Dangerous Instagram? Iraqi LGBTQ+ community loses safe space

Cathrin Schaer | Azhar al-Rubaie

May 4, 2024

It was always double-edged, but in Iraq, social media was often a comparatively safe place where the local queer community could meet. Recent amendments to Iraqi law are changing all that.

Burning the rainbow flag: Conservative politicians in Iraq often describe LGBTQ+ rights as being "imported" from the decadent West

Image: Ameer Al-Mohammedawi/dpa/picture alliance

Social media has always been one of the only places where members of the LGBTQ+ community in Iraq could meet and be more open about their sexual identity.

"Before Instagram, members of the community created fake Facebook accounts and joined secret groups to get to know one another," Khalid, a 22-year-old student in the central Iraqi province of Babylon, told DW; he could not give his full name because doing so would expose him to danger. "Then with Instagram's 'close friends' story feature [launched in 2018], it became even easier for people to connect, and even to find love."

The country's conservative culture means that most queer locals have always hidden their sexuality. Surveys of attitudes toward homosexuality in Middle Eastern countries indicate that usually less than 10% of local populations "approve" of homosexuality.

"So social media has been the main platform of expression of any kind here, especially for those who do not have their own spaces," explained Ayaz Shalal Kado, executive director of the Iraqi human rights organization IraQueer. "That includes vulnerable groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community, disabled people and others. Social media was a way for these people to express themselves, connect and create communities," he told DW.

Many Middle Eastern countries have a queer scene but unlike in Lebanon 

(pictured) it mostly remains hidden

Hassan Ammar/AP/picture alliance

While social media and digital platforms have offered an opportunity, they have also posed a danger, Human Rights Watch said earlier this year as it launched the campaign Secure Our Socials. Working with local rights groups, Human Rights Watch reported how digital activity was being used by authoritarian states against individuals suspected of being queer.

Dangers of digital life

This danger is now likely to increase for the LGBTQ+ community in Iraq.

Despite generally negative attitudes toward same-sex relationships, Iraq — unlike most other countries in the Middle East — never had a law explicitly criminalizing them. Instead, Iraqi officials used more vague anti-obscenity laws to punish and harass members of the LGBTQ+ community.

But in late April, the Iraqi government amended a pre-existing law on prostitution. The new amendments ban any sort of homosexuality or transsexuality, punishing these with up to 15 years in prison. Anybody seen to "promote" homosexuality could be fined up to 15 million Iraqi dinars ($11,220, €10,5050) or sentenced to jail for up to seven years.

This comes after the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission, which regulates local media, issued rules in August 2023 mandating that media in Iraq may no longer use the term "homosexuality" and should instead replace it with the phrase "sexual deviance." Media may also not talk about "gender."

According to the local media outlet Rudaw, Iraqi lawmakers insisted they needed the amendments "to preserve the entity of Iraqi society from moral degeneration," as the amendment text read.

"The truth is, this new law is not new at all," Babylon-based student Khalid complained. "We've always lived in fear and hiding." It's just that now there's even more thing to worry about, he told DW.


International criticism

The amendments were widely criticized by international rights organizations and Iraq's foreign allies.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said the law contradicts a number of human rights treaties ratified by Iraq. The US State Department argued the new rules could be used to "further hamper free speech and personal expression and inhibit the operations of [non-governmental organizations] across Iraq."

Iraqi NGOs are still working out exactly how to respond. One Iraqi rights organization, Gala for LGBTQ, posted advice on its Instagram page that included telling users to make their accounts private, unfollowing openly queer accounts and deleting digital material that could be seen as LGBTQ+-friendly.

"If you are in Iraq, it is better not to talk or publish about the LGBTQ+ community and leave this to people who are outside Iraq," the organization suggested.

"There are many ways to fight back and that's what the community is working on currently," IraQueer's Kado told DW. "Safety and security are the highest priority. But we will not give up. That is not an option."

Kado does worry that the online presence of Iraq's LGBTQ+ community is about to be reduced or even disappear altogether, as locals realize the dangers of using social media. But, he adds, there are even larger ramifications around freedom of expression in Iraq.

Wide-ranging impact on rights groups

"Banning words like 'homosexual' or 'gender' is a huge step backwards — and not just for queer people," he argued. "It's intersectional. It doesn't just affect my organization, but also all feminist organizations, all those who work for women's rights, and those who focus on gender and bodily rights in general."

There have also been other cases of social media becoming dangerous in Iraq.

The same weekend Iraqi authorities passed the new LGBTQ+ rules, a popular Iraqi influencer, Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi, known online as Um Fahad, was murdered by an unknown assailant outside her home, most likely because of her online persona.

"Every young person has the right to entertainment and to share content on their Snapchat account," Sawadi's brother Amir, told DW. "This is their personal life."

Over the past year, two other Iraqis who were well known on social media — a transgender person known as Simsim and Noor Alsaffar, who posted videos of himself in women's clothing — were also murdered.

As Kado argues, all this should be seen as connected. "History shows us that when one group is targeted, then another vulnerable group is bound to be next," he concluded. "Once you allow perpetrators [of human rights abuses] to take a step without accountability, they will take more steps. At some point it will be too late to stop them."

Edited by: Cristina Burack

CLIMATE CRISIS CARNIVALE

Race against time to rescue Brazil flood victims after dozens killed

AFP
May 5, 2024

Aerial view of flooded streets at the Navegantes neighborhood in Porto Alegre, Rio da Grande do State, Brazil - Copyright AFP Carlos Fabal
Carlos FABAL, Mauricio RABUFFETTI

Authorities were racing against time on Sunday to rescue people from raging floods and mudslides that have killed more than 50 and forced nearly 70,000 to flee their homes in southern Brazil.

Viewed from the air, Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state, is completely flooded, with streets waterlogged and the roofs of some houses barely visible.

The Guaiba River, which flows through the city of 1.4 million people, reached a record high level of 5.09 meters (16.9 feet), according to the local municipality, well above the historic peak of 4.76 meters that had stood as a record since devastating 1941 floods.

The water was still advancing into economically important Porto Alegre and around a hundred other localities, with increasingly dramatic consequences.

In addition to some 70,000 residents forced from their homes, Brazil’s civil defense agency also said more than a million people lacked access to potable water amid the flooding, describing the damage as incalculable.

The agency put the death toll at 55, although that did not include two people killed in an explosion at a flooded gas station in Porto Alegre that was witnessed by an AFP journalist.

At least 74 people are also missing, it said.

Rosana Custodio, a 37-year-old nurse, fled her flooded Porto Alegre home with her husband and three children.

“During the night on Thursday the waters began to rise very quickly,” she told AFP via a WhatsApp message.

“In a hurry, we went out to look for a safer place. But we couldn’t walk… My husband put our two little ones in a kayak and rowed with a bamboo. My son and I swam to the end of the street,” she said.

Her family was safe but “we’ve lost everything we had.”

– ‘It’s terrifying’ –

The rainfall eased Saturday night but was expected to continue for the next 24-36 hours, with authorities warning of landslides.

Authorities scrambled to evacuate swamped neighborhoods as rescue workers used four-wheel-drive vehicles — and even jet skis — to maneuver through waist-deep water in search of the stranded.

Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite said his state, normally one of Brazil’s most prosperous, would need a “Marshall Plan” of heavy investment to rebuild after the catastrophe.

Long lines formed as people tried to board buses in many places, although bus services to and from the city center were canceled.

The Porto Alegre international airport suspended all flights on Friday for an undetermined period.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva posted a video of a helicopter depositing a soldier atop a house, who then used a brick to pound a hole in the roof and rescue a baby wrapped in a blanket.

The speed of the rising waters unnerved many.

“It’s terrifying because we saw the water rise in an absurd way, it rose at a very high speed,” said Greta Bittencourt, a 32-year-old professional poker player.

– ‘Going to be much worse’ –

With waters starting to overtop a dike along another local river, the Gravatai, Mayor Sebastiao Melo issued a stern warning on social media platform X, saying, “Communities must leave!”

He urged people to ration water after four of the city’s six treatment plants had to be closed.

Leite, the governor, said in a live transmission on Instagram the situation was “absolutely unprecedented,” the worst in the history of the state, which is home to agroindustrial production of soy, rice, wheat and corn.

Residential areas were underwater as far as the eye could see, with roads destroyed and bridges swept away by powerful currents.

Rescuers faced a colossal task, with entire towns inaccessible.

At least 300 municipalities have suffered storm damage in Rio Grande do Sul since Monday, according to local officials.

– ‘Disastrous cocktail’ –

Roughly a third of the displaced have been taken to shelters set up in sports centers and schools.

The rains also affected the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Lula, who visited the region Thursday, blamed the disaster on climate change.

The devastating storms were the result of a “disastrous cocktail” of global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon, climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino told AFP on Friday.

South America’s largest country has recently experienced a string of extreme weather events, including a cyclone in September that killed at least 31 people.

Brazil mounts frantic rescue effort as flooding kills 66

Porto Alegre (Brazil) (AFP) – Authorities in southern Brazil raced against the clock Sunday to rescue people from raging floods and mudslides that have killed at least 66 and forced more than 80,000 to flee their homes.


Issued on: 05/05/2024 -

Aerial view of flooded streets in the Navegantes neighborhood of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil on May 4, 2024 © Carlos Fabal / AFP/File

All over the city of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state, people stood on rooftops hoping to be rescued as others in canoes or small boats navigated streets that have turned into rivers.

Civil defense officials said at least 101 people were missing in the latest of a string of catastrophic weather events in the South American giant.

Viewed from the air, Porto Alegre was completely flooded, with streets under water and the roofs of some houses barely visible.

The Guaiba River, which flows through the city of 1.4 million people, reached a record high level of 5.3 meters (17.4 feet), according to the local municipality, well above the historic peak of 4.76 meters that had stood as a record since devastating 1941 floods.

The water was still advancing into economically important Porto Alegre and hundreds of other localities, with increasingly dramatic consequences.

Rain was intermittent Sunday morning but expected to continue for another day or so, as the flood waters kept rising.

In addition to the tens of thousands forced from their homes, Brazil's civil defense agency said more than a million people lacked access to drinking water and it described the damage as incalculable. Some 15,000 people are now living in shelters.

Rosana Custodio, a 37-year-old nurse, fled her flooded Porto Alegre home with her husband and three children.

"During the night on Thursday the waters began to rise very quickly," she told AFP via a WhatsApp message.

"In a hurry, we went out to look for a safer place. But we couldn't walk... My husband put our two little ones in a kayak and rowed with a bamboo. My son and I swam to the end of the street," she said.

Her family was safe but "we've lost everything we had."
'It's terrifying'

Authorities scrambled to evacuate swamped neighborhoods as rescue workers used four-wheel-drive vehicles -- and even jet skis -- to maneuver through waist-deep water in search of the stranded.

Brazil © Gustavo IZUS / AFP

Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite said his state, normally one of Brazil's most prosperous, would need a "Marshall Plan" of heavy investment to rebuild.

Sunday will be a key day for the rescue effort, said Paulo Pimenta, a senior communications official under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Long lines formed as people tried to board buses in many places, although bus services to and from the city center were canceled.

The Porto Alegre international airport suspended all flights on Friday for an undetermined period.

Lula posted a video of a helicopter depositing a soldier atop a house, who then used a brick to pound a hole in the roof and rescue a baby wrapped in a blanket.

People and policemen carry the body of a victim after an explosion at a petrol station in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil © Carlos FABAL / AFP

The speed of the rising waters unnerved many.

"It's terrifying because we saw the water rise in an absurd way, it rose at a very high speed," said Greta Bittencourt, a 32-year-old professional poker player.
'Unprecedented'

Leite, the governor, said in a live transmission on Instagram the situation was "absolutely unprecedented," the worst in the history of the state, which is home to agroindustrial production of soy, rice, wheat and corn.

A shelter set up in a gymnasium in Porto Alegre, on May 4, 2024 © Anselmo Cunha / AFP

Residential areas were underwater as far as the eye could see, with roads destroyed and bridges swept away by powerful currents.

Rescuers faced a colossal task, with entire towns inaccessible.


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At least 300 municipalities have suffered storm damage in Rio Grande do Sul since Monday, according to local officials.
'Disastrous cocktail'

The rains also affected the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Lula, who visited the region Thursday, blamed the disaster on climate change.

The devastating storms were the result of a "disastrous cocktail" of global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon, climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino told AFP on Friday.

A construction vehicle carries evacuees from a flooded area of the Sao Geraldo neighborhood in Porto Alegre, on May 4, 2024 © Anselmo Cunha / AFP

South America's largest country has recently experienced a string of extreme weather events, including a cyclone in September that killed at least 31 people.

Deadly floods ravage southern Brazil, force tens of thousands to flee

Issued on: 05/05/2024 - 

01:22  Video by: FRANCE 24

Raging floods and mudslides have killed at least 55 people in southern Brazil and forced nearly 70,000 to flee their homes, the country's civil defense agency said on Saturday. At least 74 people were injured and another 67 missing from the catastrophic flooding, civil defense said.

Death toll in southern Brazil flood rises to 56

AFP
May 4, 2024


Aerial view of people walking through a flooded street at the Navegantes neighborhood in Porto Alegre, Rio da Grande do State, Brazil -

 Copyright AFP Lillian SUWANRUMPHA

The death toll from floods and mudslides triggered by torrential storms in southern Brazil has climbed to 56 people, with 74 injured and another 67 missing, the country’s civil defense agency said Saturday.

Fast-rising water levels in the state of Rio Grande do Sul were straining dams and threatening the metropolis of Porto Alegre, one of the largest cities in southern Brazil.

Authorities there were scrambling to evacuate some neighborhoods that had been submerged — in some cases using helicopters to rescue people stranded on roofs.

And heavy rains of “very high severity” are expected to continue into Sunday, Civil Defense authorities said.

The rapid rise of the Guaiba River, which runs through Porto Alegre, brought serious flooding to the city’s historic center.

– ‘Going to be much worse’ –

With waters starting to overtop a dike along another local river, the Gravatai, Mayor Sebastiao Malo issued a stern warning on social media platform X, saying, “Communities must leave!”

That warning came a day after the Rio Grande del Sul governor, Eduardo Leite, warned on X that “in the metropolitan region it’s going to be much worse.”

Leite called it the worst disaster in the state’s history.

Residential areas found themselves underwater as far as the eye can see, with roads destroyed and bridges swept away by powerful currents.

Rescuers faced a colossal task, with entire towns — some left without electricity or drinking water — made inaccessible.

At least 300 municipalities have suffered storm damage in Rio Grande do Sul since Monday, according to local officials, displacing more than 24,600.

– ‘Water up to my waist’ –

Roughly a third of the displaced have been brought to shelters set up in sports centers, schools and other facilities.

“When I left the house, I was in water up to my waist,” a haggard-looking Claudio Almiro, 55, told AFP in a cultural center converted to a shelter in a suburb north of Porto Alegre.

“I lost everything.”

The rains also affected the southern state of Santa Catarina, where one man died Friday when his car was swept away by raging floodwaters in the municipality of Ipira.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the region Thursday, vowing “there will be no lack of human or material resources” in responding to the disaster, which he blamed on climate change.

Climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino told AFP on Friday that the devastating storms were the result of a “disastrous cocktail” of global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon.

South America’s largest country has recently experienced a string of extreme weather events, including a cyclone in September that claimed at least 31 lives.

Aquino said the region’s particular geography meant it was often confronted by the effects of tropical and polar air masses colliding — but these events have “intensified due to climate change.”

Deadly dam failures: Cause, effect and prevention

Zulfikar Abbany

ublished September 20, 2023 last updated May 3, 2024

No dam is flood-proof, as flooding after days of heavy rains in southern Brazil has shown. But dam failure needn't be deadly. Here's what you need to know.

Dam failure is not just for war zones: After heavy rain in Norway, a dam at Braskereidfoss broke in August 2023. Communities down stream had been warned and evacuated.

Image: Cornelius Poppe/NTB Scanpix/AP/picture alliance


Dams are built to hold back water and put it to use for irrigation or creating electricity. But around the world, thousands of dams are in need of repair. Many have been too weak to protect local communities amid sustained heavy rains.

More than 300,000 people in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul region, for example, were left without electricity when a dam at a hydroelectric power plant burst May 2, 2024.

In late April 2024, a dam collapsed north of the Kenyan capital Nairobi after heavy rains and flooding. Water levels had been described as a "historic high".
Dams do collapse: The warning signs are there

It's becoming a regular occurrence. When the Abu Mansour and Derna dams collapsed during Storm Daniel's attack on Libya, the cries came fast: We've been warning about this for years, said the experts. If there's a flood, they said, it will be catastrophic for the residents living below. And so it was: Thousands were thought to be dead in the immediate aftermath.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) expressed concerns about two further Libyan dams — the Jaza Dam, between Derna and Benghazi, and the Qattara Dam near Benghazi — citing "contradictory reports" over the dams' stability.

Contrary reports about the stability of dams is not unique to Libya. There were allegations of contrary reports in Brazil after a mining dam at Minas Gerais failed. It collapsed in January 2019, causing a toxic mudslide that killed 270 people — one year after a Brazilian subsidiary of a German risk assessment firm, TÜV SÜD, had certified the dam to be safe.

What is a dam and why do we build them?

A dam is a way to gather and store water. That can be natural water or wastewater from a nearby mine — if it's water from a mine, people talk of dams containing "mine tailings". Mine tailings can be a mix of materials, metals, chemicals and liquid waste leftover when ore is mined.

Dams can also be used to store up water for irrigation and as a supply of water for livestock, pollution control, energy generation and, if the water is safe, for recreation.

How are dams made and how do they resist water pressure?

There are two main types of constructed, human-made dams: embankment and concrete dams.

Embankment dams are the most common and can be made with waste from mining or milling operations. But they are also made of natural soil and rock that is compacted to create a containment area, or reservoir, for the water.

Its ability to contain the water — or resist pressure from the water — depends on the mass weight, strength and type of materials used to build the dam.


Concrete dams are divided into three subtypes: gravity, buttress and arch dams.

Gravity dams are the most common concrete dams. They are made of vertical concrete blocks and sealed with flexible joints. The pressure of the water hits the dam wall and is forced downwards.

Buttress dams are similar to gravity dams in their shape, but they require less concrete. The forces of the water are diverted down to the foundation of the dam along sloping buttresses.

Arch dams look like a semi-circle or ellipse from above. The wall, which tends to be constructed with vertical slabs of concrete, can be relatively thin. The pressure of the water is carried sideways into abutments.

Dams can also be made with steel and timber.

How do you stop dams from overflowing?

That's the thing — sometimes dams do break and overflow, causing massive flooding, destruction and death. It can wipe out access to roads, food and vital services.

But it is possible to control "overtopped" dams, with outlet works and spillways.

Outlet works can allow a constant stream of water into a river below the dam, for instance, or into a hydroelectric power system, or release it for farm irrigation.

Spillways, meanwhile, are often open chutes or shafts where the water flows out when its level gets high enough to enter an opening.

Dams are human-made structures used to collect and control water, such as at Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a massive hydropower plant.

Image: Minasse Wondimu Hailu/AA/picture alliance

Why do dams fail?

One of the most common causes for dam failure — that's when the dam breaks in an uncontrolled way — is their age.

In 2021, the United Nations University published a report indicating that "tens of thousands of existing large dams have reached or exceeded an 'alert' age threshold of 50 years, and many others will soon approach 100 years."

The Brumadinho dam at Minas Gerais was built in 1976, which means it was approaching the end of its lifespan. And Libya's Abu Mansour and Derna dams were also built in the 1970s — so, while Storm Daniel triggered their failure, they may have been ready to fail, anyway.

But dams also fail due to poor design and irregular maintenance.

Overtopping can occur if a spillway design is inadequate and can't cope when there's heavy rainfall. The spillway may get blocked over time, too.

The older a dam gets, the more its foundation can experience a natural process called settling. Slopes surrounding the dam can become unstable, and if the original construction materials start to erode, it can cause seepage.

There are other natural causes of dam failure, including earthquakes, floods, extreme weather and landslides.

And then there are the effects of war — bombings and intentional sabotage.
How do you prevent dam failure?

Here's the long answer: ensure regular maintenance and apply engineering advice and recommendations, but also design a good emergency strategy for the event of a dam failure in your area and make sure everyone knows about it.

Because, and this is the short answer as the US Federal Emergency Management Agency puts it, "no dam is flood-proof."

Edited by: Carla Bleiker

This article was originally published September 20, 2023. It was last updated on May 3, 2024, to reflect developments in Brazil and Kenya, where dams collapsed after sustained heavy rains and flooding.

Zulfikar Abbany Senior editor fascinated by space, AI and the mind, and how science touches people

WWIII

Chinese fishing fleets in Indian Ocean accused of abuses

Yuchen Li in Taipei | Chia-Chun Yeh in Taipei

May 4, 2024

A recent investigation has revealed evidence that China's distant-water fishing fleet, the world's biggest in scale, commits environmental and labor abuses in the southwest Indian Ocean off the coast of East Africa.

Chinese distant-water fishing vessels, like this one seen near the Galapagos Islands, have drawn scrutiny around the world

Image: Peter Hammarstedt/Sea Shepherd via AP/picture alliance

"There was no such word as 'rest' on Chinese fishing vessels," explained a former crew member to a group of investigators from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a London-based NGO. "If there were a lot of fish, the work could be up to 22 hours long."

The testimony was part of a recently released report by the EJF accusing China's fishing fleets of environmental and human rights abuses in the southwestern Indian Ocean.

As a leading fishing nation, China's distant water fishing (DWF) industry is the world's largest in both catch volume and fleet size. And according to the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Index, China ranks as the worst offender among 152 countries worldwide.

The EJF report provides the first comprehensive investigation of Chinese fishing activities off the East African coast.

China's DWF fleet has mainly faced scrutiny for illegal activities in Latin America and West Africa. However, the EJF report provides the first comprehensive investigation of Chinese fishing activities off the East African coast.

Chinese DWF vessels rely heavily on recruiting foreign fishermen, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines.Image: Environmental Justice Foundation

China's 'systematic' illegal fishing

While China is not solely responsible for IUU fishing in the region, it is seen as one of the major culprits. East African countries, such as Madagascar and Mozambique, are among the hardest hit.

Callum Nolan, a senior researcher at the EJF who led much of the study, told DW that "there's real cause for concern" as the Chinese fleet's illegal fishing activity is "systematic."

"This isn't a handful of bad actors or captains. What we're seeing is a fleet-wide issue on the Chinese distant-water fleet," he added.

The report comes as China is developing fishery infrastructure in cooperation with East African coastal countries and sending fleets out to fishing grounds in the southwest Indian Ocean.

The EJF interviewed 44 fishermen who had worked on China's fleet in the Indian Ocean, the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions.

When quizzed about illegal activities aboard Chinese boats, 80% of them had reported shark finning — the act of removing fins from sharks and discarding the rest of the shark back into the ocean — and 59% reported the deliberate capture and/or injury of vulnerable marine megafauna, including manta rays, dolphins and sharks.

"The sharks were caught. They only took the fins and threw the bodies away," a fisherman told the EJF in a video interview.

Another common illegal behavior is entering a fishing zone reserved only for local fishers, Nolan said.

He said that Chinese trawlers often come into the zone at night, which has led to collisions between small skiffs and industrial vessels.

"That creates huge economic problems for local people," Nolan pointed out, adding that these fishers may have to suspend their work for weeks and months to repair the damage to their skiffs.

Small-scale fishermen in small skiffs are vulnerable to larger Chinese trawlers

Image: Wang Guansen/Xinhua/picture alliance

Forced to eat 'rotten' food and drink distilled sea water

Chinese DWF vessels rely heavily on recruiting foreign fishermen, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Dios Lumban Gaol, a coordinator at Indonesian migrant workers union SBMI, told DW that the EJF report vividly portrays exploitation, violence and harsh working conditions faced by Indonesian crew members on Chinese-flagged ships, a situation "which continues today."

Of 44 crew members interviewed by EJF, all of them reported abusive working and living conditions, 96% excessive overtime and 55% physical violence.

Between 2017 and 2023, four deaths were reported by interviewees on board Chinese tuna longliners.

Gaol said that there have been reports of Indonesian crew members on Chinese vessels being provided with poorly distilled sea water to drink and expired, canned, rotten foods for meals.

On top of that, interviewees reported that Chinese captains or crew members were provided with mineral water, while Indonesians were only given distilled sea water.

"Ironically, despite catching high-value fish … which are fresh and typically consumed by affluent international communities, the crew members face these dire living and food conditions aboard Chinese-flagged vessels," Gaol said.

Indonesians protest illegal and unregulated fishing practices in 2020 in front of China's embassy in Jakarta

Image: Dasril Roszandi/NurPhoto/picture alliance

China widens its net in the Indian Ocean

The EJF report also mentioned that via China's global infrastructure investment scheme, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its fishing fleet is given more access to the resources of East African countries receiving BRI investments that may "feel obligated" to cooperate.

Since the BRI's launch in 2013, 52 African countries have joined, which has helped China deepen its footprint in Africa by constructing roads, rail lines and ports.

Meanwhile, China's "nearly unparalleled" influence in the United Nations also plays a role in holding back criticism of China's activities in Africa, said Elizabeth Freund Larus, adjunct senior fellow at Pacific Forum, a US-based foreign policy think tank.

"The BRI literally buys China a lot of compliance," she said, indicating that member countries "are reticent or hesitant to criticize China" and would likely "carry the water" for the country. "So, no one should expect that the UN is going to take on this issue in any meaningful way."

Besides, it is challenging to scrutinize activities aboard remote Chinese vessels, and China's DWF industry in general usually lacks transparency, Nolan said.

For example, flags flown by vessels may not accurately represent their true ownership and observers on board may be bribed or threatened.

China denies any wrongdoing

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied any mismanagement in response to the accusations of illegal and unregulated fishing.

A 2023 government white paper on the development of distant-water fisheries said China holds a "zero tolerance" attitude towards illegal fishing and has "the world's strictest management measures and regulations" on DWF fleets.

China also claimed in the paper that it has made "notable progress" on critical issues and in priority areas by introducing policies such as closed seasons, a total allowable catch and regular company assessment.

A list of Chinese firms was also included in EJF's report, including "Shandong Zhonglu" and the "Zhejiang Ocean Family."

Their tuna fishing fleets are accused of being the top offenders of IUU fishing or human rights abuse cases in the southwest Indian Ocean as of 2023.

DW reached out to them for comments.

Shandong Zhonglu said it is currently verifying the relevant issues mentioned in the EJF report.

Zhejiang Ocean Family said it has launched an internal investigation but found the accusations in the report lacking "factual basis and rigor."

New boats, empty nets



42:36


DW correspondents Kate Hairsine and Levie Mulia Wardana contributed to the report

Edited by: Wesley Rahn

Why managing Africa's natural disasters is taking on urgency

Kate Hairsine

May 4, 2024

Africa is particularly vulnerable to suffering natural disasters, such as floods, severe storms and droughts. These are not only crippling economies and people's livelihoods but also costing lives across the continent.

Kenya is the African nation country to be lashed by natural disasters

Image: Monicah Mwangi/REUTERS

After the worst drought in decades, East Africa is now being pounded by heavy rains. At least 180 people have died in floods and landslides in Kenya since the rainy season began in mid-March, with hundreds of thousands forced to leave their homes.

"The flooding in Kenya is absolutely out of control," reporter Andrew Wasike told DW's Africalink program. "The rains just won't stop. Whole villages across Kenya have just disappeared. And the worst part? Roads are gone, bridges are completely washed out, people are cut off. It's heartbreaking, and the forecast says this rain isn't going to let up anytime soon."

Tanzania and Somalia have also been hard hit by torrential rain and severe floods, displacing tens of thousands and inundating crop lands.

In contrast to that, southern Africa is suffering from prolonged dry spell at the same time, which has scorched crops during what is supposed to be the growing season, threatening food security.

These are only a few of the natural disasters currently clobbering the continent.

Kenya floods displace at least 190,000 people 03:34

Why is Africa so vulnerable to natural disasters?

The reasons for Africa's propensity to suffering natural hazards are complex but include the reduced capacity of governments and institutions to protect communities from and respond to disasters.

The vast majority of Africans are also dependent on rain-fed agriculture for their food, making them especially vulnerable to suffering the negative effects of flooding and drought.

Recurring disasters, which can wipe out crops and cause massive displacement, often leave poor nations picking up the pieces of one event when they are being slammed by another.

For instance, in 2023 Malawi was lashed by Cyclone Freddy, which dumped six months of rainfall in six days and triggered mudslides and floods across the nation, killing more than 1,000 people. But Freddy came hard on the heels of two prior cyclones in 2022.

In total, Malawi, which is still one of the world's poorest countries, has experienced 16 major flooding events, five storm-related disasters and two severe droughts since 2010, according to the World Bank.

"This has left almost no time for the country to recover and has resulted in a severe erosion of food security at the national level," finds the World Bank.

Why are natural disasters particularly hard on Africa?

Climate change meanwhile is increasing the frequency and severity of natural hazards on the continent, find numerous experts, including the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The likelihood of severe droughts, for instance, has increased 100-fold on the Horn of Africa. In southern Africa, the impacts of the El Nino climate phenomenon, which brings drier and warmer weather and low and erratic rainfall as well as floods, are becoming "more intense and prolonged" due to global warming, writes climate change expert Tadadzwanashe Mabhaudhi in a 2024 article for The Conversation.

Congo Basin: Africa's largest forest under threat  01:32

At the same time, man-made changes to both rural and urban environments are also worsening the effects of natural disasters.

"Some of these disasters are caused by environmental degradation, loss of wetlands, loss of forests, and so any little amount of rain that comes causes floods," climate change expert Sosten Chiotha, told DW.

Factors such as increased settlements, deforestation, livestock grazing and clearing for crops are dramatically altering the landscape in many rural areas, making it susceptible to the effects of erosion after severe weather events.

In urban areas, on the other hand, the unchecked expansion of many of Africa's cities is seeing people building shelters along rivers and on wetlands, destroying natural buffers for floodwaters. Informal settlements also fill in green spaces, resulting in a lack of drainage to carry away floodwaters.

Drainage systems clogged with plastic pollution, a reality in many African towns and cities, also add to the growing flood risk.

How will Nigeria implement its plastic ban?  02:50

What can Africa do to better prepare for natural disasters?

As with most issues, there is no single solution to address everything; however, certain approaches have come up repeatedly in public debates on Africa's levels of preparedness.

Improved evaluation of weather data is one way to be better prepared, says Chiotha, who is also the regional director for Southern and Eastern Africa at Regional Director at LEAD, a leadership non-profit.

"Let's enhance our monitoring and the collecting of long term data. Many of the disaster issues in Africa don't appear in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports because basically there is very little data," he said.

Improving on early warning systems would also help people on a continent where more than half the population aren't covered by such a system.

The damage caused by a disaster can be reduced by nearly one-third if an early warning is issued within 24 hours, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Last year, the organization launched an initiative to try to give more Africans access to an early warning system about impending disasters.

Nature-based solutions, such as preserving forests and wetlands to reduce flooding, are also being hotly discussed.

"But for that to happen, you need to ensure that the services that people derive from these forests and from these wetlands [such as wood for energy or clearing for agriculture] can be found elsewhere somehow," said Chiotha.

Josephine Mahachi contributed to this article.

Bundeswehr's classified meetings found online

The German military confirmed earlier reports of a vulnerability affecting the Webex software it uses for online meetings. In March, a leaked German military meeting was publicized by Russian media.

The security issue was first identified by Netzbegruenung, a group of cyber-activists

Image: Christoph Hardt/Panama Pictures/picture alliance

Germany's military has admitted on Saturday a flaw in the video-conferencing tool it uses left thousands of its meetings publicly accessible online.

Zeit Online reported accessing German Bundeswehr meetings by using simple search terms on the military's Webex system.

"More than 6,000 meetings could be found online," some of which were meant to be classified, it wrote.

The military said the bug was fixed within 24 hours after being made aware.

"It was not possible to participate in the video conferences without the knowledge of the participants or without authorization," a spokesperson for the military told French news agency AFP.

"No confidential content could therefore leave the conferences."
What do we know about the latest incident?

The Bundeswehr is already on the defensive after audio of air force officials discussing giving Ukraine long-range missiles was leaked by Russians online in March. The incident is currently being investigated by federal prosecutors.

German Defense Minister warns it's all 'Putin's game' referring leaked military conversations  00:25

In the latest incident Zeit Online said it detected meeting rooms used by 248,000 German soldiers.

The security breach occurred on the Bundeswehr's own Webex version, which is more secure than the publicly available version.

Reporters were able to find the online meeting room of Air Force Chief Ingo Gerhartz, whose name came up during the earlier breach.

Zeit Online said that the military only became aware of the security flaws after they approached them for comment.

rmt/lo (AFP, dpa)

India: Afghan consul quits after reports of gold smuggling

AN AFGHAN AFFECTATION

Afghanistan's diplomat Zakia Wardak said she was stepping down as the consul-general in Mumbai because of organized attacks against her. Her statement made no mention of the alleged gold smuggling accusations.

India has been cautiously engaging with the Taliban regime, despite the lack of official diplomatic ties 

(file photo)Image: Dinesh Joshi/AP Photo/picture alliance

An Afghan diplomat in India, who said she was the only woman in the country's diplomatic service, resigned from her role on Saturday.

In a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, Zakia Wardak wrote that she "faced waves of organized attacks aimed at destroying" her.




Wardak said the attacks have impacted her ability to work and have "demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society who strive to modernize and bring positive changes amidst ongoing propaganda campaigns."

"It has become increasingly clear that the public narrative is unfairly targeting the only female representative within this system," she wrote in the statement.

Wardak was appointed consul-general of Afghanistan in Mumbai before the Taliban seized power in 2021. It was not immediately clear whether she was indeed Afghanistan's only female diplomat in office.

The statement made no mention of reports published in Indian media last week, which indicated that Wardak had been detained on suspicion of trying to smuggle gold.

Afghanistan: Girls still banned from secondary school  02:18

According to those reports, Wardak was briefly detained at Mumbai's international airport on allegations of smuggling 25 bricks of gold, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), from Dubai.

The Taliban seized power in August 2021 after US-led international troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Since then, the Taliban leadership has imposed a hardline interpretation of Islam, curtailing women's access to education and public spaces, as well as their right to travel both within Afghanistan and abroad.

No country has formally recognized the Taliban government.

rm/dj (AP, dpa)

Revealed: Pennsylvania has investigated more than a dozen UFO incidents in the past decade

Peter Hall, Pennsylvania Capital-Star
May 4, 2024 

The March 2023 conjunction of Jupiter and Venus photographed from the International Space Station. The appearance of the two planets close together in the sky prompted multiple UFO reports in Lebanon County, according to records from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. (NASA photo)

Mysterious lights following a motorist on a dark country road, a saucer-shaped craft hovering over a suburban subdivision, and a flaming orb falling into the woods are among phenomena Pennsylvania residents have reported to authorities, state records show.

After the head of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) casually mentioned during a legislative hearing earlier this year that the agency tracks UFO sightings, the Capital-Star obtained records showing PEMA has investigated more than a dozen such events in the last decade.

“We take all reports and we share it with the appropriate agencies to be able to investigate,” Padfield told members of the state House Appropriations Committee in February.

Often dull and tedious, state budget hearings nonetheless are a chance for the Legislature to grill administration officials about how they plan to spend the taxpayers’ money.

The cabinet secretaries flesh out the details of the governor’s budget proposal but deliver few bombshells. Every once in a while, however, an answer prompts lawmakers to look up from their stacks of white papers with surprise and demand more.

It was thus as Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Director Randy Padfield fielded a question from state Rep. Ben Waxman (D-Philadelphia) about potential threats to the state’s nuclear power plants from drones and unmanned aerial vehicles.


“We have had reports of unidentified flying objects in the past,” Padfield said before quickly moving on to the role of the Federal Aviation Administration in regulating drones.


“So, wait. Run that back again. What did you say about UFOs?” House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) asked when Padfield had finished his answer.

Padfield replied that PEMA occasionally gets reports of lights in the sky from county 911 centers and upon investigation authorities can attribute them to astronomical or earthly sources, such as helicopter traffic around the Pennsylvania National Guard base at Fort Indiantown Gap.

“Most of them are unfounded, or they’re attributable to some other mechanisms,” Padfield concluded, prompting another follow up from Harris.

“So, what about the un-most?” Harris asked. “You’re talking like ET phone home or something?”

Padfield conceded that some sightings are “undefined” and are difficult to understand unless the person reporting the phenomenon gets pictures but everything is passed along to the appropriate agencies.

Not satisfied with Padfield’s answer, the Capital-Star filed a right-to-know request with PEMA seeking records of unidentified flying objects and aerial phenomena and, for good measure, “encounters with unknown beings including those of suspected extra-terrestrial or cryptozoological nature.”

PEMA responded, perhaps appropriately, on April 1, with 40 pages of records on UFO reports passed to the Commonwealth Watch and Warning Center, which receives reports of certain events from county emergency dispatch centers and distributes them to appropriate state and federal agencies.



The records PEMA provided in response to the right-to-know request go back to 2013, when the agency received a half-dozen UFO reports.

Padfeild said during the budget hearing that some sightings are easily explained. That was the case last year when multiple people called 911 in Lebanon County to report suspicious lights and a hovering object that made no sound.


One caller in Bethel Township reported that the lights had followed his wife from Hamburg in Berks County to their home and that the object was stationary in the sky above their house. Another in the city of Lebanon reported seeing an oval shape that changed colors from gray to black to transparent and all she could see were the object’s lights.

Those calls happened on March 1, 2023, which was the height of a convergence of Jupiter and Venus in the night sky, when the planets appeared to almost merge into a single point of light. The spectacular astronomical event had been widely reported in the news, PEMA’s records noted.

Stan Gordon, a Westmoreland County resident who operates a 24-hour UFO, bigfoot and cryptid reporting hotline, said he regularly receives reports from across the state. Gordon said he became fascinated with UFOs as a kid in the 1950s. He describes himself as the principal investigator of Pennsylvania’s most famous UFO case.

In 1965, residents across six states saw a fireball cross the sky. Residents of Kecksburg said they saw an object shaped like an oversized acorn make a controlled crash into the woods not far from where Gordon lived. Four years later, Gordon set up his hotline.

“It’s never stopped ringing,” Gordon said, adding that the number of cases, including reports of unexplained objects in broad daylight and at close range, has increased in recent years.

Many are resolved with a little bit of research, he said. “We’ve always taken these cases very open mindedly. We approach them scientifically.”

Starlink satellites, which are launched dozens at a time from a single rocket, appear as a train of lights in the early evening sky and have prompted many recent reports. High altitude balloons and plumes of rocket exhaust and other space research activities also look unusual but are attributable to human activity, Gordon said, adding that he has never seen a UFO himself.

Other reports are less easily explained.

On Sept. 21, 2023, a Shermans Dale man reported a UFO with eight vertical lights he described as white, yellow, and a hint of green hovering about 200 feet above the road near a Perry County gas station. The man attempted to take a video with his cellphone before the lights disappeared but he later discovered the video had not been saved, the PEMA records say.

A Lower Saucon Township man called the Northampton County 911 center Dec. 19, 2021, to report a flying saucer with seven or eight lights on its underside over his development. Police responded but it’s unclear from the records whether they took any action. PEMA provided the caller with contact information for Gordon’s hotline, the records say.

Montgomery County authorities investigated after an Upper Pottsgrove Township man reported a glowing orb about the size of a small aircraft fell from the sky on Sept. 15, 2014. The object, which he described as orange and yellow fire-colored, floated behind the treeline and did not reappear. An officer who responded reported seeing flashes in the area but no other suspicious activity.

“There are a lot of cases that are very, very detailed that are not easy to explain away,” Gordon said.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and Twitter.

Teens see social media algorithms as accurate reflections of themselves, study finds

The Conversation
May 1, 2024 

Young Girl on Cell Phone

Social media apps regularly present teens with algorithmically selected content often described as “for you,” suggesting, by implication, that the curated content is not just “for you” but also “about you” – a mirror reflecting important signals about the person you are.

All users of social media are exposed to these signals, but researchers understand that teens are at an especially malleable stage in the formation of personal identity. Scholars have begun to demonstrate that technology is having generation-shaping effects, not merely in the way it influences cultural outlook, behavior and privacy, but also in the way it can shape personality among those brought up on social media.

The prevalence of the “for you” message raises important questions about the impact of these algorithms on how teens perceive themselves and see the world, and the subtle erosion of their privacy, which they accept in exchange for this view.

Teens like their algorithmic reflection

Inspired by these questions, my colleagues John Seberger and Afsaneh Razi of Drexel University and I asked: How are teens navigating this algorithmically generated milieu, and how do they recognize themselves in the mirror it presents?

In our qualitative interview study of teens 13-17, we found that personalized algorithmic content does seem to present what teens interpret as a reliable mirror image of themselves, and that they very much like the experience of seeing that social media reflection.

Teens we spoke with say they prefer a social media completely customized for them, depicting what they agree with, what they want to see and, thus, who they are.
If I look up something that is important to me that will show up as one of the top posts [and] it’ll show, like, people [like me] that are having a nice discussion.

It turns out that the teens we interviewed believe social media algorithms like TikTok’s have gotten so good that they see the reflections of themselves in social media as quite accurate. So much so that teens are quick to attribute content inconsistencies with their self-image as anomalies – for instance, the result of inadvertent engagement with past content, or just a glitch.

At some point I saw something about that show, maybe on TikTok, and I interacted with it without actually realizing.

When personalized content is not agreeable or consistent with their self-image, the teens we interviewed say they scroll past it, hoping never to see it again. Even when these perceived anomalies take the form of extreme hypermasculine or “nasty” content, teens do not attribute this to anything about themselves specifically, nor do they claim to look for an explanation in their own behaviors. According to teens in our interviews, the social media mirror does not make them more self-reflective or challenge their sense of self.

One thing that surprised us was that while teens were aware that what they see in their “for you” feed is the product of their scrolling habits on social media platforms, they are largely unaware or unconcerned that that data captured across apps contributes to this self-image. Regardless, they don’t see their “for you” feed as a challenge to their sense of self, much less a risk to their self-identity – nor, for that matter, any basis for concern at all.


The human brain continues to develop during adolescence.

Shaping identity


Research on identity has come a long way since sociologist Erving Goffman proposed the “presentation of self” in 1959. He posited that people manage their identities through social performance to maintain equilibrium between who they think they are and how others perceive them.

When Goffman first proposed his theory, there was no social media interface available to hold up a handy mirror of the self as experienced by others. People were obligated to create their own mosaic image, derived from multiple sources, encounters and impressions. In recent years, social media recommender algorithms have inserted themselves into what is now a three-way negotiation among self, public and social media algorithm.

“For you” offerings create a private-public space through which teens can access what they feel is a largely accurate test of their self-image. At the same time, they say they can easily ignore it if it seems to disagree with that self-image.

The pact teens make with social media, exchanging personal data and relinquishing privacy to secure access to that algorithmic mirror, feels to them like a good bargain. They represent themselves as confidently able to tune out or scroll past recommended content that seems to contradict their sense of self, but research shows otherwise.

They have, in fact, proven themselves highly vulnerable to self-image distortion and other mental health problems based on social media algorithms explicitly designed to create and reward hypersensitivities, fixations and dysmorphia – a mental health disorder where people fixate on their appearance.

Given what researchers know about the teen brain and that stage of social development – and given what can reasonably be surmised about the malleability of self-image based on social feedback – teens are wrong to believe that they can scroll past the self-identity risks of algorithms.


U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy discusses the harms teens face from social media.
Interventions



Part of the remedy could be to build new tools using artificial intelligence to detect unsafe interactions while also protecting privacy. Another approach is to help teens reflect on these “data doubles” that they have constructed.

My colleagues and I are now exploring more deeply how teens experience algorithmic content and what types of interventions can help them reflect on it. We encourage researchers in our field to design ways to challenge the accuracy of algorithms and expose them as reflecting behavior and not being. Another part of the remedy may involve arming teens with tools to restrict access to their data, including limiting cookies, having different search profiles and turning off location when using certain apps.

We believe that these are all steps that are likely to reduce the accuracy of algorithms, creating much-needed friction between algorithm and self, even if teens are not necessarily happy with the results.

Getting the kids involved

Recently, my colleagues and I conducted a Gen Z workshop with young people from Encode Justice, a global organization of high school and college students advocating for safe and equitable AI. The aim was to better understand how they are thinking about their lives under algorithms and AI. Gen Zers say they are concerned but also eager to be involved in shaping their future, including mitigating algorithm harms. Part of our workshop goal was to call attention to and foster the need for teen-driven investigations of algorithms and their effects.

What researchers are also confronting is that we don’t actually know what it means to constantly negotiate identity with an algorithm. Many of us who study teens are too old to have grown up in an algorithmically moderated world. For the teens we study, there is no “before AI.”

I beleve that it’s perilous to ignore what algorithms are doing. The future for teens can be one in which society acknowledges the unique relationship between teens and social media. This means involving them in the solutions, while still providing guidance.

Nora McDonald, Assistant Professor of Information Technology, George Mason University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘What is a fact?’ A humanities class prepares STEM students to be better scientists

The Conversation
May 1, 2024 

Scientists (Shutterstock)



Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of course

What Is a Fact?

What prompted the idea for the course?

With all the conspiracy theories floating around in 2020 when COVID-19 hit, I wanted to help my students learn to identify and deal with them. I was also concerned about political propaganda. And in my STEM-heavy school, I wanted to showcase what humanities scholars can do. So I created this class, which is distilled humanities for freshmen. Almost every student so far has been a science, technology, engineering and math major.


What does the course explore?

We start with a week called What Is Data? In Latin, “data” just means “things that are given.” Data can be in the form of measurements: “This bowlful of water weighs x.” But data can also mean “it reminds me of my grandma.” How can you tell when something could be meaningful, or whether it’s just nonsense?

A later class that students find especially interesting is on apophenia, the tendency to see patterns where there aren’t any, like the man in the Moon, or constellations of stars.



Conspiracy theories connect a lot of dots, but that doesn’t make them right. Screenshot of a meme

Why is this course relevant now?

A fact is an interpretation of data. In physics class, you learn how to interpret physics data, find patterns, relate those patterns to other ones, and produce facts about them. If your argument hangs together logically, your interpretation can appear in the journal Nature Physics.

Humanities classes, however, prepare you to understand what facts are, period – whether they’re based on biology or on the Bible, nutrition science or novels.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

One critical lesson is that many big conspiracy theories such as QAnon are about jumping to conclusions as quickly as possible. Being a good student and a good scholar means accepting that what you’re examining might not be meaningful or might not indicate a pattern. What we’re exploring here is how not to jump to conclusions. And this lesson applies as much to stuff in the real world as it does to lab work.
What materials does the course feature?

We watch YouTuber hbomberguy debunking global warming denialism. We read Kurt Gödel on how logical systems must always be flawed. We read poems and stories, introducing science majors to interpreting artistic data, a process every bit as rigorous as interpreting scientific data.

What will the course prepare students to do?

Without the kinds of critical thinking this course teaches, scientists can be susceptible to propaganda and unable to share their ideas effectively, whether it’s in the media or to their colleagues, friends and family.

Students learn to look at the world with fresh, skeptical eyes. They learn to identify illogical arguments and rhetorical strong-arm tactics. In the Middle Ages, humanities – grammar, logic, rhetoric – prepared you to do science. What Is a Fact? is like that, helping students see how collecting data and being skeptical don’t stop once you’ve left the lab. A questioning, open-minded attitude is an essential life skill.


Timothy Morton, Rita Shea Guffey Chair of English, Rice University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.