It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, August 14, 2021
A lawyer for The New York Times accidentally emailed a confidential internal document to a union official
Kate Duffy Fri, August 13, 2021 A lawyer for the NYT accidentally sent a confidential slideshow to a union official, the paper confirmed.
The Daily Beast first reported that the email had been sent in error to the official.
The slideshow set out proposals the newspaper's handling of unionization efforts by tech staff.
A lawyer advising The New York Times accidentally emailed a union official with a game plan for how the newspaper could handle unionizing workers.
A Times spokesperson said that the document offered "a range of options" for the newspaper to respond to the unionization efforts but was "sent accidentally" to the official. The accident was first reported by The Daily Beast on Thursday. In April, more than 650 tech workers at The Times formed the Times Tech Guild unit with the aim of unionizing. The newspaper rejected the unit's request for voluntary recognition, though, meaning that the National Labor Relations Board will supervise a vote on the matter. The Times Tech Guild is organized by NewsGuild of New York, a branch of the Communications Workers of America.
Michael Lebowich, a partner at the law firm Proskauer Rose, which is advising The Times on the unionization, sent an email on August 5 titled "Tech Organizing Unit Scope Decision Options," The Daily Beast reported. The email contained a slideshow, marked "privileged and confidential," that set out proposals for how the newspaper could handle the tech-staff unionization, The Daily Beast said.
Lebowich sent the email to several colleagues and Andrew Gutterman, senior vice president and deputy general counsel at The Times, who leads union discussions on behalf of the newspaper, The Daily Beast reported. But Lebowich also sent the email to Rachel Sanders, a representative for the NewsGuild of New York, the site reported.
A Times spokesperson told Insider: "The document ... lists a range of options the company has and considerations for each choice. It was accidentally sent to a union official last week as the legal team prepared to review these options with leadership."
The fall of Afghanistan is the result of a financial judgement REUTERSTaliban fighters patrol Farah, Afghanistan
By Hasit Shah News editor Published August 13, 2021
In Washington this week, the US Senate approved a $1 trillion package for America’s infrastructure. A few days later, Senate Democrats unveiled a $3.5 trillion anti-poverty plan, likely to be fiercely contested, that is also part of the Biden administration’s core agenda.
Thousands of miles away, in the same week, the Taliban has rapidly taken over large parts of Afghanistan. Its second largest city, Kandahar, fell today (Aug. 13) and Kabul is next. The US and allies are sending in thousands of troops to protect embassies and facilitate the removal of their citizens, though this is temporary and not a reversal of policy, and a sign that Afghan forces still can’t be entrusted with the task
Over the past 20 years, the US has spent around $1 trillion in Afghanistan, only to return to square one as soon as it departed. Nation-building is expensive, and US president Joe Biden has chosen to spend the money at home rather than in a hostile, complex overseas environment that he feels is no longer America’s problem. “I do not regret my decision [to pull the US out of Afghanistan],” said Biden on Aug. 10. “Afghan leaders have to come together. They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation.” Planning the US withdrawal from Afghanistan
The Trump administration announced its deal with the Taliban in February 2020, in the Qatari capital Doha. Under its terms, the US and NATO allies would leave Afghanistan within 14 months if, among other things, the Taliban severed ties with Al-Qaeda and removed extremists from the region. The official Afghan government was not involved in talks.
Joe Biden reviewed the deal after the US election, and forged ahead with a plan to end American involvement by the symbolic date of Sept. 11, 2021—20 years after the devastating terror attack that precipitated the US effort to remove the Taliban in the first place.
Meanwhile, the US president has mapped out an ambitious domestic agenda for which every cent is needed, and has decided that the financial cost of staying in Afghanistan is greater than the cost of leaving. The moral and geopolitical imperatives have shifted. What will the Taliban do now?
The Taliban never went away. In the two decades since the US-led invasion, its power base shifted to more remote, inaccessible parts of Afghanistan, and militants made regular, deadly incursions into Kabul and other major cities.
I spent some time in Afghanistan in 2011. Kabul was still a highly militarized city 10 years after the Taliban had supposedly gone, and we were not allowed to travel without minders and armored vehicles. However, there were signs of life in markets and other commercial areas, and the stunning Shomali Plain, in the shadow of the Himalayas just north of the city, was once again producing high-quality fruit and vegetables after decades of mistreatment under the Soviets and the Taliban.
What happens next is unclear. Despite Taliban pledges to run Afghanistan with fairness and civility, and to retreat from extremism, reports have already emerged of extrajudicial killings, forced marriages, and severe restrictions. Women, in particular, are fearful. Thousands of Afghans have fled from Taliban-controlled areas to Kabul, which, US officials are saying, could itself fall imminently.
Retired NATO general blames '20 years of American misjudgments' for the Afghanistan crisis, where the Taliban is advancing in the wake of US withdrawals
Retired NATO general blames '20 years of American misjudgments' for the Afghanistan crisis, where the Taliban is advancing in the wake of US withdrawals
Tom Porter Fri, August 13, 2021, 4:28 AM·2 min read
Former NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark weighed in on the crisis in Afghanistan on CNN Thursday.
He described the situation as the result of "20 years of American misjudgments."
The Taliban has been rapidly seizing land as Afghan security forces crumble with the US troop pullout.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO in Europe, has said that the current crisis in Afghanistan was the result of "20 years of American misjudgments, of poor prioritizations and failed policies."
"For the Biden administration I think they reached the end of the road. It was clear that they weren't going to be able to create or help create an Afghanistan government that supported its people," Clark told CNN host Jim Acosta on Thursday.
"And without that government support, its military did not have the support of the people. And this is the consequence of it. It's painful. It's tragic."
Clark's assessment came as the Taliban seized multiple provincial capitals in Afghanistan as part of their sweeping offensive.
Thousands of people have fled the fighting to the Afghan capital, Kabul, which US intelligence officials told The Washington Post could fall to the Taliban in a matter of weeks.
President Joe Biden's administration is coming under pressure for its withdrawal strategy, with Biden on July 8 having described the prospect of the Taliban seizing back control of the country as "extremely unlikely."
Three thousand additional US troops were deployed to Kabul on Thursday help ensure the safe evacuation of remaining military forces there ahead of the scheduled full US withdrawal on September 11.
Clark served as NATO military chief from 1997 until 2000, the year before US and NATO forces launched the invasion of Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks. He ran as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004.
In the CNN interview, Clark expressed bafflement as to why the US had been caught off guard by the rapid Taliban advances.
"Once you are actually committed to withdrawal, set the date, you will supercharge the Taliban. They will have a sense of momentum, a belief that their long-held faith in ultimate victory is about to be realized," he said.
‘It may never happen’: The $88 billion gamble on the Afghan army that's going up in smoke Bryan Bender and Paul McLeary Fri, August 13, 2021
The United States spent more than $88 billion to train and equip Afghanistan’s army and police, nearly two-thirds of all of its foreign aid to the country since 2002. So why are they crumbling in the face of the Taliban onslaught?
The breathtaking failure to mold a cohesive and independent Afghan fighting force can be traced to years of overly optimistic assessments from U.S. officials that obscured — and in some cases, purposely hid — evidence of deep-rooted corruption, low morale, and even “ghost soldiers and police” who existed merely on the payrolls of the Afghan Defense and Interior Ministries, according to current and former officials directly involved in the training effort.
Even the Afghan units who have fought valiantly in the face of a formidable enemy, suffering enormous casualties in the process, were never expected to operate without high-tech air and ground support from foreign allies, they say.
“How do we get the Afghans to fight for themselves? It may never happen,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a retired Army lieutenant colonel and member of the Armed Services Committee who opposed the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Ernst, who reviewed the training on several occasions, said the Americans in charge “were optimistic.”
“The special operations were really doing quite well,” she said in an interview. “But that’s always when they had Americans advising and assisting them."
In recent days, the country’s second- and third-largest cities, Ghazni and Herat, have fallen to the Taliban. On Friday, Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, was also in the militant movement’s control. There are now growing doubts among military officials that Afghan units assigned to defend Kabul will fare much better and Washington and its allies are anticipating the Taliban could soon be at the gates of the capital.
The Pentagon insisted it is not counting them out yet, even as 3,000 American troops are flowing into Kabul to evacuate U.S. diplomats, who were instructed Friday to destroy sensitive government documents before fleeing for their safety.
“We want to see the will and the political leadership, the military leadership, that's required in the field,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters on Friday. “We still want to see that, and we hope to see that, but whether it happens or not, whether it pans out or not, that's really for the Afghans to decide.”
He added that the Afghan forces’ “advantages,” citing their numerical superiority and the fact the Taliban lacks an air force, “are still there. You have to use it.”
But as Afghans are now tragically learning, numbers can lie. An incomplete picture
The Afghan security forces have expanded substantially over the past two decades — from just 6,000 under the Ministry of Defense and no national police at all in 2003, to 182,071 and 118,628, respectively, as of April 2021, according to the latest Pentagon figures.
As the forces have ballooned, however, so have the claims of their prowess.
But the countervailing evidence that government forces were ill-prepared to take on any sustained conflict was often left out of public testimony or simply classified as secret.
Beginning in 2015, the Pentagon started shielding some data on the Afghan forces from the public, in a move that the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction at the time called “unprecedented.”
The independent watchdog concluded that it was “unable to publicly report on most of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded efforts to build, train, equip, and sustain” the Afghan forces.
The Pentagon loosened some restrictions on data but since 2017, much of the previously available information about the size, strength and casualty rates of Afghan military units has remained hidden.
In a July 30 report to Congress, the special IG said that U.S. forces “continued to classify detailed ANDSF attrition information,” using an acronym for Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, and that some information was simply no longer available, including the “operational performance” of the Afghan forces, maintenance data, and “the impact of COVID-19 on ANDSF recruitment and attrition.”
The Pentagon’s secrecy, while perhaps defensible on security grounds, left a misleading impression of just how swiftly those forces might fold under Taliban pressure.
Efforts to limit public reporting have “contributed to a broad lack of understanding of the inadequacy of Afghan security forces,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, who has tracked the lack of disclosure. “That by itself should have been a warning sign. If they were highly capable and highly competent, that is not something you’d want to keep secret.”
Ground truth
But the signs have been mounting for years that the rosier assessments did not reflect the reality on the ground.
Infantry units face high turnover in any army, but that has been especially true for the Afghans, who have been plagued from the outset by troops abandoning their posts for reasons ranging from harvest schedules to combat losses to desertion.
The high rate of attrition has led to a lack of cohesion. “If you don't pump new energy and professionalism into the force constantly, it disintegrates pretty quickly and you won't recognize it two years later, much less often,” said Mike Jason, a retired Army colonel who commanded training units in Afghanistan.
A formidable Taliban has also exacted a heavy toll in recent years. “That’s caused huge losses for the Afghan army and they’ve had to start from scratch with a lot of recruits,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution who completed several research trips to assess the progress of the NATO training effort. “Almost every year they are having 20 or 20 percent attrition either from casualties or desertion.”
As for the U.S-trained Afghan air force, it is still flying dozens of bombing missions in support of the Afghan army.
But there is only so much a relative handful of propeller-driven planes and aging attack helicopters with few spare parts can accomplish, and the air force has struggled to respond to the multiple battles raging across the country.
The poor performance of the Afghan air force has in turn spurred ground troops to flee, said a former senior U.S. military commander in Afghanistan who wished to remain anonymous.
“They realized after fighting two to three days, being hit in various locations all around the country, that the Afghan air force would not deliver reinforcements, resupplies, air medevac, or close air support,” the former commander said, referring to medical evacuations. “I warned of this months ago, especially when we withdrew our maintenance contractors who kept the sophisticated U.S.-provided systems operational.”
Some also view the original conception of the training program as faulty.
Mark Jacobson, a former Pentagon official and combat veteran who was a senior NATO official in Afghanistan, believes too much focus was given to preparing the Afghan military to repel a foreign army rather than a home-grown insurgency like the Taliban.
“We failed in trying to make the Afghan army in our own image,” he said in an interview. “We tried to create regiments and brigades when we needed to create an army and police force that was basically special forces designed specifically to beat back an insurgency, not to defend the Afghan borders against outside conventional attacks.”
The Afghans’ inability to hold the line is also simply a function of geography, said retired Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East from 2016 to 2019.
“You have a lot of forces out away from the capital, and many of them are dispersed in smaller locations that are easy to be isolated and cut off,” he said in an interview. “They’re hard to reinforce.”
That also means the most effective Afghan units, which by definition can only be engaged in one battle at a time, are under especially heavy demand.
‘Corrosive effects’
But the problems have also been much more systematic. The special U.S. government watchdog for Afghan reconstruction, in its July report to Congress, cited the “corrosive effects of corruption” within the ranks, as well as “questionable accuracy of data on the actual strength of the force” and an inability to assess “intangible factors” such as “the will to fight.”
Outlining the continuing impact of corruption on personnel strength, for example, it cited problems “such as fake personnel records that corrupt actors used to pocket salaries” for both “ghost soldiers and police.”
Others who have been involved in the training, however, believe the events of recent days are largely the result of the United States leaving the Afghans in the lurch.
“They have stood and fought with us for many years and have taken casualty rates that are many times those of U.S. forces,” said Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War who was a member of the Strategic Assessment Group of then-U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
She complained it is “the abandonment of Afghanistan by the United States and its allies that has caused the dramatic change in the ability of the Taliban to accelerate its campaign to take territory” and in the process, "destroyed the confidence” of the Afghan security forces.
O’Hanlon, who served as an informal adviser to U.S. commanders, agreed that “one problem is just that we never expected an abrupt departure.
“We always assumed there would be a 12- to 24-month notification of a drawdown or a departure and that would have allowed for some adjustments,” he said.
The speedy U.S. and NATO withdrawal had a huge effect on rank and file Afghan troops, he believes. “Anybody who was a fence sitter on how hard they were going to fight in defense of the government has decided not to be a fence sitter anymore, but to go ahead and lay down their arms and either do a deal with the Taliban or blend in.”
Still, many others insist it is unlikely the persistent readiness problems could have been solved by more American training and financial aid.
“The Afghan force has been struggling with low degree of control, poor leadership, lack of recruitment, desertion and weak battlefield performances,” said Neha Dwivedi, a research analyst at Janes, a defense and intelligence consultancy. “While the Afghan security force boasts of sophisticated and technologically advanced weapons, it suffers from a lack of cohesiveness, corruption and mismanagement.”
“The Taliban, on the other hand,” she added, “lacks high technology weapons but appears financially stable with a stable cohesive group.”
Friday, August 13, 2021
Australian probe to put spotlight on sexual harassment at mining camps
Melanie Burton and Kate Lamb Thu, August 12, 2021 FILE PHOTO: A road leads to an open-cut mine in the area known as the Pilbara region located in the north-west of Western Australia
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia's mining industry is bracing for a government inquiry that is expected to shed light on sexual harassment in the country's mineral-rich west, as the sector struggles with a dire skills shortage and low female representation.
Conditions at Western Australia's mining camps have worsened sexual harassment, critics say, and the issue has prompted the industry to take a stand against a culture they say has to change.
Major miners including BHP Group, Rio Tinto and Fortescue are among those expected to make submissions to the state government inquiry, which will make recommendations to West Australia's parliament in April 2022. Submissions close on Friday and become public next week.
Workers typically live at isolated "fly-in, fly-out" (FIFO) camps for a fortnight at a time in Western Australia's mining belt, the source of much of the country's economic prosperity.
Women make up roughly one in five FIFO workers and critics say recreation facilities have become hubs for drinking alcohol and created poor camp cultures that miners need to address.
"There are certain geographic and other issues that make FIFO camps a particular high risk area - part of that is the demographics that are on site," said Owen Whittle, a spokesperson for UnionsWA, which represents 30 workers groups and will make a submission to the inquiry.
Whittle says miners and contractors need to invest in site facilities and health and safety practices, particularly at smaller camps. He said sexual harassment needs to be seen as a systemic issue, rather than a series of unrelated incidents for the police to deal with.
"Often these (smaller) camps are poorly managed, the facilities are very poor. You might have little more than a wet mess and a rundown gym in terms of recreation facilities on site," he said, referring to mess facilities that serve alcohol.
"We need to put a duty on the camp operators and the miners and all the resource companies to...prevent harm in these workplaces."
In a 2020 report, the Australian Human Rights Commission inquiry into sexual harassment found that 74% of women in the mining industry had experienced some form of sexual harassment in the past five years, partly due to the gender imbalance.
CULTURAL ISSUES
A young woman formerly employed at one of Australia’s largest mining companies told Reuters that while her team was "welcoming, sensitive and conscious," that attitude was not always replicated underground.
"If you are a new employee and there are already about 8-10 male miners down there, you tend to sort of accept a few things here or there that you usually wouldn't," said the woman, who declined to be named. "Like swearing, or throwing the c-word around like it's nothing."
In her experience her male colleagues were largely respectful to her but she said when there is a group of them that "culture perpetuates."
Australia's three biggest miners, BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue, did not have an immediate response to requests for further comment but have previously spoken about measures they are taking to address the issues, including efforts to increase women in their workforces.
BHP has been targeting a 50-50 gender split by 2025. The percentage of women has risen to 26.5% up from 17.6% since mid-2016.
Rio is striving to increase the representation of women by 2 percentage points each year. It rose by 0.9% to 21.0% in the first half, hiring 1,270 women, 32% of all hires. It has also launched an initiative to address sexual harassment and help it retain women.
"As an industry, we must and can do more to ensure we have a diverse workforce that is reflective of our community and foster a workplace culture that truly embraces diversity and inclusiveness," Elizabeth Gaines, Fortescue Chief Executive, said last week.
At the mining industry's biggest annual conference in the outback town of Kalgoorlie last week, Gaines noted she had improved the event's gender diversity: women made up four out of 56 speakers, up from the three last year.
"It is clear that the industry still has some work to do in this regard," she said at the conference.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Sam Holmes)
DeSantis’ Collateral Damage? Floridians and Conservatism Matt Lewis Fri, August 13, 2021 Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
Just as the GOP abandoned years of conservative dogma to become the party of porn, Putin, and protectionism, so too has its respect for local authority—once understood to be a foundational principle—become situational.
Take Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ order banning local mask requirements and threatening to withhold the salaries of superintendents and school board members following the CDC’s new Delta variant guidance.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has similarly banned local mask mandates, which may be a lot of things but is not conservative.
For a proper explanation of how this flies in the face of conservatism, you only have to go back a few years ago, when then-Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan explained that “the [Catholic] principle of subsidiarity, which is really federalism” says the “government closest to the people governs best.” Ryan went on to say that this is how we can “advance the common good”—a term which has since been co-opted by the illiberal right to make the exact opposite argument—“by not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities.”
First, there is the “knowledge problem” that economist F.A. Hayek warned about. Central planners, he argued, can’t possibly know everything, and the arrogant assumption that they do is a “fatal conceit.” What is more, by imposing one-size-fits-all solutions, central planners deprive us of diversity and experimentation.
There is an argument that a real free market would simply let individuals decide for themselves whether to wear a mask. But that argument doesn’t translate well when you add in a contagious virus that impacts other individuals, including children—the “live and let live” formulation we apply to other circumstances doesn’t fit when “live and let die” may be the closer analogy.
Let’s be honest, the stakes are high. While it is clear that children are less susceptible to COVID than adults, we are seeing numerous reports of kids getting sick and even dying from it. According to The Atlantic, “as the hypertransmissible Delta variant hammers the United States, the greatest hardships are being taken on by the unvaccinated, a population that includes some 50 million children younger than age 12.” It’s too soon to know whether the Delta variant is making kids sicker than other variants, but it’s understandable why some communities want to err on the side of caution.
What we are left with is a prudential public policy decision: what level of government should be making that call?
Second, humans inherently trust their friends and neighbors more than distant bureaucrats. “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections,” wrote Edmund Burke, who many consider to be the founder of conservatism. “It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to mankind.”
If members of this first link believe wearing masks is the right thing to do to keep their children safe and alive, then who is DeSantis to tell them otherwise? Can someone 500 miles away in Tallahassee realistically decide what’s best for kids and parents in Miami? Why not allow diverse community leaders who live in the community to exercise autonomy and err on the side of safety?
To be sure, automatic deference to local rule runs into problems when that local government is discriminatory, reactionary, xenophobic, oppressive or corrupt. But requiring masks isn’t the same as Jim Crow, no matter what Marjorie Taylor Greene might say. Although there is much hand-wringing about the physical and psychological toll of wearing masks, the potential downside of allowing local authorities to mandate wearing them is discomfort; the potential downside of DeSantis’ order is sickness, an overloaded medical system and needless deaths.
As Republicans abandon conservative principles—that private businesses can make their own decisions and that a deference to local control is generally prudent—the question may be what lines are left to be crossed. In eschewing localism and conservatism, DeSantis is embracing populism.
DeSantis is a smart politician who’s transparently doing this to advance his own political career. He knows which way the wind is blowing in the GOP and he recognizes that masks have become a culture-war symbol—thus his attempt to double down on his anti-mask, tough-guy image. The only danger is that his bullying nature leaves conservatism, and Floridians, as collateral damage.
US Native American population jumps to largest size in modern history, census shows
Russell Contreras Fri, August 13, 2021,
The number of people who identify as Native American or Alaska Native alone grew by 27.1% to 3.7 million people over the last decade, according to the U.S. Census.
Why it matter: The spike in the number of people who solely identify as Native American or Alaska Native mirrors the steady rise of the population since 1890, when Indigenous people were nearly wiped out in the U.S.
The Native American population was reduced to fewer than 250,000 people before the 20th century, following decades of mass extermination, forced boarding schools and land theft.
But years of resistance and legal battles over tribal sovereignty and civil rights have allowed Indigenous populations to rebound to their largest size in modern U.S. history.
An additional 5.9 million people identified as Native American and Alaska Native and another race group in 2020, such as white or Black American.
Together, the Native American and Alaska Native alone or in-combination population comprised 9.7 million people in 2020. The combination population grew by 160% since 2010.
What they're saying: "The numbers really do reflect the diversity that we're seeing today in the real world and in Indian Country. So we're very pleased with it," said Yvette Roubideaux, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and vice president for research and director of the policy research center at the National Congress of American Indians.
"But again, we think it may also be an undercount, due to the privacy measures and other challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic."
Details: At 15.2% (111,575 people), Alaska had the largest percentage of its population identifying as solely Native American or Alaska Native.
New Mexico was second, with 10% of its population (212,241 people) identifying as solely Native American.
California has the largest population in total numbers, with 631,061 Indigenous people.
Yes, but: Tribal communities and Native Americans are spread out throughout congressional districts, making it difficult for Indigenous people to gain political power by electing Native Americans to Congress.
New voting restrictions in states like Arizona also could make it more difficult for Navajo Nation members to vote, diluting their power even more.
The Republican-dominated Kansas Legislature is poised to redraw a district currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and one of two Native American women in Congress, that would oust her from office.
The Democratic-led New Mexico redistricting body could also redraw the district held by Republican U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell, a member of the Cherokee Nation, that could also boot her from Congress.
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Now, as Mexico marks the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán on Friday, the role of the Tlaxcalans in the conquest is being reconsidered.
Many historians argue that without the participation of the Tlaxcalans and other indigenous soldiers, Tenochtitlán might never have fallen to the Spanish.
They are also revising the accusation of treachery, arguing that Tlaxcalans and other city states were in fact fighting a war of liberation against the oppressive Mexica (as the Aztecs were known).
“It wasn’t 600 to 800 Spaniards who conquered [Tenochtitlán]. It was thousands and thousands of Tlaxcalans, Huejotzingas or other peoples, who were under the Mexica yoke and wanted to liberate themselves,” archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma told Radio Formula.
The conquest is a singular event in Mexican history, seen both as a moment of national trauma and the founding act of the nation – and it remains deeply controversial.
Events to mark the anniversary have been met with tepid enthusiasm, as Mexico struggles with the coronavirus pandemic. A towering replica of the Templo Mayor – the Aztec civilization’s most sacred site – is being erected in Mexico City’s central Zócalo plaza.
“It was a question of political survival,” Zárate said. “To save yourself, you had to turn to whatever allies were necessary.”
After the fall of Tenochtitlán, the Tlaxcalans benefited handsomely from their arrangement – and Spaniards married into the local nobility. Tlaxcala received special status in the Spanish colonial period with a form of self-rule. Its residents received the right to settle other parts of the colony.
But when Mexico won independence in the 1820s, that power was lost, and an evolving national mythology focused on the fall of the Mexica, casting Tlaxcalans as traitors.
“There’s a nagging thorn in most Tlaxcalans’ minds [about the conquest] and a sort of anger because the adjective ‘traitor’ has been so strong,” Juan de la Rosa, INAH delegate in Tlaxcala, said in a 2019 interview. “But they have the need to have arguments that explains why they’re not traitors.”
Viewpoint: Why Twitter got it wrong in Nigeria
Fri, August 13, 2021 A woman in Nigeria looking at Twitter on a mobile phone - archive shot
In our series of letters from African writers, Nigerian journalist and novelist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani considers Twitter's power and the Nigerian government's moves to curb it. Short presentational grey line
It has been two months since the Nigerian government banned Twitter after the tech giant deleted a post by President Muhammadu Buhari for violating its rules on abusive language.
Despite the global outrage that followed, including strong words of condemnation from top foreign diplomats in the country, the government remained adamant.
However, it announced on Wednesday that it was finalising an agreement with Twitter and the ban would be lifted in a few days or weeks.
Many Nigerians were angered by the Twitter ban
Much of the comment that followed at the time focused on the ban's negative impact on freedom of speech and the economy.
Many Nigerians use the platform to amplify their grievances against the government and to reach more customers for their businesses.
But Twitter's decision to delete President Buhari's post - in which he threatened violence against a separatist movement - was ill-advised. This has also become a point of debate in other parts of the world, including India.
The US-owned, private firm appeared to be interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign African state without enough background knowledge to understand the consequences of its actions. Neo-colonialism
At the time, Twitter said the post was in violation of its rules.
The company has the right to enforce its regulations, but Mr Buhari's post was an official communication from the Nigerian president to his people, tweeted from a government account.
The same message was also broadcast on other media platforms across the country.
Is it right that a private American firm has the power to edit, without permission, the official communication of a democratically elected president of an African country? It doesn't get any more neo-colonial than that. President Muhammadu Buhari, 78, has been in office since 2015
Nigerians have the right to be aware of their leader's plans and strategies, irrespective of how reckless his choice of words might be. They have a right to know even if he is planning something as heartless as unleashing violence on them.
Similarly, Nigerians have the right to respond to him as part of the interaction between the government and its citizens.
Mr Buhari's tweet threatened violence against the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) movement, which is seeking a breakaway state in south-eastern Nigeria, home to the Igbo people.
Ipob was outlawed in 2017 - the group fought the ban in court and lost. Amplifying divisions
While many Igbos believe they have been marginalised in many ways, such as being left out of key national leadership positions, the majority do not support Ipob's desire for secession.
Neither do they like its violent rhetoric against other ethnic groups - often referred to as wild animals by Ipob leader Nnamdi Kanu, who is facing treason charges.
In February, Facebook deactivated Mr Kanu's account for its hate speech, but he remained active on Twitter.
By deleting Mr Buhari's threats, Twitter was inadvertently taking sides with Ipob, and the group's supporters wasted no time in celebrating this assumed show of solidarity.
Following the backlash from the government in June, a few of the Ipob leader's tweets were removed by Twitter. Some members of Nigeria's minority Igbo ethnic group have waged a long-running campaign for secession
Similarly thoughtless involvement by Twitter amplified the divisions that derailed Nigeria's #EndSars movement that oversaw protests against police brutality in October 2020.
Different groups were involved in planning and fundraising for the protests that began online and poured into the streets of cities across Nigeria for about two weeks.
But when Twitter verified the account of one group and not of others, it led to bitter mudslinging and the withdrawal of some groups from the movement.
The tech giant trod where even seasoned foreign diplomats and global bodies fear to go.
Many well-meaning outsiders have learned never to be too quick to meddle in the affairs of African countries, like Nigeria, where issues are often more complicated than meets the eye. They are increasingly embracing the trend of deferring responsibility to local organisations that better understand local dynamics.
Twitter's decision to set up a West Africa headquarters in Ghana is a good step in developing cultural competence.
"If it was authoritarian to ban Twitter, it was even more problematic for an American in Silicon Valley to poke their finger in the affairs of a sovereign state"", Source: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani , Source description: Nigerian novelist, Image: Adaobi
The Nigerian government's conditions for lifting the ban include that Twitter must register its business in Nigeria and have a staff presence in the country.
Mr Buhari's administration has shown little respect for the rule of law and freedom of speech, with a number of journalists and activists locked up simply for criticising the government.
Banning Twitter completely is a barely concealed attempt by the government to stifle voices of criticism, and Nigerians have good reason to be worried.
But the power of Big Tech to make arbitrary decisions about who gets to say what, when and how, is equally troubling.
It raises questions about policing speech and censoring unpopular voices, amid the need for open public debate in a free democratic society.
If it was authoritarian for the Nigerian government to ban the use of Twitter, it was even more problematic for an American swivelling in a chair in Silicon Valley to poke their finger into the internal affairs of a sovereign African state.
UK defense secretary says that Trump's deal with the Taliban was 'rotten' and that the international community will likely 'pay the consequences'
Ryan Pickrell Fri, August 13, 2021,
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace. REUTERS/Toby Melville
The UK defense secretary called Trump's deal with the Taliban "rotten."
He told Sky News that it was a "mistake" and that the international community may pay for it.
The Taliban has launched a massive offensive, seizing territory after territory in Afghanistan.
The UK defense secretary said this week that the deal between the Trump administration and the Taliban setting in motion the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan was "rotten," telling Sky News in a rare criticism that the international community would likely "pay the consequences."
"At the time of the Trump deal with, obviously, the Taliban, I felt that that was a mistake to have done it that way," said Ben Wallace, the UK secretary of state for defense. "That, we'll all, as an international community, probably pay the consequences of that."
"I think that deal that was done in Doha was a rotten deal," the secretary said. "It told a Taliban that wasn't winning that they were winning, and it undermined the government of Afghanistan, and now we're in this position where the Taliban have clearly the momentum across the country."
Wallace also expressed concerns Al Qaeda would return, saying that "failed states around the world lead to instability and lead to a security threat to us and our interests."
"I'm absolutely worried that failed states are breeding grounds for those type of people," he said. "Of course I'm worried. It's why I said I felt this was not the right time or decision to make, because, of course, Al Qaeda will probably come back."
In February 2020, the Trump administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban in Doha that was intended to encourage peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government while facilitating the withdrawal of US and NATO forces.
The Biden administration largely upheld that deal, moving forward with plans to withdraw US troops and end the two-decade war in Afghanistan, America's longest conflict.
President Joe Biden said in July that he had trust and confidence in the capability of the Afghan forces. "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely," he said.
Taliban fighters patrol in the Afghan city of Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, on Friday.
AP Photo/Gulabuddin Amiri
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was about 95% complete when the Taliban launched a nationwide offensive, seizing city after city. Some US intelligence assessments have suggested Afghanistan could fall in a matter of months, possibly even weeks.
A US State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, said on Wednesday that the Taliban were violating both the "letter and the spirit" of the Doha agreement, adding that rather than pursuing a "permanent and comprehensive ceasefire," all indications were that "the Taliban are instead pursuing a battlefield victory."
The US has been providing support to the Afghan forces through airstrikes, often targeting captured military equipment, but the messaging from the president and others in the Biden administration is that the Afghan government and military must take the initiative.
The US Defense Department announced on Thursday that in response to the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan it is sending in 3,000 troops to help evacuate US civilian personnel in Kabul. An additional force of about 4,000 troops will be on standby in Kuwait.
The UK armed forces are also sending in hundreds of additional troops to support the evacuation of personnel from Afghanistan.
Former President Donald Trump said in a statement issued Thursday that he could have handled this situation better. He said that the the Taliban "understood that what they are doing now would not have been acceptable, adding that "it would have been a much different and much more successful withdrawal."
July was Earth's hottest month on record, NOAA says
Daniel Arkin
The world broke a major record last month — although it has little reason to brag about the milestone.
July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to data released Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — an “unenviable distinction” that could ratchet up anxiety about climate change.
“In this case, first place is the worst place to be,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a statement. “July is typically the world’s warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and month ever recorded.”
He said the record “adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe.”
The combined land- and ocean-surface temperature around the world was 1.67 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 60.4 degrees, according to NOAA — making July the hottest month since record-keeping started 142 years ago.
The combined temperature last month was 0.02 of a degree Fahrenheit higher than the previous record logged in July 2016, which was then tied in 2019 and 2020, NOAA said.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the land-surface temperature was the highest ever recorded for July — 2.77 degrees Fahrenheit above average, blasting past the previous record set in 2012.
Asia saw its hottest July on record and Europe recorded its second hottest, NOAA added.
NOAA’s news release featured a collage of photos illustrating the dire effects of climate change, including floods, heat waves, drought, hurricanes and wildfires. The announcement comes as California faces off against the Dixie Fire — the second-largest blaze in the state’s history.
The news also arrives four days after the United Nations issued an alarming report about the urgent threat of climate change.
The effects of climate change are changing the planet in ways that are “unprecedented” in thousands of years — in some cases, hundreds of thousands of years — according to the report.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called the findings a "code red for humanity," saying that the "alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable."
US Student loans: Bipartisan bankruptcy reform bill proposes alternative to forgiveness hope or lifelong debt
While some progressive Democrats continue to push the president to cancel student loan debt, there's a bipartisan effort underway to overhaul the student loan system in another way: by making bankruptcy discharges more accessible for student debtors.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) announced a new bill called the "FRESH START Through Bankruptcy Act of 2021" last week to better enable borrowers to seek a student loan discharge in bankruptcy.
"Student loan debt follows you to your grave," Durbin stated. "Our bipartisan bill finally gives student borrowers — some who were misled into taking out costly loans by predatory for-profit colleges — a chance to get back on their feet when they have no other realistic path to repay their loans."
If passed, the bill would allow federal student loans to become eligible for discharge in bankruptcy proceedings 10 years after the borrower's first loan payment comes due. (Borrowers with loans less than 10 years old would have to go through the current process.)
A graduate jumps in the air in the fountain at Washington Square Park on May 19, 2021 in New York. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
Jason Iuliano, associate professor of law at the University of Utah and an expert on student loan bankruptcy law, told Yahoo Finance that the bill's 10-year waiting period was noteworthy.
"First, it would ensure that people who have struggled to repay their student loans for at least a decade can benefit from bankruptcy’s fresh start and get their lives back on track," Iuliano said. "And second, it would ensure that the student loan credit market continues to function."
The bill also proposes to increase "institutional accountability" by making colleges that receive federal loans from more than a third of their students "partially reimburse" the Department of Education (ED) if student loans are later discharged in bankruptcy or "if the colleges had consistently high default rates and low repayment rates."
"This is an excellent proposal that would help align schools’ incentives with their students’ incentives," Iuliano explained. "Instead of engaging in an ever-increasing tuition arms race, underperforming schools would be forced to cut tuition or improve employment prospects for their students."
Roughly 45 million Americans hold more than $1.7 trillion in federally-backed student loan debt
Student loan bankruptcy discharge
Discharging student loans through bankruptcy, while difficult, is not impossible.
That said, there was an era when it was a much easier process.
"Before 1976, student loans were treated like other types of unsecured debt bankruptcy. If you were facing financial ruin, you could get relief," Durbin explained. "But then Congress got the idea that student borrowers were running to bankruptcy court, right after graduation. This notion was based on more anecdote than data. Congress started passing laws to make it harder."
Over time, the bankruptcy code became more restrictive for all student debtors.
In most personal bankruptcy cases involving student debt, a judge now applies the Brunner test — a three-pronged test applied to student loan borrowers who filed adversary proceedings seeking to discharge educational debt — to determine if specific student loans caused a borrower to suffer undue hardship.
Source: Duke Law Journal/DECEMBER 2020/ "THE STUDENT LOAN BANKRUPTCY GAP" by JASON IULIANO
"Starting with the 1987 case called Brunner, courts have interpreted the phrase to set an impossibly high bar for relief," Durbin said. "To pass the Brunner test of undue hardship, you have to convince a bankruptcy judge that it’s hopeless that you’d ever repay, while the Department of Education or its guaranty agencies are on the other side arguing against you."
While Durbin went on to stress that "proving undue hardship is nearly impossible," Iuliano disagreed.
The impossibility of proving undue hardship specifically "is not the case," Iuliano said. Based on his research of bankruptcy cases, an estimated "60% of people who attempt to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy are successful."
"While I don't support cancellation of all student debt... I can't think of very many good reasons to keep students with massive amounts of debts as lifelong serfs of banks and lifelong serfs of universities by not allowing them to discharge a bankruptcy of their debt under appropriate circumstances," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said during the hearing, adding that the bipartisan bill was "a very sensible approach."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a leading proponent of student loan cancellation, previously told Yahoo Finance that the U.S. bankruptcy system is "fundamentally wrong" on student debt discharges.
"I’ve been introducing student loan bankruptcy [bills] for a long time," Durbin said during the hearing. "This is the first time it’s been bipartisan. With this bill, we see a growing bipartisan consensus that the status quo isn’t working, and that we need student loan bankruptcy reform
One appealing aspect of the bill, according to Iuliano, is that the legislation addresses the fundamental issue of tuition inflation by making schools reimburse the federal government when students discharge their loans via bankruptcy.
"Schools are... selling a product for a price, and that price needs to match what these students get out of it," said Cornyn, one of the co-sponsors. "That's why the second part of the [bill] creates a limited risk-sharing framework for schools but enough students default on their loans, and fail to continue to repay them."
Coryn added that some schools have "taken advantage of the American taxpayer for too long, and the students are the ones harmed by their excess, so I'm glad to see this bill introduced today."
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Pelosi's softness on canceling student debt has 80 progressive organizations 'disappointed'
Ayelet Sheffey Thu, August 12, 2021 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speak outside the White House on January 9. AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Nancy Pelosi recently said Biden does not have the authority to cancel $50,000 in student debt.
80 organizations responded to her comments in a letter explaining why Biden does have that authority.
Pelosi's comments contrasted Schumer's views, who has been a leader in urging debt cancellation.
Last month, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi broke with many of her Democratic colleagues when she told reporters that President Joe Biden does not have the power to cancel student debt.
"People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not," Pelosi said. "He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power."
In saying so, Pelosi undercut the hopes of many progressives for massive student-debt cancellation, especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who have made that the core of their argument that Biden should cancel $50,000 per person. Progressive organizations are angry - 80 of them, at least.
The Student Debt Crisis, which advocates for student debt cancellation, led labor unions, civil rights groups, and more in writing a letter to Pelosi pushing back on her comments. They cited the Higher Education Act as the authority Biden has to cancel student debt, adding that the authority both President Donald Trump and Biden used to extend the pause on student-loan payments during the pandemic is the same authority that can be used for widescale debt cancellation.
"In addition, we were disappointed to hear you raise broader concerns about debt cancellation," the letter said to Pelosi. "Student debt cancellation doesn't simply aid the 44 million federal student loan borrowers who would benefit from this critical relief. It also benefits their families and neighborhoods. Indeed, all of America would benefit."
The letter cited a study from the Roosevelt Institute that analyzed Warren and Chuck's Schumer's $50,000 in student-debt cancellation proposal, in which it found the cancellation would be progressive, rather than regressive, meaning low-income borrowers would benefit more.
The racial impact of student-debt cancellation would also be significant, the letter said. Insider reported in April that 36 civil rights organizations released civil-rights principles detailing the benefits that student-debt cancellation would have on Black borrowers. The organizations, including the NAACP, wrote that Black borrowers typically owe 50% more student debt than white borrowers, and four years later, Black borrowers owe 100% more.
While Pelosi initially told reporters that student debt cancellation has to be "an act of Congress," a member of her staff later clarified her comments, saying that the speaker would support Biden "using any authority he believes he has to address the crisis of student debt in our country."
Still, Pelosi's comments came as a shock given that her counterpart in the Senate, Schumer, has been a leader on student-debt cancellation efforts. The Intercept reported last week that Pelosi's comments came after a memo circulated from Democratic megadonors Steven and Mary Swig - who gave maximum contributions to Pelosi - claiming that Biden cancelling debt is illegal.
But progressives are remaining consistent with their messaging that Biden can legally cancel $50,000 in student debt immediately by signing an executive order.
"The president has the power to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt right now," Warren told previously Insider. "Sen. Schumer and I are going to continue to push for this, but Biden doesn't need any authorization from Congress. He needs to pick up the pen and do it himself."
