US Centers for Disease Control withheld critical statistics on COVID-19 for more than a year

Benjamin Mateus

WSWS.ORG

On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been withholding the publication of critical data that could have helped local and state public health departments better target their responses to stem infections and protect lives.

Students and parents walk to class at Tussahaw Elementary school on Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021 [Credit: AP Photo/Brynn Anderson]

Instead, they have been cherry-picking vital information to present an upbeat assessment of the state of the pandemic, which has only further endangered lives in the process.

The author of the report, Apoorva Mandavilli, wrote, “Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said.”

Omitted from publication included data on the effectiveness of boosters in adults under 65. Without the data, health experts had to turn to international sources such as Israel to recommend the third shot. However, Israel’s definition of severe disease differs from that used in the US. (In Israel, a person with rapid breathing and oxygen levels below 94 percent is considered to have a severe illness, while the CDC reserves that category for anyone who is sick enough to need hospitalization.)

Also, the social dynamics of the two countries—public health initiatives, state of the health care infrastructure, therapeutics, etc.—are dissimilar, meaning the best decisions can only be made by using real-time data available for the region.

The Washington Post, also reporting on the CDC’s remarkable negligence, said that on July 12, 2021, Pfizer scientists had met with senior US government health officials to explain that their rationale for booster shots was based on data from Israel that showed immunity to the vaccines waned quickly, especially among the elderly and immunocompromised. The CDC indicated their “data showed something quite different.”

The Post wrote, “Other senior health officials in the meeting were stunned. Why hadn’t the CDC looped other government officials on the data? Could the agency share it—at least with the Food and Drug Administration, which was responsible for deciding whether booster shots were necessary? But CDC officials demurred, saying they planned to publish it soon.”

A month later, reports published in the US corroborated the Israeli data.

It is more likely the CDC had siloed and forgotten the information, choosing to ignore its implications and leading to the backpedaling the Post describes. But it further confirms that the CDC has become deeply enmeshed in political decisions to control the flow of scientific information to the public. The deliberate intent is science conforms to policy rather than shaping it.

Other vital data left out that has only recently been published included information on hospitalizations and death by age and vaccinations status, including breakthrough infections rates that could have warned the public about the rapid decline in vaccine effectiveness.

Another glaring omission has been data derived from wastewater surveillance across the country that could identify emerging COVID-19 hot spots and new variants. It was more than a year ago the CDC had established its National Wastewater Surveillance System. Early this month, the agency added wastewater data to its COVID-19 trackers, providing a broad perspective on the surge of infections across hundreds of communities.

CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund told the Times, “The agency has been slow to release the different streams of data because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time. [The agency’s] priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.”

The pandemic has demonstrated that the CDC cannot handle large volumes of data while operating under political oversight. There are grave dangers to the population when the premier public health authority is unable to provide timely and vital information on the status of this or any other epidemic.

Nordlund let it be known that the agency was reluctant to share efficacy information on the vaccines with the public “because they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective,” the Times wrote. She also said that the data represented only a small percentage of the population, which is a devious attempt to sidestep the issue.

Epidemiologists and scientists frequently utilize limited but broadly applicable data to address critical and pressing questions. The CDC had no problem generalizing that COVID-19 had little impact on school-aged children using limited data obtained from a single school or district, much that is untenable even for the CDC.

These developments are significant. Hospitals are no longer required to report real-time data on COVID-19, specifically deaths, to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), relying on the CDC to update these statistics.

As children were facing a deluge of infections due to a concerted national effort to force teachers back to the classrooms and schools be opened regardless of the cost or impact on communities, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which has been substituting as a reliable source on COVID-19 infections among children, was repeatedly asking the CDC on the granular data relating to hospitalized children. They were told it was unavailable.

Since the pandemic began, according to the limited data available on the CDC’s COVID-19 tracker, at least 1,346 children have died. Those under five make up the largest subgroup, with 434 total deaths. According to the AAP, approximately 60 percent of all child deaths occurred in the last six months. Between January 25, 2022, and February 19, 2022, 219 children died, of whom 74 (one-third) were under five. By contrast, the influenza virus has killed fewer than five children in the last two years.

Early in the pandemic, several international studies pointed to the importance of schools and children as vectors of community transmission for the coronavirus. Many principled researchers and epidemiologists defied the official pretense that children were neither impacted nor very contagious when infected. Yet, the CDC has repeatedly taken the baseless position that children are “essentially immune to the disease” and has put children in harm’s way.

Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chair of the AAP’s Committee on Infectious Disease, speaking with the Times, said she had also repeatedly asked the CDC for an estimate on the contagiousness of a person infected with the coronavirus five days after symptoms begin. She said, “They’ve [CDC] known this for over a year and a half, right, and they haven’t told us. I mean, you can’t find out anything from them.”

Due to the massive surge of infections caused by the Omicron variant, instead of calling for an immediate shutdown and the application of stringent mitigation measures, the CDC simply shortened their isolation period to five days, claiming there was a sound scientific basis for their decision.

In late December, when the guidance was issued, Yonatan Grad, an associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard’s School of Public Health, declared, “To me, this feels honestly more about economics than about the science. I suspect what it will do is result in at least some people emerging from isolation more quickly, and so there’ll be more opportunities for transmission, and that, of course, will accelerate the spread of COVID-19.”

Later, a human challenge trial based in the UK, where healthy volunteers were purposely infected with the coronavirus to provide the basis for future studies to test new vaccines and therapeutics, found that symptoms started within two days. Viral load increased rapidly, peaking after five days. Many still had high levels of active virus 10 days, and some 12 days following infection. And yet, the CDC director told health care workers that they didn’t have to isolate if they had the sniffles. This week she claimed it was essential to give people a “break from masks” even as new subvariants of Omicron are accelerating in the US.

Aside from the death of hundreds of children, even the CDC has had to acknowledge the catastrophic loss of life sustained in the US over the last two years. More than 80 million have reportedly been infected. Over 960,000 have died from COVID-19. Excess deaths are 15 to 35 percent higher than the officially recorded COVID-19 deaths. Close to 2,000 people die each day of COVID-19, but even these horrific figures are in question. How many more deaths are we no longer tracking?

These revelations mean that the CDC and the head of the agency, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, are complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

 REIFICATION

Warning over risk to robot relationships

The growing reliance of humans on the support of robots comes with a concern that some staff are becoming emotionally closer to their robots than they are to their human colleagues.

Researchers at the University of Michigan and Sungkyunkwan University (South Korea) found with the growing use of robots, has led to detrimental relationships as workers become more attached to the robot than their colleagues.

The study found that human-robot teams can fracture into subgroups functioning more like two competing teams rather than one overall coherent team.

“Much attention has been directed at the positive outcomes of bonding, such as higher work engagement and enjoyment, but few studies have looked at the negative repercussions for team relationships and performance,” the study stated.

“This topic remains relatively unexplored despite the potential importance of subgroups in human-robot teams,” said study co-author Lionel Robert, associate professor at the U-M School of Information.

Robert and lead author Sangseok You, assistant professor at Sungkyunkwan University, conducted two studies. One was a quantitative randomised experimental lab study and the other a qualitative study with data collected from workers and managers in the field who work with robots daily.

In the lab study, 88 people were assigned to 44 teams, each consisting of two humans and two robots, that would move bottles from different points in a competition. The participants answered questions about their performance and connection to their human and robot partners. Among the results: When humans connected more with the robot, a subgroup within the team pairings emerged, which negatively altered the teamwork quality and performance.

The second study sought to obtain recommendations to mitigate the negative effects of the subgroups while enhancing the work environment. The 112 respondents in this sample—who came from various industries, manufacturing and sales, hospitals, financial advising and others—managed others who worked directly with robots. They answered questions about ensuring good working relationships between human co-workers in human-robot teams.

The findings showed that training, improving communication among humans and providing leadership mitigated the effects of subgroups that undermined performance. For example, the respondents had more social interactions, such as attending picnics and sports events, and taking coordinated breaks with human co-workers.

“When employers have a greater connection with each other rather than robots, the teamwork quality is high,” You said.

Follow us on twitter: @risksEmerging

 

Humans getting too emotionally attached to robot coworkers – study

US and Korean researchers say an excessively strong a bond between a human employee and a robot is bad for business

An attendant pours coffee as a robot makes a fresh pot at Taizicheng railway station in Zhangjiakou, China, January 29, 2022 © AFP / Jewel Samad/AFP

Situations where a human employee develops a strong emotional bond to their robot colleague could see the company’s overall “teamwork quality and performance” decline, a group of US and Korean researchers have warned.

A study penned by scientists from the University of Michigan and South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan University was published on February 10. It found that in cases where a worker is more attached to a robot, a kind of ‘us-versus-them’ mentality often emerges, with the human-machine pairing competing with the rest of the team instead of contributing positively to “team relationships and performance.”

The introduction of robots into the workplace has so far been predominantly seen as a positive thing, while possible negative repercussions have largely been overlooked, researchers point out.READ MORE: Border patrol testing robot dogs

Lionel Robert, associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, and Sangseok You, assistant professor of management information systems at Sungkyunkwan University, carried out a series of experiments to find out how excessive bonding between humans and robots affects a team’s overall performance.

One quantitative randomized lab study involving 88 workers saw them split into 44 teams, each made up of two humans and two robots. The teams were tasked with moving bottles from different points in a competition-like environment. After the experiment was over, the participants were asked how they assessed their performance and connection to their human and robot partners. It transpired that, when humans developed more of a bond with robots, the tiny teams of four (two humans plus two machines) were likely to further divide into subgroups, which understandably undermined the overall team “quality and performance.”

The researchers also suggested a number of remedies which could help prevent such an undesirable process from developing within a company. The recommendations were based on the experiences of 112 respondents representing various industries where humans work alongside robots.

The bottom line is that special efforts should be made to improve communication among humans, or else they may end up getting attached to machines instead.

If these findings are anything to go by, such activities as joint picnics and sports events for employees are good ways of enhancing team spirit.

Most carbon capture and reuse technology 'emits more CO2 than it captures'



Rob Waugh
·Contributor
Mon, 21 February 2022

Schemes to capture and reuse carbon dioxide largely don't work, researchers have warned.

Most efforts to capture and reuse carbon dioxide in industry emit more CO2 than they capture - and won’t reduce emissions enough to comply with the Paris agreement.

Researchers from Radboud University in the Netherlands also warned that technologies that would be sufficient are often not market-ready.

The concept of CO2 capture and utilisation (CCU) sounds promising: capturing carbon dioxide, from industrial gases for example, and using it to produce chemicals, fuels and other materials.

But the Radbud University researchers found that 32 out of 40 technologies emitted more carbon than they captured, New Scientist reported.

Read more: Melting snow in Himalayas drives growth of green sea slime visible from space

Just four methods were ready for use while also emitting low amounts of carbon.

There are various different ways to capture and use CO2.

For instance, it can be captured from gases released during fossil fuel combustion in a power plant or a factory, but it can also be taken directly from the atmosphere or from the combustion of biomass.

Subsequently, the CO2 can be used, for example in greenhouse cultivation, or it can be converted into products like fuel.

While CO2 is re-emitted when such fuels are combusted, the captured carbon dioxide can also be used in materials that never return the CO2 to the atmosphere, such as certain building materials.

Read more: A 1988 warning about climate change was mostly right

Kiane De Kleijne, environmental scientist and the study's first author, said: "We know that the involved chemical processes also use energy, and that captured CO2 is often emitted soon after it has been used in a product. We therefore wanted to assess the real reduction in CO2."

The scientists concluded that it is impossible for most CCU methods to sufficiently reduce industrial CO2 emissions in time.

Co-author Heleen de Coninck wrote: "Some technologies do not reduce CO2 emissions enough throughout their life cycle, and others will not be ready in time. There are only a few that are good enough for a carbon-neutral world."

Read more: Why economists worry that reversing climate change is hopeless

"A great deal of innovation is necessary to further develop CCU methods that are fully carbon-neutral," De Kleijne added.

"But money is still being spent on CCU methods that will come too late or inherently will not be able to reduce emissions enough to contribute to the Paris goals."

Facebook whistleblower accuses company of failing to address climate change misinformation

Frances Haugen’s lawyers filed two new SEC complaints

By Emma Roth Updated Feb 20, 2022

Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for TIME

Facebook is the subject of two new Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaints filed by Whistleblower Aid, the nonprofit that represents Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, first reported by The Washington Post. The complaints accuse Facebook, now Meta, of misleading investors about its efforts to tackle misinformation about climate change and COVID-19.

THE COMPLAINT ALLEGES A PROMINENT PRESENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE MISINFORMATION

The first complaint, obtained by The Washington Post, alleges the presence of readily available climate change misinformation on Facebook, making Facebook’s claims that it’s fighting climate denial fall flat. It also contains internal documents detailing employees’ own experiences with climate-related falsehoods on the platform. As noted by The Post, one employee reports searching for “climate change” in the Watch tab and then seeing a video that promotes “climate misinfo” as the second result. The video in question has reportedly garnered 6.6 million views. Another employee allegedly urged the company to remove climate misinformation, rather than merely label posts with potential falsehoods.

The complaint also mentions Facebook’s Climate Science Information Center, a hub for credible climate change information the platform launched in 2020. As reported by The Post, the complaint references internal records that claim user awareness of the hub was “very low,” suggesting it may not have had its intended reach. Last year, Meta attempted to bolster its Climate Science Information Center with additional quizzes, videos, and facts. A study conducted months later found that climate change denial has become even more widespread on the platform.

The second complaint alleges Facebook’s promise to combat COVID-19 misinformation didn’t align with its actions. According to The Post, the complaint cites an internal document showing a 20 percent increase in misinformation in April 2020, as well as a May 2020 record in which employees point out the presence of hundreds of anti-quarantine groups. Last July, President Joe Biden accused Facebook and other social platforms of “killing people” with misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines.

“We’ve directed more than 2 billion people to authoritative public health information and continue to remove false claims about vaccines, conspiracy theories, and misinformation,” Meta spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “There are no one-size-fits-all solutions to stopping the spread of misinformation, but we’re committed to building new tools and policies to combat it.”

Haugen leaked a trove of internal Facebook documents — dubbed the Facebook Papers — to the Wall Street Journal last year. She has since testified before Congress to discuss possible changes to Section 230, the law that shields websites from legal accountability for illegal content that users may post.

The SEC didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

Meta's Facebook to pay $120 million to settle decade-old privacy lawsuit over user tracking

Users say the Meta Platforms unit used plug-ins to store cookies that tracked when they visited outside websites containing Facebook "like" buttons.

 PHOTO: REUTERS

PUBLISHED
FEB 17, 2022

NEW YORK (REUTERS) - Facebook agreed to pay US$90 million (S$121 million) to settle a decade-old privacy lawsuit accusing it of tracking users' Internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website.

A proposed preliminary settlement was filed on Monday night (Feb 14) with the United States District Court in San Jose, California, and requires a judge's approval. The accord also requires Facebook to delete data it collected improperly.

Users accused the Meta Platforms unit of violating federal and state privacy and wiretapping laws by using plug-ins to store cookies that tracked when they visited outside websites containing Facebook "like" buttons.

Facebook then allegedly compiled users' browsing histories into profiles that it sold to advertisers.

The case had been dismissed in June 2017, but was revived in April 2020 by a federal appeals court, which said users could try to prove that the Menlo Park, California-based company profited unjustly and violated their privacy.

Facebook's subsequent effort to persuade the US Supreme Court to take up the case was unsuccessful.

The company denied wrongdoing but settled to avoid the costs and risks of a trial, according to settlement papers.

Settling "is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders and we're glad to move past this issue", Meta spokesman Drew Pusateri said in an e-mail.

The settlement covers Facebook users in the US who between April 22, 2010 and Sept. 26, 2011 visited non-Facebook websites that displayed Facebook's "like" button.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs plan to seek legal fees of up to US$26.1 million, or 29 per cent, from the settlement fund. The lawsuit began in February 2012.

Facebook has faced other privacy complaints.

In July 2019, it agreed to bolster privacy safeguards in a US Federal Trade Commission settlement that also included a US$5 billion fine.
Texas sues Facebook

On Monday, Texas' attorney general's office sued Meta's Facebook, alleging that the social media giant violated state privacy protections with facial-recognition technology that collected the biometric data of millions of Texans without their consent.

The lawsuit accuses Facebook of capturing biometric information from photos and videos that users uploaded without consent, disclosing the information to others and failing to destroy it within a reasonable time.

"This is yet another example of Big Tech's deceitful business practices and it must stop. I will continue to fight for Texans' privacy and security," Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

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The lawsuit was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which cited a person familiar with the matter as saying that the state was seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in civil penalties.

Asked about the lawsuit, a Meta spokesman said: "These claims are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously."

The company said in a blog post in November that it was shutting down a facial recognition system and would delete more than a billion people's information. It cited concerns about use of the technology and uncertainty over what the rules are regarding its use.

It also agreed to pay US$650 million in 2020 to settle an Illinois state lawsuit that dealt with similar concerns.

The new lawsuit, which was filed in a state court in Marshall, Texas, says that 20.5 million Texans have a Facebook account.

"The scope of Facebook's misconduct is staggering," the lawsuit said. "Facebook repeatedly captured Texans' biometric identifiers without consent not hundreds, or thousands, or millions of times - but billions of times," the lawsuit said.

‘Shoot them’: Indian state police accused of murdering Muslims and Dalits

Ahead of key Uttar Pradesh elections, state police accused of being ‘mercenaries’ of hardline Hindu nationalist government

Fatima Begum’s son, Altaf, was said to have hanged himself in prison, but his family tell a different story. 

Photograph: Shaikh Azizur Rahman/The Guardian

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About this content

Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Shaikh Azizur Rahman in Uttar Pradesh
Tue 22 Feb 2022 06.45 GMT

According to police in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it was suicide. The young Muslim man they had brought into their custody had, out of despair, killed himself in the police station toilets. But, as photos of the scene emerged, so too did suspicions.

The 22-year-old man, Altaf, was 165cm (5ft 5in) tall and weighed 60kg (9.5 stone), but the toilet tap he had supposedly hanged himself from was just 76cm off the ground and made of flimsy plastic. And why, as the police later claimed in court, was the CCTV in the police station mysteriously not working that day?

Family and friends tell a very different story: that Altaf, a Muslim man living in the town of Kasganj, was in love with and planned to marry a Hindu girl. That powerful local Hindu vigilante groups opposed to interfaith unions found out and reported him to the police. And that on 9 November 2021, Altaf was arrested and tortured to death in police custody and his family pressured to keep quiet.

“The police murdered my son and then gave me money to say he was depressed and took his own life,” says Altaf’s father, Chand Miya, an illiterate mason who has taken the case to the state high court. “But I will not stay quiet, I want justice.”

Last Friday, the courts ordered Altaf’s body to be exhumed and a new postmortem examination to be carried out.

Altaf was not the first to die in such circumstances in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, which is holding a high-stakes election this month.

In six cases examined by the Guardian of deaths in custody and police shootings of suspects, allegedly in self defence, from 2018 onwards, those accused of carrying out and covering up killings are the same: the Uttar Pradesh police, under the rule of the state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government.

Polls this month will decide if Yogi Adityanath, who has pursued a fiercely Hindu nationalist agenda, will remain Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister. 

Photograph: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty

The victims of these alleged unlawful killings were all from the communities that Adityanath’s government, with its sectarian Hindu nationalist agenda, is accused of routinely targeting and oppressing: Muslims, who make up 20% of the state’s population and who have been subjected to increased lynchings, hate speech and prejudicial legislation, and Dalits, who are at the bottom of India’s oppressive Hindu caste system and were previously referred to as “untouchables”.

The elections will decide whether to return Adityanath’s state government to power for another five years. It is being seen as a referendum on Hindu nationalist politics – the push for India to become a Hindu, rather than secular, nation – on both a state and national level, and is happening against a backdrop of rising religious intolerance and anti-Muslim hate speech in India.
Not one officer who fatally shot someone in Uttar Pradesh in the past five years faced disciplinary action

Not long after he took office in 2017, Adityanath, a hardline Hindu monk, made it clear that his agenda would be twofold: a fierce promotion of Hindu nationalism and a tough crackdown on crime. “Agar aparadh karenge, toh thok diye jayenge [If anyone commits a crime, he will be knocked down],” he said in June 2017.

From that point on, lawyers, activists and ex-police officers allege that “thok denge” – slang for “shoot them” – became unofficial policy in Uttar Pradesh. Police allegedly began carrying out “instant justice”, maiming or executing those they deemed to be criminals, and were professionally rewarded for doing so.

Lawyers and families of victims describe an atmosphere of terror in Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims and lower-caste men are picked up on the streets and killed with alleged impunity by police, either in what are known as “encounter killings”, in which officers fatally shoot their captives and claim it was in self-defence, or in police custody, where they are beaten or tortured to death.

The same police accused of the murders are often then responsible for the investigations. Subsequently, police reports are often not lodged, evidence and CCTV footage routinely disappears, charges filed to the courts are watered down to “accidental death” and some cases disappear altogether.

“The police are now mercenaries of the Yogi government,” says Rajeev Yadav, an activist running for a seat in the forthcoming election in Azamgarh, which has a large Muslim population and has experienced multiple “encounter killings” by police.

In the past five years, according to the government, there have been more than 8,700 shootings by police in the state, including more than 3,000 incidents when allegedly escaping suspects were shot, often in the knees, and more than 150 deaths. There are rarely any eyewitnesses to these encounters, according to human rights organisations that have examined many of the cases. Not a single officer who fatally shot someone in Uttar Pradesh in the past five years has faced disciplinary action.

Two former police officers told the Guardian that in their experience most so-called “encounter killings” were falsified by police.

In the case of Kamran, a 40-year-old Muslim water-seller from Azamgarh, police claimed he was apprehended on his way to commit a crime in Lucknow, 200 miles from his home, and then killed after a shootout with an anti-terrorism unit.

Nasim Ahmed with a photo of his dead son, Kamran. Police say Kamran died in a shootout, but his family say he was tortured and killed in custody. 

Photograph: Shaikh Azizur Rahman/Guardian

But a lawyer, Ashma Izzat, says the evidence, including a leaked police photograph that appears to show him alive and in police custody – a direct contradiction of the police account of events – demonstrated the events in November 2021 were covered up.
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Kamran’s body was returned to his family with signs of torture. “He had a perforated eye, dark bruising around his neck and body, a broken collar bone and leg, and four of his front teeth knocked out,” said his 87-year-old father, Nasim Ahmed.

Police later filed a report that Kamran had been an absconding criminal in multiple cases with a 25,000 rupee (£250) reward on his head. But Kamran made daily visits to the police station to deliver water as part of his job, including on the day he was killed.


Trouble in paradise: Indian islands face ‘brazen’ new laws and Covid crisis

Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of deaths in police custody in the country. Officially, there have been 23 deaths over the past three years but Mehmood Pracha, one of the few lawyers who has taken cases of custodial killings to India’s highest court, said this was likely to be a “significant undercount”.

“The police hide these custody deaths when they can get away with it, and won’t even tell the family,” says Pracha.

In several cases, grief-stricken families said they have been pressurised or threatened by police to withdraw charges and stay silent. Faisal Husain, an 18-year-old Muslim vegetable seller from Unnao, was among those allegedly beaten to death in police custody in May 2021. The case is now in the supreme court and the Guardian listened to recordings of threats and offers of money made to Hussain’s sister, Khushnuma Banu, 28, over the phone, to pressure her to withdraw the case.

Kamla Devi’s son, Arun Valmiki, died in custody. Police say he died of a heart attack, but have withheld the postmortem report

. Photograph: Shaikh Azizur Rahman/Guardian

In another two cases of killings in custody examined by the Guardian, the police had not given families details of the postmortem examination, despite them being legally bound to do so.

Police claim that Arun Valmiki, a 30-year-old Dalit man from Agra, died of a heart attack in police custody in October 2021, but withheld the postmortem report from his family, who allege he was tortured and electrocuted to death by police. “Police put pressure on me to say that my brother had heart problems but it’s not true – he was strong and healthy,” says his brother Sonu Narwal.

Ziauddin, a 38-year-old Muslim businessman, died in police custody in March 2021 after being picked up by police for alleged theft. The police claimed he died from a heart attack during questioning despite him being in robust health.

When Ziauddin’s body was returned to his family, it was covered in torture wounds, including cigarette burns, bruises around his neck and across his body, and signs he had been electrocuted, visible in photographs viewed by the Guardian. Despite almost a year of requests, the police continue to withhold the postmortem report from his family and have not submitted the legally mandated “charge sheet” to the courts. The family say they were offered money by the police to withdraw the case.
Police put pressure on me to say that my brother had heart problems but it’s not true – he was strong and healthySonu Narwal

“He was the most kind, honest, gentle man, who had never committed a crime,” said Alauddin, Ziauddin’s father. “I feel so terrible that he was murdered and we will never get justice for him.”

The Uttar Pradesh government denied all the allegations. “There are judicial systems in place and no extrajudicial killings have taken place. This narrative is totally false and we deny such baseless accusations,” it said in a statement.

A police ‘flag march’, or show of strength, in Noida, a town in Uttar Pradesh near Delhi, last month ahead of the forthcoming state election. 

Photograph: Sunil Ghosh/Hindustan Times/Getty

Prashant Kumar, the additional director general of police in Uttar Pradesh, said the Uttar Pradesh police strictly follow all procedures and guidelines laid out by the courts and the National Human Rights Commission.


Violent clashes over hijab ban in southern India force schools to close

Kumar described a “zero-tolerance” approach to custodial killings in which guilty officers are always suspended and jailed. However, in several of the custodial death cases examined by the Guardian, junior officers were suspended but none were in prison. No senior officer or government official under the Adityanath government has faced disciplinary action for either “encounter killings” on the street or deaths in police custody.

Kumar said there was no religious or caste bias in the police force, and no culture of silencing victims. “How can we distinguish between our own citizens? It is not possible and it is wrong,” he said. “No government can ask us to do anything which is wrong or illegal.”

 Environmental issues spark large-scale protests in Serbia

The resistance of the Balkans meets global extractive companies.

22 February 2022 Ognjen Kojanić

Over the past couple of months, crowds in Serbia have gathered in the streets and sometimes blocked major roads and bridges. The main reason for the protests is opposition to the proposed lithium extraction project in the Jadar River Valley in Western Serbia. Some of the slogans they have used include “Stop the Investors; Save Nature,” “Rio Tinto, Get Away from the Drina River,” “For Land, Water and Air.” The protests that have captured the most attention were those in which people congregated at important intersections or on bridges and peacefully blocked traffic for an hour or longer. The protests were uncharacteristically decentralized; in addition to several locations in Belgrade, people gathered in other major cities, but also in small, and usually sleepy, towns. While exact numbers are hard to come by, it is safe to say that thousands — if not tens of thousands — of people have participated.

The mining company Rio Tinto has been buying land in the Jadar River valley and running exploratory drilling for several years now. According to its website, the company hopes to produce 2.3 million tons of lithium carbonate over 40 years and has committed $2.4 billion to the project.

This project had not been officially approved by the relevant authorities when the protests started, but Rio Tinto had been gathering support from the Serbian government and embassies of several countries in Belgrade. While Rio Tinto and the Serbian government lauded the project and the necessity of ramping up lithium production, many people in Serbia were vocal in their opposition to it, questioning the environmental bona fides of the company and the negative consequences of mining in a fertile and water-rich area.

Despite a petition to stop the Jadar project, the ruling regime seemed poised to go ahead with the project before the protests started. Several developments late last year seemed to be clearing the way for it—most recently, changes to rules governing expropriation and referenda.

The amendments to the expropriation act were passed by the Parliament and sent to the President to sign. Critics point out that the new rules lower the bar for declaring any big development project to be “in the public interest,” which would render the necessary space subject to expropriation in as little as five days. In response to the blockades over the past weeks, the President returned the act to the Parliament after which it was withdrawn. Thus, the protests scored their first victory.

The amendments to the referendum act, however, have been signed into law. According to the old referendum act, a referendum was only valid if turnout was higher than 50% plus one vote of the eligible voters. The recent amendments removed that requirement, making it potentially easier to pass unpopular measures when the voting public is apathetic, as is usually the case in Serbia due to the ruling regime’s tight grip on institutional politics.

In Serbia, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SPP) has held power for years despite its undemocratic behavior, which has included control over the majority of media outlets, attacks on opposition politicians, and claims of voter fraud. Additionally, the ruling party has set up a complex patronage system whereby membership in the party is often a necessary precondition for employment in the public sector. According to some recent reporting, the party has over 700,000 members in a country with a population of fewer than 7 million. The party machinery efficiently springs to action, not only in times of elections, but also to publicly display support for the regime’s policies.

In these conditions, it is understandable that protests offer Serbian citizens the only outlet for their discontent. In recent years, there have been several large-scale protests. In 2017, protesters took to the streets after SPP’s Aleksandar Vučić won the presidency to question the legitimacy of the election. Over several weekends in 2019, people protested the beating of an opposition leader. Last year, crowds gathered to oppose draconian lockdown measures that, in hindsight, seem more like an attempt to look competent in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic than a serious attempt to limit the spread of the virus. There is a throughline that connects all of these protests: existing institutions are insufficiently democratic to accommodate people’s frustrations and the opposition is too fragmented to mount a serious challenge to the ruling party.

This dynamic seems to be shifting as protesters zero in on environmental issues. In April 2021, a large-scale protest under the headline “Ecological Uprising” brought dozens of environmental organizations and thousands of people to the streets of Belgrade. They focused on mounting environmental issues that the ruling regime has exacerbated: the building of small hydro-power plants in the mountains, the poor air quality situation in urban areas across Serbia, Rio Tinto’s proposal to build a lithium mine, deforestation, the harmful effects of tire production, and out-of-control landfills. The same topics brought more protests to the streets of Belgrade in September, this time under the headline “Uprising for Survival.” Over the past several months, significant protests have also been organized on the topic of air pollution alone. As Belgrade frequently ranks among the top ten cities in the world with the most polluted air, this has arguably been the most potent individual concern, in addition to the opposition to the Rio Tinto lithium mine.

In the previous years’ protests, the main focus was on the deficiencies of the existing institutions and undemocratic behavior of the ruling party. However, environmental protests have been identifying issues that are more substantial and closer to people’s everyday experience. Thus, they are identifying tangible pressure points on the current government. The organizers of the recent protests and blockades have cautiously declared a series of victories. The fact that the government has been forced to react to the protests is in and of itself a victory. Additionally, the first major victory was the withdrawal of the amendments to the expropriation act. Furthermore, the city of Loznica, where the lithium mine project is located, is poised to abrogate the land use plan adopted in July 2021 that has zoned the area in question in the Jadar River Valley for mining. Following recent statements by the Prime Minister Ana Brnabić about the government’s intention to cancel the permits given to Rio Tinto, the company seemed to be continuing with their plans, although with a revised timeline; the company has pushed back the timeline for the start of the production to 2027 due to delays in securing an exploitation field license. However, quickly thereafter PM Brnabić announced that the government is officially abrogating the land use plan regulating mining in the Jadar Valley. Environmental groups are celebrating the decision, while remaining vigilant about the prospect of its reinstatement after elections that are planned for April 2022.

The case of the opposition to Rio Tinto shows that this topic presents significant openings for the left. Underlying issues — privatization and dispossession, the weakening of regulatory institutions in favor of private and corporate interests, the sacrificing of a clean and livable environment to economic development—should be confronted with an ecosocialist vision, rather than reduced to opposition to the ruling regime. Such a vision would need to champion the expansion of democratic institutions to give voice to those affected by harmful consequences of economic development as well as to reap its material benefits. Simultaneously, it cannot give up on the need to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels and build up capacity for clean energy generation.

The times of anthropogenic climate breakdown we are living in call for a strong focus on environmental issues. A transition away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources is a tremendously important political question. Add to that the requirement for the transition to be just, not only for workers in the fossil fuel sector, but also populations in areas affected by mining and construction of new cleaner energy facilities… the puzzle that needs to be solved gets mind-blowingly complex. And yet, these contradictions will not go away.

Take the case above: many places in Serbia would benefit tremendously from not burning coal, which is currently the country’s most important energy source. However, what happens when the cost of that transition is lithium mining and its accompanying negative externalities, such as mountaintop removal and poisoned soil and water? Can anyone blame the people using NIMBY arguments against it if there seems to be no alternative?

Moreover, there are forces on the right of the Serbian political spectrum that are participating in and trying to capitalize on these protests. While some want to undermine them, others are genuinely against the anticipated environmental destruction. This topic is a fertile ground for arguments based on nationalistic pride and focus on the relationship between the people and its land. Some decades ago and in a different context, these arguments proved to be seductive and co-opted rising discontent with the economic situation in the former Yugoslavia, which resulted in a bloody breakup of the country.

The leftists who are participating in the ecological protests of today need to be vigilant about this problem and counter it. Environmental protests have opened up a terrain of struggle that the left has to be present on and turn what Gramsci called common sense into ecosocialist good sense.

This article was originally published on 31 January 2022 at LeftEast and is republished as part of the Barricade’s cooperation with ELMO – the network of left-wing media in Southeastern Europe.

The Barricade is an independent platform, which is supported financially by its readers. If you have enjoyed reading this article, support The Barricade’s existence! See how you can help – here!

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“Solving the flaws” – RSF’s unprecedented report on protective mechanisms for journalists in Latin America


© Yuri Cortez/AFP

ORGANISATION
RSF_en

The Latin America bureau of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is today releasing the findings of a lengthy investigation and analysis of protective mechanisms for journalists in Latin America’s four most dangerous countries for the media – Mexico, Honduras, Colombia and Brazil.


READ THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY IN ENGLISH

Entitled Solving the flaws – For a new generation of protective mechanisms for journalists in Latin America, the report is the outcome of an unprecedented comparative analysis of the protective mechanisms in these four countries, where 90% of the murders of journalists in the past decade took place. In one of them, Mexico, no fewer than five journalists have already been murdered since the start of 2022.

Launched in 2021 with support from UNESCO, this survey’s goal has been to better determine how these measures work, their effectiveness, and their impact on the journalists who have been threatened and who request help.

“Journalists in Latin America must cease to be targets,” said Emmanuel Colombié, the director of RSF’s Latin America bureau. “It is urgent to stem this spiral of violence with dramatic consequences for the region’s democracies. The vulnerability of journalists is not inevitable. RSF is proposing concrete ways to improve the effectiveness of protective mechanisms in Brazil, Honduras, Colombia and Mexico, and aims to help initiate the necessary changes and provide them with lasting support.”

To carry out this detailed diagnosis, RSF conducted 75 interviews with the various actors involved – the beneficiaries of protection measures, those responsible for implementing them, and civil society representatives working on this issue. On the basis of these interviews and its regional expertise, RSF has produced a total of 80 recommendations aimed at helping to resolve the flaws identified and improve the effectiveness of the protective mechanisms.

This report provides, for the first time, an authoritative regional overview of existing protection policies, without losing sight of the specificities of each country. Identification and analysis of the flaws – which have direct and sometimes very serious consequences for the beneficiaries of these programmes – should ensure that the report becomes an essential tool not only for regional advocacy but also for technical cooperation. The goal is for the recommendations to be quickly implemented by the authorities in the four countries concerned.



Read the report’s executive summary HERE

The full report is available in Spanish and Portuguese.


Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Honduras are ranked 111th, 134th, 143rd and 151st respectively in RSF's 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

China warns Ireland to ‘stop interfering’ as leader of persecuted Uyghurs attends meeting with Irish officials in Dublin

Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress, was labelled a "terrorist" by the Chinese Embassy in Ireland on Monday. 

Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse.


Eoghan Moloney
February 22 2022

Ireland has been urged to “respect China’s sovereignty” and to “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs” after an Uyghur leader attended a meeting in the Department of Foreign Affairs on Monday.

Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), urged Ireland to “take action on Uyghur genocide” when he met with UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor and with officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In response, the Chinese Embassy in Dublin said they “strongly condemn the anti-China separatist activities of the so-called ‘World Uyghur Congress’ in Ireland, and firmly oppose Irish government officials’ meeting with Dolkun Isa”.

The Embassy also accused “a few” Irish politicians of spreading “lies on Xinjiang and support for terrorist and separatist activities” and jumping “on the bandwagon of dirty political farce against China”.



The Chinese Embassy labelled the WUC as an “extremist organisation” and said its leader Dolkun Isa is a “terrorist” who is suspected of “organising and committing a series of violent terrorist activities and serious crimes in China”.

Rights groups and some western governments have called for China to end what the United States deems its genocide against ethnic Uyghurs and Muslim minorities in eastern China. United Nations researchers and rights activists estimate more than one million Muslims have been detained in camps in Xinjiang.

China rejects accusations of abuse, describing the camps as vocational centres designed to combat extremism, and in late 2019 said all people in the camps had "graduated".

“The issues concerning Xinjiang are not about human rights, nationality or religion, but about fighting terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. The so-called "genocide", "cultural extermination" or "forced labour" in Xinjiang, which are based on flat lies and disinformation, are political manipulations with hidden motives,” a statement from the Chinese Embassy said.

“We urge the Irish side to respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and stop interfering in China's internal affairs under the guise of “human rights”. For those Irish politicians who have jumped on the bandwagon of dirty political farce against China, we urge them to stop parroting disinformation,” the statement continued.

In a response to Independent.ie this evening, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the protection and promotion of human rights is “a cornerstone of Ireland’s foreign policy” and Ireland always emphasises to China their “obligation to act in a manner that ensures the full respect for the rule of law”.

“Ireland consistently raises the treatment of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in the province of Xinjiang bilaterally with China and in multilateral fora such as the United Nations Human Rights Council,” the department said.

“The protection and promotion of human rights is a cornerstone of Ireland’s foreign policy. Ireland emphasises to the Chinese authorities their obligation to act in a manner that ensures the full respect for the rule of law and complies with China's human rights obligations under national and international law,” a spokesperson for the Department said.

Chinese firms caught using spyware to track employee job-hunting and identify staff who may be about to resign

FEBRUARY 22, 2022

By Y INGJIE WANG

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Pexels

Ma, 27, recently resigned from her editor position at a private internet company in Beijing for an “iron bowl” job — a Chinese term used to describe a secure position — at a state-owned media company.

Ma’s decision to resign, which surprised her direct supervisor and coworkers, was already known to her manager, who told her he had been aware she was seeking another role since last year when she updated her resume on job search websites.More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.

“How is that possible?” Ma wondered.

Ma went to great lengths to prevent her employer from knowing that she was seeking another job. She updated her resume at home on her personal computer, scheduled all interviews online, never requested time off for an interview, and performed her duties as usual.

A screenshot showing employee job hunt tracking software.
PHOTO: South China Morning Post

Until recently Ma thought it would remain under wraps.

A recent news report revealed that another company was using software developed by Sangfor, a Shenzhen-based technology firm, to monitor its employees’ job-seeking activities.

“Either my company is using the same software, or my manager learned of my job-seeking activities through through a personal network with HRs,” Ma said.

Either way, Ma realised her employer is keeping a close eye on staff.

According to screenshots posted online, the software keeps track of the resumes a person submits and the job search websites they visit.

Based on the data, the software ran an analysis of job-hunting activity and labelled the person’s intention to resign as “suspected” in orange.

Surveillance is more common in Chinese technology behemoths according to employees with many saying they believed they were being monitored by their employers even before the news report about the job hunting software.

“Generally, the computer you’re using has some so-called security software installed that monitors all of your actions,” said a programmer who recently left ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok. “The company can completely record any data about you as long as you are connected to the intranet.”

However, because the final interpretation of the rules rests with the company, employees have no choice but to be cautious.

According to another ByteDance employee, he rarely posts on social media platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, and even Maimai, which allows employees of the tech giants to communicate anonymously.

“Even though it’s claimed to be anonymous, there’s still a chance you’ll be discovered,” he said.

Aside from the technology used, the intertwined networks of tech executives are another weapon in the hands of the companies.

Last year, a programmer at Pinduoduo, China’s largest agriculture-focused technology platform, was fired after anonymously posting a picture of an ambulance waiting outside the company’s building on Maimai with the caption: “Another fierce man has fallen.”

Being spied on has become so prevalent in the tech sector that many people have accepted it as part of their normal working conditions.

“It appears that once you join the company, you have to accept such a fact,” a Didi employee explained. “It has gradually become self-monitoring and reflected in my subconscious reaction to every action; for example, I may spend 0.1 second to think about where some information should be sent and where not.”

Personal information protection is a relatively new concept in China.

According to the Personal Information Protection Law, which was implemented in mainland China in November 2021, companies should inform their employees about the monitoring and obtain their consent first, and failing to do so will constitute illegal handling of personal information, according to Shi Yuhang, a lawyer from Shanghai-based Huiye Law Firm.

However, its application boundaries, according to Shi, are not yet clear.

“I believe that as the number of cases increases, we will be able to see more clearly where the boundaries are and assist workers in protecting their privacy,” Shi said.

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.