves," she said.

Phoenix City Manager Jeff Barton, in a message to employees, said the city was taking the findings seriously and will review the report "with an open mind."

"Self-reflection is an important step in continuous improvement," he wrote.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Josie Kao)

Phoenix police violated the rights of homeless residents and minority communities, scathing DOJ report finds

Hannah Rabinowitz and Devan Cole, CNN
Thu, June 13, 2024 


The Phoenix Police Department has for years violated the constitutional rights of residents experiencing homelessness and regularly discriminated against minority communities, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday.

Justice Department investigators found that Phoenix police targets “people experiencing homelessness, retaliates against people who criticize the police, and disproportionately uses force against people with behavioral health disabilities.”

The report also found that officers disproportionately enforce laws more severely against Black, Hispanic, and Native American people than against White people engaged in the same behaviors, even though “the city still claims it is ‘unaware of any credible evidence of discriminatory policing.’”

The blistering report marks the end of a nearly three-year investigation into the police department that began in the wake of several high-profile incidents, including the 2020 fatal police shooting of a man in a parked car.

This investigation was the first time that a department’s so-called pattern and practice investigation focused on officers’ conduct toward people experiencing homelessness – a clear warning for cities around the country where police sweeps of homeless communities have become a common response to the growth of tent cities in public spaces.

DOJ investigators found that “in the early mornings, officers cite or arrest homeless people for conduct that is plainly not a crime, such as sitting or lying down on public property or for ‘trespassing’ on private property when they are on a public sidewalk.”

Officers also repeatedly seized and destroyed the property of people experiencing homelessness under the guise of the city’s “clean-up operations,” according to the report.

“A person’s constitutional rights do not diminish when they lack shelter,” the report concludes.

Kristen Clarke, the head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, told reporters on Thursday that “homelessness is a challenge in Phoenix and in many cities across the country.”

“Over-policing of the homeless has become a central pillar of the (Phoenix) police department’s enforcement strategy,” she added. “The criminalization of homelessness has no place in our society today.”

How US cities have responded to a surge in unhoused residents has become a major flashpoint in recent years, prompting people experiencing homelessness and their advocates to push for greater accountability among local officials.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming days in a case challenging an Oregon city ticketing its unhoused residents. The justices have been asked to consider whether the practice violates the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.

The DOJ report acknowledges that the Phoenix Police Department has instituted several changes to address unconstitutional policing since the beginning of the federal investigation.

CNN is reaching out to the police department for comment.
DOJ report finds police used excessive force

The Phoenix Police Department frequently and inappropriately used deadly force, the report found, and has one of the highest rates of fatal shootings in the country per year.

Among the causes of Phoenix officers’ use of excessive force is that officers are taught a “misguided notion of de-escalation,” the report says.

“Rather than teaching that de-escalation strategies are designed to eliminate or reduce the need to use force, (the Phoenix Police Department) has misappropriated the concept and teaches officers that all force – even deadly force – is de-escalation,” the report reads.

Officers also delayed rendering aid to people whom they have shot, the report found, or continued to use force against those who were already incapacitated – sometimes even unconscious – because of gunfire.

In one example highlighted by the Justice Department, officers shot an individual in the chest who had pointed a handgun at police. A supervisor at the scene instructed officers to use a non-lethal weapon to give “a couple pops before we approach” the man, who had fallen to the ground, and then said that there was “no rush” in administering CPR. The man was later pronounced dead.

In other examples, officers were quick to physical violence or arrests when they felt that people were being disrespectful or criticizing the police.

Police officers have also used excessive force against protesters to deter First Amendment-protected speech, the report found, including by firing less-than-lethal weapons indiscriminately and without legal justification. Officers have used arrests to deter people from protesting, used criminal charges that were “far more serious than the evidence supported,” and have “sought to justify serious charges with false evidence.”

The police department’s “recent commitment to protecting free speech is important, but it would be premature to claim any new efforts are working,” the report adds.
Police target minority communities, report finds

The sprawling report also found that the Phoenix Police Department disproportionately polices the city’s minority communities, including through excessive tickets and arrests for less serious offenses.

The DOJ probe found that the department “cites and arrests Black, Hispanic, and Native American people for low-level traffic, drug, alcohol, and quality-of-life offenses at rates disproportionate to their shares of the population.”

The offenses cover a range of misconduct, according to the report, which said as an example that the department arrested “cyclists for biking on the wrong side of the road almost eight times more in predominantly non-white neighborhoods, compared with white neighborhoods.”

DOJ also said that the Phoenix Police Department lacked the ability to “adequately investigate” complaints from community members that an office acted with “overt bias.” Many complaints lodged against officers were classified by investigators at the department as “officer ‘rudeness,’” according to the report.

“In the vast majority of cases, (the police department) simply dismisses complaints of discriminatory policing absent evidence that an officer made an overtly racist statement or admitted to engaging in racist profiling,” the report found. “Since people are unlikely to admit to such things, (the department’s) practice of requiring this evidence means that these complaints will necessarily be given short shrift.”

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Missouri inmate convicted of killing couple is executed despite innocence claim

PRO-LIFE? ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY!

Abigail Brooks and Erik Ortiz
Updated Tue, June 11, 2024 



Missouri on Tuesday evening executed inmate David Hosier, who was convicted of a 2009 double murder and had maintained his innocence.

He was convicted in the September 2009 shooting deaths of a Jefferson City couple and was sentenced to death after a jury unanimously recommended that penalty.

“I’ve been able to speak the truth of my innocence. I’ve been able to set an example of resistance to lawyers who bully their clients,” Hosier said he planned to say in a final statement, which had been shared with NBC News. “I’ve been able to reminisce with family and friends new and old. I’ve been able to learn to be the fullest version of me.”


Hosier was executed by lethal injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m., said Karen Pojmann, spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Hosier, 69, said earlier that he also planned to thank his spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, who has been involved in other high-profile death row cases, including the first execution in the U.S. using nitrogen gas earlier this year.

His legal team didn’t respond to requests for comment before the execution.

In previous interviews from prison, Hosier told NBC News that he was frustrated over how his lawyers presented his clemency petition by focusing on his childhood and the effects on his mental state rather than the circumstances of the crime.

A 19-page clemency petition notes childhood trauma from the murder of his own father as a mitigating factor in Hosier's case. Hosier's father, Glen Hosier, was an Indiana state trooper who was killed in the line of duty when Hosier was 16.

"David fell into a lifelong depression, and while at times he seemed to be on the verge of some success, his mental health struggles would ultimately dictate his life's course," the petition said, while also underscoring his "record of service" by joining the Navy and becoming an EMT and firefighter as an adult.

Hosier said he disagreed with the angle his lawyers took.

"Fifty-three years ago, my dad was killed," he said. "I told them I didn't want any of that used. It doesn't have anything to do with this case."

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson rejected Hosier's clemency submission Monday, saying the execution would be carried out because "he displays no remorse for his senseless violence" and "earned maximum punishment under the law."

Hosier was convicted in the shooting deaths of Jefferson City couple Rodney and Angela Gilpin. He admitted to having an extramarital affair with Gilpin while she was separated from her husband.

But Gilpin ended the relationship with Hosier and she reconciled with her husband, according to court documents. A month later, prosecutors said Hosier broke into their apartment and killed the couple.

Prosecutors painted Hosier as a scorned ex-lover who was out for revenge, saying Gilpin's purse contained an application for a protective order against Hosier, as well as a document saying she was afraid Hosier might shoot her and her husband.

After the bodies were discovered, Hosier was arrested in Oklahoma, where law enforcement recovered 15 firearms, numerous rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest and a knife from his car. According to court documents, all of the guns were loaded except for a World War II-era submachine gun, which prosecutors said was the murder weapon. Ballistics testing results, however, had been "inconclusive," a criminalist testified at Hosier's trial.

There was also an incriminating note in the front seat of Hosier's car, prosecutors said, that read in part: "If you are going with someone do not lie to them" and "be honest with them if there is something wrong. If you do not this could happen to YOU!!”

Hosier said he wasn't trying to flee when he was arrested in Oklahoma, saying he liked going for long drives to clear his mind and often took his guns with him because he hunted.

"I know two people were killed. I know I got blamed for it," he told NBC News recently, adding that there were no eyewitnesses, fingerprints or DNA evidence tying him to the crime scene.

Hosier was convicted of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, first-degree burglary and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.

Hosier’s final meal, served at 11 a.m. Tuesday, was a New York strip steak, a baked potato with butter and sour cream, Texas toast, Dutch apple pie and orange juice and milk, the state Department of Corrections said.

In May, Hosier was moved from his prison to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, which causes a highly irregular pulse rate. During an interview from prison last week, he was winded and short of breath.

In his final words from the execution chamber, he intended to say, "I leave you all with love."

"Don't cry for me," his written statement says. "Just join me when your time comes."

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

In China’s Backyard, America Has Become a Humbler Superpower

Damien Cave
Thu, June 13, 2024

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive with India

Far from Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, as the Group of 7 wealthy democracies gathers in Italy to discuss a range of old, entrenched challenges, the nature of American power is being transformed across the region that Washington sees as crucial for the century to come: the Asia-Pacific.

Here, the United States no longer presents itself as the confident guarantor of security, a trust-us-we’ve-got-this superpower. The terrain is too vast, China’s rise too great a threat. So the United States has been offering to be something else — an eager teammate for military modernization and tech development.

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“In the past, our experts would talk about a hub-and-spokes model for Indo-Pacific security,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this month at a global defense conference in Singapore. “Today we’re seeing something quite different.”

In this new era, many countries are doing more, on their own and with U.S. help. For the first time, the United States is building nuclear-propelled submarines with Australia; involving South Korea in nuclear weapons planning; producing fighter jet engines with India; sharing maritime surveillance duties with small Pacific islands; and working with Japan on adding an offensive strike capability.

Behind the scenes, U.S. officials are also testing new secure communications systems with their partners. They’re signing deals to co-produce artillery with allies and to secure blood supplies from hospitals around the region in case of a conflict. They are also training with many more nations in more expansive ways.

These collaborations highlight how the region sees China. Many countries fear Beijing’s growing military strength and belligerence — its threats against the democratic island of Taiwan, its claim to most of the South China Sea and its land grab at the border with India. They are also less sure about China as an economic partner, with the slowing pace of its post-COVID economy and tilt away from pro-growth, pro-entrepreneur policies under Xi Jinping.

But are the countries linking arms with the United States making a long-term bet on America over China? Or are they recognizing their own rising strength and behaving like pragmatists, getting what they can from a fitful superpower where an increasing number of voters want the country to stay out of world affairs?

In interviews with more than 100 current and former officials from the United States and countries across the Indo-Pacific over the past year, many said that the next century was likely to be less dominated by America than the last. No matter who wins the next election or the one after that, they said, the nation responsible for today’s world order has been weakened by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the destabilizing effects of China’s rise on domestic manufacturing and its own internal divisions.

The world is changing, too, with more countries strong enough to shape events. And as the United States shares sensitive technology and prioritizes teamwork, many believe they are witnessing both a global reshuffling and an evolution in American power.

For now, they argue, the United States is adapting to a more multipolar world. It is learning to cooperate in ways that many Washington politicians, fixated on U.S. supremacy, do not discuss — with an admission of greater need and more humility.

America Diminished

The United States does not tower over the world like it used to.

Since World War II, the U.S. share of the global economy has been cut in half. That is mostly because of Asia’s steady economic rise. China alone produces around 35% of the world’s manufactured goods, three times the share of the United States. Japan, India and South Korea have also joined the top seven in terms of output, giving Asia more industrial heft than any other part of the world.

U.S. military superiority has been better maintained, but China, with a smaller budget and sharper focus on the Indo-Pacific, now has a larger navy by number of ships, a likely lead in hypersonic weapons and many more factories to expand military production if needed.

American democracy is also not what it once was, as measured merely by the declining number of bills that presidents have signed into law. The Republican Party has repeatedly held up budgets, drawing the president back from trips overseas, in addition to delaying aid for partners including Ukraine and Taiwan. Recent polls show that most Republicans want the United States to take a less active role in solving the world’s problems.

Yet both parties have struggled with how to tackle and talk about Asia’s shifting power dynamics and America’s limits.

“It goes back several administrations,” said James L. Jones, a retired Marine Corps general who served as national security adviser under President Barack Obama. “We’ve had a fairly long period of time where the United States has sent conflicting messages.”

The Obama administration promised a “pivot to Asia” that seemed to never come. The Trump administration’s foreign policy — with its mix of anti-China diatribes and abandonment of a major trans-Pacific free-trade deal — was seen by some countries as a sign of U.S. insecurity about the challenge from Beijing.

China had already become an economic colossus, the most important trade partner for most nations in the Indo-Pacific, and a major investor.

Countries across the region have also spent the past few decades producing millions of new middle-class consumers and expanding sophisticated industrial production, fueling a surge of regional trade that made the U.S. market less important while allowing more Asian nations to build tighter bonds.

Both confidence and anxiety have emerged from these broader trends. Military budgets across Asia have soared in recent years, and the demand for American defense technology has never been higher.

Yet many countries in the region now see themselves as players in an emerging multipolar order. “We are the main characters in our collective story,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines said during a keynote speech at the conference in Singapore. And as a result, they have turned to the United States less as a protector than a provider of goods (weapons), services (training) and investment (in new technology and equipment maintenance).

Japan has made the sharpest turn. From easing tensions with South Korea to pulling back from decades of pacifism with plans to sharply increase its military budget, to signing troop movement agreements with Australia and other countries, Tokyo has made clear that it now seeks a leading role in protecting regional stability. But even as Washington welcomes the move, Tokyo’s actions grow in part from a critical assessment of the United States.

During a joint exercise with the U.S. Air Force in Guam last year, Japanese commanders said they were expecting to become more active because Japan’s neighbors wanted Japan to do more, implying broad recognition that America’s future role was uncertain.

“The United States is no more what it used to be 20 years ago, 30 years ago,” said a senior Japanese intelligence official, who spoke on a condition of anonymity to avoid offending his American counterparts. “That’s the fact of the matter.”

“No matter who the next president is,” he added, “the role of the United States will be relatively diminished.”

America Adjusting

U.S. officials are aware of the world’s doubts. When told that some counterparts in Asia saw humility in the American response, a handful of Washington officials winced, as if lemon juice had been squeezed into their eyes. It sounded too much like weakness.

But some Pentagon leaders have been open about seeking what analysts describe as “co-everything” with partners — co-development, co-production, co-sustainment. And while U.S. officials have talked for decades about alliances in Asia, their tone and actions over the past few years point to a subtle shift, toward a more decentralized approach to security and greater candor about their concerns.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a speech in September that called for greater humility in foreign policy to face “challenges that no one country can address alone.”

Gen. David H. Berger, the Marine Corps’ top general until he retired last year, launched a sweeping plan in 2019 to counter China’s strengths by redistributing U.S. forces in Asia, shifting to smaller units that are now more mobile, with access to bases in many countries.

In Singapore, a senior defense official said the formula involves more capable nations, investing in themselves, in partnerships across the region, and in working with the United States, which now accepts that it need not be at the center of every relationship.

Hints of that humbler America can be seen in large, multinational military exercises, where other countries are playing bigger roles, and in smaller projects, such as a Pacific Fusion Center that opened last year in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. A data hub for maritime analysis of threats ranging from illegal fishing to Chinese encroachment, it had been conceived as a purely American operation until local partners demanded a role and U.S. officials backed down and brought them in.

India offers a more layered portrait of America’s evolution, pointing to sustained U.S. interest in long-term, comprehensive plans for working closely with an increasingly confident New Delhi — even if that means quieting down concerns about its democratic backsliding.

In interviews, some Indian officials said that a turning point arrived when the United States pulled out troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, leaving behind scenes of stunning chaos that suggested more input from the region would have been useful.

“The U.S. did very little consultation in the run-up to withdrawal, and started doing much more after that,” one senior Indian diplomat said.

In meetings at the U.S. Embassy in India’s capital, against a backdrop of congressional hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, U.S. officials softened and talked more about shared shades of gray in their democracies. Diplomats from both countries said concerns about the Indian government’s promotion of Hindu nationalism or suppression of dissent were sanded down to: “We have a lot of commonalities — extremism, hate speech, disinformation. How are you dealing with it?”

Along with a change in how U.S. officials talked about their own country came a broadening of how they saw India: not just as a huge market, with the world’s largest population, but also a multiplier for innovation.

India graduates more than 1.4 million engineers each year, on par with China. At a time when the United States has become worried about Chinese advances in electric vehicles, missiles, quantum computing and other technologies, India could offer a pool of talent to help keep up.

It all came together in a strategic defense and technology-focused agreement unveiled during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington in 2023.

New Delhi was most excited about the co-production of fighter jet engines, which it had been seeking for years. But the White House emphasized in its own announcement that with shared investment in everything from nuclear energy to microchips, “no corner of human enterprise is untouched” by a partnership that spans “the seas to the stars.”

Pushed by other countries, the United States may finally be learning that a humbler approach can yield powerful results, said Ryan Crocker, a retired diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon.

“A certain degree of humility does not mean weakness,” he said. “We can’t do it all, we shouldn’t do it all. We have these relations and alliances, let’s figure out who does what.”

The Risks of American Actions

In conversations about the United States with defense leaders from the Philippines, Japan, India, Australia and other countries, there is often a hint of happy customers reviewing a bazaar.

The United States under President Joe Biden has been selling and giving out quite a lot. Tomahawk missiles for Japan. Coast guard boats for Vietnam. Improved runways for the strategically located island nation of Palau. Training for seemingly everyone in Asia who asks.

Is there danger in all that generosity?

Some analysts fear that America’s effort to spread its wares across a more fragmented world adds to the sensitive touch points for brinkmanship with China, raising the risk of a misunderstanding that could become a conflict.

“Washington’s pursuit of an increasingly complex lattice of security ties is a dangerous game,” wrote Mike M. Mochizuki and Michael D. Swaine, two defense researchers in Washington, in a recent essay for The New York Times.

Clearly, Beijing is not happy about the growth of U.S. partnerships.

At the Singapore conference in early June, China’s defense minister, Dong Jun, railed against what he described as “exclusive military alliances” that he said “cannot make our region safer.”

But if one risk of America’s collective approach involves doing too much, possibly sparking a confrontation, another could involve the U.S. failing to lock in enough from its partners.

There is a lot of ambiguity in the coalitions that increasingly define American power in Asia. How would the region respond if the Philippines stumbled toward a violent clash in the South China Sea? Or in a war over Taiwan — a center of the global chip business that China sees as its own lost territory — would the countries co-developing military equipment with the United States, or welcoming longer runways, actually spring into action?

It is also not clear how Washington itself would respond to Chinese aggression. And that uncertainty, according to many, is what countries are desperate to understand as they pull America closer.

“In the over 40 years I’ve known the United States, I’ve seen you go through troughs of being overly self-critical and waves of hubris,” said Bilahari Kausikan, one of Singapore’s most experienced diplomats. “One should not make the mistake of believing either is a permanent condition.”

The challenge for Asia and the world, he added, is that the United States is increasingly dysfunctional and “still indispensable”: No other country does as much to protect the order that other nations and economies need.

What’s changed is that a growing number of U.S. officials now acknowledge that more assistance is needed, from more than just familiar allies. In a time of disorienting challenges — Gaza, Ukraine, China, North Korea, pandemics, climate change, artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons — their jobs now involve convincing others that humility can be as American as confidence and that it’s built into a strategy that will last, no matter who is president.

When Adm. John Aquilino, in his final days as the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, was asked what his typical day looked like during an event in Australia in April, he didn’t mention aircraft carriers, just allies.

“I spend a lot of time either on the phone, on email or on an airplane out to visit my partners,” he said.

Many of his counterparts in the region, he added, have each other’s numbers on speed dial.

c.2024 The New York Times Company

Family member speaks out after military veteran reveals in obituary he is gay

KATIE KINDELAN
Thu, June 13, 2024 

A military veteran who went on to serve as a firefighter and owned a local radio station revealed in his obituary that he was gay, a secret he said he held his entire life.

Col. Edward Thomas Ryan died at age 85 on June 1, the first day of Pride Month, his niece Linda Sargent told "Good Morning America."

After listing his career accolades and his survivors, Ryan's obituary, published June 8 in the Albany Times-Union, included a message that he wrote prior to his death.

"I must tell you one more thing. I was Gay all my life: thru grade school, thru High School, thru College, thru Life," the obituary reads. "I was in a loving and caring relationship with Paul Cavagnaro of North Greenbush. He was the love of my life. We had 25 great years together. Paul died in 1994 from a medical Procedure gone wrong. I'll be buried next to Paul."

Ryan's message continued, "I'm sorry for not having the courage to come out as Gay. I was afraid of being ostracized: by Family, Friends, and Co-Workers. Seeing how people like me were treated, I just could not do it. Now that my secret is known, I'll forever Rest in Peace."

PHOTO: Col. Edward Thomas Ryan served in the U.S. military, according to his obituary. (Courtesy Edward and Linda Sargent)

Sargent said her uncle, whom she called Uncle Ed and whom she cared for in his final years, spoke with her about the message he wanted to share after his passing.

"I said, 'Uncle Ed, if that's what you want to tell the world, tell the world that you're gay. Don't be ashamed of it,'" Sargent recalled. "He was a great man, and I'm just so sorry that he had to hide who he was."

Ryan lived most of his life in upstate New York, including Albany, where he died, and Rensselaer, where he was raised.

He attended a local Catholic church and was the youngest of six siblings, all of whom are now deceased, according to Sargent.


PHOTO: Edward Ryan, who died at age 85 on June 1, 2024, is pictured as a child. (Courtesy Edward and Linda Sargent)

Though Ryan was close with his family, Sargent said she does not remember him discussing his private life, including his sexual orientation.

"I think his siblings knew, but it was never spoken about," Sargent said.

Sargent said she never met the longtime partner, Cavagnaro, whom Ryan wrote about in his obituary. But she said she did hear her uncle talk in his final days about wanting to reunite with Cavagnaro after his death.

"He wanted to go home. He wanted to be with him, that I do know," Sargent said. "He never had another partner after that. He was the love of his life."

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Sargent said she believes Ryan feared facing backlash if he publicly discussed his sexual orientation earlier in life, especially due to his military service.

PHOTO: Col. Edward Thomas Ryan served in the U.S. military, according to his obituary. (Courtesy Edward and Linda Sargent)

As far back as World War II, the U.S. Department of Defense had a policy that "empowered the military to pursue -- or 'ask' -- service members suspected of engaging in homosexual acts," according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

It was only in 2010 that the subsequent "don't ask, don't tell" law -- which banned LGBTQ service members from serving openly in the military -- was repealed.

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Sargent said that because he was so private, Ryan declined to have military honors at his funeral and requested a very private farewell.

PHOTO: Edward Ryan is seen in a collage of photos from his life. (Courtesy Edward and Linda Sargent)

In the days since his obituary was published, Ryan's story has gone viral, which Sargent said she sees as a final "salute" for her beloved uncle.

"I talk to him, like, 'Uncle Ed, you don't even know what's going on down here. You don't know what your obituary did to people around the world. People are sending messages from all over,'" Sargent said, adding, "In a way, he got his salute and got to open doors for other people."

She continued, "Hopefully he's at peace."

 goodmorningamerica.com

To read the Col. Edward Thomas Ryan’s full obituary, click here.



Highly decorated Army colonel comes out as gay in obituary

Ehren Wynder
Thu, June 13, 2024 


June 13 (UPI) -- After living a life of secrecy, a decorated Vietnam veteran came out as gay in his obituary.

Army Col. Edward Thomas Ryan of New York, who recently lost a battle with intestinal cancer, disclosed his secret in a message in his obituary published on June 8 by the Albany Times Union.

"I must tell you one more thing,' the message read. "I was gay all my life: through grade school, through high school, through college, through life."

Despite keeping his sexuality hidden from most of the world, Ryan said in the obituary that he had a 25-year relationship with the "love of my life" Paul Cavagnaro.

The obit said Cavagnaro died in 1994 "from a medical procedure gone wrong."

After serving in the Army's 10th Brigade, Ryan went on to work as a firefighter and help found the radio station WHRL-FM in Albany.

For most of Ryan's military career, same-sex relations were grounds for discharge.

Despite being awarded several prestigious medals, including the National Defense Service Medal and the Defense of Liberty Medal for services rendered after the 9/11 terrorist attack, he feared being ostracized by family, friends and colleagues.

"Seeing how people like me were treated, I just could not do it," his letter read. "Now that my secret is known, I'll forever rest in peace."

His nephew, Joseph Ryan, told the New York Post that his uncle's sexuality, and his relationship with Cavagnaro, was something of an open secret in the family.

"They would go on vacation. Once he did retire, he would take a month off, and they would just put down where they wanted to go, any place in the world," he said.

"So, we kind of knew, but he wasn't one that would come right out and say anything ... Our family isn't one that tries to say anything about people."

Joseph Ryan said his uncle's final message was a long time coming, but it's especially significant that it happened during Pride Month.

"He was quiet, but he was bold. It's been inside him all this time," he said.

Days after his obituary was published, about 150 people wrote messages of support for the late Ryan.

"May you rest peacefully in the arms of your forever love. I'm so sorry that you never felt safe to be your authentic self," one person said. "Your bravery followed you beyond death."

Another person wrote of Ryan, "a fine American. A life of service that continues with his final wishes to share his truth so others may learn of love."

Ryan, who presumably contracted intestinal cancer from exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, had donated his body to the Anatomical Gift Program at Albany Medical College.

After medical study on his cadaver, his remains will be cremated and buried alongside Cavagnaro.


Veteran comes out as gay in moving obituary: ‘Now that my secret is known, I’ll forever rest in peace’

Samantha Kubota
Thu, June 13, 2024 

After a lifetime of secrecy, a decorated veteran came out as gay in his obituary.

Col. Edward Thomas Ryan, who is said to have lived most of his life in Rennselaer, New York, was a brother, uncle, retired firefighter and Army veteran. He also was gay, the late Ryan wrote in his own obituary.

The obituary, published by the Albany Times Union on June 8, 2024, ended with a message written by Ryan himself.

"I must tell you one more thing. I was Gay all my life: thru grade school, thru High School, thru College, thru Life," he revealed, adding that he found love in a relationship with a man from North Greenbush, New York.

"He was the love of my life," Ryan wrote. "We had 25 great years together."

Ryan went on to say that his love died in 1994 "from a medical procedure gone wrong" and that he will be buried next to him.

Ryan concluded by explaining why he did not come out in his lifetime.

"I’m sorry for not having the courage to come out as Gay," he wrote. "I was afraid of being ostracized: by Family, Friends, and Co-Workers. Seeing how people like me were treated, I just could not do it. Now that my secret is known, I’ll forever Rest in Peace."

The obituary included a painting of a man, seemingly Ryan, in his military uniform.

By the evening of June 12, around 150 people had written messages of support for the late veteran in the obituary's comments section.

"May you rest peacefully in the arms of your forever love. I’m so sorry that you never felt safe to be your authentic self," one person responded. "Your bravery followed you beyond death."

"A fine American. A life of service that continues with his final wishes to share his truth so others may learn of love," another commented.

"Sir, I am so sorry that you had to live a life in secret," another responder wrote. "No one should ever have to wait until death to be happy. May your soul and spirit live on in happiness with your true love. Humanity can be so unkind to the kindest individuals. May you and your soulmate continue your love without judgment and boundaries."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com


New York Veteran Comes Out as Gay in His Obituary, Says He Can Now 'Forever Rest in Peace'

Brian Brant

PEOPLE
Wed, June 12, 2024


Col. Edward Thomas Ryan said he wished he had the courage to come out in his lifetime, but "was afraid of being ostracized"

Hans Funeral HomeCol Edward Thomas Ryan

A veteran from New York can rest easy knowing his loved ones finally know his truth.

"I must tell you one more thing. I was Gay all my life," Col. Edward Thomas Ryan wrote towards the end of his obituary, which was published on Saturday, June 8, in the Albany Times Union.

He also shared that he was "in a loving and caring relationship" with a man named Paul Cavagnaro, whom he referred to as "the love of my life."

"We had 25 great years together," he wrote, sharing that his beloved "died in 1994 from a medical Procedure gone wrong" and that they'll be buried together.

As for why he kept such an important part of himself a secret, Ryan wrote that he was "sorry for not having the courage to come out as Gay."

"I was afraid of being ostracized: by Family, Friends, and Co-Workers. Seeing how people like me were treated, I just could not do it," he wrote. But, he added, "now that my secret is known, I'll forever Rest in Peace."

Related: My Coming Out Story

In addition to serving with the Army’s 10th Brigade, Ryan was a retired fireman in Rensselaer and one of the owners and founders of the radio station WHRL-FM in Albany, per his obituary.

His military service led to a litany of honors, including the National Defense Service Medal and the Defense of Liberty Medal for "participation to the State following the attack on America, 11 September 2001."

Ryan's body will be donated to science at the Anatomical Gift Program at Albany Medical College, according to the obituary. His body will then be cremated and his ashes returned to his loved ones.

Hans Funeral HomeCol. Edward Thomas Ryan

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"He will be buried in Kinderhook, N.Y," the tribute noted. "The funeral will be private for Family only with no Memorial Services of any kind."

Ryan had five siblings and is survived by 14 nieces and nephews, according to his obituary.

Related: YouTube Star Reflects on Coming Out to Dad in Viral Video with Twin: 'We're All So Much Closer'

On the online version of his obituary, many praised the man for revealing his truth.

"Col. Ryan I am honored that you finally felt safe enough to finally share your most intimate truth," wrote one individual. "Peace and glory to you."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Added another, "You are a hero, in no simple terms! Thank you for all you did to provide help, care and love to people in need. If more people would understand, what an amazing world we would live in! Thank you for telling your truth. Rest peacefully sir."


Veteran comes out as gay in obituary, can now ‘forever rest in peace’

Celeste Houmard
Thu, June 13, 2024 

ALBANY, N.Y. (WJW) – A New York veteran can “forever rest in peace” after coming out as gay in his obituary.

Col. Edward Thomas Ryan, Ret. had a special message for his loved ones after his death.

“I must tell you one more thing. I was gay all my life. Through grade school, through high school, through college, through life,” the obituary said.

Ryan, who lived in Albany, New York, had five siblings and was survived by many nieces and nephews.

He was a member of St. John’s Church in Rensselaer, a retired fireman in the City of Rensselaer, one of the owners and founders of radio station WHRL-FM and was a chef at the East Greenbush, American Legion Post #1231.

According to the obituary, Ryan said he was in a “loving and caring” relationship with a man named Paul Cavagnaro of North Greenbush for 25 years.

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“He was the love of my life. We had 25 great years together. Paul died in 1994 from a medical procedure gone wrong. I’ll be buried next to Paul,” the obituary said.

The obituary ended with an apology for Ryan not having the courage to come out sooner.

“I’m sorry for not having the courage to come out as Gay. I was afraid of being ostracized: by Family, Friends, and Co-Workers. Seeing how people like me were treated, I just could not do it. Now that my secret is known, I’ll forever Rest in Peace,” he said.

According to the obituary, Ryan had a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business from North American University and a Bachelor of Science degree from SCU.

He was a member of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a life member of the Vietnam Veterans of America, a life member and Past Grand Knight of Rensselaer Knights of Columbus and more.

Ryan was a retired Colonel with the 10th Brigade, located on South Lake Ave, N.Y.C.

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His military service led to a litany of honors, including the National Defense Service Medal and the Defense of Liberty Medal “for participation to the State following the attack on America, 11 September 2001.”

According to the obituary, Ryan’s body will be donated to science through the Anatomical Gift Program at Albany Medical College. His ashes will then be returned to the family.

After his obituary was posted online, Ryan was praised and honored by more than 250 commenters who were touched by his coming out story.

“Rest easy. Thank you for your service and know on the other side you have so much love and support. I hope your reunion with your love was everything you wished for and more,” one commenter said.

“Thank you for your service, sir. I wish you had gotten to live your truth amongst friends and family. You were a true hero,” another commenter said.

India’s opposition leveraged caste and constitution to shock Modi in election

Shivangi Acharya and Krishn Kaushik
Thu, June 13, 2024 




 Awadhesh Prasad greets his supporters inside his house in Ayodhya


By Shivangi Acharya and Krishn Kaushik

AYODHYA/VARANASI, India (Reuters) - A seminal moment in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's unsuccessful campaign to retain his parliamentary majority occurred days before India's marathon election began in April.

Speaking in the constituency that includes the Hindu temple town of Ayodhya, lawmaker Lallu Singh said that his and Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was seeking a supermajority in parliament's lower chamber to make material changes to the constitution.

Opposition parties latched onto Singh's remark to assert, without evidence, that the BJP would amend modern India's founding document to strip Hindus at the bottom of the caste hierarchy of access to affirmative action policies.

The attack line hit a nerve - splitting the Hindu vote and ending the BJP's decade-long dominance in the country's most populous state.

Opinion polls had pointed to a landslide in Ayodhya's home state of Uttar Pradesh and nationally but when results came through on June 4, the BJP had lost 29 seats in the state - nearly half of all the party's losses nationwide.

"It hit the people like fire," said Awadhesh Prasad of the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP), whose base comprises Muslim and lower-caste voters in Uttar Pradesh. He successfully wrested the constituency anchored by Ayodhya from Singh, who had held it since 2014.

Despite the BJP's best efforts to debunk the emerging narrative, the damage was done.

"The prime minister and other leaders tried to explain to the people, but by then their mood was set," said Dileep Patel, a state BJP official in Varanasi. Singh declined to comment.

Reuters interviewed 29 party leaders and workers from the BJP and rival parties, four analysts and 50 voters for this story. They described how lower caste concerns about affirmative action, along with a shortage of jobs, and complacent BJP activists combined to tip the scales in Uttar Pradesh, which sends the most lawmakers to parliament.

After a decade of electoral near-invincibility that combined economic success with a narrative of Hindu supremacy, Modi's party was reduced to 240 seats nationwide. He was able to form a third government only with the help of allies, some of whom have a reputation for political fickleness.

It was a reminder that BJP cannot take Hindu votes for granted.

THE SUPERMAJORITY CALL

Ayodhya was supposed to be the safest of seats.

In January, Modi inaugurated a grand temple there to the deity Lord Ram in a ceremony that sparked national euphoria. It also fulfilled a decades' long pledge used by the BJP to rise from India's political margins into a major force.

Singh's speech made no mention of taking benefits from lower castes and Modi's aides have frequently downplayed concerns about changes to the constitution, which guarantees school and government job quotas to historically disadvantaged castes and tribal groups, both still among India's poorest.

But it quickly spread on social media, fuelling an opposition campaign.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav wrote on social media that the BJP wanted to end the quota system and keep underprivileged segments of society "as their slaves."

At election rallies, Yadav's ally and the opposition's main figurehead, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party, began whipping out a pocket-sized copy of the constitution, warning it was under threat.

The message was echoed in media advertisements and by the regional party's workers in Uttar Pradesh, which a SP spokesperson described as 600,000 strong.

India's castes have co-existed uneasily with each other for millennia.

The BJP was long considered a bastion of upper-caste Hindus, but Modi, who belongs to a lower caste, had previously made inroads with marginalised groups, according to analysis by the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).

He has sought to unite Hindus by shifting focus from traditional notions of caste, instead putting the spotlight on the poor, youths, farmers and women - which he calls the four biggest castes in modern India. In power, Modi successively backed a man from a lower caste and a woman from a tribal group for India's largely symbolic presidency.

A relatively united Hindu vote in the last two national elections allowed the BJP to sideline India's nearly 200 million Muslims and overcome longstanding concerns around unemployment, inflation and rural distress.

Sandeep Shastri, coordinator of a program on Indian elections at CSDS said the number of people voting primarily on Hindu ideology appeared to have plateaued in 2019.

This year, BJP won just 54 of the 131 seats reserved for candidates from underprivileged groups, down from 77 in 2019. It won eight of the 17 reserved seats in Uttar Pradesh, compared to 14 the last time.

Dharmendra Yadav, a 30-year-old in Varanasi constituency who comes from a lower caste, said he believed the BJP "would have ended the reservations."

"When the opposition raised the issue of the constitution, it just verified it for us," said Dharmendra, whose surname indicates a caste affiliation with the SP's Akhilesh, who he is not related to.

Dharmendra previously backed the BJP but went for the opposition this year.

"Caste politics still has a major influence in the Hindi belt," state BJP official Patel said, referring to states across central India that have been BJP's stronghold since 2014.

WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

Surveys suggest Modi remains the world's most popular elected leader.

But this year, Modi's personal majority in his seat, centred around the holy city of Varanasi, shrank by more than 300,000. He retained his constituency with the lowest margin of any sitting premier in over three decades.

"The BJP heavily relied on the prime minister's leadership to ... win votes and also maybe to camouflage problems that people are facing," said researcher Shastri.

Among those problems is a lack of jobs created over the past decade.

Young voters like Dharmendra had backed BJP in a landslide in 2014, when Modi promised to create 20 million jobs a year nationwide. The pledge has not been fulfilled.

Dharmendra said he had taken numerous exams for white-collar government jobs, highly prized for their security and benefits. In February, nearly 4.6 million people applied for 60,000 constable vacancies in Uttar Pradesh, only to have the BJP-run state government cancel the exam after the test was leaked online.

Banaras Hindu University political science professor Ashok Upadhyay said the exam leak, which was not the first and was repeated in March, gave young Indians, who have grown up in an increasingly unequal country, a sense that the job selection process was unfair.

Adding to the BJP's electoral missteps, some voters and BJP leaders said the party faltered because they had assumed another landslide victory and were dismissive of issues that were important to voters.

DON'T WANT VOTES?

The redevelopment of Ayodhya into a temple town was preceded by the demolition of thousands of homes and stores. Nearly two dozen locals, including BJP supporters, told Reuters they were dissatisfied with the compensation offered.

A SP voter who identified himself by his first name of Shakti said he was part of a group that had lobbied BJP leaders for support.

"They said they didn't want these 10,000 to 20,000 votes from local businessmen, they would win anyway," he said.

Another Ayodhya trader confirmed Shakti's account and local BJP leader Veerchand Manjhi said he had also found it difficult to get locals' issues addressed by authorities.

District magistrate Nitish Kumar said in response to Reuters questions that the compensation process was fair.

Ratan Sharda, a senior leader of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP's ideological parent, wrote in the June 16 issue of its "Organiser" magazine that the result was a "reality check."

BJP activists and leaders were "happy in their bubble, enjoying the glow reflected from Modiji’s aura, they were not listening to the voices on the streets," he wrote.

BJP RESILIENCE?

The BJP retains many strengths, including a leader with popular backing across the party, control of Uttar Pradesh's state government and the backing of the influential RSS, said Delhi University professor Chandrachur Singh.

Analysts such as CSDS's Sanjay Kumar noted that the BJP did well in states where there wasn't a strong local party like the SP in Uttar Pradesh, which was able to capitalise on regional discontent.

And while Congress tried to nationalise its message that the BJP posed a threat to affirmative action, caste-based messaging held less appeal in urbanising India's many cities. "In urban areas, caste is overridden by class identities," Singh said.

The BJP's Patel said that the party had launched a detailed review of the loss and was confident of winning state elections in Uttar Pradesh that are due by 2027.

"The BJP either wins, or it learns," a BJP worker in Ayodhya told Reuters.

(Reporting by Shivangi Acharya in Ayodhya and Krishn Kaushik in Varanasi; Additional reporting by Rupam Jain, Krishna N. Das and Saurabh Sharma; Editing by Katerina Ang)


Clip shared with false claim 'Pakistan flag hoisted' after opposition won in Indian mega-state

AFP India
Thu, June 13, 2024

A video of a religious flag atop a truck has been shared in posts that falsely claimed residents of Bareilly city in India's Uttar Pradesh state waved the flag of Muslim-majority Pakistan to celebrate the failure of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to secure a majority in the state after the country's general election. The flag in the video differs from Pakistan's national flag, and the video circulated online weeks before the results of India's marathon national polls were announced.

"Bareilly became Pakistan!!" read part of a Hindi-language post shared on social media platform X on June 5, 2024.

"As soon as Samajwadi Party won 37 seats in Uttar Pradesh, people from the peace loving community in Bareilly waved the flag of Pakistan," the post continued, using a phrase that Hindu hardliners sarcastically employ to refer to Muslims.

A video attached to the post shows people sitting atop a truck waving a green flag that bears the star and crescent moon symbol of Islam.

Superimposed on the video is an image of Pakistan's national flag, and a person speaking over the footage says: "The Pakistan flag is waving in Bareilly, policemen are also standing there."

Screenshot of the false X post, captured on June 6, 2024

The post surfaced after the results of India's marathon general election were announced, showing that the opposition Samajwadi Party had won more seats than Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP in Uttar Pradesh -- India's most populous state and a bellwether for national elections

It was the first time in 15 years that the BJP had failed to win the most seats in the state, the heartland of India's majority faith that had formed the bedrock of the BJP's parliamentary strength.

Modi will remain in office but with a substantially reduced mandate and needing to rely on coalition allies to govern.

The video was also shared with similar claims elsewhere on X and on Facebook.

But it does not show people in Bareilly waving Pakistan's national flag.
Not Pakistan's flag

The flag shown in the video is different to Pakistan's national flag; it does not have a vertical white stripe close to the hoist and the star and crescent symbol faces in the opposite direction.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the flag in the video (left) and a picture of Pakistan's national flag from AFP's archives (right):

Screenshot comparison of the flag in the video (left) and a picture of Pakistan's national flag from AFP's archives (right)

Moreover, a reverse image search of keyframes followed by keyword searches led to the same footage posted by an Instagram user on May 19 (archived link).

The Instagram post was shared more than two weeks before the results of India's weeks-long general election were announced on June 4.

A representative for Bareilly's police force told AFP the video "has no connection with the results" of the poll.

The officer said the video is from a religious procession that took place in 2023.

"The flag seen in the video is not the flag of Pakistan but is related to the religion of Islam."

AFP has debunked more misinformation around India's elections here.

China overlooks Milei's rhetoric, hands Argentina US$35 billion lifeline

South China Morning Post
Thu, Jun 13, 2024,


China has agreed to renew currency swap tranches worth 35 billion yuan (about US$5 billion) with Argentina's central bank until July 2026, the South American country's monetary authorities announced on Wednesday.

According to a statement from the Central Bank of Argentina, the institution will gradually reduce the activated value of the swap over this period, with the aim of deactivating it completely by the end of the contract.

The authorities emphasised that the agreement - originally signed in 2020 and activated last year - is crucial for managing the balance of payments flows at a critical time.

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China first signed a renminbi-based swap agreement with Argentina in 2009 and has since expanded the arrangements on at least three occasions.

When Beijing agreed to activate the swap in 2023, Argentina was facing a severe dollar shortage exacerbated by a devastating drought that severely affected soya plantations and caused exports to fall to their lowest level in 20 years.

However, there was uncertainty about whether China would authorise another renewal because of the contentious relationship between the two countries since the self-described "radical libertarian" Javier Milei took office as president in December.

Milei previously vowed to sever ties with Beijing in favour of what he described as the "civilised side of the world." He has also broken off negotiations to buy Chinese JF-17 fighter jets in favour of second-hand US F-22 fighter jets from Denmark.

The swap's imminent expiry with no details on its renewal intensified market turbulence in recent weeks.

The tense relationship between Milei and the Chinese government left open the possibility that Beijing could delay the renewal and force Argentina to pay at least part of the US$5 billion.

Without the swap renewal, Buenos Aires would have to cover at least part of the amount, depleting the country's already low foreign exchange reserves and hampering the Central Bank's ability to receive new disbursements.


Argentina's President Javier Milei. Photo: Reuters alt=Argentina's President Javier Milei. Photo: Reuters>

These fears interrupted the upwards trend of Argentine bonds, which had performed well since the beginning of the year, causing them to fall by more than 10 per cent between the end of May and the beginning of June, local newspaper Clarin reported.

"The extension until July 2026 of the activated portion of the currency swap will allow the Central Bank of Argentina to continue to reduce the risks it faces during the current economic transition, which began in December 2023, towards a consistent and sustainable monetary and exchange rate regime," it said.

"In this way, cooperation between the two monetary institutions, which began in 2009, has been renewed and the financial and economic ties between the two countries were strengthened."

Argentina's Foreign Minister Dina Mondino reacted briefly to the news on social media platform X, announcing the renewal of the swaps and adding Chinese and Argentina flag emojis, as well as a handshake emoji.

Mondino visited Beijing in April, where she met China's Vice-President Han Zheng, primarily to discuss the swap agreements.

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