Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Almost one in 10 parents ‘very likely to use UK food bank in next three months’


Survey finds third have skipped meal to keep up with other costs and 20% unable at least once to afford cooking with oven


Deliveroo is to enter a partnership with the Trussell Trust to support food banks.
 Photograph: Deliveroo/PA


Tom Ambrose
Mon 18 Apr 2022

Nearly one in 10 parents are “very likely” to use a food bank to feed their children over the next three months, a survey has found.

It means that as many as 1.3 million parents are expecting to have to visit a food bank as families struggle to cope with rising costs of living, with 88% of those surveyed admitting their monthly food bill has increased in the past three months alone.

The Trussell Trust research, carried out with the food delivery company Deliveroo, also found that a third of parents skipped at least one meal to keep up with other costs, while 20% said they had been unable to cook hot food at least once in the past three months because of the cost of using an oven.

Of those who said their household bills had gone up, 58% said they had cut back on heating as a result.

Emma Revie, the chief executive of food bank charity, said: “Everyone should be able to afford their own food, but as families face the biggest income squeeze in a generation, people are telling us they’re having to make impossible decisions between heating and eating and being forced to turn to food banks to feed themselves.”

She said the charity was about to enter a partnership with Deliveroo to provide up to 2 million meals and support for people facing hunger across the country.

“Our new partnership with Deliveroo will help us support food banks to provide emergency food and in-food-bank support to thousands of people in immediate crisis while we work towards our long-term vision of a future where nobody needs to turn to charity to get by,” she said.

Will Shu, Deliveroo’s chief executive, said: “I am pleased we are partnering with the Trussell Trust to support local food banks across the country. We’re committed to using our platform to play a positive role in the communities in which we operate.

“Together with our consumers, our amazing restaurant and grocery partners and our network of riders, we want to play our part in helping to tackle food insecurity in the UK.”

The archbishop of Canterbury spoke in his Easter Sunday sermon at Canterbury Cathedral of his concern for families struggling with rising energy and food prices.

“Families across the country are waking up to cold homes and empty stomachs as we face the greatest cost-of-living crisis we have known in our lifetimes. And because of this they wake up with fear,” he said.

Leading analysts warned last week that energy bills would stay well above £2,000 for two more years.

Cornwall Insights, which approximately predicted the recent 54% rise in the cap on average energy bills to £1,971, said that prolonged high prices would threaten the chancellor’s loan scheme to help households cope with the soaring cost of gas.
Attitudes of the South Sudanese diaspora towards COVID-19 vaccination in Canada


Malith Kur
April 18th, 2022

Structural racism and socio-economic exclusion have been shown to impact people’s decision-making about COVID-19 vaccines. For South Sudanese diaspora communities in Canada, experiences of exclusion interacted with pandemic restrictions to influence attitudes towards vaccine uptake. New research shows that while online misinformation did influence engagement with vaccines among South Sudanese Canadians, more important were perceptions of being recognised in state policy decisions.

A government-sponsored resettlement programme in the mid-1990s attracted many Sudanese to Canada, often arriving as refugees from East and North Africa during the Sudanese civil war. Others who settled in Canada fled South Sudan later. Despite living in the country for many years, the identities and opportunities of South Sudanese in Canada are still being navigated and made.

Our research project “Ethnographies of (Dis) Engagement” seeks to understand orientations towards COVID-19 vaccinations among groups across the G7 described as vaccine “hesitant”. Incorporated into policies as a minority group, South Sudanese Canadians have been assumed to resist vaccination. But while policy approaches generally attribute reluctance or refusal to get vaccinated to information failures, or to inappropriate health messaging, this project has uncovered that structural racism and socio-economic exclusion plays an equal role in people’s decision-making about getting vaccinated. Exploring orientations towards COVID-19 vaccinations among South Sudanese diaspora communities living in Canada, our research shows how structural exclusion, heightened during the pandemic, interfaces with the relevance of vaccine misinformation.

Featuring the voices of South Sudanese Canadians, our work shows that the COVID-19 pandemic, and associated restrictions, had connected with processes of the diaspora’s community-building in a number of ways.

South Sudanese in Canada during the pandemic


The COVID-19 pandemic brought fundamental changes to diaspora communities throughout 2020-22. Many South Sudanese in Canada earn low incomes and rely on government social transfers. Like other minority groups, many South Sudanese Canadian families live in social housing complexes, which are usually congested and poverty-stricken areas in populous cities. Many South Sudanese Canadians also work in types of employment that were considered mandatory throughout the pandemic. Our interlocutors were frontline workers, including taxi drivers and nursing home employees, or worked in factories. Groups were rendered particularly vulnerable to contracting the virus. Accordingly, over the last two years, many South Sudanese Canadians have suffered illness and experienced loss related to COVID-19.

Awareness about these deaths travelled fast among South Sudanese, who are linked physically and virtually to other members of the diaspora. These shared experienced have created anxiety and shared grief among all South Sudanese Canadians, sentiments compounded by restrictions on funerary rights. Social restrictions were felt particularly acutely by people who remain socially reliant and connected to other South Sudanese people through friendship, care, worship, diaspora associations and communal celebrations. Denial of togetherness in a context of loss, due to lockdowns and physical distancing restrictions, led many to invoke aspects of a shared South Sudanese identity associated with war-time survival. Memories of the war became particularly prominent during group mourning of death within diaspora communities.

Similarly, these notions have been evoked to explain changing state policies to access vaccines. Our interlocutors explained that having to take the vaccination has become a traumatic experience, which reminded them of year of war when, too, there was no freedom for individual choices.

COVID-19 vaccinations amongst South Sudanese Canadians

Against this backdrop, many South Sudanese Canadians, especially frontline workers, reluctantly welcomed news of vaccine rollouts and have remained cautious of vaccines. To date, over 83.38% of Canadians have been vaccinated. Many of our interlocutors had been vaccinated but did not accept vaccines voluntarily. Rather, government mandates and the required proof of vaccination in workplaces had compelled many to get the shots. People interviewed in Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island received full doses of the available vaccines but remain deeply concerned about long-term side effects on their health.

Many South Sudanese Canadians expressed nominal support for the Canadian government and the welfare it provided. Additionally, people expressed trust in doctors and health services in Canada. Yet, when it came to COVID-19 policies, including vaccination, many explained that the Canadian and provincial governments did not share the priorities of diaspora communities. Indeed, pre-vaccination measures fostered distrust in the government’s policies and priorities which impacted later reactions to vaccines. While many minority groups have representation in Canada, this was not the case for South Sudanese people. Without political channels to voice experiences of the pandemic, many articulated feelings of disempowerment, since the government had not reached out to leaders, churches and diaspora associations representing communal perspectives.

Diasporic connections

With movement restricted, online connectivity has become increasingly important. Many South Sudanese Canadians remain part of epistemic communities in South Sudan and share knowledge and ideas, including health information, through social media. Some of our interlocutors indicated that they received calls from relatives and friends in South Sudan, advising them to reject the vaccines. Social media has made it easy for people to share information instantly about the COVID-19 vaccine in different parts of the world and across global South Sudanese communities. This has had a particular impact among diaspora communities, who have long relied on trusting relationships maintained at a distance.

Many South Sudanese are members of WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages that link them to discussions in South Sudan on a daily basis. For example, in January 2022, when there was a violent incident in Jonglei State (South Sudan), South Sudanese in London (Canada) were receiving live-updates and analysis via friends on WhatsApp about the situation. These WhatsApp groups have also hosted debates about COVID-19 and vaccinations. Participating in these groups reinforces people’s social and epistemic connections to South Sudan and promotes a strong influence in these Canadian communities. While disempowering vaccines campaigns, which did not reflect South Sudanese interests, many have turned to these fora for guidance in uncertain times.

Social realities of misinformation

Our research has shown that misinformation does influence people’s engagement with vaccines. Yet, approaches to online health discussions are deeply shaped by experiences of the pandemic and perceptions among South Sudanese Canadians that they have not been recognised in national or federal policy decisions. In response to this disempowerment, online fora were often used as a place to discuss opinions with friends, relatives or distant South Sudanese contexts, who take note of their decision-making. By contrast to the distance of state policymaking, online deliberations seem more proximate, with participants demonstrating empathy and listening to one another.

Acknowledgements: Research was funded through the British Academy Covid-19 Recovery: G7 Fund (COVG7210058). Research was based at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, London School of Economics.

About the author

Malith Kur is a peace activist and community organiser. Kur served as the pastor of the South Sudanese community in and around London, Ontario (2001-15) before joining McGill University in 2016 to pursue a Ph.D. on the role of religions—especially Christianity and African Indigenous Religions—in peacebuilding. His current doctoral research focuses on the situation in South Sudan, with a particular focus on peacebuilding, reconciliation, restorative justice and social reconstruction of South Sudanese society.

Albania experienced steepest population decline in two decades in 2021

By bne IntelliNews April 18, 2022

Albania experienced its steepest population decline in two decades in 2021, when the population fell by 1.3% during the year.

Data from statistics office Instat showed the population stood at 2,793,592 on January 1, 2022, down by 1.3% compared to January 1, 2021.

The natural increase (births minus deaths) turned negative for the first time, standing at -3,296, Instat said.

Albania continued to see mass emigration, with 42,048 people leaving the country during the year against just 9,195 immigrants. That left Albania with net migration of -32,853, compared with -16,684 in 2020, when mobility was impeded by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The median age of the population rose slightly from 37.6 on January 1, 2021 to 38.2 on January 1, 2022.

During the same period, the youth dependency ratio (the number of persons under working age, 0-14, compared to the number of people of working age, 15-64) decreased from 24.2% to 24.0%. The old age dependency ratio (the number of persons above the working age, 65+, compared to those of working age) increased from 22.3% to 23.1%.

The sex ratio of the population stood at 98.6 males to 100 females, compared with 99.3 males to females at the start of 2021.

However, there were 107.5 boys born for every 100 girls, up from 106.6 boys for every 100 girls in 2020. “Gender-biased sex-selective abortions continue to take place in Albania. Preference for male heirs, rapidly declining fertility rates and sex-selective abortions have skewed the birth sex ratio,” said a 2021 OECD report.

Turkey moving to jail researchers who publish unapproved economic data 

Polls have consistently shown Turkish consumers do not believe
the inflation readings put out by the official statistics body


By bne IntelIiNews April 14, 2022

Turkey looks set to bring in prison sentences of up to three years for economic researchers who publish unofficial data on inflation and other indicators without first obtaining the approval of the country’s statistics agency. Bloomberg reported on April 14 that it had seen a draft law to that effect.

A particular thorn in the side of the Erdogan administration is the Istanbul-based Inflation Research Group (ENAG), led by academics. Its work suggests that the official picture of inflation presented by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK or TurkStat) does not correspond to reality. The latest TUIK inflation data, covering March, shows official annual inflation at 61%. ENAG’s calculations show 143%.

Opinion polling has consistently shown that few Turks believe the official inflation data. For many months now, bne IntelliNews has presented the ENAG inflation figure alongside the official figure.

The draft bill also foresees broadcast bans for websites that publish unapproved statistics. ENAG publishes its data on its website as well as on its Twitter account.

In May last year, TUIK filed a criminal complaint against ENAG, which it alleged was “purposefully defaming” the national statistical institution and “misguiding public opinion”.

The inflation narrative has become particularly sensitive in Turkey this year as the country has gone into election mode. Presidential and parliamentary polls, which will be held in tandem, must by law take place by June 2023 at the latest. A big issue for voters will be whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is guilty of economic mismanagement. Erdogan often argues external factors are responsible for Turkey’s difficulties, but the country has essentially been mired in an economic crisis for several years.

Bloomberg said Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) had planned to submit the proposed legislation on the dissemination of unofficial statistics to parliament this week, but was holding off while officials do further work on it. It cited two unnamed AKP officials as relaying the situation.

The draft law seen by the news agency would bar researchers from publishing any data on any platform without seeking approval from TUIK. The state organ would be provided with two months to assess the methodology behind the data. Those found guilty of violating the law may face between one and three years in prison.

“Some of the manipulative statistics presented to the public under the name of scientific study without a clear methodology target both the Turkish Statistical Institute and the confidence in economic indicators,” the draft was reported as stating.

After he was served with court papers in January, ENAG’s director, economist Veysel Ulusoy, told Al-Monitor: “The public was so interested in having this kind of [inflation[ data rather than Turkstat’s false signals.”

He added: “We knew that something was wrong and the inflation basket was misleading the public. Public support was the main thing that took ENAG to the next stage.”

Bulgaria’s parliament closes specialised court, prosecution amid fierce opposition

By Denitsa Koseva in Sofia April 17, 2022


Bulgaria’s parliament approved in its final reading the closure of the specialised court and prosecution on April 14 in a move seen as a step towards restoration of the rule of law in the EU’s most corrupt country. The vote went ahead despite fierce objections from chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev.

The specialised prosecution and court were created ten years ago by then government of former ruling party Gerb and were seen as a tool to put pressure on those opposing Gerb and the ethnic-Turk Movement for Rights and Freedom (DPS).

“Thank you for the support, thank you also for the debate. This is a bill that is being discussed very turbulently and very thoroughly and we have shown that we can hear, asses critics and – where an improvement of the bill is being pursued – to accept them. I want to clearly state – speculations, wrong interpretation and delusion are [the claims that] our efforts for judicial reform stop here and that we do not know what we are doing,” Justice Minister Nadezhda Jordanova said to lawmakers following the vote.

Gerb and the DPS voted against the decision following the hours-long heated debate. They claim the amendments aim to serve criminals and would harm the rule of law.

Jordanova added that the government will also work on a mechanism for effective investigation and accountability of the chief prosecutor. Bulgaria has been urged for years to adopt such a mechanism but previous Gerb-led governments failed to do that.

The magistrates working for the specialised court and prosecution will be re-assigned to the regular institutions.

Geshev commented on the parliament’s decision, which was one of the top priorities of the four-party ruling coalition, saying it will refer it to the constitutional court.

The legislation changes also put an end to special bonuses for top-magistrates, which was also objected to by the opposition.

Meanwhile, the government has drafted legislation changes that would allow the European prosecution to have independent structure in the country, as well as an its own building and administration. The European prosecutors will be allowed to require the use of special intelligence tools and to use the gathered information in trials within the competence of the European prosecution.
New clashes over anti-immigration rally in Sweden

STOCKHOLM


Swedish police said officers wounded three people Sunday in the eastern city of Norrkoping as demonstrators protested plans by a far-right group to burn copies of the Quran.

"Police fired several warning shots. Three people appear to have been hit by ricochets and are currently being treated in hospital", police said in a statement.

The three who were injured were under arrest, police said, adding that their condition was not known.

Sunday’s clashes in Norrkoping were the second there in four days.

On the first occasion, the demonstrators had protested against a rally by anti-immigration and anti-Islam group Hard Line, led by the Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan, 40.

On Sunday, they rallied again in protest another gathering, which in the end Paludan abandoned.

Four people were arrested among the approximately 150 participants, as protester threw stones at officers and cars were set on fire, police said.

According to health services quoted by local news agency TT, 10 people were hospitalised with minor injuries following the clashes and similar unrest in the neighbouring town of Linkpping, where far-right Hard Line also abandoned a demonstration.

Paludan, who intends to stand in Swedish legislative elections in September but does not yet have the necessary number of signatures to secure his candidature, is currently on a "tour" of Sweden.

He is visiting neighbourhoods with large Muslim populations where he wants to burn copies of the Quran.

A lawyer and YouTuber, he has previously been convicted of racist insults.

In 2019, he burned a Quran wrapped in bacon and was blocked for a month by Facebook after a post conflating immigration and crime.

On Saturday, one of his rallies was moved from a district of Landskrona to an isolated car park in southern Malmo, the large neighbouring city, but a car tried to force the protective barriers.

The driver was arrested and Paludan then burned a Quran.

Hard Line’s tour has sparked several clashes between the police and counter-protesters across the Scandinavian country in recent days. On Thursday and Friday, around 12 police officers were injured in the clashes.

In the wake of the string of incidents, Iraq’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the Swedish charge d’affaires in Baghdad Sunday.

It warned that the affair could have "serious repercussions" on "relations between Sweden and Muslims in general, both Muslim and Arab countries and Muslim communities in Europe".

In November 2020, Paludan was arrested in France and deported.

Five other activists were arrested in Belgium shortly after, accused of wanting to "spread hatred" by burning a Quran in Brussels.


Broadcasting Earth’s location could provoke alien invasion, Oxford scientist warns

Tom Ough, Apr 18 2022

Aliens might be humans travelling back in time

Alien in UFOs may actually be human beings who have travelled back in time from the future, a university academic has claimed.

Nasa's plan to beam Earth's location into outer space could provoke an alien attack, Oxford scientists have warned.

Researchers at the US space agency have backed a broadcast message, dubbed the "Beacon in the Galaxy", intended to greet extraterrestrial intelligences. It is an updated form of the Arecibo message, broadcast in 1974 for the same purpose.

Improvements in digital technology mean that more information can now be broadcast. The proposed new message includes basic mathematical and physical concepts to establish a universal means of communication, followed by information on the biochemical composition of life on Earth.

It also includes the solar system’s location relative to major clusters of stars, along with digitised depictions of the solar system itself, Earth’s surface, and male and female humans. The message concludes with an invitation for intelligences to respond.


READ MORE:
* Contacting aliens could end all life on earth - let's stop trying
* Aliens have 36 places they like to call home
* Nasa's New Horizons images of Arrokoth show building blocks for planets
* Scientists plan to send greetings out to other worlds


SUPPLIED/NASA
Researchers at the US space agency have backed a broadcast message, dubbed the "Beacon in the Galaxy", intended to greet extraterrestrial intelligences.

But Anders Sandberg, a senior research fellow at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute (FHI), warned that sharing such information with intelligent life presents a risk that must be considered.

Dr Sandberg told The Telegraph that, although the chance of the message reaching an alien civilisation was low, “it has such a high impact that you actually need to take it rather seriously”.

He said that the “giggle factor” surrounding the search for extraterrestrial intelligence meant that “many people just refuse to take anything related to it seriously. Which is a shame, because this is important stuff”.

Overall, said Dr Sandberg, both the risk and the potential benefit were small. Given the difficulty of traversing vast spans of interstellar space, a message received even by a very advanced civilisation might amount to little beyond, as Dr Sandberg put it, “a postcard saying, ‘Wish you were here,’”.




CAN DO PROJECT
The proposed new message includes basic mathematical and physical concepts to establish a universal means of communication, followed by information on the biochemical composition of life on Earth.

The Arecibo message is one of several broadcasts, including some advertisements, already sent by humans into space. “The poor aliens might already be getting various messages sent for all sorts of reasons,” said Dr Sandberg.

A better approach than individual groups firing off ad-hoc missives, Dr Sandberg suggested, would be humanity coordinating as a species. “We’re not great at coordinating, but I think it is a nice exercise,” he said.

Toby Ord, Dr Sandberg’s colleague at the FHI, made similar arguments in The Precipice, a book published in 2020 in which he analysed existential risks facing humanity.

Dr Ord suggested that it might be wise to have “public discussion” before sending messages to aliens, pointing out that “even passive SETI (listening for their messages) could hold dangers, as the message could be designed to entrap us.


“These dangers are small, but poorly understood and not yet well managed.”
‘The downside could be much bigger’

Overall, wrote Dr Ord, “the main relevant question is the ratio of peaceful to hostile civilisations. We have very little evidence about whether this is high or low, and there is no scientific consensus. Given the downside could be much bigger than the upside, this doesn’t sound to me like a good situation in which to take active steps toward contact.”

The Nasa scientists proposed that the message be broadcast from FAST (China’s Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope) and the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array in northern California. No date has been offered for the broadcast.


Scientists including Stephen Hawking have, in the past, warned that these messages could be risky. In a documentary released in 2010, Professor Hawking pointed out that, on Earth, interactions between civilisations on different levels of technological advancement tend not to work out very well for the lesser-advanced group.

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” Professor Hawking said, citing the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.
One truckload of plastic in our ocean every minute

The Fiji Times
18 April 2022 

The Consumer Council of Fiji stressed there are many practical ways to recycle plastics as statistics showed up to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year



Plastic pushed into a small bay floats just beneath the surface.

About 8.3 billion tonnes of plastics have been produced since the 1950s, according to Greenpeace.

However, only 9 percent of these plastics have been recycled, 12 percent have been burned and the remaining 79 percent have ended up in landfills or the environment.

The Consumer Council of Fiji (CCF) highlighted these statistics while stressing there were many practical ways to recycle plastics.

“Up to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean every year — that is equivalent to a truckload of plastic entering the ocean every minute,” CCF said in a statement.

The CCF said on a more positive note, of late more people were beginning to recognise the importance of recycling plastics.

“Through recycling plastic, we reduce the need of producing more as this would require energy, petroleum, and water compared with producing products through recycling.

“If residential and commercial properties made it a priority to recycle their plastics, the need for natural resources and energy will substantially reduce.

“This reduction can help reduce high levels of carbon dioxide in the environment and can also stop energy companies from overusing natural resources.”

CCF said data from “This is Plastics” — a site dedicated to helping influence change in how plastics were used indicated when recycled plastics were used to make new plastic products, “we conserve more than materials”.

“We can reduce energy usage by 66 percent. Plus, for every one tonne of plastic we recycle, we save the equivalent of 1000–2000 gallons of fuel used to produce the same product without recycled plastics.

“The more we recycle, the greater our positive impact can be. When it comes to recycled plastic bottles, a small number actually become plastic bottles again.

“More often, they are used to make car parts, clothing, shows, and pens to name a few.”



Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) with a plastic bag, Moore Reef, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The bag was removed by the photographer before the turtle had a chance to eat it.

CCF said there were many practical ways to recycle plastics.

“This would include reusing containers for storage like food and spices, transforming used bottles for pot plants or even for decorations.

“Reuse soda bottles by creating a vertical garden. For consumers with a lack of space to plant, making vertically stringed pot plants can be the solution to their problems.

“Consumers can make a great difference in choosing to recycle or up-cycle plastic waste.

“When thinking of how to recycle plastic in homes, consumers can employ creativity and that even includes kids as part of projects to help instil recycling habits.”

CCF said one of the main reasons recycling plastics was important for businesses was the fact it was a simple way to save money and improve company turnover.

“Recycling programs can create cost avoidance and better yet, saves funding for other sustainable initiatives.

“When companies make sustainable choices and implement recycling plastic programs, they have the potential to sell their recyclable waste for alternative uses thus earning back money that was used to finance the programme and, in most cases, generate even more.”

CCF said as recycling technology continued to make advancements – metals, plastics, and glass would become more precious as the cost of materials was expected to continue to increase.

This story was written by Meli Laddpeter, originally published at The Fiji Times on 14 April 2022, reposted via PACNEWS.

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Crypto Fund Founder Warns Industry on North Korean Cyber Attacks

(Bloomberg) -- All prominent cryptocurrency organizations are probably being targeted by North Korean hackers and should strengthen their cybersecurity, according to the founder of a crypto fund.

North Korea is likely to devote more resources to such attacks given the success it’s had so far, said Arthur Cheong, who set up DeFiance Capital in Singapore in 2020 and was himself a recent victim of a cybercrime. He advised crypto firms to take extra care in hiring remote teams, have dedicated computers for crypto transactions and revoke unnecessary token approvals.

“It is critical that this industry is highly aware that we are being targeted by a state-sponsored cybercrime organization that is extremely resourceful and sophisticated,” Cheong said on Twitter.

Read more: U.S. Links North Korean Hacker Group to Record Crypto Heist 

North Korea appears to have stepped up its crypto-related cyber attacks in recent months. Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department tied the North Korean hacking group Lazarus to the theft of more than $600 million in cryptocurrency from a software bridge used for the popular Axie Infinity play-to-earn game. Cybercrimes have provided a lifeline for the struggling North Korean economy, which has been hobbled by sanctions to punish it for nuclear and missile tests, and grown smaller since Kim Jong Un took power about a decade ago.

Where’s the Truth? How the CIA Shapes the Minds of Americans


Like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, propaganda is pouring out of the US that is shaping our perceptions of the war in Ukraine. It is produced by the CIA, it is pronounced by the State Department and it is published by the media. It is coming from everywhere.

The heroes and the villains were cast from the start. The media rewrote history and created the myth of the "unprovoked war." As if Russia’s launching of an illegal war was not sufficient to cast them as the villain in our minds, the media everywhere added the adjective "unprovoked" to create the super-villain needed to produce the necessary support for the war. As if NATO had not broken its promise not to encroach on Russia’s borders. As if Russia’s security concerns had not been ignored. As if Russia has not been surrounded by military bases and missiles. As if Ukraine wasn’t being flooded with weapons. As if Yeltsin and Putin had not protested and drawn their red lines for years.

The heroes and villains were further developed and characterized by stories that came out of Ukraine in the early days of the war. On the first day of the war, a Russian ship aimed its guns at Snake Island and demanded the surrender of the Ukrainian forces. Establishing the roles of super-villain and super-hero in our minds, the Ukrainians bravely defied the Russians, and the Russians remorselessly murdered the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian guards "died heroically," Zelensky said, promising that "All of them will be posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine."

But the guards couldn’t be posthumously awarded anything because they weren’t dead. They were captured and released a few days later. But the characters had been cast in our minds. Not enough that the Ukrainians really were heroically defending their land against an illegal and villainous Russian assault, to produce the necessary war fervor, a super-villain was needed.

Only days later, a Russian warship was seriously damaged or destroyed by Ukrainian forces only, like the guards of Snake Island, to seemingly show up a few days later.

The western media would also continue to clean up the story and clarify the hero and the villain by erasing the Ukrainian ultranationalists from history and from the story, from their role in the Donbas to their role in 2019 of pressuring Zelensky out of making peace with Russia and signing the Minsk Agreement to their role today.

Then the US began to write the perfect super-villain for the perfect script and the perfect public perception. From the beginning, Russia was deliberately targeting civilians. Not just killing them like a villain, but deliberately killing them like a super-villain

But a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency leaked to Newsweek that, in the first month of the war, "almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets." A retired Air Force officer, working with a "large military contractor advising the Pentagon," told Newsweek that "the Russian military has actually been showing restraint in its long-range attacks." The advisor warned that "If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately . . . then we are not seeing the real conflict.” The Newsweek article points out that the US dropped more missiles on the first day in Iraq in 2003 than Russia dropped on Ukraine in the first 24 days. "The vast majority of the airstrikes are over the battlefield, with Russian aircraft providing “close air support” to ground forces. The remainder – less than 20 percent, according to U.S. experts – has been aimed at military airfields, barracks and supporting depots." The DIA analyst concluded that "that’s what the facts show. This suggests to me, at least, that Putin is not intentionally attacking civilians. . . . I know that the news keeps repeating that Putin is targeting civilians, but there is no evidence that Russia is intentionally doing so."

More recently, a senior DIA official told Newsweek, “It’s bad. And I don’t want to say it’s not too bad. But I can’t help but stress that beyond the clamor, we are not seeing the war clearly. Where there has been intense ground fighting and a standoff between Ukrainian and Russian forces, the destruction is almost total. But in terms of actual damage in Kyiv or other cities outside the battle zone, and with regard to the number of civilian casualties overall, the evidence contradicts the dominant narrative.”

According to Washington and the media, Russia was not only targeting civilians from the very beginning of the war, they were also planning possible chemical weapons attacks. President Biden, himself, claimed that Putin was considering using chemical weapons in Ukraine. But a "senior US defense official," in a leak that was reported by Reuters on March 22, said that "There’s no indication that there’s something imminent in that regard right now.”

Two weeks later, "three US officials" told NBC News that "there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine." It was disinformation intended, they said, "to deter Russia from using banned munitions."

The disinformation campaign is being coordinated by the White House National Security Council. The released declassified information, the officials said, "wasn’t rock solid:" they were publicizing "low-confidence intelligence." It was propaganda being used in the disinformation war against Russia. But that disinformation is being consumed by the US public and shaping its perceptions of the war to create the necessary war fervor.

The promised false flag attack against the Russian speaking people of the Donbas that would justify the Russian invasion and feature video of fake corpses, "never materialized."

The US also tried to "get inside Putin’s head" and, perhaps more importantly, shape public perception in the West of a weak, incompetent and disconnected Putin, by releasing intelligence that discovered that Putin is being misled by his advisors about Russia’s military performance in Ukraine. While some officials said that intelligence was reliable, others said it "wasn’t conclusive – based more on analysis than hard evidence." When questioned, Biden later classified it as "speculation" and "an open question."

Another case of disclosing disinformation in an attempt to warn China, to negatively shape public perception of China and to continue to attempt to drive a wedge between Russia and China was the claim by US officials that Russia had asked China to supply weapons. European and US officials told NBC that that accusation "lacked hard evidence" and that, in fact, "there are no indications China is considering providing weapons to Russia."

While US officials say the disinformation war is meant to deter Russian actions and to get inside Putin’s head, it is simultaneously being consumed by Americans and getting inside their heads, shaping their perceptions of Putin, Russia and the war.

The shaping of the American mind by the media has a long history in the CIA. In the first quarter century of the CIA, according to Carl Bernstein, "more than 400 American journalists . . . carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters." Occasionally, "full‑time CIA employees masquerad[ed] as journalists abroad." Cooperation included articles written by the CIA running almost word for word under columnists’ bylines and "planting misinformation advantageous to American policy."

The disinformation war was not confined to new organizations. The Church Committee found that, by the end of 1967, the CIA had already subsidized the publication of well over one thousand books.

By 1955, the CIA was collaborating with Hollywood to shape the American mind through movies. In Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers, Joel Whitney says “the goal was ‘to insert in their scripts and in their action the right ideas with the proper subtlety’.” The Joint Chiefs of Staff plotted on how to insert those ideas and actually met with top Hollywood figures at the MGM Studios office of director John Ford. The CIA would go so far as to have operatives infiltrate Hollywood studios. Paramount Studios even had an executive and censor who was a CIA operative who made sure Paramount’s movies cut out any anti-American content or criticism of US foreign policy.

So, where’s the truth. For most Americans, being informed citizens of the world and informed participants in democracy means turning to the newspapers and news outlets. But those newspapers and news outlets are reporting disinformation emanating from the CIA, the State Department and the White House that is shaping the perceptions and the minds of the American people.

Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.