Elections Cuba 2023: something new?

I will point out here some data and considerations to contribute to an alternative vision within the impressions shared on social networks and reports, with different discourses.

by  Rafael Hernández
April 28, 2023
in In plain words

Photo: Ernesto Mastrascusa/EFE.


In these brief notes, I limit myself to arguing to what extent the last elections for deputies to the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) in Cuba show significant changes. I am not trying to defend a thesis or give an opinion on what I would like to happen, but to record those changes, in what distinguishes this process, that is, in its own terms.

Given the brief space and the nature of this publication, I will point out here some data and considerations to contribute to an alternative vision within the impressions shared on social networks and reports, with different discourses, prevailing in the formation of public opinion.

In general, these discourses do not explain the functioning of the political system, and above all, they ignore differences and nuances that can be found in the impartial examination of the available data on candidates and voting results. Although I have analyzed elsewhere the last three elections, in 2008, 2013 and 2018, the exhaustive comparison with these would be the subject of another text.



The size of the ANPP in 2023 was reduced from 605 to 470, that is, 22.3% less seats. This reduction was based on the regulation established in the 2019 Constitution, according to which, there would be a deputy for every 30,000 inhabitants, or a fraction greater than 15,000, in each municipality.

In the process of conformation of the ANPP, the popular vote, since 1992, has played a role in two decisive moments. The first, by electing the base delegates, publicly nominated in open candidacies and voted in direct and secret suffrage, who constitute the pool for half of the ANPP.

The second, by confirming or rejecting, through direct and secret suffrage, the selection previously made by mass organizations, municipal assemblies and electoral commissions at the municipal and national level.

According to data provided by the National Electoral Council (CNE), some 19,000 pre-candidates formed the starting list, made up of 12,427 municipal delegates elected throughout the country, and the proposals of electoral organizations and commissions.

This list was reduced to 4,000, which were the pool of nominees. Debated in 900 meetings between the mass organizations, the Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power, and the commissions themselves, this list was reduced to the 470 seats of the new ANPP.

So, the ratio between pre-candidates and each seat was 40. This filtering process, not the open candidacy, is the decisive one in the configuration of the new ANPP.

To this configuration corresponded 221 grass-root delegates, originally nominated and voted openly, almost half (47.02%) of the recently constituted 10th Legislature. According to the CNE, the mass organizations and the commissions proposed and elected another 249. As I noted above, in a process that is characterized by nominating and at the same time electing a candidacy, which the popular vote merely confirms.

Compared to previous elections, the proportion of grass-root delegates in this nomination was the same (47% in 2018). The main difference was in the meetings between those 470 nominees and their voters in each municipality. These had a different extension and intensity than other years.

For seven weeks, between February 6 and March 24, all the nominees visited the municipalities they would represent in the ANPP. In the current context of crisis, these exchanges between voters and nominees did not have a ceremonial bias, but rather opened up another style and, possibly, a real and close commitment between municipalities and deputies.

Votes: the macro

As is known, in these elections more than 75% of the electoral registry voted.

The province with the lowest electoral participation was, as expected, Havana (65%). It was followed by Holguín (72.8%) and Guantánamo (73.8%). Those with the highest attendance at the polls were Ciego de Ávila (86.1%) and Matanzas (83.88%). These two provinces were also the ones that voted the least blank ballots: Matanzas (4.57%), Ciego (4.98%); together with Camagüey (4.99%).

The ones that deposited the most blank votes were Pinar del Río (8.22%), Holguín (6.9%), Villa Clara (6.82%) and Sancti Spíritus (6.69%). All above the most abstentionists, Havana (6.66%) and Guantánamo (5%).

The ones with the most annulled votes were Mayabeque (5.84%) and Havana (5.1%). The ones that voted the least were Guantánamo (1.98%), Santiago (2.44%), Granma (2.52%), Holguín (2.75%), Ciego de Ávila (2.82%) and Isla de la Juventud (1.66%).

The blank vote can be taken due to disagreement or disapproval, discomfort with the economic situation; that is to say, as a protest vote, as it is usually called. It can also be a vote against those candidates. Or the system as such.

As for the annulled vote, this is even more uncertain, and cannot be mechanically added to the blank votes. Anyone who has seen a vote count knows that writing a sentence on the ballot, no matter what it says, leads to an annulment. I have seen ballots annulled for saying that “I vote No because this Constitution does not have an article that protects animals” or “I fully support this Family Code.”

Indeed, if one carefully observes the differences between the provinces, it will be found that abstention, blank vote and annulled vote are not in line in most cases, as would be logical if all expressed political opposition to the government or to the system.

I wonder how the results are interpreted in any other country, where voting is not compulsory, just like here: are those who are not going to vote, do not vote for any of the candidates, or write on the ballots, are they counted as opposition to the system?

Some observers have pointed out that “the deputies were elected by 71% of the valid votes cast (that is, by those that were not blank or null).” But naturally, there were candidates who were elected with a vote lower than 71%.

Regarding the question of the united vote, almost all the provinces, with the exception of Havana and Artemisa, reached more than 70% of the vote for all the nominees. However, the data on the provinces that followed this slogan the most and the least show a significant configuration.

The territories that were above the national united vote of 72.10% were Isla de la Juventud (77.4%), Las Tunas (76.2%), Granma (75.4%) Guantánamo (74.0%), Santiago de Cuba (74.4%), Sancti Spíritus (73.37%), Villa Clara (73.85%) and Pinar del Río (73.33%).

Those that least voted for the complete candidacy were Havana (68.45%), Artemisa (69.82%), Matanzas (70.11%), Ciego de Ávila (70.28%), Camagüey (70.30%).

When taking a careful look at these two groups and comparing them with the configurations of abstention/blank vote/null vote, it will be found that Havana is consistent, but others not so much.

For example, the provinces with the best participation rates and valid votes, Matanzas, Ciego de Ávila and Camagüey, cast fewer united votes, while they were among those with the fewest blank votes. That is, they voted more, better, but at the same time, more selectively.

These results could lead to a reflection on the raison d’être of the united vote. Especially when the logic of the vote did not follow, in many cases, that “lesser-known candidates” are at a disadvantage.

This apparent inconsistency, which seems to reflect contradictory or chaotic behavior of the electorate, may have causes that require a deeper analysis of political behavior in the various regions, and which we do not usually do.

The vote: the micro

By closely examining the structure of the vote, it is possible to see who was the most and least popular.

Of all the candidates, the ones that gathered the most votes at the national level, with 92% of the valid vote or more, were:a gynecologist (97.54%),
a female Polytechnic professor (95.68%),
a female municipal enterprise lawyer (95.54%),
a female municipal government official (95.25%),
Raúl Castro (94.97%),
a senior leader of the Council of Ministers (94.9%),
a female laboratory technician (94.77%),
a female nurse (94.7%),
a female judge (94.56%),
an Olympic athlete (94.44%),
a female vice-president of the Council of Ministers (94%),
a female sports referee (93.86%),
a female leader of the People’s Council (93.80%),
a female leader of the ANPP (93.7%),
a female leader of the People’s Council (93.66%),
a female primary school teacher (93.6%),
an ICAP leader and National Hero (93.37%),
a female president of the People’s Council (93.36%),
a doctor and hospital director (93.34%)
a female president of the Municipal Assembly (93.31%),
a female enterprise director (93.23%),
a female primary school teacher (93.01%),
a female secondary school teacher (93%),
a female state director of commerce (92.96%),
a female enterprise director (92.84%),
a female scientific leader and member of the Political Bureau of the PCC (92.73%),
a female high-performance athlete (92.58%),
a female municipal health leader (92.45%),
a doctor (92.33%),
a president of the People’s Council (92.29%),
a female officer of the Ministry of the Interiorl (92.28%),
a female municipal management official (92.19%),
a general of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) (92.15%),
a female art instructor (92.11%),
a leader of the ANPP (92%).

When going through the list of 48 candidates with 91% or more of the votes throughout the country, it is noted that 38, that is, 79%, of this select group were women.

In general, the candidates who reside in the municipalities were the most popular, but also the least popular. The logic that the most voted were the best known was not fulfilled here either.

For example, in a municipality of Havana (Plaza), where the best-known candidates obtained less than 80% of the votes, the representative of a religious association of African origin, which lacks public projection, and in the area of the capital with the least legacy of Santeria, was the most voted, with almost 90% of the votes.

On the other hand, the representative of a popular religious association in a working-class area (Centro Habana) obtained the fewest votes in the municipality, while the candidate with the most votes turned out to be an artist of a rather unpopular genre in that area of the capital. At the same time, none of the other 16 artists who made up the candidacy, some very frequent on TV, obtained the highest number of votes in their respective municipalities.

On the other hand, among the least voted by municipality at the country level were some well-known among their voters: a provincial leader of the PCC, a representative of the unions, a governor, a religious leader.

At the same time, in the same municipality where leaders of the PCC and the local People’s Power had fewer votes at the national level, the most popular was a leader of the Council of Ministers, with 91.7% of the votes.

Who are the deputies in the ANPP 2023

Of the 470 members of the new ANPP, 303 are new deputies for a total of 64.46%. This renewal rate was above that achieved in the last elections, in 2018, where they were just over 50%.

Some changes in the profile of those elected with respect to the 9th Legislature are relevant. For example, in 2018, the entire Council of Ministers had seats in the ANPP. In this one, there are only 13 members, which represents only 42% of the Council of Ministers, and 3% of the Assembly.

By simple inspection, it is noted that there is a higher presence of representatives of the People’s Power of the municipalities (107); university professors (21) and teachers (15); leaders of educational institutions (22); health workers (31); natural science scientists (13); artists without posts (17). There is the same number of military (23); a slightly smaller number of agricultural cooperative members (15); a similar proportion of religious leaders (3).

The main deficit is the lack of representation of entrepreneurs and workers in the private sector. As well as the low presence of mass organizations. The latter, whose role is defined as key in the conformation of the candidacy, have a relatively minor weight in its composition. The 19 deputies that represent them are 4.04% of the ANPP, compared to 9.25% in the outgoing ANPP.

The characterization on the profile of the deputies, however, requires going deeper and with more detailed qualitative elements, which are not contained in this simple picture.

Subject to returning at another time to the new Council of State, and to the changes in the Council of Ministers, to put them into perspective, I will only briefly point out, before finishing, a couple of considerations….

Renewals and continuities

The Council of State, with 21 members, was renewed by 43%, incorporating a biotechnology leader, a female social worker, a female municipal president and another female president of a People’s Council, a female hospital director, a female enterprise director from the energy sector, a female Paralympian athlete, a union leader of economists, a student leader and a historian.

To affirm that it did not change, because “the senior staff” is still aging and is the same, is more an a priori statement, based on expectations, than a well-founded political assessment.

Nor is it appropriate to confer on the age of the President of the Council of State the evidence that nothing can change when the other two members of the presidency are both under 60 years of age. Not to mention the other members of the Council, in particular the women and the new ones, who contribute their visions and local experiences from outside the capital.

Regarding the changes in the Council of Ministers, I limit myself to reminding that this recently elected government is headed by the same president, in his second term.

When Raúl Castro took office as president, in 2008, he changed 12 ministers, 9 of them the economic team of the cabinet. Even though it was the same party, as we all know, he made all those changes, which affected some of Fidel Castro’s appointees. It wasn’t so much like that in his second term.

When Díaz-Canel took office, he incorporated 11 new ministers into the 33-position cabinet. Of the team of ministers and presidents of central organizations with which he inaugurated his first term in 2018, 8 members remain in the newly appointed Council of Ministers. The remaining members of the cabinet have been replaced in the last five years; in some cases, such as the Central Bank, more than once. Of the 4 ministers replaced in 2023, 3 were in the cabinet from the government of Raúl Castro.

The first substantive question is whether there is, this time, the political will, at the highest level, to convert the ANPP into an institution whose weight in national politics corresponds to the new Constitution, and which is on par with the present moment.

The second is whether, in his second term, the current president will make the legacy of Raúl Castro, and his reformist imprint, the foundation of the so-called continuity. A continuity that can only be made politically effective by changing everything that must be changed.

Rafael Hernández
Politólogo, profesor, escritor. Autor de libros y ensayos sobre EEUU, Cuba, sociedad, historia, cultura. Dirige la revista Temas.

Four thousand lithographic stones: the discovery of a treasure in Havana

It was the photographer and researcher Julio Larramendi who noticed the narrow opening in the wall that gave way to the treasure.

by  Rafael Acosta de Arriba
April 22, 2023
in Cuba

The stones that required a more intense wash were those that at the time were protected with an adhered paper. 

A surprising find occurred recently at the Engraving Experimental Workshop of Havana (TEGH): a batch of 4,000 lithographic stones stacked in a dark and narrow space in a corner of the workshop.

The stones, with their stamped inscriptions and images, had been there for decades. It was the photographer and researcher Julio Larramendi who, looking for a specific stone to illustrate one of his books, noticed the narrow opening in the wall that led to the treasure

.

Original state of the deposit of the lithographic stones in the Engraving Experimental Workshop. Some 4,000 units were found.

After this, a process of cleaning and identification of the images engraved on their surfaces, as well as their possible authors, began. The prints were studied and classified. Some sixty students from the Information Sciences course at the University of Havana and the same number from the Workshop School of the Office of the City Historian carry out these tasks.

Duly protected and under the supervision of experts, these young people have extracted the stones one by one to move them to a nearby gallery, always inside the Workshop, an institution that has preserved this heritage for all these years.

The students of the Faculty of Communication begin the extraction and transfer of the stones

.

A total of 62 first-year students participated in the first phase of the project.

This singular team has processed two thousand pieces. Each one has gone through three phases: definition of the state of conservation of the stone and its inscription; washing and scanning of the stone and the stamp drawn on it; and, finally, classification (for example, those that are considered artistic drawings are immediately delivered to the TEGH).

Some pieces required a previous washing. It was done very carefully so as not to affect the drawing.

Once this process is finished, the stones are returned to a provisional space within the Workshop until it is decided what to do with them. In a month or so, the work should be completed.

This process was supported by software developed at the Faculty of Information Sciences that allows saving the data obtained and identifies the student who did the work. Subsequently, research can be carried out on the topics represented in the stones.

Once clean, the stones are measured, classified by drawing quality, identified by themes, scanned with phones, and photographed. 

At the end of one of the cleaning and cataloging sessions, each student in this brigade chose the stone of their choice. 

The pieces have enormous heritage value. Among them stand out stones with the signature of Roberto Matta, Antonia Eiriz, Víctor Manuel, Manuel Mendive and Antonio Canet, among other recognized artists.

Stone worked by Antonia Eiriz. 

In addition, others no less valuable pieces reveal their use for commercial purposes associated with the tobacco industry, first of all, and with beverages and liquors, fruits, perfumery, pharmacy, and chocolates.

This could be the prelude and foundation for various exhibitions, books and other actions of artistic and cultural value. It could even revive an old dream: the creation of a museum of Cuban engraving

.

Based on the drawings it has been possible to date the lot between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th. 

Stone stamping in Cuba had as antecedents the engraving on wood and metal in the 18th century. Then the lithographic technique arrived from Europe, associated at first with the musical development of the colony. Sheet music and other musical prints were the first use for these prints. Then came the rural and city landscapes, the portraits of colonial personalities and the scenes of types and customs of insular society. Lithographic art has left us excellent books, today classic pieces of our literature and visuality.

According to various studies, a French miniaturist painter who had lived on the island for years, Santiago Lessier Durand, established the first workshop in Havana in 1822. From then on, a solid lithographic tradition began to develop.

This is confirmed, in her book La memoria en las piedras (Ediciones Boloña, 2001), by the renowned researcher Zoila Lapique Becali, Honorary Member of the Academy of History of Cuba and an authority on the subject.

Subsequently, the lithographic activity was modernized and industrialized in order to produce the largest number of copies of the prints for commercial purposes.



1 of 6
Lithographic stone of the Tobacco Factory.
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This is how the first half of the 20th century went. With the political and cultural dynamics that began with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, it was a matter of time before a Workshop for artistic engraving was created.

In July 1962, the TEGH was founded, located today at the end of the Callejón del Chorro in the Plaza de la Catedral, Old Havana. This emblematic institution began to work with disposable equipment from the former Havana Lithographic Company. During its existence, it has gone through several stages in terms of development, but it has always been the epicenter of the creative work and exhibition of engravers in any of the techniques. Before settling in its final location, the Workshop was in other buildings, including the Palace of the Marquis of Arco.

There is a version of its history that speaks of the fact that its presses, plates and stones were in serious danger due to the defensive fever that prevailed in the first revolutionary years. Lithographic stones were used at this time to create parapets and barricades. The machines would be melted down for the same military purpose, in the face of continuous aggression and threats from the United States.

It is also said, in this version, that Che Guevara and the poet Pablo Neruda — the latter visiting Cuba and attentive to the claims of the local engraver José Venturelli, a worker at the Workshop — intervened jointly in favor of the Workshop not becoming extinct.

In the institution’s six-decade history, the best Cuban engravers and many artists of other nationalities have passed through its machines and produced splendid pieces of art, while exhibitions and events have been held that have exalted the tradition of engraving on the island.

PHOTOS Julio Larramendi

Cuba and U.S. exchange information to cooperate against terrorism

They addressed issues such as the hijacking of aircraft and maritime vessels. Also, the use of digital media for violent purposes, according to a press release published by the MININT.

by  OnCuba Staff
April 30, 2023

AN-2 aircraft belonging to the National Air Services Company (ENSA) for fumigation work upon arrival in the United States after being stolen by its pilot. Photo: Telemundo.

Cuba and the United States this Thursday and Friday held in Havana a technical exchange on cooperation to combat terrorism, reported the Cuban Ministry of the Interior (MININT).

Authorities from both governments discussed the hijacking of aircraft and maritime vessels, as well as the use of digital media for violent purposes, according to a press release published this Friday on MININT’s official website.


“Both parties agreed on the importance of cooperation in this sphere, and agreed to continue technical meetings in the future,” it said.

Likewise, it regretted that the administration in Washington accuses Cuba in an “arbitrary and unjustified” manner of being a “sponsor of terrorism” and considered that carrying out this exchange “is an expression of the commitment of the Cuban government in the fight against this scourge, and of the commitment to take all necessary steps to combat its perpetrators.”

“It does not contradict the absolute rejection of the list issued by the State Department on this issue, which was duly recorded at the meeting,” added the report cited by Cuban media.

The MININT recalled that this meeting “is a continuation of what was agreed in the bilateral talks on application and compliance with the law,” held on January 18 and 19 of this year on the island.

After the January talks on cooperation in judicial matters, this is the second meeting of this type held since the bilateral talks on national security were halted during the administration of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021).

In addition, it has taken place after several months of a timid rapprochement between the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and the island’s authorities, marked by the resumption of talks to discuss immigration issues.

The Cuban delegation was made up of representatives of the Ministries of the Interior and of Foreign Relations, the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic and the General Customs of the Republic.

Officials from the Justice, State, National Security Departments and the Embassy in Cuba participated for the United States.

EFE/OnCuba

Yoon’s overwhelming pro-US policy could become nightmare for S.Korea, with losses to outweigh gains, experts say

By  Yang Sheng

GLOBAL TIMES

Published: Apr 29, 2023

Photo:AFP

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol's overwhelming pro-US policy, including South Korea's new nuclear deterrence agreement with the US that could allow Washington to dispatch a nuclear ballistic missile submarine to South Korea, has drawn strong criticism from its neighboring countries China, Russia and North Korea, with analysts saying Yoon's increasingly extreme foreign policy has "lost balance" and will likely see losses outweigh gains.

During a discussion held at Harvard Kennedy School on Friday, Yoon said that the new nuclear deterrence agreement that he reached with the US should be understood as an "upgraded" version of the allies' 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty, according to the Yonhap News on Saturday.

Under the Washington Declaration Yoon adopted with US President Joe Biden on Wednesday, the two countries agreed to "share information on nuclear and strategic operations and planning," and regularly deploy US strategic assets to South Korea, to enhance the credibility of the US "extended deterrence." Extended deterrence refers to the US approach of mobilizing all of its military capabilities, including nuclear, to "defend" South Korea.

Chinese experts said deploying US nuclear weapons on the Korea Peninsula is an extremely dangerous and provocative act toward China, Russia and North Korea. And that Washington and Seoul will face strategic level retaliation which could spark another nuclear crisis in the region.

Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, said in a statement that published on the North Korean state media Korean Central News Agency on Saturday that Yoon's visit to Washington "was an occasion for us to have much clearer understanding about the root-cause and physical entity disturbing peace and security of the Korean Peninsula and the region."

The formation of Washington-Seoul "Nuclear Consultative Group," the regular and continuous deployment of US nuclear strategic assets on the peninsula, combined with frequent military exercises "made the regional politico-military situation unable to be extricated from the currents of instability. This provides us with an environment in which we are compelled to take more decisive action in order to deal with the new security environment," Kim said.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Saturday that the US "extended deterrence" strategy is not for defending its ally South Korea but an approach to use North Korea's military development as a pretext to deploy US strategic assets, including nuclear weapons, to impose more strategic pressures to China, Russia and North Korea.

"This will do nothing good for the denuclearization of the peninsula but to make the situation worse and also seriously threaten the security of China, Russia and North Korea. After the Ukraine crisis in Europe, the US is likely to use the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue to provoke another crisis in Asia, but China and Russia will not allow the US to do so," Song noted.

Yoon's foreign policy was criticized by a South Korean opposition leader as humiliating on Friday.

Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party said Yoon's performance at his meeting with Biden ended up in a humiliating situation of generously spreading "global hogang" diplomacy. Hogang, a buzzword in Korean, refers to a customer who is easy to deceive.Lee also criticized Yoon for his improper positions on the Ukraine crisis and the Taiwan question, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

China and Russia also criticized the US-South Korea agreement. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement published on Friday that "We saw the reports about the agreement between the US and the Republic of Korea on joint planning with respect to the use of nuclear weapons. This turn of events is clearly destabilizing in nature and will have serious negative consequences for regional security projecting onto global stability."

Russia also responded to Yoon's comment about considering supply arms to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said any decision by South Korea to supply arms to Ukraine would make Seoul a participant in the conflict, Reuters reported on April 19.

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the US puts its own geopolitical interests before the security of the whole region, when asked to comment on the Washington Declaration.

"The US has been a source of tension through exploiting the issues on the Korean Peninsula. The US behavior is a result of its Cold War mentality. What the US has done stokes bloc confrontation, undermines the nuclear non-proliferation system and hurts the strategic interest of other countries. It has also increased tensions on the peninsula and jeopardized regional peace and stability. This is the very opposite of the goal to denuclearize the peninsula and we are firmly against this," said Mao.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on April 23, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong made solemn representations to South Korean Ambassador to China Chung Jae-ho over Yoon's wrong remarks on the Taiwan question.

If Seoul ignores warnings from China, Russia and North Korea and completely executes US order for "extended deterrence" in the region, South Korea will likely face retaliation from China, Russia and North Korea, said experts.

This will cause serious damage to South Korea's security and development, because Yoon is making his country appear more hostile to its three important neighbors, analysts said. China and Russia are also key trade partners for South Korea.

This could become a "nightmare" for Yoon and his country, and the protection and investment provided by the US are not worth the loss that South Korea will suffer in terms of both economy and security, experts said.

Jin Canrong, associate dean of the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Saturday that Yoon's decision-making on foreign policy has been deeply affected by the pro-US advisors, and that his policy has lost balance and become increasingly extreme, but "this kind of unwise policy is unsustainable, because it is against the national interests of South Korea."

America’s Spies Are Losing Their Edge

New technologies and a lack patriotism in Silicon Valley are leveling the playing field for Russia and China.

Technologically challenged.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

By Max Hastings
April 29, 2023

What a month this has been for secrets! Or rather, for no-longer-secrets. Ukraine is not winning its war, thinks the US military. Egypt planned to send rockets to Russia. Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries tried to buy arms from Turkey through Mali. The US has penetrated Russian intelligence services.

These are just a few of the delicious tidbits allegedly exposed by 21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, apparently from a Pentagon treasure trove.

If we sit down and think about these revelations, almost none comes as a surprise to those of us who study defense and foreign affairs. Everybody knows that almost all nations spy on their friends as well as on their enemies. For many moons there has been informed speculation about the stuff showcased in the leaks. The real damage derives from their authoritative sourcing to Washington — to America’s 18 intelligence agencies, nine of them within the Department of Defense.

“Scandals” of this kind make headlines with monotonous regularity. The successes of intelligence agencies remain hidden from our gaze for years if not decades. The failures, however, fill whole books within months. As a student of warfare, I long ago concluded that while intelligence is a vital tool of national security, the activities of all secret services vacillate between deadly gravity and farce.


Quite a few senior spymasters go mad, as did James Jesus Angleton, the Central Intelligence Agency’s counterintelligence chief who convinced himself in the 1960s and 1970s that Western agencies were riddled with traitors. Meanwhile, the CIA’s operations against Cuban leader Fidel Castro were unfailingly foolish and unsuccessful.

The agency has always attracted more than its rightful share of cowboys. One day in 1972, I found myself stuck with a BBC camera crew at Pakse in Laos, when a communist offensive was launched. Out on the town’s airfield, I spotted three obvious Americans in jeans and sweatshirts, carrying rucksacks and M16 rifles.

I asked them when the rumored “round-eye” evacuation flight would be coming in. They ignored me, looking studiously at the horizon until, at my third time of begging for information intended to save our frightened British necks, one man muttered between clenched teeth: “We don’t exist. We’re not here.”

They were spooks, of course, behaving with a childishness that was pretty common in Indochina in those days, matched by ruthless carelessness with local people’s lives.

Amy Zegart of Stanford’s Hoover Institution is an expert on US intelligence and author of the excellent recent book, “Spies, Lies and Algorithms.” (She recently did a Q&A with my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Tobin Harshaw.) She argues that the nature of spycraft is changing dramatically. The days of the cowboys, which started with the World War II Office of Strategic Services created by “Wild Bill” Donovan, are numbered. If Western intelligence, and above all counterintelligence, is to perform its critical role in Western defense, it must keep pace with the revolution, match new threats.

We in the Western democracies enjoy the huge privilege of living in open societies, as Chinese, Russian, North Korean and Iranian people do not. But part of the price of our freedom is that we are more vulnerable to attack, especially by foreign intelligence services.

Before, during and after World War II, Soviet agents operating freely in the US were able to recruit some 200 American informants, some of them deep inside government and the scientific community. Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover built a legend around the alleged prowess of his bureau (and himself), but in truth the Feds were slow to catch communist traitors. Many went unidentified for years.

In more recent times, cash has inspired treason more often than ideology. The FBI handed $7 million to an ex-KGB man who provided the information that, in 2001, belatedly unmasked the long-serving Moscow informant Robert Hanssen. The Russians paid $4.6 million to Aldrich Ames, a CIA case officer finally exposed in 1994, who provided them with information that enabled them to arrest and execute at least 10 American sources inside Russia.

As late as 2007, the US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment did not even mention cyberwarfare. Today, of course, it is recognized as central to security, and both the Chinese and Russians are good at it. The transfer, and thus theft, of secrets has been made far easier by the migration of information from paper to computers.

Most corporations and some elements of national defense are appallingly vulnerable, because of lax electronic data security, highlighted by the Russians’ 2020 SolarWinds hack of Washington systems. Zegart asserts that almost every Chinese weapons system has been created from stolen American technology, which former US cyberwarfare chief Keith Alexander branded bitterly as “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”

It is ironic that the Chinese secured vital technical data on the F-35 and F-22 jets at a time when allies including Britain were struggling to secure Washington’s approval for access to the codes necessary to operate the aircraft, which they were then purchasing from the US.

Zegart raises the specter that before long, quantum computing may make possible the unravelling of all encrypted data. Sure, the West will be able to exploit this. Our enemies are likely to do even better, however, because we have many more high-tech secrets worth stealing.

It was once the case that intelligence gathering, and especially aerial surveillance, were monopolies of governments. Today, almost anybody can play. Small commercial satellites provide information that allows civilian intelligence geeks to unravel extraordinary secrets. A satellite image of an earth landscape that a few years back sold for $4,000 is now available for $10.

Meanwhile, a college student exploited publicly accessible facial recognition technology to identify most of the “Faces of the Riot” — the people who sought to storm the Capitol on behalf of President Donald Trump in January 2021.

Only around a quarter of all material in intelligence reports derives from secret sources. The intelligence community — or IC — needs to exploit open sources and integrate civilian talent into its processes much more energetically. The risk must be recognized that some civilian whistle-blowers and wannabe investigators will pursue conspiracy theories and peddle false information. But others bring to the party real assets, especially their own brains and insights.

Where once spies were obliged to enter a foreign country to steal its secrets, today not only states but nonstate actors can wreak untold harm through hacking and cyberattacks without venturing beyond their own front doors.


No American or Israeli hacker set foot in Iran in 2010 in order to insert the deadly Stuxnet worm in Tehran’s nuclear program’s computers, wrecking centrifuges and setting back Iranian weaponization by a year. Selfies taken by Russian soldiers in Ukraine have proved invaluable in creating order-of-battle intelligence about President Vladimir Putin’s invading army.

As globally available information doubles every two years, technology shows itself increasingly more potent than human analysts, even before artificial intelligence kicks in. Machines can identify Chinese missile sites on satellite images more quickly than human analysts.

A small army of Russian hackers, often authorized and funded by the Kremlin but mostly outside the government intelligence organizations, makes constant attacks on Western interests. Former CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said of the Russian online disinformation campaign in the 2016 US presidential election: “They wanted Donald Trump to win, they wanted Hillary to lose, but most of all they just wanted to f*** with us.”

Zegart believes that American dominance of the information and technology universe is under severe threat, which can only grow greater: “The intelligence playing field is leveling, and not in a good way.”

Among her sensible prescriptions, perhaps the most important is for greater integration between the IC and American business, especially technology companies. Yet the tech giants often recoil from cooperation with government, and especially with its intelligence agencies. In times gone by, in the world wars and the Cold War, government officials routinely sought the aid of big corporations, and got it. Today, patriotism has atrophied.

Facebook professes to regret its past failures, and expresses a commitment to serve the public interest. But behind closed doors, says Zegart, it seeks “to deny, delay and deflect regulation and stifle critics.” Google canceled an artificial intelligence partnership with the Pentagon in 2018 after a protest by more than 3,000 employees.

Susan Gordon, an intelligence veteran, observes that Google, Apple and Facebook are huge players in the cyber universe, but seem accountable to no one. She, like Zegart, argues that all the tech companies must accept their share of responsibility for US national security.

Now that cyberattacks have become a routine part of the 21st century, the West is obliged to defend itself daily. The National Security Agency reportedly employs more mathematicians than any other organization in the US. Spies, or rather intelligence organizations, have unwillingly gotten dragged into warfighting, especially the electronic kind.

I wish that I could share Zegart’s expressed belief that CIA analysts are people of “exceptional intellectual skills.” Intelligence organizations, like the rest of us, are lousy at predicting the future, rather than merely describing the present and past. She quotes Phil Tetlock of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies the track records of modern prophets, and who observes acidly that “the average expert was about as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.”

Some of the chimpanzees serve at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Several of their failures have been catastrophic, most spectacularly the 2002 claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, which triggered President George W. Bush’s Iraq war.

It has always seemed to me an intractable problem that whereas in World War II, intelligence could recruit some of the most brilliant civilians in American and British society, in modern peacetime it is much tougher to get the best and brightest to accept relatively ill-rewarded government jobs.

Public service is unfashionable, on both sides of the Atlantic. Some spooks are indeed smart, but others are not. It should be a source of concern that the vast Chinese and Russian intelligence and especially cyberwarfare communities may have access to some cleverer people than their Western counterparts.

Zegart highlights another grave challenge facing intelligence services — a decline in public trust, partly fed by the West’s enemies through deepfakes, social media and disinformation, but also fueled by some prominent Americans. It was an extraordinary moment when Trump, as president, declared that he trusted Putin’s denials of Russian interference in the 2016 election more than he trusted his own nation’s intelligence services.

Trump appeared dismissive of the activities of, for instance, the Heart of Texas and United Muslims of America Facebook accounts, created by the Russian Internet Research Agency, the former peddling the slogan “Time To Secede.”

In a new Foreign Affairs piece, Lawrence Norden and Derek Tisler of the Brennan Center for Justice highlight the critical role in defending American democracy of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s “Rumor vs. Reality” resource, colloquially known as “rumor control.” This provides factual information to dispel some of the commonest election conspiracy theories.

Several states, including Connecticut, Kentucky and Ohio, have established rumor control notice boards, providing factual information to voters and explaining the multiple safeguards against election fraud. In the new world, measures such as this provide reinforcement for the defenses manned by the intelligence agencies. They are needed not merely to validate US domestic processes, but also wild foreign- and home-generated fake news reports.

Zegart expresses concern about the image of intelligence projected by Hollywood’s movie and TV output, which emphasizes torture, treachery and assassination. Those play only the most marginal roles in the IC’s real-life activities. Yet I was troubled to receive a letter a few months ago from a former British spymaster commenting on a newspaper article I had written, in which I asserted that information secured by torture is seldom reliable.

On the contrary, claimed my acquaintance laconically: torture works; often produces valuable results. Well, maybe. But it alarmed me that he had no compunction about expressing this view in writing, above his own signature.

I am also bothered, as Zegart seems not to be, by the dilemmas posed by drone assassinations in far-flung places. Sure, most of those whom the CIA-directed drone crews kill are enemies of freedom, murderous fanatics. But what happens when our enemies start playing this game with our people, perhaps our prime ministers and presidents?

Drones are frighteningly available, for relatively tiny sums of money. They are likely to become terrorist tools of choice.

Amy Zegart’s book performs an important service by highlighting the need for the intelligence services to update their outlook, personnel and operations to face the new world, and especially the cyberworld.

Meanwhile, Jack Texeira’s alleged superleak reminds us that intelligence and covert activities — “edgy things,” as former CIA director Michael Hayden calls them — are huge business both for the good guys and the bad ones. The other side is getting better at them all the time. We need to do the same, even if some of the nasty bits make us feel queasy.

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Max Hastings is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former editor in chief of the Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard, he is author, most recently, of "The Abyss: Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962."

OPINION
Jerry Springer, carnival barker of a modern freak show, cleared way for Trump


Nick Bryant

Journalist and author

WESTERN AUSTRALIA TODAY
April 30, 2023 — 

When did the penny drop that America was careering off the rails? Doubtless for many it was watching those early returns on election night in 2016, as it became shockingly clear that the politically impossible was about to be made real and Donald Trump would soon be reciting the presidential oath of office.

Perhaps it came earlier in the Obama years, after reading all those polls which suggested three-quarters of Republicans doubted whether the president was even a US citizen. Or maybe, like me, you turned on cable television sometime in the ’90s and found yourself transfixed by The Jerry Springer Show.

Donald Trump “stole my show and took it to the White House”, Jerry Springer once complained.

The presenter of what TV Guide once famously labelled the worst television program of all time died last week, although clips from his shows will continue to enjoy an afterlife on YouTube for years to come.

Springer, of course, was the carnival barker of a modern freak show, which featured, among other things, the “man who married his horse”, a porn actress who claimed to have slept with 251 men in the space of 10 hours, and a steady stream of white supremacists, including a self-styled “breeder for the Klan”. In a tabloid decade that brought us the OJ Simpson trial, John Wayne Bobbitt and his penis-severing wife, Lorena, the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tapes, and what we erroneously called the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Springer plumbed new lows.

His show was vulgar, foul-mouthed, gratuitously combative, unashamedly populist, defiantly anti-elitist and a massive ratings winner. Little wonder that Springer complained years later that Donald Trump “stole my show and took it to the White House”.

There was also something about the emotional connection that the host enjoyed with his audience that foreshadowed the rise of Trump. Certainly, it was easy to imagine the people in his studio audience who chanted “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry” joining in the Trumpian chorus that bellowed “Lock her up, Lock her up”. When Hillary Clinton spoke of “the basket of deplorables” she could almost have been describing some of Springer’s most devoted fans.

Most bizarre and unhinged moments on the Jerry Springer Show


The Jerry Springer Show was notorious for fights, bizarre relationships and shocking reveals.

Unlike Trump, however, Springer realised the ridiculousness of it all, and was laughing up his sleeve at his followers. A former liberal-minded mayor of Cincinnati, who had once worked on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, he wanted to see America elect its first female president. “Hillary belongs in the White House,” he tweeted after watching a presidential debate in 2016: “Donald Trump belongs on my show.”

But those Clinton/Trump debates sometimes felt like Jerry Springer had produced them; and never more so than when, in the aftermath of the Access Hollywood scandal, Trump arranged for some of Bill Clinton’s female accusers, including Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick, to sit in the studio audience. It was a Springer-esque stunt.

Certainly, Springer is a seminal figure in the trashification of US popular culture. The reality TV shows that became so prominent at the turn of the century tried in many ways to do in primetime what Springer was doing so profitably in daytime: to tantalise, to shock, to thrive off orchestrated confrontation. Maybe the cable news channels that arose in the ’90s, like Fox News, borrowed from that same confrontational playbook, as they sought out guests with the most outlandish views and tried to set up polarising on-air battles (although the founding CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes, honed those tricks working for the Nixon campaign in 1968).

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Brawls, sex, and real people: How Jerry Springer took on Oprah

Crucially, all this came about at the very moment when politics, entertainment and even journalism were becoming so synergetic, a symbiosis illustrated by Bill Clinton playing his saxophone on late-night TV and telling MTV that he preferred briefs rather than boxers. In those years, the famed Overton window of political acceptability moved towards becoming floor-to-ceiling.

In the 30 years since, US political culture has unfortunately absorbed the worst traits of American popular culture. The freakish dramatic personae, faux combat and pantomime-style chanting of trashy daytime television. The venality and amorality of reality shows, such as Survivor, which are based on the belief that winning isn’t everything, when it is the only thing. The tropes of professional wrestling. The narcissism of social media influencers. All this helps explain how a reality TV star reached the White House, and why the GOP has become so crazed.

Unquestionably, the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is pure Jerry Springer. You could build an entire show around her pet theory that a “Jewish space laser” was to blame for the 2018 California wildfires. Other Republican lawmakers could tell us how they bought 251 assault rifles in 10 hours. The Proud Boys could take the seats once occupied by the KKK. And all the time the studio audience could chant: “Donald, Donald, Donald.” The Trumpification of US politics might not have happened had its Springerisation not come about first.

Spain’s furry traffic

How sheep can fight the climate crisis

STEPHEN PHELAN

On an autumn Sunday morning in Madrid, the bells on the Chapel of Our Lady of the Harbour rang at the unseemly hour of 10:48am. Someone shouted, “They’re coming!” The gathered crowd then heard the discordant dinging of many smaller bells, and looked up the street to see the advancing herd of sheep and goats who wore them around their necks. 

More than 1,400 of the former, and 200-plus of the latter, flowed along the thoroughfare like woolly traffic. Police vans provided an escort from the front, and sweeper vehicles followed behind to clean up after them. Professional shepherds, some in traditional costume, turned their animals from a unruly forward march into a bleating centrifugal swirl as they rounded the corner between the Segovia Bridge and the paseo leading uphill to the Cathedral. 

Onward they went, across the historic centre to City Hall, where mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida would receive a token payment from chief herdsman Jesús Garzón for the right to move livestock through the capital. And Garzón is the man most directly responsible for this symbolic reenactment of a deal first struck in the early 15th century, which is now the ritual centrepiece of the annual Fiesta de la Transhumancia that he inaugurated in 1994. 

He has made it his life’s mission to promote the ancient practice of moving ruminants in seasonal cycles between high mountain pastures in summer and lower grasslands in winter, or from the hot, dry interior to cooler, wetter coastal ranges. The name for this, transhumance, derives from humo, or smoke, which rose from hillside fires lit by stone age shepherds as they cleared primeval foliage for grazing space circa 5,000 BC. 

“These migrations have shaped our landscape and culture for 7,000 years,” Garzón told me when we met the day before the festival in Casa de Campo, a former royal hunting ground turned over to the public as Europe’s biggest urban park. “Spanish is really the language of shepherds who needed to understand each other from the Basque Country to Rioja, Castilla, Galicia, the Pyrennes … now it’s spoken by 500 million people around the world.”  

Driving his sheep and goats between Mediterranean pines in the backwoods of the park, Garzón said that he esteemed shepherds in general as stewards of the Earth.By his count, he said, “There are two billion of us. One quarter of the global population, conserving 100% of the territory that our animals graze across. Reindeer in Siberia, llamas and alpacas in the Andes, camels in the deserts. There would be no life without shepherds.” 

He looked the part with his flatcap and crook; a very tall, thin man with a deeply weathered bearing; an ancient giant striding over the landscape at a pace that suggested endless, tireless purpose. But Garzón was originally a city boy, born right here in Madrid some 77 years ago. His father was a career soldier, an artilleryman who fought on the Ebro in the Spanish Civil War and the Russian-Finnish front in World War II. They used to ride horses and listen for bird calls together in this very park, where medieval drovers’ roads, older than the capital itself, had long since been abandoned. Garzón grew up to be a conservationist, and removed himself to the northern mountains of Cantabria, where he still lives. 

Even there, he said, some of the oldest shepherd paths were neglected through the Franco years and later transition to democracy, as rural Spain was modernised by way of new motorways, supermarkets, and industrial farming. Across the country, 125,000 kilometres of trails were traditionally reserved for transhumance, and still technically classed as “national assets” within the public domain. Around 1992, Garzón resolved to take them back, mobilising shepherds to use those overgrown ravines so that they wouldn’t lose them. 

“It seemed impossible at first. Everyone said no. But at the same time, older people had a strong memory of livestock migration, and such enthusiasm for it.” He first conceived the festival of transhumance to support the drafting of a new law to protect those trails (which passed in 1995). All those animals on the streets of Madrid, where “some little children had never even seen a sheep”, ignited an atavistic spark in city-dwellers. 

I felt this myself at the 2022 edition – an obscure pastoral delight, as I ran my hand through the fleece of a passing ram. But also a sinister little shiver of displacement, as I watched these prehistoric beasts with livid amber eyes bash their way through traffic lights and mount the curb to get at the takeout window of a Burger King. For a second I imagined them retaking the cities too, like vines growing over skyscrapers, long after we’re gone. 

To Garzón, the revival of transhumance is not a matter of rustic nostalgia (a form of old-world conservatism that Spain is especially prone to) but a pragmatic means of ensuring the survival of civilization. “It’s the only way,” he assured me, unpacking the agri-mathematics of the equation: Say a head of 1,000 sheep travels 500 kilometres, there and back, on their vernal and autumnal migrations. Over those 1,000km they will fertilize the soil en route with three tonnes of manure per day, spreading about five million seeds across valleys that can grow more than 40 species of grasses per square metre of land. Garzón waved his hand over the ground where we stood, a light breeze rippling the stalks. 

“Our situation is very serious,” he said. “There is no remedy now, to all the carbon that is already in the atmosphere. It will take us centuries to recover. But the more grass we have, the more carbon we can reduce. Grasslands are better carbon sinks than forests, and the animals conserve them for free. What they eat turns to natural fertilizer, instead of going into the air. To guarantee a future for our country, and our planet, we must encourage grazing.”

When I contacted Celsa Peiteado Morales, Food Programme Manager of the World Wildlife Fund in Spain, she agreed that grazing is strategically essential to the “agroecological transition toward sustainable food systems”. “Our network of livestock trails is a great treasure of Spain,” she continued. “It was built over centuries, it is still coherent, and much of it remains in use today.” The Spanish government has recognised as much, and in 2015 transhumance was officially declared “the intangible heritage of the Kingdom of Spain”. 

This obliges regional authorities to provide tax relief to all involved, and to promote the practice with education programmes. Some have been more compliant, and committed, than others, and Peiteado had also detected a lack of ambition among lawmakers to redevelop “extenstive livestock farming”, as a preferable alternative to the intensive, industrial kind. 

The former sector “produces sustainable, quality food, in turn generating essential public goods and services.” But the latter, she suggested, “tends to have more political influence.”

These very different systems have never been properly delineated so as to help the average consumer know which their meat is coming from. It’s assumed that, given the choice, most would prefer to eat free-range beef or lamb fed on those wild grasses, and the WWF, among others, has been pushing for formalised criteria that would inform buyers accordingly. Sellers, meanwhile, face what Peiteado calls “a complex reality” that can still make the shepherding life almost untenable these days. 

In the mountains of Cantabria, now the home turf of Jesús Garzón, I spent an autumn Saturday night at a village bar and grill called El Redondal, around 1,200 metres above sea level. The place was packed with farmers after a long day of veterinary inspections on their animals – most of which are now cows, despite the fact that bovines are not especially well suited to the surrounding terrain. 

Bar owner Abel Fernández showed me an iPhone photo of a dead cow that had fallen from a high ridge, and told me this is also an occupational hazard for the shepherds of the region. 

“I have lost a few friends this way,” he said. Fernández and his wife Kaelia are among the few to still practice traditional transhumance, moving sheep and goats (also some cows) from nearby high-altitude pastures to lower meadows before the first snows, then back again in spring. “It’s a vertical movement,” said Kaelia, as opposed to the “lateral” migrations of central Spain. “You walk the animals two kilometres in a straight line, up and down. 

“You’re very exposed, and you might die.” Exposed also to market forces, which have made beef much more valuable than lamb, or kid. The couple can still just about self-sustain with a small herd up here. Serving meat from their livestock through this restaurant also lets them cut out the kind of middleman who forces lowland farmers with much more cattle to sell for too little. Abel, Kaelia, and their clientele were unanimous in blaming the European Union for this, and the system that allows Brussels to set the prices while also granting full environmental protection to the wolves who can now kill their sheep and goats with impunity. 

“Within 20 years,” said Abel, “the EU has almost destroyed this way of life.” The Fernándezes also conceded that EU grants and subsidies may yet restore the old drover roads in much of the country. Whole networks of lagoons are being planned as waterholes along ancient routes like the Cuenca, where huge herds are again crossing the Spanish interior from Jaén to Teruel. They agreed that large-scale transhumance might yet restore rural populations and small farms and grazing lands in the way that advocates hope.

“But it wouldn’t work that way at this altitude,” said Kaelia. “We couldn’t have thousands of goats eating all the pasture.” Abel said he hoped, but doubted, that their young son would be a shepherd, as his own father, and grandfather, and ancestors were. 

“Anyone who still has sheep and goats up here, they’re doing it for love, not profit. And that’s not enough. I think it’s probably over, and that we are the last ones.” 

Boredom, exposure to domestic violence among reasons people abuse animals: Experts

SPCA said 2023 has seen a “disproportionately high number” of cat abuse cases. 

PHOTO: ST FILE

Chin Hui Shan

SINGAPORE - From amusement to displacement of anger, psychologists said that people abuse animals for a wide variety of reasons.

Promises Healthcare senior forensic psychologist June Fong told The Straits Times that some people abuse animals to relieve negative feelings like loneliness and frustration. Others do it as a form of retaliation, against the animal or its owner.

In December 2022, a cat died after a boy allegedly threw it off the 22nd storey of an Housing Board flat in Boon Lay.


Meanwhile, a teenage boy was arrested after a video showing him trying to perform obscene acts on a tabby cat in Bukit Panjang went viral.

The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) told The Straits Times that 2023 has seen a “disproportionately high number” of cat abuse cases. It investigated 11 such cases from January to March. In comparison, it probed 16 cases in the whole of 2022 and 11 cases in 2021.

These instances of youth abusing animals could be due to boredom or a desire to seek thrills, but Ms Fong said that a history of domestic violence and childhood abuse could also play a part.

“If a child has witnessed someone else torturing an animal or hurting someone without consequence, they learn that it is not wrong to hurt another person or animal,” she said.

And while both a youth and an adult may experience similar urges of hurting an animal, Ms Fong said the youth tend to be more impulsive, being less capable of exerting the necessary self-control or mental reasoning to rein those urges in.

“Youths may also lack the ability to think about long-term consequences. They may see animals as an ‘easier’ target, especially so for stray animals, as the youth might think that nobody will notice if something happens to it,” she said.

Dr Annabelle Chow, clinical psychologist at Annabelle Psychology, said some young people may engage in sexual intercourse or sexual behaviour with animals out of curiosity or to seek affection, but there are other factors, such as intellectual impairment.

She also noted that there are links between being a victim or witness of sexual abuse in childhood and engaging in animal sexual abuse.

“Childhood victims who experience such adverse traumatic events are at higher risk of committing animal and sexual abuse in later life,” said Dr Chow.

Ms Lynn Tan, clinical psychologist at The Psychology Practice, said that among many reasons, individuals may also hurt animals to impress their friends or for entertainment.

She noted that while there are no local numbers that indicate that cats are more susceptible to abuse as compared with dogs, cats may remain targets of abuse owing to their smaller sizes, accessibility, and some of their behaviour traits, such as responses when being attacked.

The history and associations Singapore has towards cats, including their perceived “invulnerability” derived from the saying that cats have nine lives, beliefs about black cats and luck, or attitudes towards strays, may have contributed to them being targets, she added.

The correlation between animal abuse and domestic violence has been termed “The Link”. The website of the Animal Legal Defence Fund, an American animal advocacy organisation, cites several studies that have found a direct link between acts of cruelty to animals and violence toward people.

Among the studies cited are a landmark 1997 study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Northeastern University, which found that animal abusers are five times as likely to also harm other humans.

Another study, published 10 years ago, found that 43 per cent of those who commit school massacres also committed acts of cruelty to animals – generally against cats and dogs.

However, psychologists say that while animal abusers are likely to commit other violent behaviour, they may not necessarily grow up to be criminals.

Ms Fong said it is likely that animal cruelty is symptomatic of anti-social behaviour, which stems from underlying causes, including being exposed to familial or peer violence. This in turn makes abusers more prone to potentially engaging in violent or aggressive acts, she said.

Ms Tan said it does not mean animal abusers will grow up perpetuating violence, although such past behaviour is a risk factor.

“It goes back to understanding the motivators and the underlying reasons of why this person abused animals in the first place,” she said.

“With that, we probably have a more nuanced understanding of the level of risk a person might carry in adulthood.

At the same time, intervention is necessary, said Dr Chow. “To help correct such behaviour, it is important that we first understand the motivations (behind) such cruelty.”

While she is not aware of any direct evidence that animal abusers will go on to commit more serious crimes, there is a strong link between the severity of animal abuse and violence or aggression.

“Animal abusers who do not receive intervention are likely to continue engaging in these behaviours, with the severity and frequency possibly increasing over time,” she said, noting that the approach with youths to correct such behaviour is different.

“As parents and adults, we must approach our children’s acts of cruelty with kindness and compassion. Studies of animal abuse by children find that most mistreatment is unintentional, motivated by curiosity, and infrequent,” Dr Chow said.

Consistent public education on animal abuse is also a way to help prevent such behaviour, Ms Fong said, adding that mere punishment and shaming the abuser without giving them the tools to rehabilitate is futile.

Ms Fong said given how animal abuse is linked to human violence and criminality in general, animal abuse is not only an animal welfare problem but also a social problem.

“If left unaddressed, such acts might perpetuate the notion that animals are lesser beings and therefore, justified targets of aggression or even neglect,” she said.

In the same vein, Ms Tan said the prevalence of animal abuse is a threat to societal values.

“We need to speak about animal cruelty and have wider conversations on how our current systems affect prevailing attitudes towards groups that may be different from us. Are we doing justice in building an inclusive society that respects life equally?”

Call for more to be done to protect cats after ‘disproportionately high number’ of abuse cases in 2023

The Animal and Veterinary Service said it received about 60 cases related to animal cruelty each year from 2019 to 2022. 

PHOTOS: SIAU LI CHAO/FACEBOOK, SCREENGRAB FROM FELINE/FACEBOOK

Isabelle Liew and Chin Hui Shan

SINGAPORE - After Ms Umi Solikati found the mangled carcass of a black cat at the void deck of her Housing Board block in Boon Lay, she started patrolling the area for fear that more felines would be abused.

She had been feeding the cat named Panther every day for about 11 years, until it met its fate when a boy allegedly threw it off the 22nd storey of the block in December 2022.

On March 30, another cat was found dead – seemingly beaten to death – about 350m away from her block.

“I’m very afraid that more cats will be abused. Sometimes I walk around till past midnight looking out for the cats,” Ms Umi, 39, told The Straits Times.

“When I’m at home, if I hear something, such as a cat yowling like it’s in danger, I’ll quickly run outside to see what’s going on.”

These two instances of suspected animal cruelty are among several cases that have made headlines in recent months.

On April 11, a teenage boy was arrested after a video showing him trying to perform obscene acts on a tabby cat in Bukit Panjang went viral.

In February, the court heard the case of a 31-year-old man charged with abusing five cats in Ang Mo Kio, including throwing two down from HDB blocks and stomping on a cat’s neck.
‘Disproportionately high number’ of cat abuse cases in 2023

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) executive director Aarthi Sankar said the organisation has observed a “disproportionately high number” of cat abuse cases in 2023.

It investigated 11 such cases from January to March. In comparison, SPCA probed 16 cases for the whole of 2022 and 11 cases in 2021, she said.


Cat Welfare Society (CWS) president Thenuga Vijakumar said there has been a rise in numbers due to increased vigilance and caution, as well as reporting.

But she added: “I would rather there be over-reporting than under-reporting, because at least we have a fuller picture.”

She pointed out that CWS also consistently advocates for felines.

She said: “CWS has taken on the role of gathering information, educating and pushing for vigilance for such cases. We also do the grunt work, such as appealing for information and pursuing the matter with AVS (Animal and Veterinary Service) on a fortnightly basis.”




Cat rescuer Jenny Lim, 49, said social media has allowed people to shed light on abuse cases, and rescuers like herself are able to gather more accounts from witnesses.

One of the worst abuse cases she handled in 2022 involved a cat which had lacerations and open wounds, and parts of its skin had fallen off.

“The cat was in very poor condition, and we suspect it was starved by its fosterer. It weighed only about 1kg when we finally put it to sleep,” said Ms Lim, the founder of 2nd Chance Shelter.

“Some people hate cats and don’t care about them. But why vent their frustrations on innocent cats?”

Ms Jessica Kwok, group director of AVS, said it received an average of 1,250 reports of alleged animal cruelty and abuse each year from 2019 to 2022.

Of these, about 60 cases each year were related to animal cruelty.

Offenders were issued warning letters or composition fines, or prosecuted in court in egregious cases, she added.

CWS’ Ms Thenuga noted that some of the cases involved multiple cats, such as the high-profile case of a man who slashed 11 cats in Ang Mo Kio in 2021.

Frustration on the ground

A seasoned cat rescuer, who wanted to be known only as Ms Wati, expressed frustration that more has not been done to protect the animals.

The 50-year-old education consultant, who has been rescuing animals for 10 years, added: “We’ve come to a point where there has to be real action – enough has been done to educate the public. These cases show that enforcement and deterrence are not effective enough.

“These perpetrators, they know what they are doing.”

Ms Thenuga echoed the sentiment, saying that while there might be more reporting of abuse, “what we’re not seeing is what happens after a report is made”.

This has led to frustration because there is “no clarity on what investigative steps (the authorities) are taking, and it is unclear if they are acting fast enough”, she said.

She said AVS should at least inform organisations like the SPCA and CWS about the progress of investigations, so they can provide assurance to the caregivers of the cats.

But Ms Kwok said AVS, which is part of the National Parks Board, takes all cases related to animal welfare seriously, and investigates all feedback.

“We will take appropriate enforcement action against anyone who does not provide adequate care for their pet or commits an act of animal cruelty,” she said.

Ms Kwok explained that investigations into cases of animal cruelty and poor animal welfare are often complex.

Among the challenges are a lack of eyewitnesses and direct evidence, and cases being reported late or not being reported at all.

Sometimes, carcasses had already been disposed of or were found to be in bad condition, “making post-mortem analyses impossible”, she added.

ST ILLUSTRATION: MIEL

What can be done?

Those on the ground are calling for more to be done to educate the public.

Ms Thenuga said AVS could play a part in educating students in schools on caring for community animals and responsible pet ownership, or fund an animal welfare group to do so.

CWS is planning to launch a curriculum for schools in the second half of 2023 to fill this gap, but it will be up to individual schools to bring this to their students, she added.

“If we had funding, we could hire a full-time education executive to go to every school and run a programme, give assembly talks, or even mentor tertiary students for their projects.”

AVS said it has various platforms to raise awareness about animal welfare and responsible pet ownership.

These include Pets’ Day Out events, a webinar series, talks, roving exhibition panels and school plays.

Students can also go on a learning journey at AVS’ animal classroom with rescued animals at Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden to learn about keeping pets.

Meanwhile, SPCA has appealed to parents to do more.

“We urge parents and educators to underscore to their children the importance of treating all animals as sentient beings,” said Ms Sankar.

In October 2022, SPCA launched an ambassador programme for youth, which empowers them to raise awareness about animal abuse and cruelty.

Some cat caregivers are taking matters into their own hands.

A caregiver in her 50s, who wanted to be known only as Ms Joan, said she saw a group of children throwing stones at community cats in Tiong Bahru some years back.

At the time, her team of three caregivers stopped the children from doing so and explained that they should not mistreat community cats.

“We took pains to resolve the issue before it escalated. One of our caregivers even alerted the principal of their school,” she said.

“It seemed excessive then, but in hindsight, it was effective to nip the problem in the bud, especially with the recent incident of a minor throwing a cat over the parapet.”

On deterrence, Ms Sankar said that SPCA works closely with other animal welfare groups and the authorities to lobby for stiffer penalties that match the gravity of the abuse.

“These penalties will help deter potential abuse... Every instance of abuse and cruelty is a grave cause for concern,” she said.

“We share this world with other sentient beings, and it is our collective responsibility to treat them with dignity, compassion and respect.”

5 high-profile cat abuse cases

April 11, 2023

A teenage boy was arrested after a video showing him trying to perform obscene acts on a tabby cat in Bukit Panjang went viral.
In the 56-second video, a boy is seen trying to perform obscene acts on the feline outside a HDB flat in Senja Road.
Despite the cat moving away, the boy is seen going after the animal, carrying it and continuing to carry out such acts against it. He also appears to grab the cat’s tail for at least six seconds afterwards.

March 30, 2023

A ginger cat was found dead near the letterbox of Block 191 Boon Lay Drive.
The cat seemed to be beaten to death as there were bloodstains in the vicinity, said Cat Welfare Society’s senior community engagement manager Michelle Siau.
Blood had been smeared on the wall, letterbox and floor surrounding the cat, said the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ executive director Aarthi Sankar.
The Animal and Veterinary Service (AVS) is investigating the case.

Feb 1, 2023

Barrie Lin Pengli, 31, who faces charges of abusing five cats at HDB blocks in Ang Mo Kio between April 2020 and December 2021, was undergoing psychiatric treatment, the court heard.
He is accused of throwing two cats down from HDB blocks and stomping on the neck of one of them. Both cats died.
He is also accused of confining two cats in a small waterproof bag and slamming another cat twice against a wall.
He is out on bail of $5,000 and will return to court in May.

Dec 21, 2022

A black community cat named Panther was found dead near a bicycle parking space at Block 186 Boon Lay Avenue.
A day later, a video showing a boy allegedly throwing the cat off the 22nd storey of the block surfaced on social media.
The one-minute video showed a black cat walking out of a lift, followed by a young boy. Seconds later, he picks up the animal and, after looking around, throws the cat over the railing.
The Straits Times understands that the boy was not arrested or taken into custody.
AVS is investigating the case.

July 2021

Leow Wei Liang, 37, was sentenced to 12 weeks’ jail after pleading guilty to three counts of animal cruelty. Another four charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
Leow slashed 11 cats – some with a penknife – in Ang Mo Kio in April and May 2021. He was arrested in June 2021.
A psychiatrist from the Institute of Mental Health told the court that Leow’s acts of cruelty “were not borne from any difficulty in comprehending the consequences of his actions”.

Gold mining in Ethiopia ‘breeds rights violations’

SUNDAY APRIL 30 2023

A woman washes mine dust in search of gold. Ethiopia’s nascent gold mining sector may be breeding rights violations after a lobby found workers were unprotected from potential health hazards.

 PHOTO | FILE | NMG

By TESFA-ALEM TEKLE
More by this Author

Ethiopia’s nascent gold mining sector may be breeding rights violations after a lobby found workers were unprotected from potential health hazards.

Midroc Investment Group, the Ethiopian company operating the mine, and the Swiss refinery Argor-Heraeus that sourced its gold, are accused of taking no action over public reports about pollution from the mine for years, Human Rights Watch said.

According to the report published last week, residents living near the mine, located close to the town of Shakiso in Guji Zone, in the most populous region of Oromia have for years complained of ill-health and disabilities, particularly in newborn children.

Although the mine was closed years ago following public protests, Human Rights Watch's research shows that the companies are inexplicably, been allowed to resume operations by the government without the firms taking any remedial action to address the pollution issues.

Health complications

This is disregard to the mining operations causing long-term health complications, with children being born with disabilities.

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The Ethiopian government's re-authorisation of Midrok's Lege Dembi mining site violates the basic rights of the people living in the area, said Juliane Kippenberg, Associate Child Rights Director at Human Rights Watch.

“The Ethiopian government, by allowing the Lega Dembi mine to reopen without pollution reduction steps in place, is violating the right to health of children and adults living nearby.

“The government should suspend operations until measures have been taken to ensure that harmful chemicals in the water and soil do not exceed international standards and that people harmed by the pollution obtain compensation and care,” Juliane added.

After the report, neither the Ethiopian government nor the companies have responded to our inquiries on the allegations. However, Argor-Heraeus' sourcing practices had been endorsed by two relevant certification schemes, raising question marks on the validity of background checks.

Arsenic in water

A study conducted by Addis Ababa University in 2018, confirmed that there is a large amount of arsenic in the water samples taken downstream from the mine site. Samples taken from soil outside the mine area have also been found to contain high levels of arsenic, nickel and chromium; all harmful to human health especially the nervous system.

The study conducted by the University’s Ethiopian Institute of Public Health showed that the residents living in Lege Dembi area are vulnerable to dangerous toxic substances coming out of the mining area.

According to findings of the study, "communities living in the mining area were at risk of exposure to pollutants like toxic metals released from the mining plant and other mining activities."

Human Rights Watch said the outcomes of the study have never been made public. Midroc Investment Group, one of Ethiopia's largest private business entities, took over the mine from the Ethiopian government in 1997. Based on information provided by Argor-Heraeus, Midroc appears to have taken little action to address complaints over environmental harm and ill-health. Human Rights Watch said. Midroc did not respond to a Human Rights Watch request for information. Argor-Heraeus, one of the largest gold refineries globally, sourced gold from Lega Dembi from at least 2007 until March 2018, and was the only company named as Midroc's business partner in a 2007 Midroc annual report.

Environmental pollution

According to information shared by Argor-Heraeus with Human Rights Watch, the refinery did not identify the harm to the environment and to human rights at Lega Dembi until 2018, despite media reports and public protests about environmental pollution and ill-health at the mine in 2009-10, 2015-2016, and 2017.

Argor-Heraeus did not use its leverage with Midroc to address that harm.

The accusations raise debate on the growing need to have firms or investors sign on a commitment to abide by environmental conservation laws, according to standards set by the United Nations, and the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD).

Companies are supposed to take steps to identify, prevent, and mitigate their human rights and environmental impacts: a process called due diligence.

“The mine owner Midroc does not appear to have seriously addressed the human rights and environmental harms at Lega Dembi, despite years of public protests by residents," said Felix Horne, senior environmental researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"It is a source of great concern that the gold refinery Argor-Heraeus sourced gold from the mine for years without publicly identifying the human rights risks."