Monday, July 10, 2023

Latvia becomes 7th nation to be led by an openly gay head of state

Latvia’s new president, Edgar Rinkēvičs, is the seventh out LGBTQ person to lead a country.

Latvia's President Edgars Rinkevics on May 31, 2023.

Gints Ivuskans / AFP via Getty Images

July 10, 2023, 3:54 PM MDT
By Jo Yurcaba

Latvia swore in the first openly gay president of a Baltic nation Saturday.

Edgars Rinkēvičs, who since 2011 served as the country’s foreign minister, was elected by parliament in May after the incumbent president, Egils Levits, did not seek re-election.

Rinkēvičs is known for being a strong supporter of Ukraine’s cause, and in his inaugural speech he reaffirmed that commitment.

“Russia’s war and genocide in Ukraine have created a new, harsh reality,” Rinkēvičs said. “We will continue to support the heroic Ukrainian people in their struggle for freedom until Ukraine’s final victory. We will continue to fight against Russian imperialism and its evil world ideology.”

Rinkēvičs “proudly” announced he is gay on Twitter in November 2014, though the country, a former Soviet republic, is not especially LGBTQ-inclusive. The country allows for same-sex civil unions, for example, but not same-sex marriages.

Hours before coming out, Rinkēvičs tweeted that he would continue to fight for “a legal framework for all kinds of partnerships.” He said he knew there would be “mega hysteria,” but ended with the hashtag “#Proudtobegay.”

He is now one of just a few openly gay heads of state in the world. Here are the other current and former out LGBTQ world leaders.

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir
Prime Minister of Iceland (2009-2013)

Iceland's Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir speaks during a meeting of the Nordic Council in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2010

.Halldor Kolbeins / AFP via Getty Images file

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir served as prime minister of Iceland from 2009 to 2013. She is thought to be the first openly gay prime minister in the world.

She was an active unionist during her nearly 10 years working as a flight attendant, according to the Council of Women World Leaders, a network of women heads of state. In 1978, she was elected to Althingi, the Icelandic parliament, to represent the capital city of Reykjavík. She served in various government positions, making her the longest serving member of Parliament — until she was elected prime minister in 2009.

Elio Di Rupo
Prime Minister of Belgium (2011-2014)

Elio Di Rupo served as prime minister of Belgium from 2011 to 2014.

Kurt Desplenter / Sipa USA via AP

Di Rupo was appointed prime minister of Belgium by King Albert II in 2011, and he served until 2014.

He was an unlikely prime minister, in part because he was the first native French speaker to lead the majority Dutch-speaking country in 30 years, according to the Financial Times. He was also the first Socialist to hold the position since 1974 and called himself an atheist, the BBC reported.

In 1996, he was falsely accused of having sex with underage males, he told Belgian journalist Francis Van de Woestyne, who wrote his biography. After the accusation, he said he was chased down the street by reporters, and one of them yelled, “Yet they say you’re a homosexual!,” the BBC reported.

“I turned around and shot back: ‘Yes. So what?’ I will never forget that moment,” Di Rupo said, according to the BBC. “For several seconds there was silence... People were so surprised by my reply they stopped jostling each other. It was a sincere, truthful reply.”

Xavier Bettel
Prime Minister of Luxembourg (2013-Present)

Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel speaks at a news conference in Belgrade, Serbia, on July 3.

Darko Vojinovic / AP

Bettel was first elected prime minister of Luxembourg in 2013, and in 2018 he became the first openly gay prime minister in the world to be re-elected for a second term.

Same-sex marriage became legal in Luxembourg in 2015, and that same year Bettel became the first serving European Union leader to marry a same-sex partner, the BBC reported.

Bettel recently criticized a Hungarian law that bans school educational materials and TV shows for people under 18 that is deemed to promote LGBTQ content, Reuters reported. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban defended the law last month despite criticism from human rights groups.

“To be nationally blamed, to be considered as not normal, to be considered as a danger for young people — it’s not realizing that being gay is not a choice,” Bettel said, according to Reuters. “But being intolerant is a choice.”

Ana Brnabic
Prime Minister of Serbia (2017-Present)

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic in Belgrade on June 7, 2023.

Milos Miskov / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Brnabic became the first woman and the first openly LGBTQ prime minister of conservative Serbia in 2017 after being nominated by President Aleksandar Vucic.

Human rights groups celebrated her appointment, which notably happened in a country where same-sex marriage and adoption are not legal, according to Equaldex, which tracks LGBTQ rights worldwide. Gay, lesbian and bisexual people can serve in the military in Serbia, but transgender people cannot.

Though her appointment made history, Brnabic said she hoped the public focus would shift to her work.

“Hopefully this will blow over in three or four days, and then I won’t be known as the gay minister,” she told The Associated Press at the time.

Leo Varadkar
Prime Minister of Ireland (2017-2020, 2022-Present)

Ireland's Prime minister Leo Varadkar in Brussels on June 30.

Ludovic Marin / AFP - Getty Images file

Varadkar became Ireland’s first openly gay Taoiseach, or prime minister, in 2017 and served until 2020. Lawmakers appointed him prime minister a second time in December 2022.

In January 2015, when he was the minister of health, Varadkar came out publicly in an interview with Ireland’s RTE Radio 1 to encourage the public to support a nationwide referendum on legalize same-sex marriage.

“What I really want to say is that I’d ... like the referendum to pass because I’d like to be an equal citizen in my own country, the country in which I happen to be a member of government,” Varadkar said. “And, at the moment, I’m not.”

The referendum did pass in May 2015, making Ireland the first country to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote.

Paolo Rondelli
Captain Regent of San Marino (April 2022 — Oct. 2022)

Captain Regents of San Marino Paolo Rondelli.

Jonathan Hordle / Pool via AFP-Getty Images

Rondelli served as one of two captains regent of San Marino, the microstate surrounded by north-central Italy, from April 2022 to Oct. 2022. The positions are the country’s highest elected office and require six-month terms.

Monica Cirinnà, an Italian politician and LGBTQ rights advocate, described him as “a man of immense culture and diplomatic and political experience” who has fought for LGBTQ and women’s rights.

“It’s a historic day, that fills me with joy and pride,” Cirinnà wrote on Facebook on the day Rondelli was sworn in.

Honorable mentions

Jerónimo Saavedra
President of the Canary Islands

Jerónimo Saavedra in 2006.

Quim Llenas / Cover / Getty Images

Saavedra served as president of the Canary Islands, a Spanish autonomous community off the coast of northwestern Africa, twice, from 1982 to 1987, and again from 1991 to 1993, though he didn’t come out publicly until 2000.

Per-Kristian Foss
Acting Prime Minister of Norway

Then-Auditor General Per-Kristian Foss in 2017.

Ole Berg-Rusten / NTB Scanpix via Alamy file

Foss briefly served as acting prime minister of Norway in 2002, making him the first out acting prime minister in the world. From 2001 to 2005, he served as minister of finance.

In January 2002, he made headlines for marrying his partner, Jan Erik Knarbakk. Same-sex marriage didn’t become legal in Norway until 2009, so Foss and Knarbakk formed a civil union that granted them some of the rights of marriage, though under the law same-sex couples could not adopt or have weddings in churches, CBS reported.

Jo Yurcaba is a reporter for NBC Out.

Associated Press contributed.

Five things to know about UPS strike as Teamsters contract talks fail

BY JULIA MUELLER - 07/10/23

Talks between shipping giant United Parcel Service (UPS) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters fell apart last week, upping the possibility that the union could strike in a massive walkout when their current contract expires at the end of this month.

The union, which represents roughly 340,000 members working for UPS, voted last month to authorize a strike if a deal isn’t reached before July 31. The strike would be one of the largest in U.S. history.

Here’s what to know about the looming possible strike:

What will happen to my packages?

A strike by the tens of thousands of UPS workers represented by Teamsters could significantly disrupt deliveries, potentially delaying packages or prompting higher shipping costs from other companies.

The shipping company has said it transports roughly 6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the US alone. But it has said it has “contingency plans” in place for both the products it is shipping and its members who may strike, UPS told The Hill last week.

Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, said a strike would likely prompt a supply chain disruption like that which occurred during the pandemic, stalling deliveries.

FedEx, another shipping giant, said in a statement that “shippers who are considering shifting volume to FedEx” should start working with the company now.

A major UPS strike is looming — here’s what that means for your packages

“In the event of an industry disruption, FedEx Corporation’s priority is protecting capacity and service for existing customers,” the company said.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) Monday launched a new “coast-to-coast 2-5-day shipping offering” and said it’s “ready to compete for an increased share of the growing package business.”

A United Parcel Service delivery driver steers his truck, Friday, June 30, 2023, in the East Boston neighborhood of Boston. Frustrated by what he called an “appalling counterproposal” earlier this week, Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien, the head of the union representing 340,000 UPS workers, said a strike remains on the table.

(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

What are they fighting over?

The shipping company and the union are divided over wages, benefits and compensation for workers as they negotiate a new contract before their current agreement expires at the end of this month.

Teamsters are also pushing for an end to a dual-wage system for delivery drivers and to “forced overtime on drivers’ days off,” as well as for better workplace protections and a holiday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

UPS drivers make $18.05 an hour in Arkansas, $17.63 in Oklahoma and $21.02 in Connecticut, according to Indeed.

UPS made $11.5 billion in net income in 2022, as profits exceeded fourth-quarter expectations. The company’s 2022 operating profits hit more than $13 billion, for an operating margin of 13 percent.

UPS and the union reached a tentative agreement on the two-tier wages, overtime and holiday at the start of this month, which was seen by many as a move that would lessen the likelihood of a strike, but tensions continue on other economic parts of the negotiations.

What will the strike affect?

“@UPS seems to think it has the luxury of time on its side – enough to ignore the needs of the #Teamsters who make its profits possible, including more than 150,000 part-timers who are the backbone of the company’s operations,” the union wrote on Twitter, noting that “340,000 Teamsters on strike can’t be ignored.”

“As it turns out, the company does not have the luxury of being able to ignore us. Because in just a few short weeks, UPS will have to reckon with fierce Teamster power in the streets if their disrespect continues,” the Teamsters union said.

Not only could the possible strike impact deliveries, a mass work stoppage of thousands of warehousing, transportation and delivery workers under the union could also effect commerce.

The last time UPS Teamsters walked out was more than 25 years ago in 1997, launching a 15-day strike that impacted the package supply chain worldwide.
When will we know if UPS Teamsters are striking?

Workers are set to strike if the union and UPS don’t reach a deal by the contract expiration date on July 31.

The union had pushed for a deal to be made by July 5, which didn’t materialize because of time needed to ratify a new contract.

On the July 5 deadline, Teamsters said UPS “walked away from the bargaining table after presenting an unacceptable offer to the Teamsters that did not address members’ needs.”

UPS last week urged the Teamsters to return to the table for negotiations and said that they “have not walked away.”

It’s not clear if we’ll know before July 31 if the union will definitely strike, but without a deal, union representatives have said workers will walk away from their posts as soon as the existing contract ends.

“We all have a contract till July 31st — we will work under that contract,” Teamsters Local 171 Vice President Scott Barry told outlet WDBJ7.

“Our administration has made it clear. We will not be working beyond the expiration date without the contract our members have demanded, and more importantly without the contract our members deserve,” Teamsters president Sean O’Brien said earlier this month.

United Parcel Service deliveryman walks through a neighborhood while carrying packages to a home, Friday, June 30, 2023, in Haverhill, Mass.

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

What areas will the strike affect?

If the current contract expires, workers are set to strike nationwide.Conservatives send warning to McCarthy on spending Student loans: Looming payments put spotlight on ‘real danger’ for borrowers

Over the past few weeks, Teamsters workers have held “practice pickets” around UPS hubs across the country, according to the union.

Teamsters said new “practice picket” actions occurred in Mississippi, Alabama, Maryland, New York, Minnesota and California Saturday.

“As rank-and-file solidarity deepens, the eyes of the nation are on all @UPS#Teamsters, and public support for our historic contract fight is overwhelming,” the Teamsters union said. “Our members are ready to walk on August 1 if UPS doesn’t deliver what #Teamsters have rightfully earned.”

Biden administration announces $650 million to plug orphaned gas and oil wells

BY ZACK BUDRYK - 07/10/23

Greg Nash
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland answers questions during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing to examine the President’s proposed FY 2024 budget for the Department of the Interior on Tuesday, May 2, 2023.

The Interior Department announced Monday more than $650 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to plug abandoned oil and gas wells.

The $660 million in funding, available to 27 states, will go toward the plugging of so-called orphan wells, or wells abandoned for extraction by the oil and gas industry.

Orphan wells are associated with major safety and health hazards, many of them associated with methane leaks. Methane is also a major driver of climate change, due to its capacity to trap more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

The Environmental Defense Fund estimates about 14 million Americans live within a mile of an orphaned well. Separate research indicates such infrastructure particularly affects communities of color, which because of the practice of redlining host a disproportionate amount of urban gas and oil wells.

“These investments are good for our climate, for the health of our communities, and for American workers,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in remarks Monday in Kansas with Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.). “With this additional funding, states will put more people to work to clean up these toxic sites, reduce methane emissions and safeguard our environment.”

Kansas has already received $25 million in initial funding to plug its abandoned wells, and is eligible for another $25 million of the new funding. The bipartisan law includes a total of $4.7 billion for orphan well management, including the $2 billion in grants from which the $660 million derives.

The administration previously announced $560 million in grants to plug orphaned wells in August 2022, with eligible states plugging nearly 3,000 wells so far using that funding.

States have until Dec. 31 to apply for the next round of grants. Potential grant amounts range from $1.6 million for Alabama to $79.6 million for Texas. The administration is also set to offer performance grants under the infrastructure law, guidance for which will be issued later in the year.

Canada's Northwest Territories smash previous temperature records

IMAGE SOURCE,BRITISH COLUMBIA WILDFIRE SERVICE

The latest extreme weather comes as Canada battles the worst wildfire season it has ever seen

By Max Matza
BBC News, Seattle

Canada's farthest northern regions are seeing an unprecedented heat wave leading to some of the hottest days ever recorded.

The temperatures over the weekend in the Northwest Territories smashed previous records, weather experts say.

The latest extreme weather comes as Canada battles the worst wildfire season it has ever seen. Millions have been impacted by the harmful smoke.

Unofficial records show Earth saw it's highest ever temperatures on Thursday.

The global average of 17.32C (63.17F) for the planet came after the single-day record was surpassed twice earlier that same week.

With a Saturday temperature of 37.4C, Fort Good Hope in the Northwest Territories (NWT) saw "the hottest temperature recorded that far north in Canada," says Environment Canada meteorologist Jesse Wagar.

"Each summer is just getting hotter and hotter," says Ms Wagar.

Of the top five temperatures ever recorded in the NWT, four occurred in the past eight years, she says. Three of those were in the last three summers.

With a temperature of 37.9C (100.2F), the mercury in the community of Norman Wells just south of Fort Good Hope was just 0.1C lower than the hottest temperature recorded for the near-Arctic region, extreme-weather historian Christopher Burt told BBC News.

The reading there was just shy of the record set at a similar latitude in Verkhoyansk, Russia, in June 2020 of 38C.

According to Ontario-based Weather Network, Ottawa's all-time high temperature is 37.8C - meaning that the temperature in Norman Wells was higher than the highest record seen in a city with a latitude 1,400 miles (2,250) to its south.

"These temperature records aren't just sneaking by," says Ms Wagar, adding that they have smashed the previous records "often by several degrees".

This latest heat wave has attracted a lot of attention, but "May, June and July have all seen pretty incredible temperature records and temperature records are falling at a pretty significant rate", she says.

In the first nine days of July the NWT has already seen 17 temperature records broken. In July of last year, 18 records were broken. In June 2023, 24 records were broken, compared to four in June 2022.

The heat wave affecting Canada's north is expected to begin to cool on Wednesday, according to Environment Canada. But temperatures are still forecast to remain dangerously high.

Some experts say climate change is causing the Arctic to warm two-to-four times faster than the rest of the planet.

Canada wildfire crews try to control the uncontrollable

North American smoke alerts in maps and images

Climate change destroying homes across Arctic

Meanwhile, Canada's unprecedented wildfire season continues to worsen.

In a briefing last week, officials said that 639 active fires are burning across Canada, with 351 burning out of control.

An unprecedented number of residents have been forced to flee, said the Canadian Forest Service.

South of the NWT, hundreds of lightning strikes over the weekend tripled the number of fires burning in British Columbia.

On Monday the province announced that it was banning all campfires in an effort to prevent human-caused blazes.

(11 Jul 2023)

Residents in South Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg, woke up to below freezing temperatures as snow fell in parts of the country.

Absence of sound: Scientists find silence can be heard

People may hear silence in the same way that they hear sounds, study suggests

A sound-healing experience, which is a holistic approach to healing and a form of therapy for relaxation, at Manarat, Abu Dhabi.

Khushnum Bhandari / The National

Soraya Ebrahimi

Jul 10, 2023

Althought it might not be deafening, scientists have discovered that silence can be heard after all.

Using auditory illusions, researchers found how moments of silence distort people’s perception of time.

Solving a mystery over which philosophers have puzzled for centuries, the findings address the debate of whether people can hear more than sounds, including silence.

Scientists hear universe's background hum for first time

“We typically think of our sense of hearing as being concerned with sounds," said lead author Rui Zhe Goh, a Johns Hopkins University graduate student in philosophy and psychology.

“But silence, whatever it is, is not a sound – it’s the absence of sound.

“Surprisingly, what our work suggests is that nothing is also something you can hear.”

In auditory illusions, the brain thinks it can hear something that is either not there or exists in a different form to how it is perceived.

Like optical illusions that trick what people see, auditory illusions can make people hear periods of time as being longer or shorter than they actually are.

A mass meditation on Day 2 of the Glastonbury festival in Pilton, Somerset, south-west England, on June 22. AFP

One example is known as the one-is-more illusion, where one long beep seems longer than two short consecutive beeps even when the two sequences are equally long.

In tests involving almost 1,000 people, the researchers swapped the sounds in the one-is-more illusion with moments of silence.

They found the same results – people thought one long moment of silence was longer than two short moments of silence.

Other silence illusions yielded the same outcomes as sound illusions, the study found.

In the study, researchers adapted well-known auditory illusions to create versions in which the sounds of the original illusions were replaced by moments of silence.

For example, one illusion made a sound seem much longer than it really was.

In the team’s new silence-based illusion, an equivalent moment of silence also seemed longer than it was.

According to the research, these silence-based illusions produced the same results as the sound-based ones, suggesting people hear silence just as they hear sounds.

“Philosophers have long debated whether silence is something we can literally perceive, but there hasn’t been a scientific study aimed directly at this question," said Chaz Firestone, an assistant professor in the US who directs the Johns Hopkins Perception and Mind Laboratory.

“Our approach was to ask whether our brains treat silences the way they treat sounds.

"If you can get the same illusions with silences as you get with sounds, then that may be evidence that we literally hear silence after all.”

People in the study were asked to listen to soundscapes that simulated the din of busy restaurants, markets and train stations.

They then listened for periods within those audio tracks when all sound stopped abruptly, creating brief silences.

The idea was not simply that these silences made people experience illusions, it was that the same illusions scientists thought could only be caused by sounds worked just as well when the sounds were replaced by silences.

“There’s at least one thing that we hear that isn’t a sound, and that’s the silence that happens when sounds go away," said co-author Ian Phillips, a Bloomberg distinguished professor of philosophy and psychological and brain sciences.

“The kinds of illusions and effects that look like they are unique to the auditory processing of a sound, we also get them with silences, suggesting we really do hear absences of sound too.”

The researchers say the findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, establish a new way to study the perception of absence.

Updated: July 10, 2023,


Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,	45
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust unto Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End! 698. From Omar Khayyám - Collection at Bartleby.com

SISTERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES

Afghan beauty salon owners forced underground by new Taliban ban

NOT FOR THEIR HUSBANDS OR FATHERS
One beauty specialist vows to continue working in secret after rulers demand shutdown

Beauty salons are now winding down their businesses. EPA

Fatima Faizi

Jul 10, 2023

After Nazifa's husband, a soldier, was killed in a Taliban attack in Afghanistan's Ghazni province in 2018, she had to find a way to support herself and her four daughters.

The girls, 14, 11, 9 and six, could join other impoverished children in piecemeal work such as selling water on the streets, but Nazifa worries for their safety and the judgment of others. Besides, her two middle children are still allowed an education, even under Taliban rule.

"Cultural norms prevent me from sending them out to work, so I had to come up with an alternative way to provide for them," Nazifa, 32, told The National.

Taliban shut beauty salons in latest blow to Afghan women's freedoms

With few other options, she decided to turn the kitchen of her home into a beauty salon, having learnt the skills from working at mother's salon over the past two years.

Her small business offers haircuts, cosmetics, henna and waxing, and she specialises in wedding and make-up for special occasions.

“The business is poor. I am barely making 2,000 Afghanis ($23) a month," she said, compared to a high of $2,000 a month before the group regained power in 2021. Many of her clients were female government officials before the Taliban take over and subsequent economic collapse, she added.

Now, "they have all left.”

But Nazifa now stands to lose her even this meagre income after the Taliban ordered all beauty salons to shut down last week.

Akif Mahajar, spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, said all such establishments must close by July 27.

Mr Mahajar justified the salon closures, claiming they offer services "forbidden" under Islam, such as hair extensions and plucking, but provided no more detail.

A tightening noose

The order issued on June 24 is the latest in a series of restrictions imposed on women by the Taliban, which a recent UN report described as “egregious systematic violations of women’s rights”.

Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, they have imposed numerous restrictions on women and girls.

Girls over 12 are no longer allowed to attend school, universities are closed to women and they are barred from employment in government and NGO roles.

Nazifa said the Taliban's justification for its latest restrictions on women was absurd, dismissing it as a flimsy excuse designed to divert international attention from more pressing issues.

“This is just a trick to get the world to notice them, they are simply trying to make their presence known and ensure that the world does not forget about them,” she said.

Each new rule tightens the noose on women's ability to work to support themselves.

Afshar, 20, was studying journalism at Kabul University when the Taliban seized control from the western-backed government. Unable to continue her education, she started working full-time at her sister-in-law's beauty salon, a big shift from the career for which she had been preparing.

Her brother, a police officer, was forced to flee the country after the Taliban began targeting members of the security forces under the former government, leaving Afshar and her sister-in-law as the sole providers for their family of nine. But that will end once the Taliban ban on salons comes into force.

"The Taliban are waging a war on women. They don't even want us to exist," Afshar said. “If we don't work, we'll starve to death."

She said she would comply with the ban but her family are looking for ways out of the country.

Lal Zazia, an economist, expressed concern over the Taliban's latest work restrictions, highlighting the profound effect they could have on women who are the sole earners for their families. He suggests that women should explore “alternative avenues” such carpet weaving or embroidery to generate a source of income.

The Taliban have ordered that beauty salons in Afghanistan must close down. AFP

A source at the Afghanistan Chambers of Commerce and Investment, who wished to remain anonymous, said about 60,000 women had lost their jobs across the country thanks to the Taliban salon ban.

Markus Potzel, deputy special representative for the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan, said the Taliban would increase their chances of receiving international aid by granting greater freedom to girls and women.

“They should let girls go to university, they should let women work for international NGOs, for national NGOs, and for UN organisations and they should let women participate in social life,” he said.

“If this happens, I can imagine that Afghanistan would be integrated into the international community again and international donors would also rethink and probably reinforce engagement with Afghanistan."

For Nazifa, another career holds little promise – who is to say the Taliban won't come after that too?

She intends to carrying on operating in secret. The window to her salon will become a metal door and she intends to visit clients in their homes more often.

"I cannot bear witnessing my children suffer from starvation."

Updated: July 10, 2023, 8:01 PM

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS
Afghanistan is kicking opium the most dangerous way it can: cold turkey with no plan B

The drug trade employed half a million Afghans - without any serious economic development, what are they supposed to do now?

SULAIMAN
HAKEMY

Opium addiction rates in Afghanistan are among the highest in the world. EPA

It must be frustrating to be a Taliban drug enforcement officer in Afghanistan. The country’s still-young militant government just led “the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history” (in the words of International Crisis Group’s Graeme Smith), something, it must be said, the US spent a huge amount of blood and treasure trying and failing to achieve in Afghanistan. But before anyone had a chance to celebrate, analysts and journalists were already implying that getting rid of all that opium was a huge mistake.

Sadly, they are probably right – not because Afghanistan should remain a narco-state, but rather because there is much more to a successful counternarcotics policy than destroying drugs. The Taliban should know this very well: like Afghanistan itself, the Taliban’s movement was once dependent on drugs (not physically, of course, but politically and economically) and rather than go cold turkey, it only ended that dependency when it was ready.

Before it was leading the government, the Taliban seemingly spent 20 years trying to decide exactly how much of a sin growing and selling narcotics really is. When the group was in power in the year 2000, it banned opium for a time, only to walk that back after a popular backlash amid the country’s ongoing civil war. Ten years later, during the US occupation, Taliban commanders featured prominently in the opium trade. The low estimate for the Taliban's annual drug trade earnings during the war was about $40 million, and the high estimate 10 times that.

Opium did a lot for the Taliban – not just financially, but politically, too. America’s very expensive poppy eradication campaign between 2002 and 2017 was deeply unpopular, considering the trade employs nearly half a million Afghans, and is thought to have led to many mass defections to the Taliban in that period.

When the Taliban came to power in 2021, few expected its relationship with opium to change much. Even when the Taliban supreme leader announced a ban on opium (several times, last year and this year), few thought it would be enforceable. I certainly didn’t.

The Taliban seemingly spent 20 years trying to decide exactly how much of a sin growing and selling narcotics really is

It even seemed, for a long time, like the supreme leader’s pronouncements against opium were counterproductive. Opium production last year had risen by a third, as price hikes from an expected ban made cultivation more lucrative, encouraging more farmers to pile in before the good times came to an end.

But, after nearly two years in power, the Taliban have proven that although they are not so good at making decisions, they have become very good at enforcing them. In the past year, Taliban commanders have destroyed more poppies than any other government ever – 80 per cent of the opium crop in a country that produces more than 90 per cent of the world’s illicit opium.

Why were they able to do this with so much success now? It's because they have consolidated power in Afghanistan to an unprecedented degree, and there is no real opposition for critics of the Taliban’s new drug policy to flock to. In other words, the Taliban was finally strong enough to get off drugs for good.

Afghanistan, however, may not be. As David Mansfield, an expert on Afghanistan’s drug trade, has pointed out, if the Taliban ban extends to future growing seasons, many wealthier farmers will be okay, but large numbers of others in the trade with little or no land of their own will be unemployed. Those who seek work in other sectors are likely to see their wages fall because of the wider economic fallout. In an economy that was already propped up largely by international aid before the Taliban and has crumbled since, an unemployment spike of the kind Afghanistan is expected to see is likely to result in another large wave of outmigration.

“Indeed,” Dr Mansfield writes, “Were a protracted ban in place, European nations might face a choice between Afghan drugs or Afghan migrants.”

Would it ever have been possible to destroy Afghanistan’s opium trade without causing economic upheaval, given just how dependent on poppies the country is?

Sure. There is a counterfactual history in which the Taliban were just slightly more pragmatic, more reasonable and therefore more palatable to the world – including to would-be investors. In that alternate timeline, the Afghan economy, even under Taliban rule, might be a little – or even a lot – stronger than it is today, and the blow of losing the opium trade would not be so harsh.

Sulaiman Hakemy

Sulaiman Hakemy is opinion editor at The National

KARMA IS A BITCH

MyPillow is auctioning off equipment after retailers pull its products

CEO Mike Lindell says annual sales fell $100 million after several big-box retailers cut ties following his election claims.

By Briana Bierschbach and Brooks Johnson Star Tribune
JULY 10, 2023

GLEN STUBBE, STAR TRIBUNE FILE
Finished MyPillow pallets are wrapped and stored at the manufacturing facility in Shakopee.

MyPillow is auctioning off hundreds of pieces of equipment and subleasing manufacturing space after several shopping networks and major retailers took the company's products off shelves.

The Chaska-based manufacturer recently listed more than 850 "surplus equipment" items on the online auction site K-Bid. Sewing machines, industrial fabric spreaders, forklifts and even desks and chairs are up for auction.

Founder and CEO Mike Lindell said MyPillow has experienced a loss in revenue and the items are no longer needed as the company consolidates its operations.

Major retailers such as Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond and Slumberland Furniture all said they will no longer sell MyPillow products as Lindell continues to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

"It was a massive, massive cancellation," Lindell said in a phone interview Monday. "We lost $100 million from attacks by the box stores, the shopping networks, the shopping channels, all of them did cancel culture on us."

The auction does not appear related to the $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit targeting both Lindell and MyPillow, which is ongoing in federal court.

Dominion Voting Systems alleges Lindell defamed the company as part of his campaign to paint the 2020 presidential election as "rigged." Dominion makes voting machines and election software.

Lindell has not backed down from his assertions that there was something wrong with the 2020 election and its results. He said he plans to host an event next month detailing a new way to hold elections.

But the ongoing controversy over his claims has forced major shifts in his business. After some shopping networks dropped his products, the company has moved to direct sales, shooting new television commercials and trying to boost its presence through email marketing, radio spots and direct mailing.

Lindell said the company is subleasing some of its manufacturing space in Shakopee because the packaging for direct sales is different than what it needed when working with big retailers.

"We kind of needed a building and a half, but now with these moves we're making, we can get it down to our one building," he said.

"If the box stores ever came back we could have it if we needed it, but we don't need that," he added. "It affected a lot of things when you lose that big of a chunk [of revenue]."

The same is true for the equipment he's auctioning off. He said he will need to replace whatever he auctions off if the retailers "ever came back."

There were several months after MyPillow was dropped by retailers when there was "hardly anything" for some workers to do, Lindell said. He shifted employees to work for MyStore, an online marketplace he created. Others moved over to his addiction resource organization, the Lindell Recovery Network.

Most hardware stores, such as Menards, Fleet Farm and Ace, continue to carry MyPillow products, he said. He hasn't had to lay off any employees yet, but some may have left the company after being reassigned new roles, Lindell said.

When asked if the matter of the pending lawsuits has added to the challenges in his business, Lindell said "of course it has."

In April, an arbitration panel ruled that Lindell needed to pay $5 million to a software forensics expert who disproved several of his election claims in a "Prove Mike Wrong" contest. Lindell has challenged that ruling, calling it "frivolous."

"The $5 million is the lowest one," he said. "I will be vindicated in every single one."