Turkey: What's behind Erdogan's outreach to Kurds?

Elmas Topcu 

DW

November 20, 2024

The Turkish government is sending ambiguous signals to the Kurds. Analysts believe it is hoping to garner some votes while also possibly splitting the opposition.

Political gestures of importance: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shakes the hand of Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Leader Devlet Bahceli (L)

Image: DHA

When Devlet Bahceli, chairman of the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP party, shook hands with politicians from the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), the gesture marked a political U-turn.

Up until October, Bahceli had claimed that the left-wing, pro-Kurdish DEM Party, just like its predecessor, the HDP, was an extension of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party ( PKK) and should, therefore, be banned.

Even more surprising was Bahceli's next suggestion that PKK head Abdullah Ocalan could be released in exchange for announcing the dissolution of his party. Bahceli's party is considered the parent organization of the right-wing extremist group Grey Wolves and is known for its anti-minority ideology.

In the following days, the 76-year-old Ocalan received a visit from his family for the first time in 43 months. He has been in solitary confinement in a high-security prison since 1999.

A peace process with the PKK was put in place a decade ago already, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan terminated it a year later in 2015.

After a few non-violent years, the bloody conflict flared up once more.

The Turkish government cracked down on Kurdish politicians in Turkey and launched military operations in northern Iraq and northeastern Syria.

The PKK has its headquarters in Iraq's Qandil Mountains. A de facto self-governing Kurdish state, known as Rojava, has established itself in northeastern Syria.

Ahmet Turk, a pro-Kurdish politician, was elected as mayor three times and also dismissed three times

Image: Kivanc El/DW

A carrot and stick approach?

Since Bahceli's push for Ocalan's potential early release, people in Turkey have been puzzling over what the government in Ankara is up to.

Why are its representatives seeking proximity to Ocalan at the same time as elected Kurdish local politicians are being removed from office?

In late October, Ahmet Ozer, the mayor of Istanbul's Esenyurt district and a member of the Republican People's Party (CHP), was arrested for alleged links to the PKK.

A few days later, three Kurdish mayors in southeastern Turkey were replaced by state officers.

This also happened to Ahmet Turk, an 82-year-old veteran of Kurdish politics. He has been elected and dismissed as mayor of the city of Mardin three times.

Observers agree that Erdogan is set on becoming the president of Turkey again.

However, a constitutional amendment would be necessary for a fourth term in office. As of now, Erdogan lacks the necessary majority in parliament.

Analysts believe that his plan is to use the carrot and stick approach to bring the Kurds and pro-Kurdish DEM Party into line by offering concessions, such as softening Ocalan's sentence to house arrest or possibly ending the practice of imposing state officials in Kurdish regions.

Moreover, such moves could also split the opposition.

Could the Turkish government's hope be to offset Abdullah Ocalan's release for Kurdish votes?

Image: Christoph Hardt/Panama Pictures/picture alliance

Power shift in the Middle East?

Arzu Yilmaz, a political scientist at the University of Kurdistan Hewler in Iraq's city of Erbil believes that there are other reasons for the latest developments.

"First and foremost, the unstable situation in the Middle East and the US govenment's decision to withdraw US soldiers from Iraq and Syria by 2026," she told DW.

Given Donald Trump's re-election, this could happen sooner than expected, she added.

Around 2,500 US soldiers are still stationed in Iraq, and some 900 in Syria, where they cooperate closely with local Kurdish militias.

"The balance of power in the Middle East is shifting, but despite its ambitions, Turkey is not an important player," Yilmaz said, saying that Ankara might want to change that.

Bese Hozat, the co-chair of the Kurdistan Communities Union, an umbrella organization of several parties of Kurdistan, including the PKK, echoed these thoughts. "Turkey's geopolitical and geostrategic position and influence in the region is gradually weakening," she said in an interview, adding that this was "causing the Turkish government to panic."

In her view, this has pushed it to find a workaround and try to instrumentalize Kurdish leader Ocalan for its own purposes.

Military operations expected

Earlier this month, Erdogan announced that he would soon close the "security gaps on the southern borders".

This signals a new round of Turkish military operations in Syria and Iraq.

Arzu Yilmaz believes that the Iraqi Kurds have no reason to worry about the future as their status quo is enshrined in Iraq's constitution.

However, the future of the self-governing Kurdish region in northeastern Syria is more uncertain, she said, adding that so far the US had supported the Kurds but it remained to be seen what would happen after the withdrawal of US troops. It was unclear who would fill the resulting power vacuum.

A key factor would be how the Kurds in the various regions cooperated with each other, she said: "This will determine whether the Kurds ultimately emerge from this crisis stronger or weaker."

Sources close to the PKK say that an initial meeting of Kurdish parties from Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey took place in the Belgian capital Brussels in November, however, the result of the discussion remains unknown.

The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own state. According to estimates, more than 12 million live in Turkey, around 6 million in Iraq and the same in Iran, and just under 3 million in Syria.

Germany boasts the largest Kurdish diaspora community, which numbers around 1 million.

This article was translated from German.

EU clash between worker shortages, anti-immigrant politics

Anchal Vohra in Brussels

DW

11/21/2024

As aging populations exacerbate worker shortages, European countries are quietly luring skilled foreign workers — even as pressure from the far right to keep immigration down has increased.

Italy is facing a major nursing shortage

Matteo Bazzi/REUTERS


With immigration the top political issue in Europe, particularly with the surge of the far right, pressure on governments to keep the numbers down has increased.

And yet several countries, even those with a publicly anti-immigrant stance, are luring foreign workers to fill a large labor void and keep the economies in an aging continent running.

The European Union has identified 42 occupations that face labor shortages and has come up with an action plan to attract foreign workers. Nearly two-thirds of small and medium-sized businesses in the bloc say they cannot find the talent they need.

On the face of it, many European leaders, especially those on the far right, have advocated deals with third countries to curb the entry of immigrants or repatriate them elsewhere. And yet, amid much less fanfare, signs of a policy shift acknowledging the need for immigrants have come to light.
Italy to recruit Indian nurses

Italy's far-right government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has decided to recruit hundreds of thousands of foreign workers desperately needed to plug the gaping shortages.

"For the three-year period [from] 2023-2025, the government expects a total of 452,000 entries,'' the Italian government said last year, also admitting it is much less than the "detected need of 833,000'' workers over that period of time.

According to the IDOS Study and Research Center, Italy needs 280,000 foreign workers annually until 2050 to meet the labor shortfall in various sectors such as agriculture, tourism and health care — about half the number of asylum applications filed last year. The country faces labor shortages in 37 occupations, with nurses and other health care professionals in the most demand.

The government recently announced it will recruit 10,000 nurses from India to help make up a shortage that is three times that much. Italian Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said in October that India has an oversupply of nurses. "There are 3.3 million nurses" in India, he said. "We want to bring here about 10,000."

Italy sends migrants to Albania under new asylum scheme  02:26

Schillaci said the Indian nurses are professionally capable and will be recruited directly by Italian regions and placed wherever needed, once their ability to speak in Italian has been determined.

Maurizio Ambrosini, a professor of sociology and a migration expert at the University of Milan, told DW that Meloni's government has been compelled to change policy by employers who are in desperate need of workers.

"Italian employers were very silent on the migration debate for years. I suppose they didn't want a battle with the right-wing parties,'' he said over the phone. "But no longer."

Many, even in her own coalition, see the policy as a strong reversal from Meloni, who once referred to pro-immigration policies as part of a left-wing conspiracy to “replace Italians with immigrants."

"I hoped now that we finally have a right-wing government the situation would change, but the right is getting worse than the left,'' said Attilio Lucia, a member of the far-right League party and the deputy mayor of Lampedusa, a tiny island that is the arriving port for many migrants.

Netherlands wants to retain 'knowledge migrants'

Businesses may have also affected the thinking in the new Dutch government led by far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders' Freedom Party.

ASML, the country's largest company that manufactures semiconductor equipment, has said its success depends on talented people, wherever they come from. The company has suggested that inbound migration must not be restricted. Nearly 40% of the company's employees are foreign workers.

"We have built our company with more than 100 nationalities," Christophe Fouquet, ASML's CEO, said at the Bloomberg Tech Summit in London last month. "Bringing talent from everywhere has been an absolute condition for success, and this has to continue."

Netherlands offers tax break scheme for skilled migrants  02:34

The Netherlands has sought an exemption or an "opt-out'' from the EU asylum system, which treats asylum as "a fundamental right and an international obligation for countries." Media reports have suggested that high anti-immigrant rhetoric perpetuated by the far right has made skilled workers feel less welcome in the country.

But even the far-right political groups must grapple with the reality of just how much the companies need foreign workers to stay competitive.

The Netherlands has only marginally reduced the tax incentive for foreign workers — from 30% to just 27%. This tax break has been among the most attractive features for talented youth to move to the country, or "knowledge migrants" as the government calls them.

"This is a relatively small change in the total net income of highly skilled foreign workers," said Lisa Timm, a researcher on migration at the University of Amsterdam, "I think it will have a negligible effect on migrant arrivals."

Germany introduces 'Opportunity Card'

Germany is on course to issue 200,000 visas to skilled workers this year, a 10% increase from 2023. This is due to an "Opportunity Card" scheme, residence permits that allow workers from countries outside the EU to come to Germany and seek employment, introduced in June.

On a recent visit to India, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany is "open for skilled workers" and agreed to smooth out bureaucratic hurdles and increase visas for Indians from 20,000 to 90,000 annually.

German Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (left) met with students in Delhi earlier this yearImage: DW

Germany needs around 400,000 new skilled employees a year to cover worker shortages, especially in the fields of engineering, IT and health care, and sees a potential workforce in trained Indians.

On the other hand, the rise of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) in regional elections and a knife attack in the western German town of Solingen over the summer compelled Scholz to sign off on internal border checks in the EU "to curb migration."

Speaking on the issue in July, Scholz said irregular migration to Germany must "come down" but also stressed the country's need for skilled foreigners.
A public and a silent policy

Nearly all European countries face the same problem — labor shortages in an aging population. Despite an influx of immigrants, they don't want to appear to be allowing for migrant arrivals without visas.

Ambrosini, the University of Milan professor, said European countries are having trouble reconciling two different immigration policies, one for public consumption that calls for "border enforcement agreements with transit countries like Tunisia, or deportation to external facilities like Italy's Albania agreement.

"On the other hand, it is becoming clearer that they need workers, and they are coming up with new policies to attract a workforce that is not only skilled but also seasonal workers," he said. "This second policy is kept a bit hidden, not too much publicized, and can be visible only to the employer associations."

In the end, it's about the governments being able to say they are in control of who is coming in and who gets to stay, said Ambrosini. But that's a myth, at least regarding blue-collar jobs, since employers receive references from those already in Europe for whom to hire.

"How will the employer know who to get from Peru, for instance?"

Edited by: Davis VanOpdorp

Anchal Vohra Brussels-based European correspondent

Hong Kong 47 trial: Can pro-democracy movement regroup?

Yuchen Li in Taipei | Yoshi Pak in Hong Kong

DW   11/21/2024

Dozens of leading pro-democracy figures have been handed long prison sentences as Beijing cracks down on civil liberties in Hong Kong.

Police held back media outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts building where 45 activists were sentenced on Tuesday

Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

Emotions ran high outside Hong Kong's High Court on Tuesday as 45 pro-democracy activists were sentenced for "subversion," in the largest trial to date under sweeping national security laws imposed on the territory by Beijing.

Some of the defendants' family members broke down in tears. "Why does my son have to go to prison? Tell me why. He is a good person," the mother of one of the defendants shouted as she was taken away by the police in front of the court.

The prison terms ranged from four years and two months to 10 years. Only two out of the 47 defendants were acquitted.

However, some of those outside the court remained relatively calm.

"Today is not an end, but just a beginning, or even a middle point [in history]," the girlfriend of defendant Ventus Lau, who faces more than four years in prison, told DW.

"Of course, even one day of imprisonment is too much, but we've had a long time to process and prepare mentally, so it's not very shocking," she said.

Hong Kong court jails 45 pro-democracy activists  02:45

"When the verdict was announced today, I was very calm and peaceful, not surprised at all. Over the past three years and eight months, we've considered many possibilities, including the chance of a more severe sentence. So, when the sentence was revealed today, it was within our expectations," she added.


How did Hong Kong get here?

Beijing tightened its grip on Hong Kong following massive pro-democracy protests in 2019. Up until then, the territory had enjoyed a level of legal autonomy and civil liberties under Hong Kong's Basic Law, a constitutional document included with the handover of the former British colony to China in 1997.

These included the right to assembly, free speech and a free press. But as China began to encroach further into Hong Kong's political and legal system, pro-democracy groups in July 2020 organized an unofficial primary election for the Hong Kong legislative council.

Its aim was to secure a majority of pro-democracy candidates in the council to block measures and pressure the pro-Beijing government. Over 600,000 Hong Kong residents participated.

However, city officials loyal to Beijing said the primary was part of a plan to "paralyze" the government and weaken the national security law, which at the time had just taken effect.

The organizers of the primary said they were well within their rights to organize an election under Hong Kong's Basic Law. The judges disagreed, and 47 people connected with the primary were charged with subversion in 2021.

Joshua Wong is one of Hong Kong's most famous pro-democracy figuresImage: Kin Cheung/dpa/picture alliance
Leading pro-democracy figures sent to prison

Tuesday's verdict represented a major blow to the protection of democratic principles under Hong Kong's Basic Law. Prior to the ruling, many of the defendants had already spent years in pre-trial detention, sparking concerns about judicial independence and due process.

The sedition trial has also sent many leading pro-democracy figures behind bars.

Among them is legal scholar Benny Tai, considered a central figure in organizing the 2020 primary. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down on Tuesday.

Joshua Wong, one of the pro-democracy movement's most famous and vociferous figures, was already in prison on other charges related to protests when he was charged with subversion. He received a sentence of four years and eight months.

Before leaving the dock in court, he shouted, "I love Hong Kong. Bye bye."

On Wednesday, Jimmy Lai, the founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, testified for the first time during his own, separate, trial under the national security law.

Jimmy Lai has denied employing people who advocated for Hong Kong's independence at his former newspaperImage: Anthony Wallace/AFP

Lai has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious material. He said he "never" used his contacts with foreign politicians to influence policy in Hong Kong.

"The core values of Apple Daily are actually the core values of the people of Hong Kong," Lai said, adding that these include "rule of law, freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly."

Lai told the court he opposed violence and was not an advocate of Hong Kong independence, calling it "too crazy to think about."

"The more you are in the know, the more you are free," Lai said.

In a statement, Human Rights Watch associate China director Maya Wang said the sentences were "cruel," and show "just how fast Hong Kong's civil liberties and the rule of law have nosedived in the four years" since the draconian national security law took effect.

'Freedom and democracy still in Hong Kong people's heart'  04:29

'Anything is possible'

A friend of Wong told DW outside the court that at least the sentence means "we know when we'll see our friends come out."

"Prison does not separate us from our human instincts," he said.

"Whether inside [prison] or not, don't let the state of the times affect us so much that we feel depressed and incapable of doing anything," he added.

Ventus Lau's girlfriend said the future of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong is not set in stone.

"I wouldn't say today is an end and then make a conclusion, because you don't know what will happen next. Anything is possible," she said.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn

COMMODITY FETISH

Banana taped to wall sells for $6.2 million at art auction

A controversial piece of art has sold for millions of dollars at auction, prompting debate as to what constitutes art.




The work, entitled 'Comedian,' first went on display in 2019

John Angelillo/UPI/IMAGO

A work of art by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has been sold for $6.2 million (€5.8 million) at Sotheby's auction house in New York.

But the provocative artwork wasn't an historic oil painting, a thought-provoking piece of photography or a unique sculpture; it was a fresh piece of fruit.

A banana, to be precise. Stuck to a wall with a piece of duct tape.

"This is not just an artwork," insisted the winning bidder, Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun.

"It represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community."

What is art?

Entitled "Comedian," the masterpiece made its debut at the Art Basel show in Miami Beach in 2019, where it was far from a laughing matter, prompting debate about whether it should be considered art at all.

But this, according to Sun, is the entire point.

"I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history," he said.

Sun beat six other rival bidders for the sticky-tape-fruit combo, which was issued with a guide price of $1-1.5 million before bidding began – already a manyfold increase on its original price of $120,000 five years ago.

Not that the banana purchased by Sun was five years old; the artwork receives a fresh piece of fruit for each exhibition, and this was the third iteration.

The original banana was eaten by performance artist David Datuna, who said he was "hungry" while inspecting it at the Miami show.

Sun, the founder of crypto exchange Tron, said that he intended to eat his investment too.

"In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture," he said.

Included in his purchase, alongside a certificate of authenticity that confirms the work was indeed created by Cattelan, are instructions on how to replace the banana when it goes off.

As such, one can understand the appeel.

mf/nm (AFP, dpa, AP)

‘Schools are responsible’: Iran's student suicides highlight growing tensions over its hijab laws

The enforcement of hijab rules in Iran is once again making tragic headlines. Over the past two weeks, two teenage girls took their own lives after reportedly facing intense pressure in their schools. Sixteen-year-old Arezou Khavari jumped from a building, and 17-year-old Ainaz Karimi hanged herself. Both were students at public schools in impoverished regions of the country.


Issued on: 13/11/2024 - 
L

eft: A photo of Arezou Khavari displayed at her funeral. Right: Photo of Ainaz Karimi posted by one of her friends on social media: "It was too soon to leave, my bestie." 

© Observers

By: Alijani Ershad
FRANCE24/AFP

According to Iranian teachers interviewed by FRANCE 24, the country's education system is structured to exert relentless pressure on students – particularly young girls – to conform to the strict dictates of Islamic Sharia law.

While news of student suicides occasionally surfaces in Iranian media for various reasons, this is the first reported instance of two teenage girls taking their lives specifically due to pressure over the hijab. The incidents have sparked fresh outrage across Iranian society.

LONG READ- PHOTO FEATURE CONTINUES HERE

Sri Lanka's president makes U-turn on IMF bailout

Colombo (AFP) – Sri Lanka's new leader on Thursday backed a controversial IMF bailout, marking a U-turn from his election pledge to renegotiate the deal secured by his predecessor.

Sri Lanka's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (L) and Speaker Ashoka Ranwala arrive for the opening of parliament © Ishara S. KODIKARA / AFP

Leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who tightened his grip on power last week after winning a huge majority in the legislature following his own victory in September, vowed to maintain the IMF programme.

Sri Lanka went to the IMF for a rescue package after the country defaulted on its $46 billion external debt in April 2022 during an unprecedented economic meltdown.

The shortage of foreign exchange that left the country unable to finance even the most essential imports of food and fuel led to months of street protests and forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign.

The $2.9 billion loan secured early last year required Colombo to sharply raise taxes, remove generous energy subsidies and agree to restructure more than 50 loss-making state enterprises.


Dissanayake's National People's Power party had said it did not agree with the International Monetary Fund's debt assessment and would renegotiate the bailout programme.

But in his first address to the new parliament, where his party enjoys a two-thirds majority, Dissanayake said the economic recovery was too fragile to take risks.

"The economy is in such a state that it cannot take the slightest shock... there is no room to make mistakes," he said as he ruled out negotiations with either the IMF or creditors.

"This is not the time to discuss if the terms are good or bad, if the agreement is favourable to us or not... The process had taken about two years and we cannot start all over again," he said.

The delayed third review of the four-year loan programme could be concluded by this weekend, with the finance ministry holding talks with a visiting IMF delegation in Colombo, he added.

Sri Lanka expects the next tranche of about $330 million following an early approval from the board of the international lender of last resort.

Dissanayake's interim cabinet last month signed off on a controversial restructuring of $14.7 billion in foreign commercial credit tentatively agreed by predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The debt restructuring is a key IMF demand to rebuild the island's economy, which suffered its worst crisis in 2022 when it shrank 7.8 percent.

The dissatisfaction with traditional politicians held responsible for the economic collapse was a key driver of Dissanayake's electoral success.

In June, the government concluded a deal with its bilateral lenders to restructure its official credit amounting to $6 billion, but formal agreements are yet to be signed.

Under the deal announced on September 19, private creditors holding more than half of international sovereign bonds and foreign commercial loans to the South Asian nation agreed to a 27 percent haircut on their loans.

They also agreed to a further 11 percent reduction on the interest owed to them.

International sovereign bonds account for $12.5 billion and the balance of $2.2 billion is owed to the China Development Bank.

© 2024 AFP

Gang violence leaves at least 150 dead in Haiti's capital this week, UN says

The death toll from gang violence in Haiti this year rose to over 4,500 after 150 people were killed in the capital of Port-au-Prince over the past week, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said on Wednesday. Amid rampant violence and persistent political instability, Turk said the latest "upsurge" in violence is a "harbinger of worse to come"

.


Issued on: 20/11/2024 - 
By:  NEWS WIRES
Video by:  Matthew-Mary Caruchet

Soaring violence in Port-au-Prince since last week has left at least 150 people dead, bringing the number of deaths in Haiti this year to over 4,500, the United Nations said Wednesday.

"The latest upsurge in violence in Haiti's capital is a harbinger of worse to come," UN rights chief Volker Turk warned in a statement.

"The gang violence must be promptly halted. Haiti must not be allowed to descend further into chaos."

Violence has intensified dramatically in Port-au-Prince since November 11, as a coalition of gangs pushes for full control of the Haitian capital.


Well-armed gangs control some 80 percent of the city, routinely targeting civilians despite a Kenyan-led international force that has been deployed to help the outgunned police restore some government order.

"At least 150 people have been killed, 92 injured and about 20,000 forced to flee their homes over the past week," Turk's statement said.

In addition, "Port-au-Prince's estimated four million people are practically being held hostage as gangs now control all the main roads in and out of the capital".

Monica Juma, Kenya's presidential national security advisor, said on Wednesday that her nation backs calls from Haiti for the United Nations to consider turning the current international security mission into a formal UN peacekeeping mission.

Juma told a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday that Kenya, believed a formal peacekeeping mission could bring more resources to confront an escalating gang conflict.

The current mission has deployed just a fraction of troops pledged by a handful of countries and less than $100 million in its dedicated fund.

The Haitian capital has seen renewed fighting in the last week from Viv Ansanm, an alliance of gangs that in February helped oust former prime minister Ariel Henry.

03:16© AFP

Turk said that at least 55 percent of the deaths from simultaneous and apparently coordinated attacks in the capital resulted from exchanges of fire between gang members and police.

He also highlighted reports of a rise in mob lynchings.

Authorities said Tuesday that police and civilian self-defence groups had killed 28 gang members in Port-au-Prince after an overnight operation as the government seeks to regain some control.

Last year, in a gruesome chapter of the vigilante reprisals, a dozen alleged gang members were stoned and burned alive by residents in Port-au-Prince.

The UN rights office said the latest violence brought "the verified casualty toll of the gang violence so far this year to a shocking 4,544 dead and 2,060 injured".

The real toll, it stressed, "is likely higher still".

In addition, an estimated 700,000 people are now internally displaced across the country, half of them children, it said.

Turk warned that "the endless gang violence and widespread insecurity are deepening the dire humanitarian crisis in the country, including the impacts of severe food and water shortages and the spread of infectious diseases".

This was happening "at a time when the health system is already on the brink of collapse", he said, adding that "threats and attacks on humanitarian workers are also deeply worrying".

"Gang violence must not prevail over the institutions of the State," he said, demanding "concrete steps ... to protect the population and to restore effective rule of law".

(AFP)

Doctors Without Borders halts operations in Haiti's capital amid threats from police

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Want to understand why Trump won the election? Look at pop culture.

How entertainment, from Morgan Wallen to Twisters, predicted the MAGA pivot.

by Kyndall Cunningham

Updated Nov 15, 2024

Singers Post Malone and Morgan Wallen performing at the 57th Annual CMA Music Awards on November 8, 2023

 Frank Micelotta/Disney via Getty Images

Earlier this year, conservatives on social media claimed an unlikely new icon. It wasn’t a podcaster with questionable views or a libertarian businessman selling a course or any particular ideology. It was actress Sydney Sweeney, Euphoria star and the recent lead of the rom-com Anyone but You.

Following her Saturday Night Live hosting gig in March, two conservative outlets published columns heralding Sweeney as a return to conventional beauty standards of the ’90s and early 2000s — or as, Bridget Phetasy for the Spectator put it, “the giggling blonde with an amazing rack.” Both pieces postulate that, by wearing low-cut dresses and playing up her sexuality, Sweeney was inviting men to gawk at her, therefore raising a middle finger to “woke culture” and the Me Too movement.

Sweeney hasn’t publicly aligned herself with the right in any way. (Her family’s politics, though, were the subject of controversy in 2022, which may have something to do with the right’s eager embrace of her.) Rather, her ascension as a throwback-y, hyper-feminine sex symbol has given conservatives the rare mainstream Gen Z figure on whom to project their values. For those paying close attention, the past year was rife with springboards for the conservative message.

In the hindsight following Trump’s reelection, it seems the zeitgeist of 2024 was a foreshadowing of his return to office and something forecasters might have considered a little more seriously. “Bro country” singers became the artists de jour, going head-to-head with female pop singers on the charts and, in many cases, outperforming them. The buzziest new reality shows were about Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and Mormon TikTokers. Conservative films from smaller distributors, like the biopic Reagan and Daily Wire documentary Am I Racist?, made millions at the box office. Nominally apolitical podcasters and streamers, from Joe Rogan to the Nelk Boys, hosted presidential candidates and took on an increasingly political valence.

It’s a sharp turn from the liberal-coded pop culture of the Obama years and the sort of trends that took off in response to Trump’s first presidency — comic-book movies with a progressive edge like Wonder Woman and Black Panther, social commentary films like Get Out and Promising Young Woman, not to mention the explosion of drag culture.

Joel Penney, an associate professor at Montclair State University, says the overall conservative feel of pop culture at the moment is, in many ways, a response to the Me Too movement and the notion by its detractors that “masculinity is in crisis.” At the same time that we’re seeing Sweeney receive praise for representing “traditional” femininity, the All-American straight white “bro” is getting renewed cultural attention.

“There’s been a lot of this trying to restore these strong male role models in pop culture, whether it’s Tom Cruise in the Top Gun remake or these ‘bro’ podcasters and country singers,” Penney says.

2024 was all about the straight white bro

We can see this happening most visibly in mainstream music. It’s not just that country music — a Southern genre with a past and present of conservative politics — has emerged in the mainstream over the past two years — with much controversy. It’s that this class of musicians — Morgan Wallen, Zach Bryan, Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Shaboozey, and the newly rustic Post Malone — are glaringly male. Shaboozey’s unprecedented achievements in an overwhelmingly white genre add a refreshing element to this conversation. Beyoncé also released a successful country album this year featuring Shaboozey and an array of Black female country artists. Cowboy Carter’s lead single, “Texas Hold ’Em,” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, a shorter amount of time than Morgan Wallen, Post Malone, and Shaboozey’s No.1 songs this year. Nor was she recognized by the country establishment, getting completely shut out of the Country Music Association awards. Overall, it seems like country fans and the average young person, who’s listening to more country music these days, are still more eager to hear dudes croon about beer.

Outside of the charts, these country singers have also become mainstream personalities and subjects of celebrity gossip. In the span of roughly a year, Bryan went from a little-known alternative country crooner posting YouTube videos to a celebrity whose personal relationships are being analyzed by TikTok users and explained in the pages of People. Jelly Roll and his wife, influencer and popular podcast host Bunnie XO, have also become a recognizable celebrity couple, while Wallen’s dating life and public antics have become Page Six fodder.

Singer Zach Bryan and influencer Bri LaPaglia a.k.a. Brianna Chickenfry at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena on February 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty Images

Elsewhere in pop culture, figures seemingly designated for a more male, conservative audience have gone mainstream. First, there was the viral video of a woman from Tennessee being asked about oral sex outside of a bar — a very bro-y Girls Gone Wild-inspired genre that’s emerged on TikTok — and offering a memorable onomatopoeia. There’s also the viral Florida-based father-and-son duo A.J. and Big Justice, who do food reviews at Costco. With the exception of Big Justice’s sister and mother — who’s literally referred to as the “Mother of Big Justice” in videos — this expanded universe of “Costco Guys” is made of white men and boys from Florida and New Jersey rating foods in a cartoonishly macho manner.


They’re not explicitly expressing MAGA as a value, but they’re trafficking in spaces that have been less visible in recent years: rural and suburban enclaves, featuring white, heterosexual, male, and even “bro-y” talent that was out of vogue in recent history.

One can assume that the current MAGA-coded fabric of mainstream culture correlates with a generation of young people who identify as more conservative than their parents, although Penney says the relationship between pop culture and politics is a two-way street. While the media can reflect growing opinions and interests of the moment, it can also be used to shape it.

“Pop culture doesn’t just emerge out of nowhere,” says Penney, who wrote the book Pop Culture, Politics, and the News. “We’re seeing attempts to shape the culture that are increasingly coming from the conservative media ecosystem.”

Conservatives carved out a space for themselves at the movies

In March, Ben Shapiro’s media company the Daily Wire released its first theatrical movie, the “satirical” documentary Am I Racist?, which earned $4.5 million its opening weekend. Currently, it’s the highest-grossing documentary of the year along with a handful of other conservative nonfiction films including the Catholic documentary Jesus Thirsts: The Story of the Eucharist, the Dinesh D’Souza-directed Vindicating Trump, and the creationist movie The Ark and the Darkness all making the top 10 list.

2024 saw other movies from conservative studios and right-wing producers make notable financial gains. Despite overwhelmingly negative reviews, the Ronald Reagan biopic, Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid, broke into the top 5 at the box office when it premiered in August, doing particularly well with older, white, and Southern audiences. Over the summer, the Christian media company Angel Studios also released the pro-adoption movie Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trout, marketed by Daily Wire+. While it made significantly less money than its 2023 predecessor Sound of Freedom, which had a vocal fan base of QAnon supporters, its nearly $12 million worldwide earnings are still a massive accomplishment for a small Christian film with no movie stars.

While the performance of these movies has not bred the same immediate concern of something like Sound of Freedom, it does provide a potential incentive for major studios to start courting a movie-going crowd that’s felt alienated by mainstream Hollywood.

Actors Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones in the 2024 film Twisters. Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Amblin Entertainment

Warner Bros has yet to produce its own Sound of Freedom, but we’ve seen hints that Hollywood is interested in movies that at least appeal to white, Southern, and conservative audiences. American nostalgia bait came to the fore in the summer blockbuster Twisters. The Oklahoma-set film with a star-studded, country-infused soundtrack did particularly well in Southern cities and theater chains in middle America, outperforming initial estimations. While it’s probably most accurate to describe the film as decidedly apolitical with some patriotic markers, it does see the white, blond savior (played by Glen Powell) emasculate the movie’s other male main character, Latino storm chaser Javi (Anthony Ramos). Powell happened to produce another piece of Americana, Blue Angels, a look at the US Navy’s flight demo squadron, and the fourth highest-grossing documentary of 2024. He also co-starred with Sweeney in Anyone but You, a film released at the end of 2023 that crossed the $200 million mark in early 2024.

Penney says corporations will try new strategies and pander to different audiences, as they’ve done with Marvel and Disney’s diversity pushes in recent years, based on what they think will benefit them financially. They’re not really thinking about political impact.

“That was very much the reality of capitalism at work,” Penney says. “[Disney] was trying new strategies, not because they were really, truly convinced that they were going to save the world through expanding diversity, but they were getting a sense that that’s what the audience wanted. It was a response to Me Too and Black Lives Matter and things that actually resonated with our culture to a degree.”

This pendulum swing from the sort of diversity-focused art that dominated pop culture during the Obama years to what we’re seeing now is hardly unprecedented. Specifically in music, country’s popularity as a genre has historically corresponded with a push in right-wing politics, from the jingoist anthems following 9/11 to “Okie From Muskogee” during the Nixon years. Pop culture has also seen movies with conservative and/or religious themes, from American Sniper and The Passion of the Christ, break the box office. If this current moment tells us anything, it’s that we’re stuck in an ouroboros of shifting political values and corporate interests.

Suffice to say, it’s not a question of whether we’ve been here before but whether we’re paying attention to what these signals all mean. With an honest look at our media landscape, were the results of the election truly that surprising?

Kyndall Cunningham is a culture writer interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media.

GOP WETDREAM

Could Trump actually get rid of the Department of Education?

Getting rid of the agency would cause a lot of harm and wouldn’t really change school curriculum.

by Ellen Ioanes

 Nov 20, 2024,

President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for the Department of Education will likely become clearer during Linda McMahon’s confirmation hearings. 

Scott Olson/Getty Images

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While campaigning, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to dismantle the US Department of Education (DOE), on the basis that the federal education apparatus is “indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual, and political material.”

“One thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, DC, and sending all education and education work it needs back to the states,” Trump said in a 2023 video outlining his education policy goals. “We want them to run the education of our children because they’ll do a much better job of it. You can’t do worse.”

Trump on Tuesday nominated his former Small Business Administration head (and former wrestling executive) Linda McMahon to be the education secretary. Closing the DOE wouldn’t be easy, but it isn’t impossible — and even if the department remains open, there are certainly ways Trump and McMahon could radically change education in the United States. Here’s what’s possible.

Can Trump actually close the DOE?

Technically, yes.

However, “It would take an act of Congress to take it out,” Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, told Vox. “It would take an act of Congress to radically restructure it. And so the question is whether or not there’d be appetite on the Hill for abolishing the department.”

That’s not such an easy prospect, even though the Republicans look set to take narrow control of the Senate and the House. That’s because abolishing the department “would require 60 votes unless the Republicans abolish the filibuster,” Jal Mehta, professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, told Vo

Without the filibuster rule, legislation would need a simple majority to pass, but senators have been hesitant to get rid of it in recent years. With the filibuster in place, Republicans would need some Democratic senators to join their efforts to kill the department. The likelihood of Democratic senators supporting such a move is almost nonexistent.

That means the push to unwind the department is probably largely symbolic. And that is the best-case scenario, Jon Valant, director of the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy, told Vox. According to Valant, dismantling it would simultaneously damage the US education system while also failing to accomplish Trump’s stated goals.

Closing the department “would wreak havoc across the country,” Valant said. “It would cause terrible pain. It would cause terrible pain in parts of the country represented by congressional Republicans too.”

Much of that pain would likely fall on the country’s most vulnerable students: poor students, students in rural areas, and students with disabilities. That’s because the department’s civil rights powers help it to support state education systems in providing specialized resources to those students.

Furthermore, much of what Trump and MAGA activists claim the agency is responsible for — like teaching critical race theory and LGBTQ “ideology” — isn’t actually the purview of the DOE; things like curriculum and teacher choice are already the domain of state departments of education. And only about 10 percent of federal public education funding flows to state boards of education, according to Valant. The rest comes primarily from tax sources, so states and local school districts are already controlling much of the funding structure of their specific public education systems.

“I find it a little bewildering that the US Department of Education has become such a lightning rod here, in part because I don’t know how many people have any idea what the department actually does,” Valant said.

Even without literally shutting the doors to the federal agency, there could be ways a Trump administration could hollow the DOE and do significant damage, Valant and Kettl said.

The administration could require the agency to cut the roles of agency employees, particularly those who ideologically disagree with the administration. It could also appoint officials with limited (or no) education expertise, hampering the department’s day-to-day work.

Trump officials could also attempt changes to the department’s higher education practices. The department is one of several state and nongovernmental institutions involved in college accreditation, for example — and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) has threatened to weaponize the accreditation process against universities he believes to be too “woke.”

Finally, Trump could use the department’s leadership role to affect policy indirectly: “There’s power that comes from just communicating to states what you would like to see” being taught in schools, Valant said. “And there are a lot of state leaders around the country who seem ready to follow that lead.”

Trump’s plans for the department will likely become clearer during McMahon’s confirmation hearings. She has been an advocate for the school choice movement, and posted praise for the hands-on education gained through apprenticeships shortly before her nomination was made public.

Update, November 20, 11:45 am ET: This story was originally published on November 13 and has been updated to reflect Linda McMahon’s nomination for education secretary.

Ellen Ioanes covers breaking and general assignment news as the weekend reporter at Vox. She previously worked at Business Insider covering the military and global conflicts.

The stunning success of vaccines in America, in one chart

America, before and after vaccines.


by Dylan Scott
VOX

Nov 19, 2024

A teenage boy is vaccinated against smallpox in New York in March 1938.
Harry Chamberlain/FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Measles, mumps, and polio are supposed to be diseases of the past. In the early to mid-20th century, scientists developed vaccines that effectively eliminated the risk of anyone getting sick or dying from illnesses that had killed millions over millennia of human history.


Vaccines, alongside sanitized water and antibiotics, have marked the epoch of modern medicine. The US was at the cutting edge of eliminating these diseases, which helped propel life expectancy and economic growth in the postwar era. Montana native Maurice Hilleman, the so-called father of modern vaccines, developed flu shots, hepatitis shots, and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the 1950s and ’60s, which became virtually universally adopted among Americans.

Smallpox, the most common form of which has a 30 percent fatality rate, has been eradicated. Mitch McConnell, Republican titan of the Senate, may be the last major public figure still afflicted by a childhood case of polio, less than a century after it paralyzed a sitting American president. Measles likely infected millions of people annually in the US in the 1800s, although precise estimates from the era are hard to come by. In the early 1900s, thousands of people died from the disease every year. It was still infecting more than half a million and killing hundreds per year on average in the 1950s and ’60s, before the vaccine debuted. Diphtheria, a deadly respiratory infection, killed more than 1,800 people annually between 1936 and 1945 as the vaccine against it was still being rolled out. It has not killed anybody in the United States in decades.

The vaccines that made this possible are among the most important achievements in human history. And yet many Americans appear to be losing faith in them, a worrying trend that could accelerate if President-elect Donald Trump succeeds in handing control of the top US health agency into the hands of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country’s foremost vaccine denier.

Kennedy has spent much of his public career pushing the thoroughly debunked theory of a link between autism and childhood vaccines. He has supported an anti-vaccine group in Samoa, where measles vaccination rates have since fallen off; a 2019 outbreak killed 83 people just a few months after Kennedy visited the island and met with anti-vaccine advocates. He has likewise cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccines, a position that helped nudge the lifelong Democrat toward Trump. After Kennedy dropped his own presidential campaign this year, he became Trump’s most influential health adviser and last week was nominated by the president-elect to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The day after Trump’s election, Kennedy insisted he would not “take away anybody’s vaccines.” Instead, he said, he planned to compile vaccine safety information so that people could make their own decisions. But vaccine safety has been extensively studied — and the negative effects Kennedy claims remain undetected. (Others in Trump’s orbit have stated that Kennedy will nevertheless use whatever information he finds to try to pull vaccines from the market.)

Experts fear that his appointment will validate his anti-vaccine attitudes — and exacerbate the public’s growing ambivalence toward these vital public health measures.

As long-accepted, lifesaving public health measures increasingly become politically polarized, routine vaccination rates are rapidly declining in much of the US. In the 2019–2020 school year, three states had less than 90 percent of K–12 students vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella. By the 2023–2024 school year, 14 states had fallen below that threshold. The number of states with more than 95 percent of schoolchildren vaccinated — the preferred level of coverage to prevent outbreaks — dropped from 20 to 11 during that same period.

It is no surprise then that the number of US measles cases more than quadrupled from 2023 to 2024. Nobody has died of measles in the US since 2015, but if vaccination rates continue to decline, this highly contagious disease (one person can infect more than a dozen other people) will spread with increasing ease, which raises the risk that American kids could die.

We know how to prevent that. We’ve had remarkably safe, effective shots for decades. We just need to keep using them.

Dylan Scott is a senior correspondent and editor for Vox’s Future Perfect, covering global health. He has reported on health policy for more than 10 years, writing for Governing magazine, Talking Points Memo, and STAT before joining Vox in 2017.