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)
Friday, January 22, 2021
As Trump departs office, reality sets in for QAnon cult Caitlin Dickson and Jerry Adler Wed, January 20, 2021
It began with a cryptic remark by President Trump at a photo op with senior military leaders in October 2017. “You guys know what this represents?” Trump asked the reporters he had summoned to the State Dining Room, gesturing to the officers arrayed beside him. “Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”
No one, evidently including the generals in attendance, seemed to know what he meant. Was it a threat to North Korea? A warning to Iran or ISIS? Trump, and later his then press secretary Sarah Sanders, refused to elaborate. “He certainly doesn’t want to lay out his game plan for our enemies,” Sanders declared.
But within a few weeks an explanation for the remark began to take shape in the shadows of the internet, on a right-wing message board where someone who called himself Q — the designation for top-secret clearance from the Department of Energy, which supervises America’s nuclear arsenal — began spinning out a baroque paranoid fantasy in elliptical, coded hints known as “crumbs.” The core myth, elaborated over the next three years with contributions from a burgeoning cadre of followers, was that Trump was planning the destruction of a worldwide ring of Satanist pedophiles that included, in various versions, “deep state” bureaucrats, global financial elites, prominent Democrats and, inevitably, Jews.
Although there are theories about the identity of Q — none of which involve a top national security official — he or she remains anonymous, and so do most of Q’s followers. Hence the name: QAnon.
The fantasy ended at noon on Jan. 20, when Joe Biden took the oath of office, while the erstwhile QAnon hero, now just Donald Trump, ex-president, skulked off to his estate in Florida without even a Twitter account to his name.
Outgoing President Donald Trump speaking at Joint Base Andrews, Md.,
on Wednesday. (Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images)
For some the charade had ended two weeks earlier, with the chaotic riot at the Capitol, at which Q followers were well represented, that failed to stop the counting of electoral votes certifying Biden’s victory. Or at various other milestones along the tortuous road that led from the Nov. 3 election. Q had gone mostly silent since then, and followers had to fall back on reassuring each other that Trump was just biding his time before unleashing the “Storm” on an ever-growing list of enemies, eventually including members of his own administration.
“Trust the Plan” was the mantra of true believers. “Just think,” one posted hopefully on Jan. 19, “today and tomorrow will be holidays for your children.”
But as the clock ticked down to noon on Wednesday, Q message boards began filling with increasingly desperate posts from followers who claimed to have gone without sleep for as long as six days, not wanting to miss the moment they had been waiting and hoping for for years. “Please God, I’m watching, it’s making me sick to my stomach, but I want to see arrests,” one wrote. “Either arrests happen or we are now China’s property,” wrote another. And as Biden prepared to take the oath, a few minutes before 12 p.m. ET, despair turned to anger, even at Trump himself. “Thanks Trump!” read one post. “You sold out our country!”
In what will probably be the closest thing to an official conclusion to the Q saga, Ron Watkins, the former administrator of the 8kun board, which hosted Q, posted a conciliatory message to Telegram shortly after Biden’s inauguration ceremony, telling followers, “we keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able.”
“We have a new president sworn in and it is our responsibility as citizens to respect the Constitution regardless of whether or not we agree with the specifics or details regarding officials who are sworn in,” the message continued. “As we enter into the next administration please remember all the friends and happy memories we made together over the past few years.”
Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday.
(Andrew Harnik, pool via AP)
In an effort to perhaps reassure followers that all is not completely lost, Watkins added, “I’ll have more to say in a few days regarding a new project I’m currently fleshing out,” before concluding the message with “God bless.”
Watkins and his father, Jim, who owns 8kun, the anonymous message board that has hosted Q’s posts for years, played an integral role in facilitating the QAnon phenomenon, leading some to suspect that the two were actually behind the Q persona — a theory both have previously denied.
On Election Day 2020, hours after Q posted what would end up being one of their last “drops,” Ron Watkins announced he was stepping down as the administrator of 8kun. In the weeks that followed, he emerged as a prominent source of a wide range of baseless election-fraud conspiracy theories. His particularly aggressive promotion of false claims relating to Dominion Voting Systems earned him several appearances on the far-right-wing One America News Network, an “expert witness” citation in one of Sidney Powell’s unsuccessful “Kraken” lawsuits and a retweet from Trump.
It’s too early to say where QAnon will rank in the long history of human delusion. Its reach was wide but comparatively shallow — compared, say, with the Heaven’s Gate cult, whose three dozen or so members committed mass suicide in 1997, believing they would be transported to an alien spaceship tracking Comet Hale-Bopp as it approached Earth. Strong beliefs aren’t necessarily shaken by failed prophecies. Armageddon has been confidently predicted innumerable times since the Book of Revelation was accepted into the biblical canon; in fact, in 1971, the psychic Jeane Dixon pegged it for 2020, which must have seemed safe enough at the time. Now evidently leaderless, and with its raison d’être gone, QAnon may have nowhere to go. But its legacy will endure, a testament to human gullibility and the powerful urge to channel outrage against an enemy, even an imaginary one.
Monique O. Madan, Sonia Osorio , Alex Daugherty Wed, January 20, 2021
Madeleine Leon‘s eyes went wide, her jaw, ajar.
The news that during his last night as president Tuesday, Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending the deportation of Venezuelans in the U.S. left her “sweaty, confused and pleasantly surprised.”
“I was a madwoman — a happy one running all around the house,” the Venezuelan asylum seeker told the Miami Herald as she sat beside her husband. “We truly couldn’t believe our eyes, that Trump did that considering the past four years of his strict immigration policies.
“I was changing all the channels on the TVs,” she added, noting that at some point she had three remotes in her hands, along with a cellphone and laptop. “Each one had a different news source because for a minute I thought it was fake news, that it couldn’t be real. I did a double-take.”
Leon’s reaction to Trump’s eleventh-hour executive order deferring the removal of Venezuelans currently in the United States for 18 months wasn’t very different from that of immigration advocates and policy experts.
Many blinked twice when they heard the news, and though they were joyous, the announcement rendered disappointment.
“When you do something good you should be praised. But unfortunately, it was several years too late, and the weakest possible benefit you can provide,” said Randy McGrorty, attorney and director of Catholic Legal Services, an organization that has represented tens of thousands of immigrants seeking refuge and asylum in South Florida.
“Venezuela didn’t suddenly descend into hell yesterday,” he said. “Call it a cop-out if you will.”
Deferred Enforced Departure, or DED, applies to all Venezuelan citizens in the U.S. with the exception of those who are subject to extradition, are inadmissible under the Immigration and Nationality Act or were deported, excluded, or removed prior to Jan. 20. It also authorizes their employment while in the United States.
And though the decision could benefit as many as 200,000 Venezuelans at risk of being sent back to the troubled South American nation, the benefit is only temporary” and doesn’t compare to Temporary Protected Status, which is “an actual immigration status,” McGrorty said.
“DED is not. It’s just a promise not to deport you for 18 months. That means that after that amount of time, you’re back to square one. Sure, it can always be renewed, but it’s completely discretionary, any president could just change his or her mind and there it goes,” he said. “TPS is concrete. It’s in the statutes and it has certain rights and responsibilities associated with it and the government has to follow certain procedures.”
DED was first granted in 1990 and has since been activated five times to halt the deportation of certain migrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Liberia, China, and the Persian Gulf. Prior to that, DED was formerly known as Extended Voluntary Departure, or EVD, according to U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services. EVD was granted to the first wave of Cubans fleeing after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, prior to the Cuban Adjustment Act.
Jose Mendoza, who applied for asylum with his wife Madeleine more than two years ago and is still waiting to hear back, says he hopes President Joe Biden will move to do “something more solid for the Venezuelan people.”
Biden, who took office hours after Trump signed the order, has the authority to reverse or amend the executive action at any time. Along the campaign trail, as well as in recent immigration reform proposals, he has promised to “immediately” grant TPS to Venezuelans already in the United States. Transition officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Patricia Andrade, director of the Venezuela Awareness Foundation, a human rights organization in Miami, said she was very pleased with the measure because it will help thousands of Venezuelans for a specified period of time. However, she expressed “great concern” that the Biden administration will remove Venezuela from its agenda now that Trump has found a temporary solution.
“We do not want words of solidarity, we really want action, for sanctions to be maintained, for forceful measures to be taken to achieve the transition to democracy in Venezuela,” she said.
José Antonio Colina, president of Venezolanos Perseguidos Políticos en el Exilio (Politically Persecuted Venezuelans in Exile), an immigration advocacy organization in Miami, stressed that it is an important step to protect thousands of Venezuelans who are still in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and have not committed federal crimes.
Last month, leaders with Venezuela’s opposition urged the incoming Biden administration to grant Venezuelans TPS. Officials appointed as U.S. emissaries by Juan Guaidó — the man recognized by the Trump administration as Venezuela’s rightful president — made the push after touring an immigration detention center in Broward County, which at the time had 40 Venezuelan detainees, the most at one single detention center in the country out of the 257 behind bars.
Krystin Montersil, detention program supervisor for Catholic Legal Services, said the majority of Venezuelans who had been detained in immigration proceedings have been released on orders of supervision in South Florida.
“Just in the last two to three weeks, we’ve seen approximately 20 to 30 releases of Venezuelan nationals,” Montersil said.
Trump’s DED order wasn’t the only immigration change that occurred. On Wednesday, Biden proposed a major overhaul to the U.S. immigration system. The sweeping reform included broad legal protections for millions of undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. It also provides an expedited path to citizenship for so-called “Dreamers,” individuals who came to the U.S. as children, and others given a temporary reprieve after fleeing natural disaster or armed conflict.
Florida’s two U.S. Senators have already expressed opposition to Biden’s immigration bill and suggested that it will likely be a political issue raised by Republicans during the 2022 election cycle.
Sen. Marco Rubio, one of the senators behind the failed “Gang of Eight” immigration proposal that passed the Senate with a bipartisan vote in 2013 but died in the GOP-controlled U.S. House, said Biden’s plan is a non-starter that amounts to “blanket amnesty.”
“Before we deal with immigration we need to deal with COVID, make sure everyone has the chance to find a good job, and confront the threat from China,” Rubio said in a statement a day before Biden’s inauguration. “There are many issues I think we can work cooperatively with President-elect Biden, but a blanket amnesty for people who are here unlawfully isn’t going to be one of them.”
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who will lead Senate Republicans’ political arm for the next two years, released a statement through the National Republican Senatorial Committee blasting Biden’s immigration plan and listing a number of Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2022.
Both Rubio and Scott could run for president in the future and could open themselves up to attacks from the far right if they’re perceived as being too friendly to undocumented immigrants. Rubio was attacked for his immigration work during the 2016 GOP primary.
But Miami Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who has been a key GOP voice on immigration reform efforts in the U.S. House, struck a more conciliatory tone on Wednesday. Diaz-Balart said in a statement he was “fully committed to working with the Biden Administration.”
All three Florida Republicans, along with Miami Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez, were enthusiastic supporters of Trump’s last minute decision to grant Deferred Enforced Departure for Venezuelans living in the United States just hours before his term ended.
Rubio had floated the idea of Trump enacting DED for Venezuelans for more than a year after TPS failed in the U.S. Senate in 2019. DED functions similarly to TPS in that it allows recipients to live and work in the U.S. without the fear of deportation, but is derived from the president’s foreign policy powers rather than immigration law passed by Congress.
“If we can get deferred forced removal with a work permit like there is with Liberia, that’s the functional equivalent of TPS,” Rubio said in 2019. “There’s some legal issues with that as well, but it’s the functional equivalent of a TPS designation without some of the legal pushback we’ve gotten.”
Gimenez and Salazar praised Diaz-Balart’s work for getting Trump to enact DED. Any future immigration deals in Congress could involve the Miami Republican who remains well-respected by most Democrats in Washington and represents thousands of undocumented immigrants in his Hialeah-based district.
“I commend my dear friend and colleague, Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, for his work with the administration and his unwavering commitment to the plight of the Venezuelan people,” Salazar said in a statement.
Meanwhile back in Miami, Republican strategist Jesse Manzano-Plaza called it “a gift or action that was perhaps very overdue
Rep. Mondaire Jones prevents Trump deportation of constituent to Haiti
DeMicia Inman Thu, January 21, 2021 Jones and his team worked together with attorneys to prevent Paul Pierrilus from being illegally deported to Haiti, where he has never been.
Former President Donald Trump moved to have Paul Pierrilus deported to Haiti, but the office of freshman Congressman Mondaire Jones prevented the action.
The Washington Post reported the Trump administration attempted to have Pierrilus sent to Haiti although he had never been to the country. In the final hours of the Trump presidency, chartered deportation flights continued, and dozens of immigrants were sent to countries they have never called home.
(Photo: U.S. House of Representative)
President Joe Biden has committed to delaying deportations for at least the first 100 days of his term.
“We have an immigration system where attorneys, advocacy organizations, and members of Congress must work on a case-by-case basis to work miracles in order to obtain justice for clients and constituents,” said Jones, according to the report. “That is no way to run an immigration system.”
Pierrilus is a financial consultant who emigrated to the United States at the age of 5. He was born in the French territory of St. Martin, which does not have policies for birthright citizenship. His parents are Haitian natives, however, he has never visited the nation. According to the Post, a tweet from the Haitian ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, confirmed the Rockland County, New York resident has no citizen status in Haiti.
Essentially, Pierrilus is stateless as he is not recognized as a citizen in St. Martin or the U.S. The Post says there are about 218,000 individuals currently in the United States with the same status.
He was set to be deported on Tuesday before Mondaire and team stepped in and were able to remove him from the plane just minutes before take-off.
“My mother was devastated and distraught,” his sister, Neomie Pierrilus, told the Post. She reached out to a cousin who went to high school with their new congressman, Rep. Jones to ask for help. “I am a fighter, and I wasn’t going to give up on my family.”
Katrina Bleckley, staff attorney with the Haitian Bridge Alliance made contact with Jones, who responded immediately.
“There was nothing to do except go to Congress,” said Bleckley, according to the report. “Minutes after the text, I got a callback. I’ve never had a turnaround like that.”
Bleckley said Pierrilus garnered the attention of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement due to drug offenses. ICE also attempted to deport his brother, Daniel Pierrilus, in 2006. According to the family, Haitian officials sent him back when he arrived at Port au-Prince.
After Bleckley and Jones teamed up, staff worked through the night on Monday, demanding ICE provide a copy of valid Haitian travel documents on behalf of Pierrilus, which were never sent. By morning, Pierrlus was able to call and confirm he was not on the plane that departed for Haiti. According to the Post, he is still in Louisiana, where the flight was scheduled.
Via Twitter, Edmond confirmed that Pierrilus was removed from the flight through the efforts of not only U.S. authorities but with the assistance of the Haitian embassy.
“Yet they decided to try to send him to Haiti anyway without documents,” Edmond said, per the Post. “We found the lack of humanity in the process disturbing. We asked ourselves, how many others were deported this way?”
Jones, 33, is a congressman from New York’s 17th District. His resolution of the complex situation is just one example of the impact he’s already had. His election to Congress in November made history as he’s one of the first two openly gay, Black members of Congress elected last year.
As theGrio reported, Jones was named freshman representative to House leadership.
“Congressman-elect Mondaire Jones is a force for progress in New York and across America, whose brilliant legal mind, grassroots organizing experience, and spirit of advocacy and action have already enriched our House Democratic majority,” said Nancy Pelosi according to the report. “His leadership has been acknowledged by his election as freshman representative to leadership, where he will amplify, strengthen, and unify the voices of our diverse, dynamic Democratic caucus.”
'It gives us hope': migrants stranded in Mexico buoyed by prospect of Biden reform
David Agren in Piedras Negras Wed, January 20, 2021
Photograph: Jerry Lara/AP
Selma López, 31, has spent nearly a year holed up in a two-room house not far from Mexico’s border with the US, along with her 11-year-old son Darikson and another woman who also made the long journey from Honduras in search of a new life.
They are among thousands of people stranded south of the frontier by a Trump administration policy known as migrant protection protocols (MPP), which obliges asylum seekers to await their court hearings in some of Mexico’s most dangerous cities, instead of in the US.
Children and adults have been raped, kidnapped and murdered while awaiting their court date. In Piedras Negras, police routinely harass migrants, said López. Earlier this week, a mysterious white car followed her as she walked to the store. And as a Garifuna woman, she has suffered overt racism and anti-Black insults from locals.
But López’s mood brightens when conversation turned to the US presidential inauguration – and what it might mean for her and thousands of others.
“We’re encouraged and feeling a little hopeful,” said López, who fled northern Honduras after gangsters threatened to kill Darikson for not making protection payments. “It’s giving us a little hope that we can at least enter the US and fight our cases there.”
Joe Biden has promised to do away with MPP and restore the asylum process, raising hopes among MPP participants that their claims will be treated seriously – and that they won’t have to risk their lives while waiting.
Biden plans to restore asylum and refugee programs and officials from the incoming administration say MPP will be addressed in an executive order in the near future.
But they cautioned it could take months to address all the changes to the immigration system introduced by Trump.
Activists on the border have tried to temper migrants’ enthusiasm.
“They think things are going change immediately. I’m trying to make them understand it’s not that easy,“ said Israel Rodríguez, a Baptist pastor, who feeds migrants in Piedras Negras.
Piedras Negras, a city of factories opposite Eagle Pass, Texas, attracted asylum seekers because of safety perceptions, according to Rodrigúez. But MPP participants must attend hearings in Laredo, Texas, a journey of 125 miles through cartel territory..
The threats do not just come from criminals: police in Piedras Negras regularly detain and extort migrants – and even destroy immigration documents. The local government has closed down migrant shelters under the pretext of the coronavirus and in December ordered them from providing hot meals for migrants left homeless.
“They’re making charity illegal,” said Dominican brother Obed Cuellar, director of a diocesan migrant shelter. “There’s a way of thinking here that migrants come to destroy the city or make it dirty … or they’re taking our jobs.”
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, came to office promising not to do the US’s “dirty work” on migration matters. But he immediately went along with the MPP scheme and promised to provide the participants and their children with access to health and education, employment opportunities and shelter.
Lawyers and activists say little of that help has materialized, but volunteers from Mexico and the US have provided MPP participants with everything from food and clothing to legal and medical advice.
Within Mexico, MPP largely went unnoticed as its participants were largely out of sight and out of mind. But a lawyer representing a number of MPP participants said the program served its purpose for the Trump administration, however.
“The cornerstone of MPP is xenophobia. And it worked because 68,000 people were kept out of the US,” said Charlene D’Cruz, a border fellow for Lawyers for Good Government’s Project Corazon.
“What MPP did was show people stuck at the border and that was enough for Trump’s base to say that he did what he set out to do: keep all the ‘Mexican rapists’ out.”
The pictures from Matamoros – tucked into the extreme north-east corner of Mexico – were at times shocking as MPP participants lived in the squalor of a tent camp along the Rio Grande.
The camp has been flooded out, infested with snakes and insects and eventually infiltrated by criminal groups – which charge $500 for permission to cross the frontier and inflict severe beatings on those not paying.
“My son [age five] saw someone being beaten by the river … He’s traumatized,” said Marlen, 24,a Salvadoran asylum seeker.
But people at the camp felt they had particular reason for optimism: in December 2019 Jill Biden came here and helped serve meals to the migrants.
“This is the only place along the border the now first lady visited. That’s why they’re so hopeful,” said Juan Sierra.
“We think Biden is going to push an immigration reform,” said José Luis Guerra, a skinny Cuban. “With Trump, there wasn’t any reason for hope.”
Additional reporting by Amanda Holpuch Biden immigration bill would provide more protections for child migrants Julia Ainsley Thu, January 21, 2021
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden's immigration legislation will include new protections for children migrating from Central America, including the return of an Obama-era program that lets children apply for refugee or asylum status in the United States from their home countries.
In August 2017, the Trump administration stopped what was known as the Central American Minors program, which allowed children to seek asylum in the U.S. while still in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Other details of the legislation revealed on Thursday include hiring more immigration judges to handle asylum cases, offering "humane alternatives" to immigrant detention and changing the term "alien" to "noncitizen" in immigration laws.
The bill will also include an expedited path to citizenship, allowing young immigrants known as Dreamers, certain farm workers and immigrants under Temporary Protected Status to immediately be eligible for green cards and then citizenship within three years. All other undocumented immigrants in the United States since Jan. 1 would be eligible for green cards within five years and citizenship in eight years under the legislative proposal, according to a staff member for Sen Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who spoke on a call with media and advocates on Thursday.
Tackling immigration, an issue known for its political divisiveness, as his first major legislative proposal could prove difficult for the new president.
Menendez said he was "under no illusion" that passing the legislation would anything but "a Herculean task."
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who proposed restrictions on immigration under the Trump administration, called Biden's proposal an "amnesty plan" that "dismantles existing enforcement" for illegal immigration
The bill would need 60 votes to make it through the Senate, and with Vice President Kamala Harris as a tie breaker, Menendez said he would need to bring at least nine Republicans to agree to the bill.
Other pieces of the legislation, detailed on the call by Menendez, who will introduce the bill, include allowing children to have legal assistance when making their asylum cases in U.S. immigration courts.
"We will no longer force children to make their own case… We will give them assistance to do that," Menendez said.
Menendez said the bill will also increase training and the basic standard of care for children in the custody of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Under the Trump administration, at least seven children died in the custody of, or shortly after being released from the custody of, CBP or ICE. Officials for the Trump administration said at the time that they were ill-equipped to handle the influx of families arriving at the southern border and that many of the children came to their custody with severe illness.
After caravan blocked, Honduran migrants turn anger on president After caravan blocked, Honduran migrants turn anger on president
FILE PHOTO: Honduran migrants are sent back by Guatemalan authorities Gustavo Palencia and Lizbeth Diaz Thu, January 21, 2021, 5:31 PM
TEGUCIGALPA/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Returned Honduran migrants are directing anger against their president this week after their U.S.-bound caravan was blocked by the region's security forces, accusing him of making their county unlivable while thwarting their escape to a better life.
Honduras is reeling from two back-to-back hurricanes that devastated Central America in November, as well as an historic economic contraction on the back of coronavirus pandemic.
President Juan Orlando Hernandez has also been under fire from U.S. prosecutors that have accused him of having ties to drug cartels, an allegation he has strongly denied.
An estimated 8,000 Hondurans sought to flee this week in a mass caravan hoping to reach the United States. But after regional governments, including Honduras, organized a coordinated military operation to repel the caravan, returned migrants are directing their frustration at their government.
More than 4,500 Hondurans, including more than 600 children, have been returned to the country by Guatemalan authorities over the last week.
Among them was 18-year-old Isaac Portillo, who said he felt so desperate upon his forced return to Honduras that he contemplated suicide.
Like other returned migrants, Portillo's despair quickly turned to anger. He plans to join a march on the capital Tegucigalpa on Friday – only one week after he tried to flee his shattered country.
"We're going to oust this narco-dictator," he said. "I already have my group ready."
The Honduran government did not respond to requests for comment. Hernandez has said the accusations against him come from traffickers angry at his government's crackdown on criminal networks.
WhatsApp, Facebook, and Telegram groups with thousands of members are buzzing with angry messages calling for Hernandez's ouster.
Honduras has been rocked by large anti-government mobilizations in recent years, although it is unclear whether a large protest will materialize on Friday.
Evidence introduced by U.S. prosecutors this month accused Hernandez of taking bribes from drug traffickers and has further stoked ire against the president, whose brother was convicted of drug trafficking in a U.S. court last year.
PRESSURE COOKER
Many Hondurans have been critical of what they say was a lackluster government response to the hurricanes, which caused nearly $2 billion in damages and forced over 90,000 people into emergency storm shelters. Authorities said they provided aid to thousands of families displaced by the storms.
Portillo said his family received no support from the government in the wake of the hurricanes. His father had already lost his job as a security guard when pandemic-related restrictions devastated the economy and his 14-year-old sister had to abandon her studies as the family sank deeper into poverty.
After being deported by Guatemalan authorities this week, Portillo once again found himself living under the bridge where he and his family sought refuge after their home was destroyed in November's floods. After he said the government threatened to evict them, the family fled again, this time to a relative's home.
"All I wanted to do was find work (abroad) so I could help my family and put my little sister back in school," Portillo said.
North-bound migration has traditionally offered Central American nations an escape to alleviate domestic discontent, but former U.S. President Donald Trump pressured regional governments to crack down on migrant flows.
While President Joe Biden has pledged to ease immigration policies and tackle the roots of the issue, there appeared little prospect of a rapid change how regional governments police migrants, particularly of mass movements like caravans.
Tonatiuh Guillen, former head of Mexico's immigration institute, said ongoing containment meant frustration could boil over.
"It's a pressure cooker," said Guillen, who has been critical of the increasing immigration enforcement by the region's militaries.
(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Tapachula, Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City, additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa and Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener, Editing by Daniel Flynn)
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Cybersecurity firm: Booting hackers a complex chore
FILE - This Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015 file photo shows FireEye offices in Milpitas, Calif. The cybersecurity firm that discovered a cyberespionage campaign that has badly shaken U.S. government agencies and the private sector says efforts to assess the impact and boot the intruders remain in their early stages. FireEye has released a tool and a white paper to help potential victims scour their installations of Microsoft's cloud-based email and collaboration software to determine if hackers broke in and remain active. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File) FRANK BAJAK Tue, January 19, 2021
BOSTON (AP) — Efforts to assess the impact of a more than seven-month-old cyberespionage campaign blamed on Russia — and boot the intruders — remain in their early stages, says the cybersecurity firm that discovered the attack.
The hack has badly shaken the U.S. government and private sector. The firm, FireEye, released a tool and a white paper Tuesday to help potential victims scour their cloud-based installations of Microsoft 365 — where users’ emails, documents and collaborative tools reside — to determine if hackers broke in and remain active.
The aim is not just to ferret out and evict the hackers but to keep them from being able to re-enter, said Matthew McWhirt, the effort's team leader.
“There’s a lot of specific things you have to do — we learned from our investigations — to really eradicate the attacker," he said.
Since FireEye disclosed its discovery in mid-December, infections have been found at federal agencies including the departments of Commerce, Treasury, Justice and federal courts. Also compromised, said FireEye chief technical officer Charles Carmakal, are dozens of private sector targets with a high concentration in the software industry and Washington D.C. policy-oriented think tanks.
On Tuesday, the security software company Malwarebytes announced that it was among the victims — and said it was compromised through the very Microsoft email system the FireEye tool aims to button down.
The intruders have stealthily scooped up intelligence for months, carefully choosing targets from the roughly 18,000 customers infected with malicious code they activated after sneaking it into an update of network management software first pushed out last March by Texas-based SolarWinds.
“We continue to learn about new victims almost every day. I still think that we’re still in the early days of really understanding the scope of the threat-actor activity,” said Carmakal.
During a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, national intelligence director nominee Avril Haines said she's not yet been fully briefed on the campaign but noted that the Department of Homeland Security has deemed it “a grave risk” to government systems, critical infrastructure and the private sector and “it does seem to be extraordinary in its nature and its scope.”
The public has not heard much about who exactly was compromised because many victims still can’t figure out what the attackers have done and thus “may not feel they have an obligation to report on it,” said Carmakal.
“This threat actor is so good, so sophisticated, so disciplined, so patient and so elusive that it’s just hard for organizations to really understand what the scope and impact of the intrusions are. But I can assure you there are a lot of victims beyond what has been made public to date,” Carmakal said.
On top of that, he said, the hackers “will continue to obtain access to organizations. There will be new victims.”
Microsoft disclosed on Dec. 31 t hat the hackers had viewed some of its source code. It said it found “no indications our systems were used to attack others.” On Tuesday, Malwarebytes said it had determined that “the attacker only gained access to a limited subset of internal company emails” and said the conduit — Microsoft's Azure cloud services — are not used in its software production environments.
Carmakal said he believed software companies were prime targets because hackers of this caliber will seek to use their products — as they did with SolarWinds’ Orion module — as conduits for similar so-called supply-chain hacks.
The hackers’ programming acumen let them forge the digital passports — known as certificates and tokens — needed to move around targets' Microsoft 365 installations without logging in and authenticating identity. It's like a ghost hijacking, very difficult to detect.
They tended to zero in on two types of accounts, said Carmakal: Users with access to high-value information and high-level network administrators, to determine what measures were being taken to try to kick them out,
If it’s a software company, the hackers will want to examine the data repositories of top engineers. If it’s a government agency, corporation or think tank, they’ll seek access to emails and documents with national security and trade secrets and other vital intelligence
QAnon Could Splinter into 'Violent Offshoots' After Trump Exit: 'Humiliation Fuels Rage'
BY EWAN PALMER ON 1/21/21 NEWSWEEK
There are fears that followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory may be pushed into more violence as some of the most ardent believers realize they have been had and one of the movement's most important figures appears to call it quits.
The inauguration of President Joe Biden was seen as the last throw of the dice for many supporters whose faith in QAnon had been severely tested down the years.
It didn't matter that Hillary Clinton was not arrested in 2017 or that Donald Trump never took down the "deep state" during his time in office, or that he lost the election then failed to overturn the result—despite an insurrection attempt by some of QAnon's extremist followers—because "the plan" all along was a showdown on January 20.
In the days leading up to the inauguration, high-profile figures in the QAnon movement claimed Trump would implement the Emergency Alert System during the ceremony in Washington, D.C. to announce the arrests and even executions of Democratic "traitors" and satanic pedophiles—a hugely anticipated moment known as "the storm," which has been predicted on several dates down the years.
QAnon advocate Invisible_ET pushed this belief as far as he could, posting on messaging service Telegram "Enjoy the show!" minutes before Biden was sworn in.
As the ceremony ended with no mass arrests or intervention from the military under Trump's secret orders, a number of QAnon supporters described "feeling sick" and let down, announcing, "I've had enough of this," and appearing to accept defeat.
QAnon supporters posting on Telegram after Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president.SCREENSHOT/TELEGRAM
For many, the moment the towel was thrown in was a message from Ron Watkins, one of the leading figures in the movement.
Watkins is the former admin of messageboard 8kun, originally known as 8chan, which is owned by his father Jim Watkins.
The QAnon conspiracy theory first appeared on 4chan—a forerunner of 8chan—in late 2017 as a series of cryptic messages posted by a figure known only as "Q." These posts were interpreted to form the outlandish claims of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Q's coded messages or "drops" would later appear on 8kun, although they essentially stopped around the time of the presidential election last November.
On Election Day, Ron Watkins announced that he was stepping down as the 8kun admin, fueling speculation that he played some role in posting Q's drops, which he denies.
Writing on Telegram, where he has nearly 120,000 followers, Watkins seemed to concede that it was time to move on from QAnon, adding that he was "currently fleshing out" a new project.
"We gave it our all. Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able," Watkins wrote. "We have a new president sworn in and it is our responsibility as citizens to respect the Constitution regardless of whether or not we agree with the specifics or details regarding officials who are sworn in.
"As we enter into the next administration please remember all the friends and happy memories we made together over the past few years."
Many QAnon supporters saw that as the final straw, questioning why Watkins would leave the movement he has been pushing for more than three years at its most crucial time.
SCREENSHOT/TELEGRAM
A moderator on 8kun even took out his frustration on the site itself, deleting all the messages on the thread used by "Q" and attacking Watkins and the conspiracy theorists in a lengthy post.
"By the way, this is not a punch to your face to strike you down, you poor dumb cattle that you are... no, consider this more a shaft up your a** to wake you up," the moderator wrote.
"I have no allies nor do I want any, I am just performing euthanasia to something I once loved very very much."
The thread and most of its posts were later restored to 8kun.
Experts fear that the divisions in the QAnon movement, which is listed as a domestic terrorist threat by the FBI, and the non-appearance of "the storm" on January 20 may push its followers further into extremism.
Colin P. Clarke, director of policy and research at security consultancy the Soufan Group, tweeted: "If QAnon begins to splinter soon, we'll need to pay attention to the emergence of potentially violent offshoots.
"We know some adherents possess the propensity for extreme violence, those who feel duped could grow exceedingly desperate & seek to lash out. Humiliation fuels rage."
Author and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild added: "I know it seems like QAnon is sinking into history, but Q was always made of reused parts of other conspiracy theories and scams.
"If Q is finished, all those parts will be recombined into something else—and easily pull in believers of all its previous components."
In a series of posts on Twitter, Marc-André Argentino, a researcher who studies the movement, wrote that followers would be "going through the stages of grief which will make them quite vulnerable."
"The one thing I am sure about is QAnon as a whole may change, it will likely metastasize, it will likely balkanize, and QAnon adherents no matter what they become will likely remain a threat until they can exit the QAnon space," Argentino wrote.
"Even without QAnon, without 'Q', without Trump, the core elements that lead these individuals to believe in QAnon will still remain and they will need to find outlets for their conspiratorial mindsets and their anti-democratic ideals."
Predictably, many QAnon supporters believe "the plan" is still in place—a claim they have made in the wake of every previous prediction being wrong.
"The plan doesn't care if you don't like it or understand it. Just Sayin," Invisible_ET wrote on Telegram. "This moment is for the whole world and every demographic. We will never forget what is about to happen. Ever. It had to be this way."
Others seem to have seen this coming. One of the biggest figures in the QAnon movement, Joe M, or The Storm Is Upon Us, appeared to jump ship in the days before the inauguration, telling his massive following that he would be "going dark for a while" on January 16 while holding onto a glimmer of hope that something might happen.
"Next week, either Q turns out to be an elaborate well-intentioned hoax promising a level of control that patriots never had, or we are all about to watch the Red Sea part and the unfolding of a new biblical-level chapter in human civilization. I believe it is the second one."
Joe M has yet to comment on President Biden's inauguration.
'No plan, no Q, nothing': QAnon followers reel as Biden inaugurated
Supporters wearing shirts with the QAnon logo, chat before U.S.
President Donald Trump takes the stage during his Make America
Great Again rally in Wilkes-Barre
Joseph Menn, Elizabeth Culliford, Katie Paul and Carrie Monahan Wed, January 20, 2021
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - For three years, adherents of the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory awaited a so-called Great Awakening, scouring anonymous web postings from a shadowy "Q" figure and parsing statements by former U.S. President Donald Trump, whom they believed to be their champion.
On Wednesday, they grappled with a harsh reality check: Trump had left office with no mass arrests or other victories against the supposed cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophile cannibal elites, especially Democrats, he was ostensibly fighting.
Instead, Democratic President Joseph Biden was calmly sworn into office, leaving legions of QAnon faithful struggling to make sense of what had transpired.
In one Telegram channel with more than 18,400 members, QAnon believers were split between those still urging others to 'trust the plan' and those saying they felt betrayed. "It's obvious now we've been had. No plan, no Q, nothing," wrote one user.
Some messages referenced theories that a coup was going to take place before the end of Inauguration Day. Others moved the goalposts again, speculating that Trump would be sworn into office on Mar. 4.
"Does anybody have any idea what we should be waiting for next or what the next move could be?" asked another user, who said they wanted to have a 'big win' and arrests made.
Jared Holt, a disinformation researcher at the Atlantic Council, said he had never before seen disillusionment in the QAnon communities he monitors at this scale.
"It's the whole 'trust the plan' thing. Q believers have just allowed themselves to be strung from failed promise to failed promise."
"The whole movement is called into question now."
A poll with more than 36,000 votes conducted in another QAnon Telegram channel before Biden's swearing-in ceremony showed that more than 20% of respondents predicted nothing would in fact happen and Biden would become president, according to the Q Origins Project, which tracks the movement.
However, 34% believe "the military & Trump have a plan coming in the near future," even while acknowledging the transfer of presidential power.
JARRING REVERSAL
The anonymous person or people known as "Q" started posting the vague predictions that would become the basis of the QAnon movement on message board 4chan in 2017, claiming to be a Trump administration insider with top secret security clearance.
The number of followers exploded with the arrival of the coronavirus last year, providing a sense of community missing in many people's isolated pandemic lives by encouraging participants to "do their own research" and contribute findings to the crowd.
Q interpreters have become mini-celebrities in their own right, spreading the gospel on mainstream sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and raising money with appeals to charity or merchandise sales, before the social media platforms cracked down late last year.
Among them was Ron Watkins, who was among a small group of movement leaders who stepped up their public activity after Trump's loss in the Nov. 3 election, as the "drops" from Q slowed and then stopped.
The longtime administrator of 8kun, an unmoderated forum where Q posted alongside violent extremists and racists, Watkins adopted the cryptic tone of Q in the past two months on Twitter and then Telegram.
At the same time he positioned himself as an expert on election fraud, getting retweeted by Trump and interviewed by Trump-favored media outlets such as One America News Network.
In one of the most jarring apparent reversals on Wednesday, Watkins appeared to admit defeat, posting: "We have a new president sworn in and it is our responsibility as citizens to respect the Constitution regardless of whether or not we agree with the specifics."
"Please remember all the friends and happy memories we made together over the past few years." He said he was working on a new venture, but gave no further details.
On TheDonald.win, a reconstituted version of the Reddit forum "The Donald" that long served as an online home for Trump loyalists, users turned on Watkins and accused him of being a "shill" and a CIA plant.
Other fringe groups, including neo-Nazis, said they intended to capitalize on the disarray by stepping up recruitment from among QAnon followers.
(Reporting by Joseph Menn, Elizabeth Culliford, Katie Paul and Carrie Monahan; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
‘I’m About to Puke’: QAnon in Chaos as Biden Takes Office Wed, January 20, 2021
THE DAILY BEAST
Win McNamee
As the rest of the country waited for Joe Biden to be inaugurated, believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory thought they were about to see something else: the long-awaited mass arrests of Biden and a host of other “deep-state” Democrats, followed by the restoration of the Trump presidency.
“Trump will walk out during the arrest and thank America for reelection,” one QAnon supporter posted on a forum shortly before the inauguration. “This will be remembered as the greatest day since D-Day.”
As Biden was sworn in, though, the mass arrests that QAnon believers call “The Storm,” stubbornly refused to happen. Trump really did appear to have left office, rather than springing the sly trap as they had all hoped. The Democrats really did have control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
The tens of thousands of National Guard soldiers QAnon believers thought would help Trump retake Washington instead appeared to be there for a more obvious purpose: protecting the city from the same crazed QAnon believers who had violently attacked the Capitol two weeks earlier.
“I’m about to puke,” one QAnon fan watching Biden take the oath of office wrote.
For more than three years, tens of thousands of QAnon believers have pinned their hopes for the future on a second Trump term. They’ve become convinced that the government is run by a cabal of satanic pedophile-cannibals and that Trump is the only way to restore justice. Many of them, egged on by promises that Trump’s “plan” included the eradication of diseases and personal debt, pinned their dreams on QAnon as well, alienating friends and family with their ideas.
Then, on Wednesday afternoon, the QAnon future vanished, presenting the ever-expanding conspiracy theory with its greatest challenge yet.
As Biden’s inauguration became ever more certain on Wednesday, QAnon believers rapidly cycled through rationalizations. They claimed that Trump was stepping down as the head of the United States “corporation”—an idea borrowed from fringe sovereign citizen legal theories—to become the head of a restored republic. Some QAnon leaders claimed that Biden himself was in on the scheme, and would soon help Trump carry out the arrests.
As Biden finally took office, however, the mood changed quickly on QAnon forums. QAnon channels on messaging app Telegram filled with gifs of far-right mascot Pepe the Frog crying, as believers claimed they had been duped. Believers said they felt sick, or wanted to throw up.
“Trump fooled us,” complained one Telegram commenter.
“All my family and co-workers think I’m crazy,” wrote another.
“I feel stupid,” wrote a third.
Even major QAnon boosters saw their faith in the bizarre conspiracy theory shaken on Monday. QAnon booster Roy Davis co-authored a bestselling book promoting QAnon under the alias “Captain Roy,” even getting his sports car painted with a giant, blazing “Q” on the hood.
As Biden was sworn in, Davis initially told The Daily Beast he didn’t want to comment until he was sure Biden was really president. But as Biden’s new title became official, Davis said he was ready to move on from Q—something his doctor has long urged him to do anyway.
“We misinterpreted it,” Davis said. “Maybe we should have done something different.”
Other top QAnon figures appeared to be backing away. As the former administrator of QAnon clues website 8kun, Ron Watkins had control over who posted as the mysterious “Q”—and has been accused of being Q himself. But on Wednesday, Watkins suggested that the QAnon fight was over.
“Please remember all the friends and happy memories we made together over the past few years,” Watkins wrote in a Telegram post.
Still, there are many signs that QAnon and the kind of unreal world it promoted will persist.
As Trump’s defeat became more certain, QAnon followers changed their claims, beginning to insist that the president’s war against the “deep state” had only begun. As the shock of Biden’s inauguration wore off on Wednesday, QAnon forum posters encouraged one another to “hold the line,” claiming that they had merely misunderstood the QAnon clues.
QAnon believer Jenny Hatch has followed the conspiracy theory since 2018, when she thought Trump referenced QAnon in a speech he gave at a White House Easter Egg Roll. Hatch had felt sure that Biden would have already been arrested on Jan. 6, and was “quite demoralized” when Biden was instead sworn in two weeks later.
“I fully expected some sort of military arrest of Joe Biden and many of the people who were on the dais with him,” Hatch said.
Hatch, a Colorado resident, said her husband doesn’t believe in QAnon, and she suspects her adult children have read articles about how to handle a family member believing in QAnon. But while Hatch was saddened that the mass arrests failed to happen on Wednesday, QAnon’s utter failure to come true somehow hasn’t shaken her faith in the conspiracy theory.
“I’m still all in with Q,” Hatch said. “I have not distanced myself from what Q meant to me personally.”
The problem created by QAnon seems set to remain as well. QAnon has been tied to three murders and a terrorist incident near the Hoover Dam, along with a series of other crimes. Biden’s top intelligence chief has promised an analysis of the threat posed by the conspiracy theory.
Even as he distances himself from QAnon, for example, Davis still thinks “Q” really was a government whistleblower revealing the truth about the world.
Immersed in its own nest of problems, the Arab World has paid little attention to what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been doing in the nearby island of Cyprus, divided due to Turkish occupation since 1974. In addition to offshore drilling in Cypriot waters, which has received its fair share of media coverage, the Turkish leader has been silent re-opening the ghost town of Varosha, an abandoned southern quarter of the Cypriot city of Famagusta, with plans to transform it into a Muslim-majority town. Its original inhabitants were almost entirely Christian, and they fled with the Turkish invasion nearly of 1974. According to UNSCR 550, only the original habitants of Varosha are allowed to return to their homes, but Erdogan it seems, has other plans.
He wants to transform it into a hub for Turkish investors and tourism, while changing its demographics and populating it with Turkish Muslims. Once through with his scheme, he hopes to give permanent residency status or Turkish Cypriot citizenship to those newcomers, tipping the religious balance of Cyprus between Muslims and Christians. Two years ago, he defied the UN by sending his agents to Varosha, ostensibly to carry out an inventory of abandoned buildings, churches, and government offices. Then in August 2019, he invited Turkish journalists to the town, followed by the Turkish Bar Association. Since last October, around 10,000 “visitors” have been admitted to Varosha, inching the town dangerously close to becoming a Turkish colony. Erdogan justifies his actions by saying that a big share of Varosha’s territory (1,472 titles out of 6,082) belongs to the Turkish Department of Religious Endowments (Awqaf), dating back to the Ottoman era in 1571. This includes crown land and the entire seaside, he says. That territory belongs to a deceased Ottoman official named Abdullah Pasha, and not to Greek Cypriots. Abdullah Pasha made the land an endowment to the Ottoman state, a legal pretext that remains binding as of 2021. He plans to eventually take the matter to court, a process that can last for years, and would require determining the price of the areas in-dispute, and then, paying compensation money for their original owners, depending on who wins the case.
The Ersin Tatar Factor
Backing his claim for Varosha is the recently elected President of Turkish Cyprus, Ersin Tatar, a protégé of the Turkish president who has vowed to transform Varosha into another Las Vegas. Erdogan moved heaven and earth to make him president last October, replacing Mustafa Akinci, a man who had vowed never to re-open Varosha unless through a negotiated deal with the Government of Cyprus. Akinci had famously said: “Instead of living side by side with a corpse, let Verosha become a lively city where people live, where contractors from both communities do business together, and where young people can find jobs.” But that should only happen, he added, under a federal roof—never unilaterally.
Erdogan despised Akinci, who was vocally opposed to Turkey’s violation of Cyprus waters and its 2019 invasion of northern Syria. That certainly was not what Erdogan expected from Akinci when he was made president of Turkish Cyprus in 2015. He was recently quoted saying: “He should know his place. His post was given to him through the Republic of Turkey.” Unseating him was not too difficult for Turkish President, however, thanks to the immense political, economic, and military influence that he enjoys in Turkish Cyprus, along with 35,000 troops. The current president, Ersin Tatar has warmly embraced the unilateral re-opening of Varosha, considering parts of it now an open region for Turkish tourists and investors.
It is interesting to see how Turkish plans for Varosha have developed, from initial insistence that they had no intention but to inventory the area, into current ambitions into making it a regional Las Vegas. Erdogan is using Varosha as a bargaining chip to increase his clout in all Turkey-related talks across the region, which he wants intertwined. That is exactly what his predecessor Kenan Evren had said, when he was commander of the Turkish unit that entered the city occupied it back in 1974. “Taking Varosha was not among our targets and planning. When the Greek Cypriots started firing, our soldiers followed, and the city came under our control without our wish. We closed it to civilians in order to use it in later negotiations.” And that is exactly what Erdogan is doing today. The Turkish President is in battle mood, especially after his most recent victories in Libya against Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. The Libyan episode proves just how far he is willing to go to support his regional ambitions, and allies. He feels that due to sheer bullying, Turkey maintains the upper hand in its relationship with Europe. They will never take real action against him, fearing that he will drown Europe with refugees, a threat that he has repeatedly made. “You may take this lightly,” he once said, “but these doors to Europe will open and these ISIS members will be sent to you. Do not try to threaten Turkey over developments in Cyprus.”
Seeing that Turkish membership talks with the EU are going nowhere, he has no incentive whatsoever, to back down on Cyprus. The State Department has frequently expressed concern over Erdogan’s actions, but under the now former Trump Administration, no steps were made at ending his expansionism. With Joe Biden now at the White House that ought to change, given the new American President’s well-known criticism of Erdogan’s ambitions and support for regional non-state players with a jihadi agenda. Now with Akinci out of the way, Erdogan’s next step is to bring down Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, whose term expires in 2023. Constitutionally he is incapable of seeking a third term, which is music to Erdogan’s ears since he too was in favor of reconciliation with Turkish Cyprus, and a negotiated deal on Varosha. The international community regards Anastasiades as a brave leader who went out of his way at trying to find a way out of the historic crisis, famously agreeing to peace talks in Switzerland back in 2017 and more recently, offering to share 30% of energy revenue with Turkish Cyprus but only if Ankara recognized Nicosia’s energy exploration rights. He had offered Erdogan a federal union with a joint senate in Cyprus composed of 40 MPs (20 Greek and 20 Turkish Cypriots). The talks also explored the idea of a lower house of parliament, composed of 36 Greeks and 12 Turkish Cypriots. Both suggestions, however, were flatly rejected by Ankara. Erdogan has a hard time dealing with moderates and would love to see a hardliner get elected instead of Anastasiades, but it is too early to predict who will come next.
Erdogan is betting upon one thing, which is complete lack of EU/American appetite to confront him. In as much as they would like to sanction Turkey for what they believe is terrorist-linked activity across the region, they are also aware of the fact that they need Turkey to prevent the reoccurrence of the exact same activity in the future. Much of Erdogan recent bravado is derived from the null reaction of the Americans, whether in defense of Saudi Arabia after the 2019 attack on Aramco, or of the Kurds after the Turkish invasion of the Syrian northeast that October. Unlike Syria, however, there is no Russian superpower calling the shots in Cyprus. And he considers Turkish Cyprus as his own backyard—a matter of life and death for his regional influence, future ambitions, economic need, and legacy.
Sami Moubayed
Unilever to insist all suppliers pay living wage by 2030
Consumer giant promises to tackle low pay around the world
Adam Forrest@adamtomforrest Conglomerate owns brands like Marmite, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Dove soap (EPA)
Multinational consumer goods giant Unilever has promised that all workers in its supply chain will receive a living wage by 2030, as its boss warned of the “widening” divide between rich and poor.
The manufacturer of Marmite, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Dove soap – headquartered in the UK – set out its pledge as part of a plan to raise wage levels among people working for smaller suppliers around the world.
The company said it would make sure everyone who directly provides or delivers goods and services for Unilever will earn at least a living wage by the end of the decade.
Unilever defines a living wage as enough money to cover food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transport and clothing – and also includs a provision for unexpected events.
Oxfam International, having worked with the multinational on its plan, said the commitment was a “step in the right direction”.
In the UK, the Living Wage Foundation has been urging British employers to commit to paying staff an annually-agreed living wage. But campaigners have found it harder to get multinationals to insist on minimum wages across their complex global supply chains.
Alan Jope, chief executive of Unilever, said his company was determined to help tackle social inequality around the world, claiming it had become worse during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The past year has undoubtedly widened the social divide, and decisive and collective action is needed to build a society that helps to improve livelihoods, embraces diversity, nurtures talent, and offers opportunities for everyone,” he said.
“We believe the actions we are committing to will make Unilever a better, stronger business, ready for the huge societal changes we are experiencing today – changes that will only accelerate.”
Unilever said it would work with partners to help set expected rates of pay in each of the 190 countries where it operates, claiming it would mean twice as much as the minimum wage for workers in some parts of the world
Workers at Miko Carte d’Or, part of Unilever, in Saint-Dizier, France (Reuters)
Leena Nair, chief people officer, said Unilever sees the biggest challenges in Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil and India. She said there were particular problems regarding inequality and living standards in the production of tea and cocoa.
“It has been really sad to see that social divides have grown globally this year we felt this action was pressing,” said Ms Nair. “It is a systemic issue and will need the support of government and NGOs [non-government organisations], but we are positive about the change that can take place here.”
Globally, Unilever has also committed to spending £1.46bn with suppliers owned and managed by people from under-represented groups by 2025 in a bid to improve the level of diversity of its supply chain.
Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam, said: “Unilever’s plan shows the kind of responsible action needed from the private sector that can have a great impact on tackling inequality, and help to build a world in which everyone has the power to thrive, not just survive.
