Schools primed for 'militant teacher strikes' over post-COVID pay, benefits and respect


Erin Richards, USA TODAY
Wed, March 23, 2022

In January, Minneapolis Public Schools students stayed home for two weeks as the omicron COVID-19 variant surged and schools shuttered. This month, schools have closed for another two weeks – and counting – because of a teacher strike.

Classes will remain canceled Tuesday, the district said Monday night. Since March 8, Minneapolis teachers have been picketing for better pay and benefits, smaller classes and more student mental health services. They're not alone. From Minnesota to Illinois to California, teachers unions are actively on strike or preparing to have members walk off the job over many of the same demands.

"I think you are going to see more militant teacher strikes over the next couple of years," said Jon Shelton, a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay professor who studies teachers unions.

Twin Cities teachers including MFT, Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59, and ESP, Education Support Professionals, rallied at the Minnesota State Capitol March 9.

The heaviest COVID-19 wave is subsiding, but two years of pandemic teaching have taken a toll. Educators are navigating health protocols, staff shortages, students' academic challenges, parents' frustrations and national criticism of how they manage matters of race and sexuality in schools.

Many also feel disrespected. One out of three teachers say they've been verbally harassed or threatened by a student; almost as many report harassment or threats by a parent or a student, according to a new survey by the American Psychological Association.

Unions are demanding pay hikes for teachers and for lower-wage school workers, where turnover and shortages have sharply increased. They also want more support services for students, many of whom are struggling academically or socially after two years of disrupted learning.

But the actions aimed at improving schools are also halting in-person instruction after students have missed extraordinary amounts of it.

The organizing has echoes of the "Red for Ed" teacher strike movement in 2018 and 2019, which started in West Virginia when teachers with no legal right to strike walked out to campaign for more money for schools. Teachers secured raises, and the movement inspired educators elsewhere, including in Republican states such as Arizona, Kentucky and North Carolina.

How 'Red for Ed' started: What changed for West Virginia schools after 2018 strike

Remember 2019? Strikes, raises, protest mark teachers' exhilarating year

School staff celebrate after the House of Delegates passed a motion to postpone a vote on Senate Bill 451 indefinitely at the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston, W.Va., during a statewide teachers' strike on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019.

Money is still at the forefront of concerns – although unions say they're focused on supporting struggling students and addressing teachers' workloads.

Superintendents understand teachers are underpaid and recognize how hard they're working, said Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association. But strikes are adding additional stress, he said.

"Parents are upset over education, they want their kids attending school in person, and now here’s another thing coming that has nothing to do with the pandemic that’s going to keep kids out of school," Domenech said.

Thousands of Chicago Public Schools staff marched through the streets near City Hall during the 11th day of a teachers strike on Oct. 31, 2019.

Teacher strikes around the country

In Minneapolis, the 11 school days missed as of Tuesday will mean the district's 31,000 students are at least six days under state learning-time requirements.

"We are committed to getting students back in classrooms as soon as possible, as well as honoring the needs of our teachers and (education support staff)," the district said in a weekend update.

Last week, educators rallied at the governor's mansion to ask for schools to receive more of Minnesota's $9 billion budget surplus.

"We're looking for contract language around class-size caps, mental health supports, recruiting and retaining educators of color, and living wages for education support professions," Shaun Laden, a Minneapolis union leader, said in an update last week. "We don't have a budget crisis. We have a values and priorities crisis."

In nearby St. Paul Public Schools, the district averted a planned March 8 strike with a last-minute deal on raises, class-size limits and $3,000 bonuses for educators. The bonuses will be paid for by the district's federal COVID-19 relief money.

In suburban Chicago, classes for 4,200 students in the Proviso High School District 209 have been canceled for two weeks as teachers strike for higher pay. District leaders say they cannot sustain the raises the union wants. Negotiations are ongoing; the district says it hopes to bring students back March 28 after a regularly scheduled spring break.

In California, Sacramento teachers began a strike Wednesday for higher pay and more staffing. Buildings are closed for approximately 43,000 students there until the strike comes to an end, the district said.

In Sonoma County, teachers in one district just ended a six-day strike, while teachers in another nearby voted to authorize a strike over many of the same concerns.

Across the districts, thousands of students have stayed home or gone to buildings with no teachers.

Domenech, from the superintendents' group, said administrators often have little financial flexibility to meet teachers' demands. Districts are funded primarily through local property taxes, and many communities don't want to pay more to support teacher raises, he said.

The federal relief money is great, he added, but it runs out in three years.

Another economic problem: Schools receive state money based on enrollment and often attendance, said William Jones, a labor historian at the University of Minnesota. So while many districts are flush with pandemic-relief cash, urban schools that have lost students during the pandemic are struggling.

School reopening: Thousands of kids are missing in these districts

"(Many) districts are really poor, despite more federal funding and despite state surpluses," Jones said. "It's weird that we have forces keeping money away from the one institution we need to pay attention to right now."

Kindergarten students participate in a classroom activity on the first day of in-person learning at Maurice Sendak Elementary School in Los Angeles on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. Some schools were closed for more than a year due to the pandemic.

'Why would someone stay?'

Public support for teachers has whiplashed during the pandemic, and support for strikes will likely vary by community.

Parents first exalted the work of educators in the early days of 2020 as they confronted the complexities of guiding their own children's schooling from home. But by summer 2021, parents were pillorying educators at school board meetings nationwide, as frustrations grew over everything from school reopening policies to pandemic protocols and curriculum concerns.

A mass exodus from the profession hasn't happened – yet. More than half of educators said they're thinking about leaving teaching earlier than planned, according to a national survey released in February by the National Education Association. But most districts are not reporting higher-than-normal levels of teacher turnover, said Shelton, the professor from UW-Green Bay.

The national labor shortage means schools are having trouble filling the openings they have.

"You’re either going to see more teachers than usual leave the profession, which will put more pressure on districts and unions to turn to recruitment and retention, or you’re going to see more militant teachers," Shelton said. "Because why would someone stay in a job that is stressful and doesn’t pay enough?"

Dirck Roosevelt, an education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, said, "I think we're headed into a crisis."

Contact Erin Richards at (414) 207-3145 or erin.richards@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter at @emrichards.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Schools brace for teacher strikes over post-COVID pay, benefits

Experts say Russia’s war on Ukraine is accelerating the ‘splinternet.’ But what is the splinternet?


Sefa Karacan—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Sophie Mellor
Tue, March 22, 2022

Russia’s war on Ukraine is bringing on the arrival of the “splinternet.”

That's according to France’s digital affairs envoy Henri Verdier, who told Bloomberg News that the combination of Russia's increasing online censorship with Ukraine's intensified calls for Russia to be taken offline could be bringing the world closer to the “fragmentation of the internet."

The splinternet refers to the splintering of cyberspace into disparate realms controlled by autonomous political blocs or any other controlling power—such as tech or e-commerce companies, or countries with diverging national interests tied to nationalism or religion.

“Will the unique, neutral, multi-stakeholder, free internet survive this crisis?” he said. "I’m not sure."

What is the splinternet?

Clyde Wayne Crews, a researcher at the Cato Institute, coined the term “splinternet” in 2001 to describe "parallel internets that would be run as distinct, private, and autonomous universes."

Over the past 15 years, state security concerns and the privatization of e-commerce have led to walled-off infrastructure and techno-isolationism separating the internet with geopolitical borders, in the same way the earth is carved up today.

According to the author of Splinternet: How Geopolitics and Commerce Are Fragmenting the World Wide Web, Scott Malcomson, the splinternet is a growing threat to the internet’s status as a globe-spanning network of networks, and according to Verdier, may encourage cyberattacks.

Verdier warns that any move by Russia to create an independent internet “would have very severe consequences,” as countries insulated from the internet of other countries might be more tempted to launch cyberattacks.

“Today if I break the Russian internet, probably I will break my own internet, because it’s the same,” Verdier argued, noting the interconnectedness of the World Wide Web protects all of its users from losing service.

“If we have two or three or four internets, the temptation to disconnect the other will be very high,” Verdier said, warning that if the splinternet is accelerated, authoritarian countries could be tempted to take democratic countries offline if mutual dependence was lost.

Worries about this kind of attack have also been growing since the invasion of Ukraine, with U.S. President Joe Biden announcing on Monday that there is "evolving intelligence that the Russian Government is exploring options for potential cyberattacks."

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1505974451434831874

Russian sovereign internet

Russia has been pushing forward on plans to create a more sovereign internet for several years.

In May 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation known as the "sovereign internet" law to shield the country from what it called the "aggressive nature" of the United States’ national cybersecurity strategy. The law, which came into effect in November 2019, installed technological equipment to counter external threats and allow the Russian network to track, filter, and reroute internet traffic.

Russia has also run tests on its Runet intranet by disconnecting itself entirely from the global internet. In June and July last year, RBC Daily reported that Russia tested all major Russian telecom firms "to determine the ability of the 'Runet' to work in case of external distortions, blocks, and other threats," a source told Reuters.

The test involves sequentially disconnecting major telecom firms and ISPs from the global internet so in the eventuality that major global internet servers were instructed to stop serving web pages with the Russian .ru domain, Russian companies could serve cached copies of those pages with minimal delay.

Russia has also blocked access to private tech platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter. Other foreign internet services have suspended some or all of their activities in Russia because of sanctions or on their own initiative; companies like Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and ByteDance’s TikTok have limited their presence in the country.

A senior U.S. State Department official told Bloomberg that Putin’s attempt to establish sovereign boundaries in cyberspace was fully intended as a way to control his people. “He wanted a new Iron Curtain; that’s what he’s doing. He just found an easy way to do it, where everybody’s helping him.”

The acceleration toward the splinternet was “everything that Putin has ever wanted,” he said.

AS DUMB AS THEIR BASE

Oops! The US Senate’s unanimous approval of daylight saving time was a comedy of errors



Stephanie Finucane
Tue, March 22, 2022

That adage “Everyone makes mistakes” is all too true.

Here’s one of my recent blunders: I left the “l” out of “public.” In an editorial.

Luckily, a sharp-eyed reader alerted us soon after the editorial was posted and before it made it into print, for which I remain grateful. And humbled.

Still, some mistakes — or “accidents” as they are sometimes called — are beyond comprehension.

For example, when news broke that the U.S. Senate had unanimously approved a bill, aptly called the Sunshine Protection Act, making daylight saving time permanent, we assumed (and by “we” I mean “I”) they knew what they were doing.


As it turns out, some of them did not actually know what they were approving and were shocked when they discovered what they had done.

Call it an accident, or a mistake, or a blunder, or an oversight. Call it whatever you like. By any name, it’s frightening to realize that important public policy decisions can be made so haphazardly.

Here’s a short version of what happened: The legislation sponsored by Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio passed by unanimous consent, without a roll-call vote.

Unanimous consent is often used as a shortcut to bypass procedural rules — such as requiring quorum calls and the full reading of amendments.

Even one objection can sink unanimous consent, but in this case, no one objected when Rubio requested it— apparently because not everyone was aware of what was happening.

Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank reported that a top Republican on the Commerce Committee — which had been assigned to review the bill but had not approved it — knew what was going on and intended to object, “but decided not to at the last minute because he’s focused on more pressing matters, such as the war in Ukraine.”

“In other words, it’s Vladimir Putin’s fault that our clocks may change,” Milbank wrote.

BuzzFeed reported that some other senators “were not told by their staff that the request was happening.”

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, was one of them.

“It’s literally an issue my staff and I had never discussed, and they made an assumption that I don’t care about daylight saving time,” Coons told BuzzFeed. “And I don’t know if I do! I’ve never taken five minutes to stop and think about it. “

Funny, because I’ll bet a vast majority of the public has spent a lot more than five minutes thinking about it.

So there we have it: A bill that affects the life of each and every American sailed through the Senate without so much as a full hearing or a debate or a roll-call vote, as if it were as routine as declaring June National Dairy Month or designating square dancing as our national folk dance.

Sure, senators are only human — and humans make mistakes — but is this any way to run a country?

We can only hope this snafu will serve as a wake-up call for our illustrious senators.

By the way, this is far from being a done deal. It still has to be heard by the House of Representatives, and that could take months.

Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, says he’s researching the issue.

“I understand that altering or abolishing daylight saving time would have far-reaching implications beyond just changing when California families have to reset their clocks,” he wrote in an email. “I am still seeking more information on the impact the Senate-passed bill could have on our Central Coast communities, and encourage my constituents to reach out to me and share their perspective on this issue.”

So relax. Despite the Senate’s rushed passage, there’s still time to let your representative know if you want to maintain the status quo, or ditch the annual rite of springing forward, only to fall back again and again.

Tucker Carlson shills for Putin while his colleagues are killed in Ukraine | Opinion



Jackie Calmes
Mon, March 21, 2022

It’s a tragic irony that Fox News, purveyor of so much disinformation and pundit propaganda about Russia’s war on Ukraine, is the media outlet now grieving the deaths of courageous correspondents who lost their lives transmitting the truth from that devastated nation.

Those casualties should stand as a reproach to the network’s top-rated star, and biggest Russia apologist, Tucker Carlson.

While Carlson has been bloviating from the comfort of his studio, repeatedly propagandizing for Russian President Vladimir Putin while disparaging Ukraine and its allies, longtime Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, and 24-year-old Oleksandra Kuvshynova, a local journalist and consultant to the Fox News crew in Ukraine, were braving arms fire there. They died last week when their vehicle was hit near Kyiv. Another Fox News journalist, Benjamin Hall, was injured in the attack. (A day earlier, the independent documentarian Brent Renaud was shot and killed outside Kyiv.)

As Fox News’ Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin said in an emotional tribute to her colleagues, “If ever there was a time that the world needed journalists, reporters, risking their lives to tell these stories, it’s now. Without a free press, the autocrats win.”

Not that such an outcome would necessarily bother Carlson.

“Why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which I am?” Carlson had said in 2019, as Putin was threatening Ukraine, building up his troops on the countries’ border. Back then, Carlson was mocking the House’s impeachment of Donald Trump for withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine, extorting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to come up with dirt on Joe Biden.

Carlson later said that he was joking, but he’d begun his rant by saying, “And I’m serious.” He’s said much the same thing recently, as Russia began its invasion of Ukraine late last month. On his Feb. 22 show, he lamented what he described as Democrats’ “mandate” that Americans have “a patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin” and “anything less than hatred for Putin is treason.”

Carlson defended the murderous Russian dictator, dismissed Putin’s threat to Ukraine as merely “a border dispute,” falsely claimed Biden favored Ukraine because its leaders gave his family “millions of dollars” and said Ukraine isn’t a democracy but rather “a client-state of the U.S. State Department.” (For the record, the pro-democracy Freedom House gives Ukraine a “democracy score” of 39 on a scale of 1 to 100; Russia got 6.55 — graded on the curve, I guess.)

Lest you doubt Putin approves of Carlson’s diatribes, that clip made it onto Russian TV, with Russian subtitles.

And not just that one. David Corn of Mother Jones disclosed a Kremlin memo to Russian media outlets and commentators, dated March 3, saying: “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson.” Why? As the 12-page directive explained, Carlson “sharply criticizes” the United States and NATO, including for their “provocative behavior ... towards President Putin, personally.”

Carlson recently denounced U.S. sanctions against Putin’s Russian oligarchs as unfair property seizures and echoed Russian disinformation that the United States has bio-weapons labs in Ukraine.

It’s a wonder that Fox News can attract and retain reputable journalists like Zakrzewski, Kuvshynova and Hall when they have to share airtime with the likes of Carlson. In fact, Fox has lost other talented people, including Chris Wallace. And Griffin, to her great credit, has increasingly fact-checked the network’s fact-free pundits on air.

Carlson should be canned for his shameful performances of late — and they are performances. But, of course, he won’t be; a long history of outrages attests to that. We’re left instead to mourn the real journalists, the ones who sought to inform Americans, not con them.

Jackie Calmes is an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times, based in Washington, D.C.

©2022 Los Angeles Times

Letters to the Editor: Tucker Carlson, Fox News' vaccine conspiracy theorist and Putin apologist



Tue, March 22, 2022

Fox News host Tucker Carlson speaks in Esztergom, Hungary, last August. (Janos Kummer / Getty Images)

To the editor: 

Last year, Tucker Carlson was confronted in a Montana fishing store by a patron who said, "Dude, you are the worst human being known to mankind. I want you to know that." ("Tucker Carlson shills for Putin while his colleagues are killed in Ukraine," Opinion, March 18)

The confrontation was about the damage Carlson had done with his disinformation campaign against vaccines.

But now, things get more serious. Carlson has gone lower and deeper by becoming a propaganda tool for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Fox News is dangerously irresponsible. They are facilitating a war criminal and helping to undermine the United States.

William Goldman, Palos Verdes Estates

..

To the editor: 

Jackie Calmes' suggestion that Fox News should fire Carlson over his support for Putin should be looked at from another prospective.

The simple answer for those of us who believe in free speech and might disagree with what what Carlson has to say is to change the channel. In this case, Fox News would not have Carlson on the air if he didn't produce good ratings. What does this say about his views?

Another choice people have is to contact sponsors of Carlson's program and the leaders of Fox News. Have we forgotten that the former president praised Russia and its leader often, and Fox News promoted him?

Edward A. Sussman, Fountain Valley

..

To the editor:

 After our spies spilled the beans about Putin's plan to set up a Russian puppet government in Ukraine, it made me begin to wonder if that is what Putin wants for the United States.

Our puppet-in-chief would be former President Trump, and his circle of oligarchs and enablers would include Carlson, Steve Bannon, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and all of his cronies who are continuing to support Putin and his evil invasion of Ukraine.

Everyone who values our freedom needs to become proactive and work to preserve our precious democracy.

Mary Carlson, Mission Viejo

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Captain of Russian oligarch's $85 million superyacht stuck in Norway says crew is catching and barbecuing fish after local suppliers refused to refuel the vessel: report

Kate Duffy
Tue, March 22, 2022

A Russian oligarch's yacht captain said the crew caught fish as suppliers refused to fuel the ship.


The superyacht believed to belong to Vladimir Strzhalkovsky has been stuck in Norway for a month.


Strzhalkovsky hasn't been sanctioned by the EU, which means Norway can't seize the vessel.

The crew aboard a Russian oligarch's superyacht in Norway is catching and barbecuing fish as local businesses refuse to refuel the vessel, which has left it stranded, the boat's captain told The Wall Street Journal.

The vessel, Ragnar, is believed to be owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former KGB agent who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin but has avoided sanctions, the outlet reported.

Ragnar, worth $85 million, according to SuperYacht Fan, has been stuck in the port of Narvik, Norway, for over a month because fuel suppliers are refusing to do business with Strzhalkovsky.

Strzhalkovsky isn't among the Russian oligarchs who have been hit by Western sanctions, but Norwegian fuel suppliers told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK last week that they didn't want to help any entities associated with Russia.

The US, the UK, and the European Union have levied sanctions against oligarchs believed to be close to Putin, which has led to seizures of yachts and private jets.

In some countries, people have protested against Russian goods and entities that aren't sanctioned. Dockworkers in the UK this month refused to handle consignments of Russian natural gas, despite UK sanctions at the time allowing the import of the goods.

With no one willing to refuel the boat and nowhere to go, the crew of the Ragnar has been barbecuing freshly caught cod, Rob Lancaster, the yacht's captain, told The Journal.

"We did not realize why there was so much fuss with us," Lancaster told The Journal. "It happened so quickly."

Lancaster told NRK last week that the 16 crew members on board were from Western countries and "have nothing to do with the owner of the boat."

While the Ragnar is not subject to sanctions, a number of oligarchs' yachts have been impounded in Europe. A $75 million yacht belonging to the Russian businessman Dmitry Pumpyansky was seized on Monday after it docked in Gibraltar, the local government told Insider.

It followed Spain's detention of a $153 million superyacht linked to the arms tycoon Sergey Chemezov, France impounding a $120 million vessel linked to Putin's confidant Igor Sechin, and Italy seizing a $578 million vessel linked to the oligarch Andrey Melnichenko.

Sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich's $600 million superyacht is cruising off Turkey's coast after 8 days' sailing without a destination

Kate Duffy
Mon, March 21, 2022

Roman Abramovich's yacht was off the coast of Turkey on Monday, ship-tracking data shows.


His $600 million yacht, Solaris, is "scenic cruising" without a port destination, per MarineTraffic.


It might be trying to confuse people about its final destination, a MarineTraffic spokesperson said.

A luxury superyacht owned by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich that has been sailing without a destination for more than a week updated its status for the first time since leaving port, suggesting it has no immediate intention of docking, ship-tracking data shows.

Solaris, a 140-feet vessel worth $600 million, was off the southwestern coast of Turkey and heading west, according to the tracking website MarineTraffic. On Monday, the website showed that the vessel's status changed to "scenic cruising" from "awaiting orders," the status it had shown since leaving Tivat, Montenegro, on March 13.

Solaris was off the coast of Turkey on Monday, according to the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.

Georgios Hatzimanolis, a spokesperson for MarineTraffic, told Insider that though yachts and ships can change their status whenever they want, "most likely in this instance" Solaris is "using the status to confuse people from where its final destination is."

"Lots of speculation on if it will be Turkey, Israel, or even possibly the UAE," Hatzimanolis said.

The locations of luxury assets owned by Russian oligarchs have been closely monitored since sanctions were levied against many of the country's elite in response to Moscow's ordering troops into Ukraine. European countries including Italy and France have seized yachts, private jets, and other assets from several sanctioned oligarchs.

Abramovich, whose net worth is estimated at about $13.6 billion, according to Bloomberg, was sanctioned by the UK and the European Union, meaning his assets have been frozen and he's been barred from doing business there.

Solaris had been docked in the Barcelona shipyard of the Spanish yacht-maintenance firm MB92 since late 2021. It left on March 8, shortly before Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, was sanctioned.

Before the announcement of sanctions, some of Russia's wealthiest people sought to move their expensive boats and private jets to jurisdictions where they might be able to protect them from seizure.

Abramovich's other superyacht, Eclipse, said to be worth $700 million, was just off the coast of Crete, a Greek island in the Mediterranean Sea, on Monday, according to MarineTraffic. The yacht has been sailing since it left St. Martin in the Caribbean on February 21, the ship-tracking website shows.

How can a $700 million superyacht sitting in an Italian port ‘belong to no one’? Russian sleuths say it’s Putin’s

Vivienne Walt
Tue, March 22, 2022

In the legend of Tales From the Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade is a beautiful virgin who escapes being murdered by the king by telling him stories at night.

Scheherazade is also President Vladimir Putin’s $700 million superyacht, according to Russian investigative journalists—and its ability to survive being seized by Western governments will require far more cunning than storytelling.

The yacht, currently moored in the Marina di Carrara on Italy’s Tuscany coast, is gargantuan, even by the outsize dimensions of Russian oligarchs’ superyachts. At about 459 feet long, it has six levels of decks, two helipads with a hidden helicopter hangar, a spa, huge living room and dining room, a swimming pool and three saunas, as well as an upper-level “owner’s area” that includes its own private spa.
“Belongs to no one”

For weeks, there have been questions about who owns the superyacht, which is registered in the Cayman Islands through a shell company. But on Monday, the group headed by jailed Russian activist Alexis Navalny claimed in a YouTube video that the vessel belongs to Putin himself.

“On paper, it belongs to no one, and sits quietly in an Italian port,” the video says in Russian. “Watch the video, and you will find out how Putin owns this yacht through figureheads, and how we can take this yacht away from him.”

The group obtained the all-Russian crew list for the yacht, and found that almost all of them were employed by Putin’s security detail, the Federal Protective Service, known by its Russian acronym FSO.

Earlier this month, the Scheherazade’s British captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, told the New York Times he was under “a watertight nondisclosure agreement” about who the superyacht’s true owners were, but claimed he had never seen Putin on board.

But Navalny’s group says the crew’s employment status suggests that the Russian leader owns the vessel. If that hunch is correct, it would be subject to immediate seizure under U.S., U.K., and European Union sanctions.

Superyachts have been one of the most visible signs of Russian oligarchs’ mammoth wealth—and, recently, one of the most often seized. French police seized a $120 million vessel allegedly owned by Igor Sechin, head of the Russian oil giant Rosneft, on the Mediterranean coast earlier this month. Spanish officials impounded two more yachts, including the Crescent, a 443-foot superyacht also thought to belong to Sechin.

Another boat, owned by former KGB agent Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, was stranded in Norway when no one would sell it fuel. And on Monday, the 460-foot superyacht Solaris, owned by the sanctioned billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich, was spotted parked in the harbor of Bodrum, Turkey; that country has not implemented sanctions.
Putin’s $200 billion

Western governments face a daunting task in tracking down Putin’s true wealth, which could amount to some $200 billion, according to financier Bill Browder, who told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 that Putin’s inner circle of oligarchs split their billions 50-50 with the Russian president. The assets include a $1.3 billion mansion on the Black Sea, funded through a Russian health project in which Putin allies were vastly overpaid for medical supplies.

The Scheherazade, in fact, might not be Putin’s only superyacht. Last month, the vessel Graceful made a hurried departure from its berth in Hamburg as the EU was drafting tough new sanctions just days before Putin sent Russian tanks into Ukraine. Believed to be linked to Putin, that superyacht is thought to be worth $100 million.

But untangling ownership details, and pinpointing them to Putin, will be immensely complicated.

In that, Navalny’s team has joined forces with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or OCCRP, a Sarajevo-based group of investigative journalists, to create a database of oligarch wealth. It publishes its “Russian Asset Tracker” in Russian, English, and Spanish.

The journalists say they are focusing on “a new generation of wealthy men obedient to Putin”—many of whom are now under Western sanctions and whose funds Western governments believe are crucial to funding the Ukraine war. The database lists mansions, superyachts, private planes, and other property, so far totaling about $17.5 billion. The group is sure that will grow, and invites people to send details of “anything we’ve missed.”

“Figuring out who owns what, and how much of it, is a tall order even for experienced police investigators,” the journalists say. “We decided to follow the trail.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Volunteers Rally to Archive Ukrainian Web Sites

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Caralee Adams

https://archive.org/

As the war intensifies in Ukraine, volunteers from around the world are working to archive digital content at risk of destruction or manipulation. The Internet Archive is supporting several preservation efforts including the Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO) initiative launched in early March. 

“When we think about the internet, we think the data is always going to be there. But all this data exists on physical servers and they can get destroyed just like buildings and monuments,” said Quinn Dombrowski, academic technology specialist at Stanford University and co-founder of SUCHO. “A tremendous amount of effort and energy has gone into the development of these websites and digitized collections. The people of Ukraine put them together for a reason. They wanted to share their history, culture, language and literature with the world.”

Watch:

More than 1,200 volunteers with SUCHO have saved 10 terabytes of data including 14,000 uploaded items (images and PDFs) and captured parts of 2,300 websites so far. This includes material from Ukrainian museums, library websites, digital exhibits, open access publications and elsewhere. 

The initiative is using a combination of technologies to crawl and archive sites and content. Some of the information is stored at the Internet Archive, where it can be discovered and accessed using open-source software.

Staff at the Internet Archive are committed to assisting with the effort, which aligns with the organization’s mission of universal access to knowledge, and aim to make the web more useful and reliable, said Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine.

“This is a pivotal time in history,” he said. “We’re seeing major powers engaged in a war and it’s happening in the internet age where the platforms for information sharing and access we have built, and rely on, the Internet and the Web, are at risk.”

The Internet Archive is documenting and making information accessible that might not otherwise be available, Graham said. For years, the Wayback Machine has been archiving about 950 Russian news sites and 350 Ukrainian news sites. Stories that are deleted or altered are being archived for the historical record. 

“We’re seeing major powers engaged in a war and it’s happening in the internet age where the platforms for information sharing and access…are at risk.”

Mark Graham, director, Wayback Machine

Recognizing the urgency of this moment, Dombrowski has been stunned by the response to help from archivists, scholars, librarians involved in cultural heritage and the general public. Volunteers need not have technical expertise or special language skills to be of value in the project. 

“Many people were spending the days before they got involved with SUCHO scrolling the news and feeling helpless and wishing they could do something to contribute more directly towards helping out with the situation,” Dombrowski said. “It’s been really inspiring hearing the stories that people have told about what it’s meant to them to be able to be part of something like this.”

Gudrun Wirtz, head of the East European Department of the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) in Munich, was archiving on a smaller scale when she and other colleagues began to collaborate with SUCHO.

“We are committed to Ukraine’s heritage and horrified by this war against the people and their rich culture and the distorting of history going on,” Wirtz said. “As Germans we are especially shocked and reminded of our historical responsibility, because last time Ukraine was invaded it was 1941 by Nazi-Germany. We try to do everything we can at the moment.”

Anna Kiljas, Tufts University

The invasion of Ukraine hits particularly close to home for Anna Kijas, a librarian at Tufts University and co-founder of SUCHO, who is a Polish immigrant with family members who lived through Soviet occupation following WWII.

“Contributing to the SUCHO effort is something tangible that I can do and bring my expertise as a librarian and digital humanist in order to help preserve as much of the cultural heritage of the Ukrainian people as is possible,” said Kijas. 

The third co-founder SUCHO, Sebastian Majstorovic, is with the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage. 

The Internet Archive is providing technical support, tools and training to assist volunteers, including those with SUCHO, who are giving of their time.

Through Archive-It, a customizable self-service web archiving platform that captures, stores, and provides access to web-based content, free online accounts have been offered to volunteer archivists. Mirage Berry, business development manager for Archive-It, has coordinated support with other preservation partners including the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe, and East European & Central Asian Studies Collections librarian Liladhar Pendse at University of California, Berkeley.

“It’s so incredible how quickly all of these archivists have pulled together to do this,” Berry said. “Everyone wants to do something. You don’t need to have a ton of technical experience. For anyone who is willing to learn, it’s a great jumping off point for web archiving.”

SUCHO organizers anticipate after the immediate emergency of website archiving is over, there will be an ongoing need to stay vigilant with data curation of Ukrainian material. To learn more and get involved, visit http://www.sucho.org.

Posted in Wayback Machine - Web Archive | Tagged web archiving | 

How to hold back the growing deserts?

All over the world, land is being degraded at an alarming rate, with catastrophic consequences for all life on Earth. The good news is that there are ways to reverse the damage and restore soil fertility.

GOOD NEWS ANOTHER REPUBLIC

Jamaica to remove ties to monarchy as soon as William and Kate leave, sources say

By Michelle Butterfield

Global News
Posted March 22, 2022 


WATCH: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive in Jamaica for royal tour

A journalist is sounding the alarm that Queen Elizabeth could soon be removed as the head of state of Jamaica as local politicians plan to push ahead with turning the country into a republic by August.

Noel Phillips, Good Morning Britain‘s North American correspondent, says he’s heard rumblings that Jamaica will begin to remove their ties to the monarchy as soon as Prince William and Kate Middleton leave the island.

In a segment posted to Twitter, Phillips commented on the couple’s current Caribbean tour, saying, “the timing just doesn’t seem to be right. The people here in Jamaica, they don’t want William and Kate here.”

“They don’t have a problem with the Queen, they have a problem with the institution. They see the British monarchy as an institution that has long oppressed them and they want reparations, they also want an apology, and they feel they’ve been asking for these things for an awful long time and until now there’s been no acknowledgement of their suffering or pain.”

Phillips continued, adding that he expects to see a lot of people “taking to the streets” in protest of the visit before he drops a major bombshell: “A source within the Prime Minister’s government who has told me that as soon as they leave Jamaica will begin the process of removing the Queen as head of state.”

The Independent also reported it has talked to inside sources that confirm Phillips’ news.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge visit Caracol, an iconic ancient Mayan archaeological site deep in the jungle in the Chiquibul Forest during day 3 of their Caribbean tour on March 21, 2022 in Caracol, Belize.

 Karwai Tang / WireImage via Getty Images

Although there has been no official confirmation, Phillips says the Queen’s removal as head of state could be a “swift process” and could happen as early as August, which marks Jamaica’s 60th independence anniversary month.

A group of 100 Jamaican business leaders, doctors, musicians and politicians penned an open letter calling for slavery reparation payments and an apology for colonialism from the monarchs.

“We note with great concern your visit to our country, Jamaica, during a period when we are still in the throes of a global pandemic and bracing for the full impact of another global crisis associated with the Russian/Ukraine war,” the letter, written by the Advocates Network, states.

And on Tuesday, local outlets shared photos and videos from the protest at the British High Commission in St. Andrew.

Jamaica lawmaker Mike Henry, who has long led an effort to obtain reparations that he estimates at more than seven billion pounds, told The Associated Press in a phone interview that an apology is only the first step for what he described as “abuse of human life and labour.”

“An apology really admits that there is some guilt,” he said.

During their two-day stay in Jamaica, Prince William and Kate are expected to celebrate Bob Marley’s legacy, a move that also has riled some Jamaicans.

“As a Rastafarian, Bob Marley embodied advocacy and is recognized globally for the principles of human rights, equality, reparations and repatriation,” stated the letter of those demanding an apology.



The group said that it would be celebrating 60 years of freedom from Britain, adding that it is saddened “that more progress has not been made given the burden of our colonial inheritance. We nonetheless celebrate the many achievements of great Jamaicans who rejected negative, colonial self-concepts and who self-confidently succeeded against tremendous odds. We will also remember and celebrate our freedom fighters.”

The Caribbean tour marks the first major overseas trip for William and Kate since before the pandemic began.

Local opposition forced the royal couple to cancel one of their first tour stops Saturday, after a protest was staged on Friday opposing the couple’s visit to Akte‘il Ha cacao farm in Indian Creek village in the foothills of the Maya Mountains.

Protesters were also upset that the couple planned to land their helicopter on a nearby soccer field without consultation.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge attend a special reception hosted by the Governor General of Belize in celebration of Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on March 21, 2022 in Cahal Pech, Belize. 

Samir Hussein / WireImage via Getty Images

“We don’t want them to land on our land, that’s the message that we want to send,” Indian Creek chairman Sebastian Shol told the Daily Mail on Friday. “They could land anywhere but not on our land.”

The trip takes place at a crucial time, as several nations within the Commonwealth have considered cutting ties with the British monarchy.

Although the Queen is highly regarded across the region, Britain is accused by many of — at best — a callous attitude towards its former colonies. That feeling has been heightened by the U.K.’s treatment of many Caribbean immigrants who came to Britain after the Second World War, helping to rebuild a war-shattered country.

READ MORE: Prince William, Kate face more protests, backlash as tour continues to Jamaica

In recent years, some people from the Caribbean who had lived legally in Britain for decades were denied housing, jobs or medical treatment, and in some cases deported, because they didn’t have paperwork to prove their status.

The British government has apologized and agreed to pay compensation, but the scandal has caused deep anger, both in the U.K. and in the Caribbean.

Her Majesty was formally removed as head of state in Barbados in November. Prince Charles was in attendance at the handover ceremony as guest of honour.

Kensington Palace has yet to publicly address the protesters’ concerns.

— With files from The Associated Press

5:46 Barbados becomes a republic and parts ways with the Queen – Nov 30, 2021

© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Authorities Pump Brakes On US Far-Right Former Legislator’s ‘Rescue’ Of Ukrainian Kids

Screenshot/On Fire Ministries

By Matt Shuham
TPM
March 23, 2022

Three weeks after the far-right former state legislator Matt Shea arrived in Poland with dozens of Ukrainian orphans, including several he is attempting to adopt, authorities in multiple countries are pumping the brakes, grinding Shea’s plans to a halt — at least for now.

“The children will not leave Poland, unless Ukrainian authorities decides to do so,” Artur Pomianowski, the mayor of the small Polish town where Shea and the children are now staying, told TPM.

Shea, who served in the Washington state legislature from 2009 to 2021, is best known for allegations that he’s been involved in domestic terrorism, his advocacy for the separatist 51st state “Liberty” movement, and a document he authored outlining steps for killing non-believers during a hypothetical religious war.

But he’s also a potential adoptive father: Shea’s wife is Ukrainian, and in recent weeks the far-right figure has acknowledged his family’s effort to adopt four children from Ukraine — an effort that was interrupted by Russia’s sudden invasion of the country.

So Shea and a team of Americans traveled to Poland, linked up with a local right-wing evangelical pastor, and launched a “rescue action” that resulted in buses full of Ukrainian children crossing the border and ending up at a Polish hotel — and plenty of concern from Polish locals worried about child trafficking.

To hear Shea describe it, the operation to aid the orphans of Mariupol, a city in Ukraine’s east that’s been subject to weeks of heavy Russian attack, was a religious quest of Biblical proportions.

“We flew and drove 72 hours, with about four hours of sleep, to bring those orphans home,” Shea said in a sermon in Poland shortly after the kids arrived. “And now the next step is to bring them home to the Father.”

The extent of Shea’s actual involvement is less clear: In a video posted online by the congregation he founded, On Fire Ministries, Shea said that he met up with the children after they had been evacuated to Lviv, a city in Western Ukraine just over an hour from the border with Poland. The Polish pastor Shea is working with, Paweł Chojecki, runs a right-wing media outlet that said the children “met their American rescuers after a 16-hour long train journey.”

Within days of Shea, his team and the kids arriving in Poland, locals had grown concerned about the children, leading local authorities to get involved.

Pomianowski, the mayor of the Polish town of Kazimierz Dolny, set off alarms stateside when he told The Seattle Times that Shea and his team “have given us some contradictory information and, for that reason, it is difficult for us to trust them.”

Shea, who has not returned TPM’s requests for comment, wrote on Facebook Saturday that “The State Department has indicated that those people in the final stages of adoption (defined here as approved by the US and Ukraine but not Ukrainian Court) should be finalized as soon as possible so those families can be reunited.”

But the group Shea is working with, Loving Families and Homes for Orphans, is not an official “adoption service provider,” as he’s acknowledged several times. Instead, it’s a hosting organization, which set up private trips for potential adoptees to meet their potential families in other countries.

A State Department spokesperson, asked to comment on Shea’s Facebook post, told TPM, “The Department doesn’t have a role in hosting programs, which are coordinated by private organizations with the permission of the Ukrainian authorities.”

“The Ukrainian government has confirmed that it is not approving children to participate in host programs at this time,” the spokesperson said. “Instead, the Ukrainian government is taking measures to ensure the safety of children in neighboring countries. The Ukrainian government has informed us that it has moved many of the children in its care to Poland for safety and, where necessary, medical treatment.”

The spokesperson also referred to a statement from the Ukrainian Ministry of Social Policy (translated here) that said as much — in much more forceful language.

“Recently the mass media and social networks have been filled with notices about the willingness of foreigners to adopt a child from Ukraine and with appeals that Ukrainian children need to be adopted abroad,” the statement read. “The Ministry of Social Policy emphasizes that under current conditions intercountry adoption is impossible and that disseminating such inaccurate information contains signs of fraud and violations of the rights of the child.”

“The National Social Service is not currently considering cases and is not providing consent and/or permits for the adoption of children by foreigners or by citizens of Ukraine who reside beyond its borders,” the statement read, adding that without proper verification, “there is a great risk that the child could fall into the hands of fraudsters, persons who would not ensure the child’s rights and best interests, or human traffickers.”

The situation recalls that of Laura Silsby, an Idaho woman who was arrested in 2010 while attempting to take 33 children from earthquake-struck Haiti into the Dominican Republic without proper permission, said Kathryn Joyce, an investigative reporter at Salon and the author of a book on the modern evangelical adoption movement, The Child Catchers.

“These aren’t people who should be engaging in these vigilante rescue missions,” Joyce said.

Even if Shea, his team and the prospective adoptive families they say they represent have the best intentions, Joyce said, there’s an inherent risk involved in moving kids across borders in the middle of a crisis.

“What often ends up happening later on is the decision ends up having sort of been made in the moment,” she said.

Pomianowski, the mayor of the Polish town, told TPM of the Ukrainian children: “We do not know how long are they going to stay in Kazimierz Dolny.”

What The Heck Is U.S. Extremist Matt Shea Doing In Poland With 60 Ukrainian Kids?

Screenshot/idź Pod Prąd
By Matt Shuham
TPM
March 17, 2022 

The far-right former Washington state legislator Matt Shea is in a small town in Poland with a bunch of children that he says are orphan refugees from Ukraine. The local Poles are wary, and some basic questions have gone unanswered.

Wait… what? Well, exactly. Here’s what we’re wondering about this strange situation, and the best answers we have so far.

1 You’re talking about that Matt Shea?

Yes, you may be familiar with him through our reporting here at TPM: Shea was a longtime far-right legislator in the Washington House of Representatives until 2020, when he opted not to run for reelection after a report concluded that he’d engaged in domestic terrorism — the result of his involvement in the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife refuge.

Shea, who the report found had been involved in several armed stand-offs, is also known for his support of a separatist 51st state movement, and for authoring a document, “Biblical Basis for War,” that included steps for killing non-believers (Shea is Christian).

So in short: Sounds like the kind of guy we’d want shuttling purported orphans across international boundaries in the middle of a war.

2 Who are these kids?

This isn’t clear. We do have some information, based on claims from Shea and those on his team, the accounts of locals who’ve rung alarm bells, and several reports from American outlets. But the picture is still hazy.

Shea wrote last week that he’d taken a team to rescue 62 children from an orphanage in Mariupol, which has been under heavy Russian attack for several days, and transported them to Poland.

In an interview on a Polish television show last week flagged by the Seattle Times, which reported on the situation Wednesday, Shea described three categories of kids in the group: Those whose adoption by American families was interrupted by the war, those who had been hosted in America but were at an earlier stage in the adoption process, and those who had not begun the adoption process.

But the former legislator’s assurances haven’t satisfied locals, who apparently have been demanding answers about the American and his gaggle of purported refugee orphans.

So, amid the scrutiny, the group Shea is working with, Loving Home and Families for Orphans (LFHO), published a statement that was posted online by the guest house where Shea and the kids are staying.

The statement — which counts 63 kids in the group, not 62 — says the childrens’ orphanage was destroyed by Russian bombing.

3 Is Shea working with a reputable organization?

That’s also not totally clear right now. The Seattle Times reported that a non-profit with the name Loving Families and Homes for Orphans had been registered in Florida just last month. It was registered in Texas in 2018, according to the report, but not as an adoption agency, nor is it registered with the organization overseeing American agencies involved with international adoption.

On the Polish television show, Shea described LFHO as a hosting organization with the intent of facilitating the adoption of Ukrainian orphans in America. He attacked “elements here in Poland” who were spreading “lies and rumors” about the group.

One Chicago pediatrician who’d seen the children in recent days told the Spokane Spokesman-Review, “The kids are all well taken care of.”

4 How did this story come to light?

According to Range, an Inland Northwest news outlet, Shea’s arrival with dozens of children in the small Polish town of Kazimeirz Dolny raised questions — and then concerns — with locals, who appealed to local authorities and then national authorities in both Poland and the United States.

Polish Americans like the lawyer Marta Milan, quoted in the Range piece, starting flagging the story to news outlets. The Seattle Times and Spokesman-Review reported on the situation followed by several others.

Authorities in Kazimierz Dolny reacted with some alarm to the news, and to their discussions with Shea. Weronika Ziarnicka, an aide to the town’s mayor, told the Times that she went to check on the kids after hearing from a group of local volunteers. She said Shea “got really angry,” refused to tell her his last name, and said he’d spoken with the mayor and that everything was okay.

“And I know it’s not true because the mayor is the one that asked me to go,” she told the Times.

A Polish reporter, Katarzyna Lazzeri, told Range that “one of the American volunteers informed local authorities that they wanted to take children soon to the United States of America,” but Shea separately denied this, saying, “Neither we nor our partners have any intention of taking the children to the US.” One Polish report flagged by Range said the matter had been referred to a family court.

The Spokesman-Review quoted an email from a State Department official confirming that she’d flagged the situation to the U.S. embassy in Warsaw.

5 Is Shea leveraging his far-right contacts?

That’s another significant, unanswered question. Both the Times and Range noted Shea’s recent interview appearance with Paweł Chojecki, a right-wing Polish pastor who’s disparaged Catholics in the past.

Range reported that he leads a small far-right political party in Poland, and that he’d pushed conspiracy theories about COVID-19 for months. Shea has done interviews with Chojecki at least as far back as 2018, Range noted, and the far-right Pole appears to be an important contact for Shea in the area.

Matt Shuham (@mattshuham) is a reporter in TPM’s New York office. Prior to joining TPM, he was associate editor of The National Memo and an editorial intern at Rolling Stone.

Emmanuel Macron promises welfare shake-up if re-elected French president

French president Emmanuel Macron. Photo: Reuters/Pascal Rossignol

Michel Rose

French president Emmanuel Macron said  he would increase the retirement age, cut taxes and further loosen labour market rules if he wins a second term in next month’s election, seeking a mandate to press on with pro-business reforms.

Opinion polls show Mr Macron is likely to win the first round of the election on April 10 and beat any opponent in a run-off on April 24.

His long-standing lead has grown in recent weeks, with voters approving of his diplomatic efforts over the Ukraine war.

“We are at a tipping point where we can make a real difference,” Mr Macron told a news conference, highlighting the war on the EU’s doorstep and the global challenge of climate change.

Stressing his pro-business credentials is not without risk as households feel the squeeze from rising prices, but Mr Macron said he wanted to see through a reshaping of the economy.

Laying out his campaign platform for the first time, he said he would increase the retirement age in France to 65 from 62, slash taxes by €15m per year, make some benefits conditional on community work and reform unemployment insurance to push people to get back to work.

“It’s quite normal, especially when you consider the state of public coffers, that we work more,” Mr Macron said.

Mr Macron is a former investment banker who was elected in 2017 on a centrist platform and his policies have veered to the right during his mandate. However, he had put some of his planned changes, including the raised pension age, on hold amid a series of crises, including the yellow vest protests and the Covid-19 pandemic.

With economic growth surging and unemployment falling to its current 7.4pc, 

Mr. Macron can point to data to show he has rebooted the eurozone’s second biggest economy since he took office, but he said he wanted to go further.

“The rate of unemployment is at its lowest level for 15 years, the youth unemployment rate is at its lowest level for 40 years... none of these results can be considered enough,” the president said.

Mr Macron added that another key aim if he is re-elected will be to make France more self-sufficient, with proposals ranging from investing “massively” in agricultural and industrial independence to building more nuclear reactors and strengthening the army.

France could be one of the first countries to wean itself off fossil fuels, he said, while adding that he wanted to build a “European metaverse” to compete with US tech giants and make Europe more independent on that front too.

The 44-year-old, who is likely to face a far-right or conservative opponent in the run-off round, also said he would get tougher on law and order, including putting more police on the streets, tightening conditions required for long-term residency permits and making it easier to expel people whose asylum request has been rejected. Mr Macron also said he planned more subsidies for single mothers and inheritance tax breaks.

Opinion polls in recent weeks show Mr Macron winning up to 31pc of the vote in the first round, up from around 25pc last month.

But even if he goes on to win re-election, he will need his centrist La Republique en Marche (LaRem) party – which has failed in all recent local elections – and its allies to win a parliamentary election in June if he is to have a strong base to implement his policies.