Climate change, economics muddy West’s drive to curb Chinese EVs


By AFP
October 3, 2024

A push to expand green energy output and reduce emissions has seen Chinese production of EVs and their necessary components soar - Copyright AFP Adek BERRY

Oliver Hotham and Mary Yang

China’s meteoric rise as the world’s powerhouse of electric vehicle production makes Western efforts to curb their exports a tough sell — and means they could even stifle the fight against climate change, analysts warn.

The European Parliament is expected to vote Friday on whether to impose hefty tariffs on imported EVs from China — part of a bid to protect its automotive industry from low-cost, subsidised competition.

And the United States has sought to stop a flood of cheap Chinese electric cars from flooding its markets, undercutting its own car giants and pricing out American workers.

Western powers have long raised concerns about the risks of Chinese “overcapacity”, fuelled by Beijing’s vast industrial subsidies and waning consumption at home.

But experts say that with the West keen to hit ambitious climate goals and the need to speed up the transition to green energy, it can ill-afford to prop up its stagnating car industry.

“There is no way the EU and US can reach their climate goals within the timeframes they’ve originally articulated without the help of Chinese EVs,” Tu Le, managing director at Sino Auto Insights, told AFP.

“They’ll either need to reconcile their goals or allow some entry of Chinese EVs.”

China long lagged the West in its auto sector and in the push for green energy to curb rising emissions, of which it remains the world’s largest producer.

But a push to expand green energy production and reduce China’s emissions has seen production of EVs and their necessary components soar.

That policy has led Beijing to more than $230 billion for the EV industry between 2009 and 2023, analysis by Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies found.



– Pushing into LatAm –



Subsidies and support from Beijing have been “key players in the rapid growth of China’s EV market”, MingYii Lai, a consultant at Daxue Consulting, told AFP.

That push has seen Chinese car giants like BYD — once known for making batteries — post record annual profits for last year.

In 2023, more than half of all electric vehicles sold worldwide were made by Chinese firms, according to the International Energy Agency.

Much of that was driven by domestic consumption — of all new EVs sold globally in December, 69 percent were in China, according to the research firm Rystad Energy.

But China’s EV giants have made no secret of their overseas ambitions.

BYD has said it hopes to be among the top five car companies in Europe and has plans to open factories in Hungary and Turkey.

Chinese automakers are even making inroads in Latin America — they sold $8.5 billion of cars in the region last year, up from $2.2 billion in 2009, according to the International Trade Center, a UN agency.

And analysts from consulting firm AlixPartners estimate Chinese companies will hold 33 percent of the global car market by 2030.

Washington has sought to boost its own domestic EV market, in July unveiling $1.7 billion in grants to help expand or revive auto facilities for making electric vehicles and parts.

And the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act funnelled some $370 billion into subsidies for America’s energy transition, including tax breaks for US-made EVs and batteries.

The rapid growth of their Chinese competitors has set off alarm bells in Washington and Brussels.

“The fear is that these companies are gaining such a market share so quickly,” Ilaria Mazzocco, a senior fellow at the CSIS think tank, told AFP.

“There is a push to electrify — and they have the best, cheapest EVs out there,” she said.



– ‘White flag’ –



Analysts say the European Union simply can’t afford to take as hard a line as the United States, which has accused Beijing of “cheating” and imposed a 100 percent duty on electric vehicles from China.

“German automakers rely so heavily on the China market for its profits,” Sino Auto Insights’ Tu said.

“The two largest European automakers now have significant stakes in Chinese EV brands… it’s in their best interests that those companies are successful,” he added, referring to Stellantis and Volkswagen.

Those firms “have already waved the white flag and decided they can’t compete and would rather partner”.

That is also complicated by the global push to reduce emissions.

“The urgency of combating climate change needs the world to move faster to advance the energy transition in all sectors, and calls for more clean power and more EVs on the road,” analysts at the US-based sustainability think tank RMI wrote in August.

“China can provide the world with cleaner, high-quality and affordable vehicles,” they said.

The European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen drove through an ambitious legislative “Green Deal” including flagship measures such as a ban on new combustion engine cars from 2035.

But without a steady stream of electric vehicles on Europe’s roads, analysts say, that goal will be tough to meet.

While the EU’s efforts “aim to protect local industries and ensure fair competition, they could inadvertently limit the availability and affordability of EVs”, Daxue Consulting’s Lai said.

“This might… slow down the transition to electric vehicles, which is essential for tackling climate change.”

Singapore ex-minister sentenced to 12 months in prison in rare graft trial


By AFP
October 3, 2024

Singapore's former transport minister S. Iswaran was hit this year with 35 charges mostly related to graft in a nation often cited as one of the world's least corrupt - Copyright AFP Natalia KOLESNIKOVA

Isabelle LEONG

A Singaporean former minister was sentenced Thursday to 12 months in prison for obstruction of justice and accepting illegal gifts, local media reported, in the city-state’s first political graft trial for nearly half a century.

Ex-transport minister S. Iswaran, known for helping bring Formula One to the financial hub, was earlier this year hit with 35 charges mostly related to graft in a nation often cited as one of the world’s least corrupt.

But prosecutors moved forward with five lesser charges only, including some related to a billionaire property tycoon.

After Iswaran was convicted last week of obstruction of justice and accepting illegal gifts, prosecutors had sought a six-to-seven-month sentence, The Straits Times reported.

The defence team for the former minister had argued for a maximum sentence of eight weeks.

Iswaran’s trial has been deemed by observers to be one of the most politically significant in the city-state’s history.

It also risks damaging the reputation of the ruling People’s Action Party before general elections expected to be held by November next year.

Iswaran quit in January after being formally notified of the charges, which include accepting gifts worth more than $300,000.

In a resignation letter at the time, he said he would clear his name in court.

Iswaran has paid back around $295,000 in financial gain to the government and gifts including a Brompton bicycle were also seized from him, the attorney general’s office said.

The charges include obstruction of justice relating to an attempt to block Singaporean authorities from investigating a business class flight at the expense of Malaysian hotel tycoon Ong Beng Seng, one of Singapore’s richest residents.

The other four charges relate to his receipt of gifts from Ong, the managing director of Hotel Properties Limited, and a top director at a construction company, including bottles of whiskey and golf clubs.

Neither businessman has faced punishment.

Most of the charges against Iswaran have been levelled with a rarely used criminal law under which it is an offence for public servants to accept objects of value from figures they officially work with.

Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the time of Iswaran’s resignation that he had pledged to return money received as part of his salary and allowances since his arrest.

Cabinet ministers are paid salaries comparable to the top earners in the private sector to deter corruption.

Carpe diem: the Costa Rican women turning fish into fashion

By AFP
October 3, 2024

The all-female cooperative 'Piel Marina' (Marine Skin) turns fish skins into sustainable fashion items - Copyright AFP Ezequiel BECERRA

Alberto PEÑA

On a beach in Costa Rica, as fishermen land the day’s catch, two women are hard at work on a slimy sea bass skin, rubbing, scraping, washing and tanning the hide to turn it into leather.

Two years ago, both Mauren Castro, 41, and Marta Sosa, 70, were stay-at-home mums dependent on their fishermen husbands to provide for their families of four and six, respectively.

Today, they are part of the all-female Piel Marina (Marine Skin) cooperative, which turns fish skins that used to be discarded at sea into sustainable fashion.

For generations, fishing was the economic mainstay in Costa de Pajaros, a village situated about 62 miles (100 kilometers) west of the capital San Jose.

But fishermen say that regulations aimed at making stocks more sustainable, which this year included a complete ban on fishing between May and July, have made it harder to live off the sea.

Enter the NGO MarViva, which helped train 15 women to establish themselves as seafront tanners two years ago.

The women were skeptical at first about the sartorial possibilities of fish skins.

“We said ‘how can a skin, which is something that gets smelly, which is waste, be the raw material for women to be able to get ahead'”? Castro, 41, told AFP.

But over time they honed their trade and are helping supplementing their families’ meagre incomes.



– Facebook and Instagram –



Wearing blue rubber gloves and white t-shirts bearing the words Piel Marina, Sosa and Castro show how a skin rescued from a filleted sea bass can become a pair of earrings, a necklace or even a handbag.

First they rub the skin gently between their fingers to remove the scales and any remaining flesh.

“Then we take it and wash it with soap, as if we were washing clothes. Then we dye it with glycerin and alcohol and natural dye, and then we dry it,” Sosa explained.

The dyeing process takes four days, with another four needed for the leather to dry in the sun to produce a fabric that is soft and pliable but strong.

Crucially, it no longer smells of fish and has the advantage of being waterproof.

The women are not only tanners, but have also become jewellery designers who sell colourful earrings and necklaces on Instagram and Facebook.

A pair of earrings in the shape of a butterfly costs the equivalent of about seven dollars.

The women also sell some of the leather to small-scale textile producers in Puntarenas, the main port on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast.



– Indigenous tradition –



Costa Rica is just the latest country to catch onto the potential of fish tanning, an age-old practise among Indigenous peoples from Alaska to Scandanavia to Asia.

While salmon skins were traditionally used by the Ainu people in Japan and the Inuit in northern Canada to make boots and clothes, and on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya they now use the local tilapia delicacy to make handbags.

Brazilian company Nova Kaeru meanwhile offers leather made from the discarded scales of the giant pirarucu fish, which is native to the Amazon.

On the internet, fish leather bags sell for hundreds of dollars.

One of the first big-name fashion designers to get hooked on the skins was former Dior creative director John Galliano, who sported an Atlantic salmon skin jacket and fish leather bag in his 2002 collections.

For the moment, the women of the Piel Marina cooperative are glad to have a job that gets them away from domestic chores and provides them with a small income.

But they dream of the day when the leather they make by hand on the beach struts the global stage.

Castro’s eyes shine at the prospect.

“I would like it to be seen in Hollywood, in Canada or on the great catwalks in Paris!”

Skiing calls on UN climate science to combat melting future

UN AS TOURIST AGENCY


By AFP
October 3, 2024

A slope amid a near-snowless landscape during the FIS Alpine ski World Cup events in the Swiss resort of Adelboden in January 2023 - Copyright AFP GREG BAKER

Robin MILLARD

World skiing’s governing body joined forces with the UN’s weather agency on Thursday in a bid to feed its meteorological expertise into managing the “existential threat” to winter sports posed by climate change.

Ski resorts around the world are increasingly being forced to confront the realities of a warming climate, with stations suffering from a lack of snow and a shorter season — and the knock-on economic impact for destinations reliant on winter tourism.

The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) hopes its cooperation with the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) weather and climate agency will give it a better outlook on the future for winter sports.

“The climate crisis is obviously far bigger than FIS — or sports, for that matter: it is a genuine crossroads for mankind,” the organisation’s president Johan Eliasch said in a statement.

“It is true, though, that climate change is, simply put, an existential threat to skiing and snowboarding. We would be remiss if we did not pursue every possible effort that is rooted in science and objective analysis.”

Eliasch, a Swedish-British multi-billionaire businessman and environmentalist, previously served as former British prime minister Gordon Brown’s special representative on deforestation and clean energy.



– Cancelled races, artificial snow –



In the organisations’ joint statement, the WMO said the impact of climate change was “becoming increasingly evident” on winter sports and mountain tourism.

Climate change poses a severe challenge to the sport of skiing, which already makes almost routine use of artificial snow for most World Cup, world championship and Olympic races — a practice that consumes vast amounts of water and energy.

At the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the downhill skiing events took place in a region affected by drought and the pistes were entirely artificially generated — something roundly criticised by environmental organisations.

The so-called “White Circus” continually travelling between competitions around the world has also been condemned by environmentalists for its carbon footprint.

In 2023/24, the FIS organised 616 World Cup races across all disciplines, at 166 venues. Twenty-six races were cancelled for weather-related reasons.

The WMO and the FIS said they would work together to highlight the impacts of rising global temperatures on snow and ice, and set up practical ways to boost dialogue between science and sports.

“Ruined winter vacations and cancelled sports fixtures are — literally — the tip of the iceberg of climate change,” said WMO chief Celeste Saulo.

“Retreating glaciers, reduced snow and ice cover and thawing permafrost are having a major impact on mountain ecosystems, communities and economies and will have increasingly serious repercussions at local, national and global level for centuries to come.”



– Frozen world a hot topic –



The partnership marks the first time the WMO has struck a memorandum of understanding with a sports federation.

It comes days after the local assembly in the eastern French department of Doubs said a third of slopes would close at the Metabief ski resort, which needed to be swiftly repurposed away from an economic model that was “no longer viable” amid unreliable snowfall.

Councillor Raphael Krucien said: “We must start to mourn the loss of mid-mountain skiing, we must accept the consequences of climate change and seize the opportunity to transform this ski resort into a ‘mountain resort’,” even if the decision is “brutal”.

On November 7, the WMO and the FIS will host a webinar for all 137 national ski associations, plus venue managers and event organisers, on climate change and its potential impact on snow and ice and winter sports.

It will include an overview on advancing forecasting tools in support of optimising snow management around ski resorts.

Earlier this year, the WMO’s executive council decided to make the cryosphere — the frozen parts of the Earth — one of its top priorities, due to growing concerns over melting snow, ice and permafrost.

Around 70 percent of Earth’s fresh water exists as snow or ice, with around 10 percent of land covered by glaciers or ice sheets, meaning changes in the cryosphere will affect the whole planet.

OUTLAW PALM OIL PLANTATIONS

‘Welcome relief’: Asia producers hail EU deforestation law delay

By AFP
October 3, 2024

Palm oil production has long been a driver of deforestation - Copyright AFP/File

 Yasuyoshi CHIBA

Producers from Malaysia’s palm oil industry to Vietnam’s coffee sector on Thursday welcomed a European Union decision to delay implementation of its anti-deforestation rules.

The year-long delay triggered immediate outcry from environmental groups, but the legislation had faced substantial pushback from many governments and industries.

They criticised the law, which intended to prevent the import of products that drive deforestation, for confusing rules and complex documentation requirements that they said would particularly burden small-scale farmers.

The EU’s decision to delay was a relief, said Trinh Duc Minh, chair of the Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Association.

“The extension of the timeline is necessary and reasonable,” he told AFP, though he noted coffee prices that rose as companies stockpiled before the deadline might now drop.

Nguyen Xuan Loi, head of Vietnamese coffee exporter An Thai Group, also hailed the news as a “positive move”.

“In reality, Vietnam has been strictly managing deforestation issues,” he told AFP.

“There are hardly any violations anymore.”

Global Forest Watch says Vietnam’s primary forest loss has fallen from a peak in 2016, but the country still lost about 16,500 hectares in 2023, with commodity-driven deforestation a leading cause.

EU imports accounted for 16 percent of deforestation linked to global trade in 2017, according to WWF.

When the law was adopted in 2023 it was hailed as a major breakthrough to protect nature and the climate.

It requires exporters of cocoa, soy, timber, cattle, palm oil, rubber, coffee — and items derived from those products — to certify their goods were not produced on land deforested after December 2020.



– ‘Welcome relief’ –



Countries including Malaysia and Indonesia have vocally opposed the new rules and the chorus of criticism grew louder as the December implementation deadline neared, with Brazil and the United States among those voicing concern.

Malaysia’s Palm Oil Council welcomed the proposed delay as a “victory for common sense”.

The decision is a “welcome relief for all those businesses who highlighted the need for a delay,” the body’s head Belvinder Kaur Sron said.

“Malaysia has over the past two years consistently provided evidence… that the implementation date of 30th December 2024 was unworkable, and the EU systems were not ready,” the council added in a statement.

It called for the EU to address outstanding demands, including exemptions for smallholders, clear benchmarking criteria and accepting Malaysia’s sustainable palm oil standard.

In Indonesia, the country’s leading palm oil association also welcomed the delay.

“Our calls have been listened to,” said its chairman Eddy Martono, who also urged the EU to accept Indonesian sustainability standards and recognise its anti-deforestation efforts.

Palm oil is one of Indonesia’s top commodity exports, but also a key driver of deforestation.

The country lost nearly 300,000 hectares of primary forest in 2023, an uptick from the previous year, though still down from the 2016 peak, according to Global Forest Watch.

Indonesian environmentalists warned that the EU delay was likely to mean more unchecked deforestation.

“We can’t imagine how much more land-clearing or deforestation the one-year delay could cause in West Kalimantan and other places like Papua,” said Uli Arta Siagian at Indonesian environmental group WALHI.

Uli acknowledged challenges in implementing the rules, but said there was no guarantee a year-long delay would fix those.

“It should have been implemented, and then the EU could see what needs to be corrected,” she told AFP.

“For us, this decision is disappointing.”

Mexico’s new president unveils steps to boost women’s rights


By AFP
October 3, 2024

Claudia Sheinbaum is the first woman to lead Mexico, the world's most populous Spanish-speaking country - Copyright AFP 

Alfredo ESTRELLA

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday unveiled a package of proposals to boost gender equality, days after becoming the first woman to lead the Latin American nation.

“As Mexico’s first woman president, our obligation is to protect women,” Sheinbaum told a news conference accompanied by female members of her cabinet.

She said the proposed reforms, which will be submitted to a Congress dominated by her ruling party, included guarantees of wage equality, a life free of violence and financial support for women over 60.

The government plans to start distributing millions of booklets next year to women across the country informing them of their rights, including in Indigenous languages, she added.

“Unfortunately, sometimes a woman who experiences violence does not know that she is experiencing violence,” Sheinbaum said.

“Or a woman who earns less than a man when doing the same job does not know that her right is to receive the same salary.”

The changes would also incorporate the concept of “substantive equality” — which aims to remedy disadvantages faced by women rather than achieving gender neutrality — into the constitution.

It means that all Mexican laws would have to take into account “the particularities of women and their human rights,” Sheinbaum said.

Declaring “it’s time for women,” the former Mexico City mayor was sworn in Tuesday as leader of the world’s most populous Spanish-speaking country, which has had 65 male presidents since independence.

A scientist by training, Sheinbaum won a landslide victory in June elections with a vow to continue the left-wing reform agenda of her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a close ally.

Lopez Obrador left office this week after six years due to the country’s single-term limit, despite an approval rating of around 70 percent, largely thanks to his policies aimed at helping poorer Mexicans.


Mexican president vows justice after army kills six migrants


By AFP
October 3, 2024

Mexican soldiers are seen in Culiacan in the northwestern state of Sinaloa - Copyright AFP Menahem KAHANA

Gabriela Coutino with Daniel Rook in Mexico City

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged Thursday that soldiers who opened fire and killed six migrants, apparently mistaken for criminals, would face justice.

The killings late Tuesday during a highway chase in southern Chiapas state “must be investigated and punished,” Sheinbaum said, adding that the victims were from Egypt, El Salvador and Peru.

The state prosecutor’s office would investigate the incident, including whether commanders were also responsible, she told a news conference.

“A situation like this cannot be repeated,” she added.

Peru called for “an urgent investigation” into what it called a “reprehensible act.”

In recent years, Mexico has given an increased public security role to its military, which human rights group Amnesty International in April accused of using “unnecessary and excessive force.”

The United Nations human rights office earlier this week voiced concern about “the growing role that the military has taken in public security and other law enforcement functions.”

Migrants “are exposed to great risks during their journey, which is why it is essential to have legal pathways for access, transit and integration to avoid tragedies like this one,” it said Wednesday in response to the six deaths.

The shooting happened on the same day that Sheinbaum was sworn in as president, vowing to respect human rights and avoid repression by security forces.



– High speed chase –



According to a police report, soldiers chased a truck after it failed to stop at an army checkpoint, firing gunshots to try to stop it.

The defense ministry said the two soldiers who opened fire had been removed from their duties pending an investigation.

It said a military patrol saw a vehicle — followed by two flatbed trucks similar to those often used by criminals — traveling at high speed and apparently attempting to flee.

“Military personnel reported hearing gunshots, so two soldiers activated their weapons, stopping one of the flatbed trucks,” the statement said.

The patrol found 33 migrants from countries that also included Nepal, Cuba, India and Pakistan.

Four of the migrants died at the scene while two of the 12 injured lost their lives at the hospital, it said.

Chiapas, home to lush jungle, Indigenous communities and ancient Mayan ruins, has seen intensifying turf wars between two powerful cartels involved in drug and people smuggling.

Thousands of migrants from many countries travel through Mexico each year in buses, overcrowded trailers operated by people smugglers and on freight trains in an attempt to reach the US-Mexican border.

They run the risk of fatal accidents, kidnapping by criminal groups and extortion by corrupt officials.

In December 2021, 56 migrants, most of whom were from Central America, were killed and dozens injured when a truck carrying around 160 people overturned in Chiapas.

More than 9,800 migrants have died or disappeared in the Americas since 2014, most of them while trying to reach the United States via Mexico, according to the International Organization for Migration.

PATRIARCY IS RAPE

India asks top court not to toughen marital rape penalties


By AFP
October 4, 2024

Indian law recognises sexual abuse as a form of domestic violence but does not prescribe any criminal penalties to perpetrators - Copyright AFP MANAN VATSYAYANA

India’s government has asked the country’s top court not to toughen criminal penalties against marital rape during an ongoing case brought by campaigners seeking to outlaw it.

The penal code introduced in the 19th century during British colonial rule of India explicitly states that “sexual acts by a man with his own wife… is not rape”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government enacted an overhauled code in July which retains that clause, despite the decade-long court challenge by activists seeking to make marital rape illegal.

India’s interior ministry filed an affidavit to the Supreme Court on Thursday stating that while marital rape should result in “penal consequences”, the legal system should treat it more leniently than rape committed outside of marriage.

“A husband certainly does not have any fundamental right to violate the consent of his wife,” the affidavit said, according to The Indian Express newspaper.

“However, attracting the crime in the nature of ‘rape’ as recognised in India to the institution of marriage can be arguably considered to be excessively harsh.”

India’s current penal code mandates a minimum 10-year sentence for those convicted of rape.

The government’s statement said that marital rape was adequately addressed in existing laws, including a 2005 law protecting women from domestic violence.

That law recognises sexual abuse as a form of domestic violence but does not prescribe any criminal penalties to perpetrators.

Another section of the penal code punishes broadly defined acts of “cruelty” by a husband against their wife with prison terms of up to three years.

Six percent of Indian married women aged 18-49 have reported spousal sexual violence, according to the government’s latest National Family Health Survey conducted from 2019 to 2021.

In the world’s most populous country, that implies more than 10 million women have been victims of sexual violence at the hands of their husbands.

Nearly 18 percent of married women also feel they cannot say no if their husbands want sex, according to the survey.

Divorce remains taboo across much of India with only one in every 100 marriages ending in dissolution, often owing to family and social pressure to sustain unhappy marriages.

Chronic backlogs in India’s criminal justice system mean some cases take decades to reach a resolution, and the case pushing for the criminalisation of marital rape has made painfully slow progress.

It was referred to the Supreme Court after a two-judge bench in the Delhi High Court issued a split verdict in May 2022.

One judge in that case ruled that while “one may disapprove” of a husband forcibly having sex with his wife, that “cannot be equated with the act of ravishing by a stranger”.

#METOO, EH

Canadian auto parts magnate faces more sexual assault charges


By AFP
October 3, 2024


Austrian-Canadian businessman Frank Stronach, seen here at an election event in 2012 in Vienna, faces 18 charges of sexual assault involving 13 women in Canada - Copyright AFP/File

 ALEXANDER KLEIN

Three more women have come forward with sexual assault accusations against Frank Stronach, the founder of Magna International, one of the world’s largest auto parts companies, court records showed Thursday.

That brings to 13 the number of women accusing the 92-year-old of crimes including attempted rape, sexual assault and forcible confinement from 1977 to February of this year. He now faces 18 charges.

Stronach, whose case is scheduled to return to court on Monday, has in interviews with Canadian media and through his lawyer denied the allegations.

He was first arrested in June and released.

Since then, his granddaughter Selena — as part of a feud over the family fortune — sought to compel the Stronach Group to disclose any documents related to sexual misconduct complaints levelled at him.

A judge dismissed the motion.

This week, however, Magna International reportedly launched an internal investigation into its founder’s history at the company dating back to the 1950s in response to the sexual assault allegations.

Stronach, an Austrian-born rags-to-riches immigrant, grew a small Canadian tool and die company into one of the world’s largest automotive parts manufacturers, Magna International.

At age 80, he ceded control of Magna and returned to his native Austria to run for public office, but returned to Canada a few years later after support dissipated.

One of his accusers, a former horse groomer at Stronach’s stables in Aurora, Ontario where the auto parts company he founded is based, was 20 years old in 1980 when she alleges that he sexually assaulted her.

After being plied with alcohol at a Toronto bar that he owned, she woke up in a strange apartment with Stronach on top of her, she said. “It was rape,” she told public broadcaster CBC.

Stronach called the allegations “a lie,” and suggested his accusers are seeking a financial payout.

One job by day, another by night as US voters make ends meet


By AFP
October 3, 20

Zackree Kline, 21, works as a manager in a diner and also at a funeral home in York, Pennsylvania - Copyright AFP Cecilia SANCHEZ

Julie CHABANAS

At 21 years old, Zackree Kline works at a funeral parlor and as a waiter, clocking 60 hours a week to get by — a situation motivating him to vote for Republican Donald Trump in November.

“I work every single day of the week. I never have a day off,” Kline told AFP at a restaurant in York, a town of 45,000 in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is among the seven key battleground states that could decide the 2024 presidential election. While it was once reliably Democratic, the race is tight these days.

Trump and his Democratic rival Kamala Harris have campaigned repeatedly in the eastern state.

“I’ve had two jobs for, actually, probably about three and a half years now,” said Kline.

But he added: “Luckily, I love both my jobs, so I don’t have an issue with working too often.”

“A lot of people here have two plus jobs,” he said.

Kline blames the higher costs of living, with the United States experiencing soaring inflation in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.

He usually sleeps just five hours a night, adding: “It has been hard to find a balance, but you got to do what you got to do to make ends meet.”

He considers himself lucky to have had some savings, and was able to buy a house recently.

“I know a lot of people are still in favor of Trump, just because everything was a lot lower when he was president,” he said.

Trump won York County with about 60 percent of the vote in both 2016 and 2020.



– ‘Safety net’ –



As of August, 5.3 percent of US workers held multiple jobs, according to Labor Department figures.

This translates to 8.5 million people, and the level is comparable to that of 2019.

“It’s not surprising that in order to supplement household income, that you would see people go out and get a second job,” said Mike Faulkender, a professor of finance at the University of Maryland.

Faulkender, a former Treasury official under the Trump administration, added: “If it’s a result of economic stress, you would think that that would bode poorly for the party that’s currently occupying the White House.”

For 30-year-old middle school math teacher Brianna Smith, a second salary working 12-25 hours a week at a supermarket offers a “safety net.”

Teaching full-time is “doable” financially but “sometimes it just feels like I need both incomes,” she said.

“Inflation, of course, definitely made me pick up more,” she said of her hours.

Smith hopes she can soon work just one job, quipping that her students take up “a lot of my energy.”

As for improving her financial situation, she says she does not think either presidential candidate is better than the other.

– A lifestyle –

In the late 1990s, the rates of multiple jobholders were “much higher,” said economist Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute.

For some workers like Gary Jones, this “became part of my lifestyle too.”

Five days a week, from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, he maintains the premises of the York YMCA.

Then, until 9:30 pm or 10:00 pm, he works in the warehouse of a parcel delivery company.

“It just makes the extra money. You know, the way the economy is, what gas costs you today,” the 58-year-old said.

Jones has seen inflation drive small firms out of business in recent years, adding: “Stores that were family-owned, or restaurants that were family-owned, no longer exist.”

While he would not reveal who he plans to vote for in November, he said: “We pray that they will make the right decision, do the right thing.”

More than AI misinformation, US voters worry about lying politicians

By AFP
October 3, 2024

The United States is facing a firehose of misinformation in the run-up to the November 5 vote - Copyright AFP/File KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI, Rebecca NOBLE

Anuj CHOPRA

As a bitterly contested US election campaign enters its final stretch, misinformation researchers have raised the alarm over threats posed by AI and foreign influence — but voters appear more concerned about falsehoods from a more familiar source: politicians.

The United States is battling a firehose of misinformation before the November 5 vote — from fake “news” sites that researchers say were created by Russian and Iranian actors, to manipulated images generated by artificial intelligence tools that have blurred the boundaries between reality and fiction.

More concerning for voters, however, is misinformation spreading the good old-fashioned way, through politicians sowing falsehoods, with researchers saying they face almost no legal consequences for distorting the truth.

“I think when we do a post-mortem on 2024 the most viral misinformation will have either emanated from politicians or will have been amplified by politicians,” Joshua Tucker, co-director of the New York University Center for Social Media and Politics, told AFP.

In a survey published last week by Axios, 51 percent of Americans identified politicians spreading falsehoods as their top concern regarding misinformation.

Thirty-five percent named “social media companies failing to stop misinformation,” and “AI being used to deceive people.”

About 30 percent expressed concern about foreign governments spreading misinformation.



– ‘Liar’s dividend’ –



“It’s like, ‘The call is coming from inside the house,'” said John Gerzema, head of the pollster that conducted the survey, repeating a popular reference from a classic horror movie.

“In past elections, there was always fear of misinformation and election interference coming from abroad. But here we see the most likely source of concern is America’s own politicians spreading misinformation.”

A flood of photorealistic AI-generated fake images on social media has unleashed what researchers call the “deep doubt” era — a new age of skepticism that has diminished online trust.

Growing fears about the power of generative AI tools have given politicians a handy incentive to cast doubt about the authenticity of real content –- a tactic popularly dubbed as the “liar’s dividend.”

Voters saw that play out in August when Republican nominee Donald Trump falsely accused his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, of using AI technology to manipulate a Michigan campaign rally photo to project a larger crowd size.

That claim was easily disproved by photos and videos from AFP journalists who were present at the rally as well as digital forensics experts who told AFP’s fact-checkers that the image in question did not carry signs of AI manipulation.

“As people begin to accept the ubiquity of generative AI, it becomes easier to convince yourself that things you don’t want to be true aren’t,” Tucker said.

“Politicians know this, so they now have the option to try to disavow true things as having been produced by AI,” he added.



– ‘Stretching the truth’ –



In the months leading up to the election, AFP’s fact-checkers have consistently debunked a litany of false claims by the presidential and vice-presidential candidates on both sides of the political aisle.

Those include baseless rumors amplified by the Trump campaign that Haitian migrants in Ohio were stealing and eating pets and Harris’s misleading claim that the former president left the Democrats “the worst unemployment since the Great Depression.”

In the Axios survey, eight in 10 voters voiced concern that misinformation can significantly affect election outcomes and more than half the respondents said they had disengaged from politics because they “can’t tell what’s true.”

Republicans are nearly as worried as Democrats and independents about politicians spreading misinformation, according to the survey.

There is little to stop them, experts say, with freedom of speech protected under US First Amendment rights and courts striking down several attempts in the past to regulate false political speech.

Social media content moderation of political falsehoods has also emerged as a lightning rod, with many conservatives calling it “censorship” under the guise of fighting misinformation.

“Every election cycle, we are confronted by the same concern: whether the candidates are telling the truth,” Roy Gutterman, a Syracuse University professor, told AFP.

“Aside from not being elected because of untruthful statements, there really are no consequences for candidates stretching the truth or lying about either their own accomplishments or false criticism about their opponents.”