Friday, August 16, 2024

Builders in Solidarity A rambunctious Russian-speaking union shakes up Sweden’s labor movement

 August 16, 2024
Source: Meduza



Sweden is usually outside of The Beet’s purview, but the migrant workers at the heart of its growing shadow economy are not. In the construction sector in particular, many of these migrants hail from the countries that emerged from the Soviet Union’s collapse and they still use Russian as their lingua franca. To fight for their rights and combat exploitation, hundreds of these workers have formed Builders in Solidarity (Solidariska Byggare, in Swedish). Freelance journalist Volodya Vagner reports on this rapidly growing Russian-speaking union shaking up the Swedish labor movement.

This story first appeared in The Beet, a weekly email dispatch from Meduza covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Sign up here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.

“I’ll happily distribute some of your flyers, but only if they’re translated into Ukrainian,” proclaims a middle-aged woman sitting in a packed meeting hall in central Stockholm. The man she addresses, 46-year-old construction worker Ivan Semenov, stands on stage in front of the crowd, holding up a Russian-language leaflet with information about labor rights in Sweden. He had just asked the roughly 100 attendees of this Russian-language union meeting to distribute the pamphlet in their neighborhoods.

“Okay, how about this,” Semenov suggests calmly. “Anyone who wants to translate it into their preferred language is welcome to do so. And in the meantime, those who want to can start spreading this Russian version.” As the meeting ends, several workers from various corners of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia grab copies of the flyer as they shuffle past.

Born in Mariupol, Semenov used to work as a business developer in Donetsk. When war came to Ukraine in 2014, he and his family were forced to flee due to his involvement in pro-Maidan activism. In one traumatic episode early in the conflict, Semenov was almost busted at a separatist checkpoint. Luckily for him, the 500 Ukrainian flags in the trunk of his car remained undiscovered.

After stopovers in Kyiv, western Ukraine, and Estonia, Semenov moved to Sweden with his wife and daughter in 2021. Now, he works as a roofer in a Swedish construction sector where the exploitation of migrant workers, like himself, is an increasingly rampant problem. “To put it in plain Russian, there’s a whole industry of screwing people over,” Semenov says.

Builders in Solidarity

In some sectors of the Swedish economy, particularly in construction, what’s commonly referred to as “labor market criminality” has become endemic, and the question of how to combat it is near the top of the country’s political agenda.

Migrant workers often fall prey to subcontractors who have learned to game the system, exploiting their employees’ lack of familiarity with the local language and rules. Often hired under informal arrangements, workers are paid in cash, frequently cheated out of wages entirely, fired on a whim, and denied legally mandated benefits. Migrants from former Soviet countries are frequently found among both the culprits and victims of such exploitation.

A peculiarity of the Swedish system facilitates these schemes: traditionally, the state doesn’t oversee labor relations. Instead, the country’s labor unions are supposed to collaborate with employer organizations to regulate wages, ensure decent working conditions, and enforce compliance. This so-called “Swedish model” is meant to ensure that organized labor holds the power rather than politicians.

But for migrants who have been cheated or mistreated on the job, it means they can rarely expect support from the police. Instead, the authorities typically refer those seeking help to labor unions. Sweden’s more well-established and powerful unions, however, have long forgotten how to handle informal, precarious labor and have done little to organize migrants, who, in turn, often don’t see the point of joining a union.

This is especially true of migrants from post-Soviet countries who seldom have had positive experiences of unions helping them achieve justice.

Semenov had never belonged to a labor union before coming to Sweden. Now, he sits on the board of the country’s most rapidly growing and undoubtedly most unique labor union: Builders in Solidarity. Founded in 2021, it unites migrant construction workers, most of whom hail from post-Soviet countries and have no previous labor organizing experience.

The project came about after Russian-speaking Swedish writer and activist Pelle Sunvisson posed as a migrant from Moldova and spent several months working construction while researching for a novel. Appalled by the exploitation he witnessed, Sunvisson turned to the Stockholm chapter of SAC, a small but feisty syndicalist union guided by libertarian socialist ideals, which has been around for more than a century. Aided by Sunvisson’s language skills and contacts among workers, the syndicalists soon attracted a growing number of exploited migrants. And as their cases piled up, Builders in Solidarity was founded as an independent chapter.

By confronting exploitative employers with aggressive litigation and long-forgotten methods of struggle, like blockading the construction sites of contractors with wage debts, the union has managed to redistribute millions of dollars in unpaid wages and damages. With nearly 1,000 members, Swedish labor market experts are celebrating Builders in Solidarity as a model for how to tackle the issue of migrant labor exploitation.

Unity in pragmatism

With its members hailing from practically every single one of the Soviet Union’s successor states, Builders in Solidarity has also become a microcosm of post-Soviet labor migration — with all the nuances of language, politics, and identity that entails.

“Personally, I’ve never seen a problem in the language thing,” Semenov says. “The more you know, the better,” he adds. Back in Donetsk, Semenov was happy to send his son to a Ukrainian-language school. As part of his activism, he runs popular Russian-language channels on YouTube and TikTok called “Sweden for Dummies,” where he explains Swedish labor rights, among other things.

“If a Lithuanian and an Estonian can speak to one another in Russian about their shared hatred for Russia, why shouldn’t we use it as a tool?” Semenov laughs. “After all, I want the Uzbeks and the Kyrgyz to understand, too.”

It’s a pragmatic approach that most of the union’s members seem to embrace, including when it comes to other, potentially thorny issues, like the ideology of its parent organization SAC. The organization’s offices, which Builders in Solidarity also uses for its meetings, are adorned with posters advocating internationalist class struggle, antifascism, and feminist values. “My sense is that most members either aren’t aware of SAC’s anarcho-syndicalist orientation or understand little about it,” says 53-year-old Nikolay Olishevskiy, a Builders in Solidarity board member from the Riga suburb of Jūrmala.

Like most members, Olishevskiy joined the union to help resolve a workplace conflict. But he happily agreed to join the board because he’s long been a convinced anarchist. In contrast, most of his fellow union members don’t have such a clear-cut political stance. “When they encounter something reminiscent of the USSR, like the melodies of certain songs or rhetoric of class struggle, they may be puzzled by this. But they quickly brush it aside and accept it as an inevitable quirk, the way anyone from the region has learned to accept the peculiarities of any organization or state structure they may have had to deal with,” Olishevskiy explains.

When Builders in Solidarity marched at the front of Stockholm’s radical May Day parade this spring, some members had mixed feelings about the rainbow flags other participants waved, Semenov recalls. “What I tell people is, look, that’s not our concern, just as we don’t have theological discussions over whose religion is most correct,” he says with a smirk.

This pragmatism seems to work surprisingly well despite the geopolitical conflicts — hypercharged by questions of culture and identity — raging across the members’ home countries. But that’s not to say the union shies away from engaging with the most sensitive issue of all — Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In the spring of 2022, as Ukraine mobilized several union members who happened to be in the country when Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled in, Builders in Solidarity raised funds to support them and their families.

According to Mikhail, a construction engineer in his thirties who grew up in a Moscow suburb but left Russia out of disgust for the war, most of the union’s members are sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause. “The few exceptions that may exist certainly don’t voice their views,” he says. (Mikhail declined to share his last name for fear of reprisals against his family.)

Mikhail’s friend and fellow union member, Artem Siver, who fled his home city of Konotop in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region in the spring of 2022, shares this view. “As far as I can tell, all the other members, whether from Russia or Belarus, are reasonable guys. They all understand the situation, that people are dying, and just how painful and incomprehensible it all is,” the 39-year-old carpenter says.

‘Others need help too’

A tragic irony affecting some union members is that Sweden’s pro-Ukrainian foreign policy is not always reflected in its migration policy. On the contrary, it sometimes works hand in glove with both exploitative employers and repressive regimes.

For one undocumented Belarusian member, the Swedish Migration Agency recently added insult to literal injury by sending him back to Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime. The worker, who had been injured and exploited on the job, was detained while visiting a police station as part of a drawn-out legal battle with his former employer. His appeals to the Swedish authorities to spare him deportation (given that he could face persecution in Belarus for supporting Ukraine’s defense in both word and deed) fell on deaf ears. Though he crossed the border without incident, he now fears the Belarusian security services may yet find evidence of his “treasonous” convictions.

Union members from notoriously remittance-dependent Central Asian countries face problems of their own. With Russia becoming a less attractive option for those hoping to support their families from abroad, increasing numbers of Kyrgyz and Uzbek workers have come to Sweden in recent years. However, many of them lack legal status in the country.

“I don’t want to go to Russia,” Namazbek Botaliev, a tile-layer recently deported from Sweden, told the SAC-affiliated magazine Arbetaren last fall. At the time, despite living on the shores of Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk-Kul, he remained a member of Builders in Solidarity, partly because the union was still fighting for his unpaid wages. “In Russia, they would say, ‘If you want to live here, why won’t you go to war?’ — but why should I fight against Ukrainians?” he said. Botaliev hopes to be able to return to Sweden, one day.

Semenov, Olishevskiy, and Mikhail believe the most pronounced divide among members has nothing to do with ideology or identity, but rather with attitudes towards the foundational principle of union organizing — solidarity. In their opinion, much of the problem lies in the individualist ethos most members were socialized into in their home countries.
                                    
Both Mikhail and Semenov point to the contrast between the social norms they grew up with and those prevalent in Sweden. “There’s this view that what’s within my apartment is mine and what’s outside my door is not. In Sweden, everything is your home: your city, your street, your sea, your forest, which is why people don’t litter. That’s not how it works in Russia,” Mikhail says.

For Semenov, a traffic analogy best sums up the difference. “Here, drivers respect the turning lane, which means traffic flows smoothly. Where I’m from, that doesn’t work, because people squeeze ahead, feeling smart for having cheated the system. But when everyone does it, you get gridlock and everyone loses in the end,” he laughs, shaking his head. According to both him and Mikhail, this rationale also colors their countrymen’s initial view of unionism.

“For now, most people join the union because they have a concrete problem,” Semenov explains. “Once their problem is solved, they say thanks a lot, but I don’t want to keep paying dues. They look at the union as a service provider.” He says part of his motivation as an activist is the hope that the union’s help may trigger reflection and spread courage of conviction among other workers.

For some, this has happened already. “As my case was being fought, I was thankful that, whatever the result, the union was fighting for me to get justice in a world where there is very little of that,” recalls Mikhail. “I made a decision that while I wait for the result of my case, I will try and help others win theirs.”

In the year it took for the union to win Mikhail’s case, securing him roughly $5,000 in unpaid wages, he participated in several blockades in support of other members. “The important thing to understand is that, just as you need help, others do too, whether your own case will be resolved positively or not,” he underscores. Though Mikhail currently works as a food courier so he can study Swedish on weekdays, he’s still a member of Builders in Solidarity and looks forward to returning to construction — and becoming more actively involved in the union again.

Hello, I’m Eilish Hart, the editor of The Beet. Thanks for taking the time to read our work! Our newsletter delivers underreported stories like this one to subscribers every Thursday. Like all of Meduza’s reporting, it’s free to read, but relies on support from readers like you. Please consider donating to our crowdfunding campaign.
New Boeing CEO pledges to ‘reset’ relations with machinists


By AFP
August 16, 2024


The Boeing Co. logo is displayed outside of company offices near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in El Segundo, California - Copyright Venezuelan Public Prosecutor's Office/AFP Handout

Boeing’s new boss said Friday he was looking to “reset” relations with a key union representing tens of thousands of its workers, amid negotiations for a new labor contract.

“I met with the presidents of IAM 751 & W24 this week in Seattle for a productive conversation and the opportunity to listen,” Boeing chief executive Kelly Ortberg wrote in a message to the aerospace giant’s 170,000-plus employees, a week after taking office.

“I shared with them my commitment to reset our relationship and reach a new contract where we can come together to build a strong future for our employees in the region,” Ortberg said in the message, shared with AFP, adding that contract negotiations were in the “final phase.”

The two local branches of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers represent around 33,000 Boeing employees.

They are based in the Seattle area, home to factories for the company’s best-selling 737 and 777 aircraft.

The current 16-year-old agreement expires at midnight on September 12. Union members voted on July 17 to approve the possibility of strike action if there’s no agreement by then.

“Ortberg knows that we can’t rewrite the past, but we can work on a path forward in the future,” the IAM District 751 negotiating committee said in a statement Thursday after the meeting.

“Boeing cannot rebuild the trust it shattered over the last two decades unless it commits to securing these jobs right here, where they belong,” they added.

The union is demanding Boeing manufacture its next aircraft — expected in 2035 but not yet announced — in the region.

It is also demanding a pay hike of at least 40 percent over three years, as well as better benefits, including in health insurance and pensions.

“While Ortberg may not be sitting at the bargaining table, his influence on the negotiation process is undeniable,” the committee said.

Ortberg, 64, took over as Boeing CEO on August 8 from Dave Calhoun, who announced he was stepping down earlier this year after four years at the helm of the embattled aviation giant following a series of quality control problems.

During his first week, Ortberg visited the 737 factory outside Seattle, toured Boeing’s main supplier Spirit Aerosystems and met executives from airline customers, he said in his message.
Workplace trends: Which occupations have the best workplace protections?

By Dr. Tim Sandle
August 16, 2024

Construction at a factory. — Image by © Tim Sandle.

A new study analyses the careers with the best workplace protections, taken from the perspective of the U.S. labour market. This assessment shows that firefighters lead the ranking of the best workplace protections with high rate of work and life insurance, major union representation and the lowest unemployment rate of 0.36 percent.

Taking a different occupation, anaesthesiologists stand out with the highest median salary over $200,000 yearly. Whereas, accountants and actuaries get the best life and health insurance, with over 90 percent of workers covered by work insurances.

What else does the data reveal? A recent study conducted by J&Y Law analysed over 15 industries to rank the careers with the best workplace protections. The study uses reports by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, comparing nonfatal and fatal injury rates across industries as well as union representation. Union representation rate helps to see how well workers’ interests are defended.

Additionally, the study makes use of the unemployment rate, median salary and health insurance provided by Zippia, Smartest Dollar and Statista.

A summary of the data reveals:

ProfessionUnemployment rateChanging jobs in 1-2 yearsMedian salary, yearlyNonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses rate per 100Fatal injury rate by occupation per 100KUnion representation rate (by industry)Life Insurance rate (by industry)Health insurance (by industry)Score
Firefighter0.36%24%$50,7002.110.232.0%79%85%50.0
Actuary0.50%33%$120,0000.50.42.3%90%94%46.33
Patrol Officer3.50%31%$64,6101.310.234.3%79%85%46.14
Commercial Pilot2.30%26%$113,0801.135.914.4%74%89%41.41
HR manager1.70%35%$136,3500.30.84.9%78%87%40.82
Accountant2.70%37%$79,8800.10.94.7%90%94%40.55
Archivist5.50%33%$103,0001.90.736.5%69%73%40.36
Medical coder3.30%29%$47,1800.10.113.1%74%89%40.13
Anesthesiologist0.61%27%$208,0004.50.77.8%63%78%40.02
Paralegal4.00%36%$60,9700.10.96.6%90%94%39.41




As indicated above, the career with the best workplace protections is firefighting, gaining the maximum score of 50. Being one of a few dangerous professions on the list, it provides life and health insurance for most of the workers.

Over 32 percent of the firefighters are represented by unions, the third-largest rate in the ranking. Additionally, firefighters have the lowest unemployment rate in the study and only 24 percent of people change careers after 1 or 2 years of work.

Actuaries take the second place in the ranking of the careers with the best workplace protections, gaining a score of 46.33. Actuaries follow firefighters closely with the second-lowest unemployment rate of 0.5 percent. This career path offers higher salary and work insurance even with the low risks of work accidents.

Patrol officers follow closely with the third place and 46.14 score. Over 34 percent of them are represented by unions and patrol officers have high rates of life and health insurance, 79% and 85% accordingly. Their salaries are also higher than for firefighters, amounting to $64,000 yearly.

Commercial pilots are fourth with a score of 41.41. Another dangerous profession that has the highest industry fatal injury rate but it is compensated by strong health and life insurance and major presence of unions.

HR managers hold the fifth place in the ranking of the careers with best workplace protections, offering safe environment and insurance coverage. HR managers also have the second-highest salary in the list, earning $136,000 yearly. Their unemployment is also low with 1.7 percent, lower than for pilots or patrol officers.
Op-Ed: Video game performers on strike for their biometric rights – Now what?

By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
August 15, 2024


Industry reps see the cosplaying crowds as evidence the gaming sector is recovering after a rocky few years. — © AFP

As usual, the media sector is trying to get rights for voices and images for nothing. The distributors are either refusing to negotiate or dodging the issues. The SAG AFTRA performers are quite rightly worried about giving their future work away.

There’s so much wrong with this issue that you could write an encyclopedia. The fundamentals are turgid but critically important:

AI-generated content derived from performers is really just a slightly different type of deepfakes. Deepfakes are much more than just shoddy copies of originals. They’re credible, which is why they’re dangerous.

They’re also a blatant form of identity theft by definition if they cause injury to the party they copy. As a matter of fact, even the baseline legal definition of identity theft is much less demanding than 100% ID, which is what biometrics provide. Biometrics are a virtual birth certificate.

If someone uses your driver’s license to commit fraud or open a bank account, who’s at risk? Not the fraudster. The owner of the face is the prime suspect. Someone could put you in serious debt and destroy your credit rating in seconds.

As you can see, none of these issues are theoretical. They can happen and do happen every hour of every day.

If you also need your identity as an integral part of your career, it’s at least potentially stealing your career and your future, perhaps permanently. Do you see anything performers would like about that situation? More to the point, do you see anything they could possibly trust about it?

If you think of biometrics as rights to be assigned, it’s a lot simpler. Studios and distributors own rights to famous images of famous people.

They do not own exclusive rights to any other images of those people. They certainly don’t own “lifetime rights”.

You could say that unless an image can be defined, rights to that image can’t be assigned. The owners of those faces are the rightful owners of their images and have the right to control how those images are used.

Biometrics are who you are, legally, in so many ways. Your image is a must-have ID. Your voiceprint, too, can be used. There’s nothing academic about these issues.

Any of these identifiers can easily be used for identity theft. That’s another good reason for not spraying the biometrics of people all over the world.

This is worse than DOXing. You can’t move to another person.

For actors, this is lethal and was one of the reasons for the long SAG AFTRA strike a while back It’s not quite the same thing for video game performers, though. This is really their critical stock in trade. If they can’t protect themselves and their rights, they’ve got nothing.

You can’t use CGI in your portfolio. You can’t tell a production company, “Oh, yeah, I was that CGI in Revenge of the Jalapenos 5” and expect to get any traction.

Many video game performers are very much in demand specifically because of their character portrayal and their versatility in multiple roles. They’re supposed to give those away for nothing? It’s more obscene than absurd.

Now the real killer:

It would be incredibly easy to license biometric rights for something specific like a series. The video performer does a series of takes on which any future generated content is based and gets credits and payments accordingly.

So, as a performer, you’re James Bond or Lara Croft for 3 video games. You do very much the same work you do now. You provided the character role-playing.

The filler is generated content as may be required for production purposes. This is more economics than anything else. Why should the performer, or the production, spend millions on something that can be better and more quickly done as CGI? The performer makes the usual peanuts, and the company spends so much money. CGI makes sense in many ways.

You also provide the expert oversight and inputs needed to iron out scripts and add skill sets to character delivery or lines or images. That translates into sales.

As a performer, you can and must have control over how your biometric rights are used. That’s pretty simple even by Hollywood contract standards, which are notorious for including practically anything.

Above all:

This whole unnecessary, sloppy issue can be killed stone-cold dead by one lawsuit. If a court rules that biometric rights are the property of the performers, case buried. Thousands of such cheapskate contracts could be invalidated that quickly. Does anyone in the sector really need such a total cluster? Maybe not.

There’s no way any person’s biometric rights and ownership can be transferred per se. There’s no legal way of doing that. These biometrics are rights, so they have to be managed like rights. They are effectively “electronic rights” anyway.

There shouldn’t be any issues. Fix it.

_______________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.


Workers at world’s biggest copper mine in Chile suspend strike

By AFP
August 16, 2024

Aerial view of the entrance to Chile's La Escondida mine, the world's largest copper mine - Copyright AFP Emiliano GUZMAN

Workers at the world’s largest copper mine in Chile suspended a strike launched earlier this week and restarted negotiations with Australian mining giant BHP, the union and management announced Friday.

Workers and BHP “have reached consensus on a proposal for a new collective bargaining contract,” the company said in a statement, adding that the strike had been suspended as of 8:00 am local time Friday.

Patricio Tapia, president of the union at the Escondida mine in northern Chile, told AFP the return to talks was “confirmed.”

The strike began Tuesday with workers’ demands including shorter work days, bigger bonuses and compensation for total years worked.

A key demand has also long been that one percent of shareholder dividends for the Escondida mine, which produces 5.4 percent of the world’s copper, be distributed among workers.

Chile is the world’s largest copper producer with annual production of more than five million metric tons, nearly a quarter of global output. Escondida, an open-air mine located in Antofagasta in the country’s north, produces close to 1.1 million tons of copper a year.

The Chilean government on Wednesday voiced hope that the strike would soon end, given its impact on the national economy.

When workers at the mine went on a 44-day strike in 2017 — the longest in Chile’s mining history — BHP lost $740 million, contributing to a 1.3 percent decline in the country’s GDP.


– Copper rush –


Copper, an electrical conductor used in wiring, is seen as a bedrock of emerging clean-energy industries.

It is a crucial component in the manufacture of solar panels, electric vehicles, wind turbines and rechargeable batteries.

Copper prices have increased about 400 percent in the past quarter of a century, and broke $10,000 a tonne in April for the first time in two years.

Global demand is expected to grow by up to 2.5 percent a year.

The Escondida mine, meaning “hidden” in English, was named in reference to the bulging ore deposits obscured deep under the barren surface of Chile’s northern Atacama Desert.

BHP owns just under 60 percent of the mine, alongside minority partners Rio Tinto and Japan’s JECO Corp.

Chile accounts for roughly a quarter of the world’s copper. Other top producers are Peru, China, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

SUMMER OFFENSIVE SUCCESS
Ukraine says incursion aimed at ‘fair’ talks with Russia

By AFP
August 16, 2024

Ukrainian strikes damaged a building in Kursk, Russia 
- Copyright AFP TAUSEEF MUSTAFA


Barbara WOJAZER

Ukraine said Friday its incursion into Russian territory was aimed at forcing Russia to negotiate on “fair” terms, as Moscow’s troops announced new gains in eastern Ukraine.

Two and a half years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s troops last week launched a major counter-offensive into Russia’s Kursk region, sending more than 120,000 people fleeing.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak said on Friday that Ukraine wanted to negotiate “on our own terms”.

“We have absolutely no plans to beg: ‘Please, sit down to negotiate’, he wrote on X.

“Instead, we have proven, effective means of coercion. In addition to economic and diplomatic ones… we need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia.

“In the Kursk region, we can clearly see how the military tool is being used objectively to persuade Russia to enter a fair negotiation process.”

Ukraine has ruled out any talks with Russia if Russian troops do not leave its territory.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would declare a ceasefire only if Kyiv withdraws from the four regions that Russia claims to have annexed but only partially controls — Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Ukraine meanwhile claims to have seized over 1,100 square kilometres of Russian territory, in the biggest attack by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II.

“I was very scared, very scared,” Nina Golinyaeva, a former resident of the border town of Sudzha, told AFP at an evacuation centre in Kursk city, the regional capital.

“Shells were flying from all sides, helicopters, planes, fighter jets were flying over the house,” she said, recounting a dramatic night-time escape amid the fighting.

“We don’t know what to do. We cry day and night, every day. We don’t know what we are going to do,” said 70-year-old Zinaida Tarasyuk, another evacuee collecting humanitarian aid.

“We left everything,” she added.

Kyiv claims to have taken control of more than 80 settlements in the lightning incursion.

The governor of the Kursk region said on Monday that Ukraine had seized 28 settlements.

– ‘Enemy rapidly approaching’ –

The attack has been a morale boost for Ukraine, where many say it is giving Russian civilians a taste of what Ukrainians have been facing on a daily basis since the start of Russia’s full-scale assault in February 2022.

But the incursion appears to have had little impact on the larger battles raging in Russian-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry on Friday said its troops had captured another village near the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.

The head of Pokrovsk’s military administration, Sergiy Dobryak, has urged people to evacuate.

“The enemy is rapidly approaching the outskirts of Pokrovsk,” he said on Telegram.

On the other side of the front line, Russian-installed authorities said at least seven people were injured by a Ukrainian strike on a supermarket in the Russian-held city of Donetsk.

In Kursk region, a pro-Kremlin organisation said two of its employees helping evacuations were killed by a strike on their car.

Russia’s defence ministry also said it had repelled a night-time attack using 12 US-made missiles on the landmark Crimea bridge built on the orders of President Vladimir Putin after Moscow annexed the peninsula.

Kyiv has launched multiple attacks and attempted attacks on the Kerch Bridge since Moscow began its military offensive.




 Ukraine's Kursk incursion 'has lifted the morale of fighting troops & the people behind frontlines'

 



Ukraine’s Russia incursion gamble leaves enemy in shock, allies guessing

With its daring incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Ukraine has attempted to reshuffle the cards in the conflict after months of paralysis in its eastern Donbas region. It exposed Russian military weaknesses and could strengthen Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table.


Issued on: 16/08/2024 

Ukrainian servicemen ride on an armoured vehicle at the Russian-Ukrainian border in Sumy region, Ukraine, on August 14, 2024. 
© Evgeniy Maloletka, AP

By: Cyrielle CABOT

A Ukrainian soldier scrambles up the wall of a village school in Russia’s Kursk region near the western border with Ukraine. Hoisted by a colleague, he reaches a red, white and blue Russian flag flapping in the summer breeze and tears it down to resounding cheers from Ukrainian soldiers gathered to mark the event, many recording the scene on their mobile phones.

The scene is repeated in several Russian villages in the video clip widely circulating on Ukrainian social networks. They were unimaginable just a few weeks ago as Ukraine, forced on the defensive in the eastern Donetsk region by last year’s failed counteroffensive, lost towns and villages to advancing Russian forces.

Suddenly, the war equation dramatically changed – in the most unexpected place. In an audacious military offensive that caught even Kyiv’s powerful Western backers by surprise Ukrainian forces on August 6 crossed the Russian border into Kursk. It marked the largest military incursion by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II.

Ten days after the attack was launched, Moscow on Friday was still trying to put on a brave face, deflecting Russia’s failure to protect its border by putting the blame on NATO.

Nikolai Patrushevin, an influential aide to President Vladimir Putin, dismissed Western assertions that the US and its European allies were not given advance notice of the Kursk offensive.

"The operation in the Kursk region was also planned with the participation of NATO and Western special services," Patrushevin told the Russian Izvestia daily, without offering any evidence of his claim.

"Without their participation and direct support, Kyiv would not have ventured into Russian territory," he maintained.

Read more  Kremlin aide says NATO and the West helped Ukraine attack Russia

Russia and Ukraine have both claimed advances in the Kursk region. Ukraine on Thursday said it now controlled scores of settlements and Sudzha, a town eight kilometres (five miles) from the border.

"We have taken control of 1,150 square kilometres of territory and 82 settlements," said top Ukrainian military commander Oleksandr Syrsky.

Russia meanwhile said it had recaptured a village from Ukrainian forces in the Kursk border region and announced it was sending "additional forces" to the neighbouring Belgorod region.

More than a week after the launch of the invasion, with Russian troops still struggling to drive out the invaders, analysts are examining Kyiv’s military strategy, goals, and the implications for the Ukraine war, which has ground on for two-and-a-half years.
Russian intelligence warning ignored

Far from the epicentre of the fighting, the Kursk region was an easier target than any other on the 960-kilometre front in eastern and southern Ukraine.

The surprise element, for Moscow, was heightened by the fact that Ukrainian authorities had been warning for several months about their shortage of soldiers and ammunition.

Under the circumstances, Russian military command could not have imagined a Ukrainian attack on such a scale. “This operation also came as a surprise to the entire Ukrainian population. Nobody expected it,” said Tetyana Ogarkova, journalist and head of the international department at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

A few Russian officials though did have an inkling of a discreet Ukrainian buildup in the Sumy region across the border from Kursk.

A report submitted to Russian military leadership about a month before the attack noted that, “forces had been detected and that intelligence indicated preparations for an attack,” Andrei Gurulyov, a prominent member of Russia’s Parliament and a former high-ranking army officer, said on national TV.

“But from the top came the order not to panic, and that those above know better,” Gurulyov lamented.

Russian general staff either did not believe, or did not want to believe the intelligence report.

Attack is the best form of defence

Faced with the rapid Ukrainian advance, the Russian response has been slow to materialise. While its forces have been concentrated in eastern Ukraine for several months, the opening of this new front has forced Moscow to mobilise troops urgently to protect the Kursk area.

“This is certainly part of the Ukrainian strategy,” said General Jean-Paul Paloméros, former chief of staff of the French Air Force. “Through this operation, the Ukrainians are forcing the Russians to reveal their military capabilities and reorganise their manpower by dispatching soldiers to Kursk.”

“Nobody knows the Ukrainian army's exact objectives, but this incursion appears to be a survival operation,” said Ogarkova. “The Ukrainian lines hadn't moved for several months. By attacking Russia, the Ukrainian army forced it to divert attention to other places and changed the dynamic.”

“I think the Ukrainian general staff assessed the cost-effectiveness of the operation and decided that attack was the best defence,” said Paloméros. “But the big question now is, what will Kyiv do next? Attacking is all well and good, but you need the means to hold ground. And Ukraine is in danger of running out of that quickly.”

Decisive days ahead

The next few days promise to be decisive on the battlefield. Will Ukrainian troops withdraw or try to hold their positions? And if they opt for the latter, what are the risks for the Ukrainian forces in Russia?

On Wednesday, officials in Kyiv said Ukraine would use seized Russian territory as a "buffer zone" to shield its north from Russian strikes. Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said the buffer zone would “protect border communities from daily hostile shelling”.

"Our military plan to ... open humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians: both in the direction of Russia and in the direction of Ukraine," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on the messaging app Telegram.

Kyiv plans to arrange access for international humanitarian organisations likely to include the Red Cross and UN agencies, Ukrainian officials told Reuters.

"In the 'buffer zone' food, medicine, and other items necessary for the civilian population should be provided," Ukraine's human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram.

On Thursday, Ukrainian armed forces chief Syrsky said Kyiv had set up a military commandant's office in the occupied part of Kursk. The new office “must ensure order and also [meet] all the needs of the local population", Syrsky said in a written statement on his Telegram channel.

The announcements suggested that Kyiv intended to dig in and the hold ground captured in the offensive.

The timing, Paloméros noted, was critical. “This incursion into Russian territory is a gamble by the Ukrainians to regain control. Everyone realises that the coming months, before winter, are going to be crucial. The Ukrainians therefore have every interest in trying to reshuffle the cards now to put themselves back in a more favourable situation by weakening the Russian army on the eastern front,” he noted.

The former French Air Force chief of staff does not believe that Ukraine plans to hold on to captured Russian positions in the long term. “The Ukrainians also want to distance themselves from what the Russians have done: they are not there to attack Russia, to attack the population or the territory, but for self-defence,” he noted.

“Russian troops will regain control sooner or later,” agreed Ogarkova. “The aim was to draw attention away from the Donetsk and Kherson regions, and this has been at least partially achieved.”

Seeking ‘fair’ negotiation terms

In addition to the military objectives, some Ukrainian officials have said the primary goal of the Kursk offensive was political.

On Friday, Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's aide, said the incursion was aimed at forcing Russia to negotiate on fair terms.

“Ukraine is not interested in occupying Russian territories,” said Podolyak in a statement posted on X. "In the Kursk region, we can clearly see how the military tool is being used objectively to persuade Russia to enter a fair negotiation process," he added.

“We have absolutely no plans to beg: “Please, sit down to negotiate”. Instead, we have proven, effective means of coercion,” Podolyak maintained.

Podolyak’s statement came as Russia on Friday continued to make advances in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Military authorities in Pokrovsk urged civilians to speed up their evacuation because the Russian army was quickly closing in on the strategic town.

Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defensive abilities and supply routes. It would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the Donetsk region than ever before.

Whatever the military or political outcomes, the shock Ukrainian incursion on Russian soil does not look good for Putin.

“Politically speaking, this is a very hard blow for Vladimir Putin, who never expected such an attack. It just goes to show that Russia is weaker than it wanted people to believe,” said Ogarkova.

On Monday, Putin made his most detailed televised remarks on the Ukrainian incursion. Looking grim and exasperated at a security meeting in Moscow, Putin ordered his defence chiefs to expel Ukrainian forces from the region.

He has not made any public comments on the invasion since that August 12 television appearance. The silence is telling: Putin has a history of distancing himself from bad news.

This is an updated translation of the original in French.

Q&A: AI and the complication of the security landscape

By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
August 15, 2024

Image: © PRENSA SENADO/AFP Handout

Cybersecurity remains an ever-present and pressing need for all types of enterprises. How challenging is the current situation and what is the contribution of the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) to this complexity?

To learn more about the current issues and ways to resolve them, Digital Journal caught up with Akmal Chaudhri, Technical Evangelist at SingleStore.

Digital Journal: Why have so many companies turned to the cloud for data management?

Akmal Chaudhri: Many companies have turned to the cloud for data management because it offers cost savings with its scalability and pay-per-use models, making it a flexible, economical option. The cloud’s faster deployment and global access also make it an attractive option. With cloud providers offering enhanced security, reliability, and disaster recovery capabilities, companies’ traditional data management concerns are being alleviated.

Additionally, the ability to use advanced analytics, machine learning, and data integration within cloud platforms enables businesses to gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions. So, by allowing cloud providers to manage the IT infrastructure and offloading internal IT management, companies can spend more time focusing on core competencies and drive innovation. In other words, leave the management of storage and plumbing details to the experts.

DJ: What are the main security challenges that companies face when managing their data?

Chaudhri: From safeguarding data against cyber threats such as ransomware and phishing attacks, to ensuring data privacy and staying compliant with industry or legal regulations – it’s safe to say that today’s companies face many security challenges when it comes to managing their data. Given the increasing volume and complexity of data, coupled with remote work environments, this creates added vulnerabilities. Which makes managing access permissions, preventing insider threats, and protecting data across different platforms a significant challenge for organizations.

DJ: How can these challenges be overcome?

Chaudhri: Overcoming data security challenges requires a multi-pronged approach including robust encryption, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems. Regular security audits, employee training to mitigate human error, adherence to data privacy regulations, and strict access controls are also essential. Additionally, by having data loss prevention measures and disaster recovery plans in place, businesses are set up for continuity, enabling them to quickly restore operation and minimize downtime. All of this to say, a proactive and layered security strategy is a necessity for businesses to safeguard sensitive information.

DJ: Does AI complicate the situation further?

Chaudhri: Yes, AI significantly complicates the data security landscape. While offering potential solutions like advanced threat detection and automated response, AI also introduces new risks. For example, malicious actors could exploit AI to launch more sophisticated attacks, such as deepfakes and adversarial machine learning – we have seen examples of this already. Ensuring that AI systems are reliable and unbiased is important to prevent data breaches caused by faulty algorithms. Additionally, the ethical implications of AI in data management, including issues of privacy and accountability, also require careful consideration.

DJ: With SaaS, what challenges does this present in terms of data consolidation?

Chaudhri: Today, the proliferation of SaaS platforms results in data being scattered across various cloud environments, making it difficult to integrate and analyze. Data inconsistencies, varying data formats, and API limitations prevent the creation of a unified data view, a critical component when gathering actionable and accurate business insights. Data ownership and governance issues also arise, as organizations grapple with controlling data spread across multiple SaaS providers. All together, these factors complicate data consolidation efforts and hinder deriving actionable insights.

DJ: You’re an advocate of ‘Bring Your Own Cloud’ (BYOC). What does this entail?

Chaudhri: Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) enables organizations to use their existing cloud infrastructure for running specific applications or services provided by a vendor. Instead of relying solely on a vendor’s cloud environment, BYOC allows businesses to maintain control over their data, security, and costs while benefiting from the vendor’s expertise in application development and management. This approach offers flexibility, customization, and potential cost savings, as there is no one-size-fits all cloud approach.

DJ: Where should enterprises interested in BYOC turn to for guidance?

Chaudhri: Enterprises exploring BYOC should seek guidance from multiple sources. For example, cloud service providers with BYOC offerings can provide technical expertise and support, while IT consulting firms specializing in cloud migration and management can offer strategic advice and implementation assistance. Industry associations and research organizations are also a valuable resource, as they can share best practices and insights. Additionally, networking and benchmarking with other organizations that have successfully implemented BYOC can provide valuable lessons learned and practical guidance.

Europe warned to prepare for mpox as Pakistan reports first case


By AFP
August 16, 2024

Health authorities and vaccine-makers have responded to the mpox alert
 - Copyright AFP Omar AL-QATTAA


Johannes LEDEL

Health authorities warned Europe Friday to get ready for more cases of a deadly strain of mpox that has killed hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

China said it would screen travellers for the disease after the first cases of the new, more deadly strain to be recorded outside Africa were announced in Sweden and Pakistan.

The infectious virus is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by animals but can also spread human-to-human through close physical contact.

It causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday declared the rapid spread of the new strain, dubbed Clade 1b, a public health emergency of international concern — the highest alarm the UN agency can sound.

The Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said Friday that the overall risk for the general population in Europe was “low” but urged countries to be prepared to detect it.

It said that “ensuring effective surveillance, laboratory testing, epidemiological investigation and contact tracing capacities will be vital to detecting cases” on the continent.

“Due to the close links between Europe and Africa, we must be prepared for more imported clade I cases,” ECDC director Pamela Rendi-Wagner said in a statement.

– Hundreds killed in DRC –

The virus has swept across the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing 548 people so far this year, the country’s Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said on Thursday.

Nigeria has also recorded 39 cases of mpox since the beginning of the year — none of them fatal — Jide Idris, the director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters.

Previously unaffected countries such as Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have also reported outbreaks, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sweden’s Public Health Agency told AFP on Thursday it had registered a case of Clade 1b — the first such infection outside Africa.

The patient was infected during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox Clade 1”, epidemiologist Magnus Gisslen said in a statement from the agency.

The mpox strain that caused the case in Pakistan was not immediately known on Friday, the health ministry said in a statement.

It said the patient had “come from a Gulf country”.

The Pakistan patient is a 34-year-old man and “the first confirmed case we have this year” of mpox, said Irshad Roghani, director of public health in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the man is being treated.

China announced it would begin screening people and goods entering the country for mpox over the next six months.

People arriving from countries where outbreaks have occurred, who have been in contact with mpox cases or display symptoms should “declare to customs when entering the country”, China’s customs administration said in a statement Friday.

Vehicles, containers and items from areas with mpox cases should also be sanitised, the statement added.

– Vaccination drive –


Mpox has two subtypes: the more virulent and deadlier Clade 1, endemic in the Congo Basin in central Africa; and Clade 2, endemic in West Africa.

A worldwide outbreak beginning in 2022 involving the Clade 2b subclade caused some 140 deaths out of around 90,000 cases, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

The US Department of Health said Wednesday it would donate 50,000 doses of an mpox vaccine to DRC, saying inoculation would “be a critical element of the response to this outbreak”.

Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic said it would be ready to produce up to 10 million doses of its vaccine targeting mpox by 2025.

The WHO’s European regional office in Copenhagen said in a statement that the Sweden case was “a clear reflection of the interconnectedness of our world”.

But it added: “Travel restrictions and border closures don’t work and should be avoided.”

 Europe must prepare for more mpox cases, EU health agency warns  

Busting nanoplastics in water with a new solvent process

By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
August 14, 2024

A horse drinks from the plastic-filled Cerron Grande reservoir in El Salvador - Copyright South Korean Presidential Office/AFP Handout

Nanoplastics remain an issue of societal and ecological concern. Linked to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in people, nanoplastics continue to build up, largely unnoticed, in the world’s bodies of water.

Scientists from the University of Missouri have achieved more than 98 percent efficiency removing nanoplastics from water. The liquid-based solution uses a solvent to trap the plastic particles, leaving clean water behind.

According to lead researcher Piyuni Ishtaweera: “Nanoplastics can disrupt aquatic ecosystems and enter the food chain, posing risks to both wildlife and humans. In layman’s terms, we’re developing better ways to remove contaminants such as nanoplastics from water.”

The strategy of the researchers was to use a small amount of designer solvent to absorb plastic particles from a large volume of water. The resultant method — using water-repelling solvents made from natural ingredients — offers a practical solution to the issue of nanoplastic pollution but also paves the way for further research and development in advanced water purification technologies.

The solvent sits on the water’s surface the way oil floats on water. Once mixed with water and allowed to reseparate, the solvent floats back to the surface, carrying the nanoplastics within its molecular structure.

Once complete, the researchers could, for laboratory-scale studies, use a pipette to remove the nanoplastic-laden solvent, leaving behind clean, plastic-free water. Future studies will work to scale up the entire process so that it can be applied to larger bodies of water like lakes and, eventually, oceans.

To derive at the optimal process, the scientists team tested five different sizes of polystyrene-based nanoplastics, a common type of plastic used in the making of Styrofoam cups. Their results outperformed previous studies that largely focused on just a single size of plastic particles.

The solvents are made from safe, non-toxic components, and their ability to repel water prevents additional contamination of water sources, making them a highly sustainable solution.

The research appears in the journal ACS Applied Engineering Materials, titled “Nanoplastics Extraction from Water by Hydrophobic Deep Eutectic Solvents.”

In southern Bishkek, residents have come to rely on plastic bottles of water – Copyright JIJI PRESS/AFP/File STR
Book review: Exploring the cultural connection between humans and ice through time

ByDr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
August 15, 2024

Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica have shed more than half-a-trillion tonnes annually since 2000 -- six icy Olympic pools every second - Copyright AFP Stefanie Loos

Around the world, ice has preserved some of history’s most fascinating artifacts, such as the skeleton of an Iron Age horse, wooden arrows with bird-feather fletching, and even a baby mammoth.

While important, these important pieces of history were only discovered as the ice began to do what we all feared: melt.

Science journalist Lisa Baril travelled all over the world studying ice and its effect on humans. She has captured these trends in her new book: The Age Of Melt: What Glaciers, Ice Mummies, and Ancient Artifacts Teach Us about Climate, Culture, and a Future without Ice (published by Timber Press).

Barilis a science writer who has written about natural resources and science for national parks across the southwestern United States. She holds a master’s degree from Montana State University and is a member of the National Association of Science Writers, Society of Environmental Journalists, and the Outdoor Writers Association of America.

In the book, Baril explores the shifting view that humans have long held of glaciers—from fear, to awe, to conquest.

Baril begins with the story of Ötzi, the famous ice mummy discovered in 1991 by a pair of European hikers in the Alps. Ötzi was well preserved for a 5,300-year-old mummy because of the ice, but as important as his discovery was, it also unearthed a question: who has the right to ice’s information? A unique form of science, ice-patch archaeology, arose from the current climate crisis, as such discoveries could only be made at the cost of the world’s ice formations.

In another section she discusses how the unusually large number of hunting artifacts found in Norway’s Juvfonne ice patch, an area dating from the Late Antique Little Ice Age (536–660 CE). Her analysis indicates that massive volcanic eruptions from that period likely destroyed harvests and drove hungry farmers to hunt game in the mountains.

Baril offers detailed stories of the technique’s archaeologists use to reconstruct the lives of ancient humans through the analysis of pollen grains found in the Alpine corpse’s intestines.

It is paradoxical, Baril notes: “The more the ice melts, the more we learn about the past…while melting ice compromises our future.”

Yet, at the same time, Baril is hopeful: “Although we can’t rewind the clock to a time before human-caused climate change, we can use the knowledge gained from melting ice to help us respond more thoughtfully when considering the kind of future, we want for ourselves and for the generations of humans yet to be born.”

The Age of Melt explores what these artefacts reveal about culture, wilderness, and what we gain when we rethink our relationship to the world and its most precious and ephemeral substance—ice.

As a popular-science adventure, The Age Of Melttakes the reader on a world tour of ice, exploring the conflicting belief systems around ice and its integral relationship to people. From indigenous traditions for hunting and subsistence to patterns of global travel andtrade, and mythologies of spiritual reverence, melting ice has revealed so much about human culture, the environment, the past, and most importantly, the future.