It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, August 25, 2022
US official stresses 'need for accountability' in Al Jazeera journalist's death
US Dep. Sec. of State Sherman meets Israel's National Security Adviser Hulata, discussing global challenges, Iran, and Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh's death.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman on Wednesday met with Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata in Washington, D.C.
Spokesperson Ned Price said that during their meeting, the Deputy Secretary and the National Security Advisor "discussed the strength of the bilateral relationship and reflected on the success of the President’s recent trip to Israel."
"They also discussed shared global security challenges, including Iran, and the Deputy Secretary reiterated the Administration’s steadfast commitment to Israel’s security."
Price added that Sherman "underscored the importance of ensuring independent civil society organizations in the West Bank and Israel are able to continue their important work and emphasized the need for accountability in the tragic killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh."
"The Deputy Secretary reiterated the importance of Israelis and Palestinians enjoying equal measures of freedom, security, and prosperity, and reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to a two-state solution."
On Tuesday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan hosted Hulata at the White House to consult on a broad range of global issues and issues of mutual concern.
The White House said in a statement that, "Sullivan underscored President Biden’s steadfast commitment to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capability to deter its enemies and to defend itself by itself against any threat or combination of threats, including from Iran and Iranian-backed proxies; and our commitment to ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon."
India's top refiner to spend $25 bln for 2046 net-zero goal
CONTRIBUTOR Nidhi Verma Reuters PUBLISHED AUG 25, 2022
CREDIT: REUTERS/DANISH SIDDIQUI
Indian Oil Corp, the country's top refiner, plans to invest more than $25 billion to achieve net-zero emissions from its operations by 2046, its chairman S. M. Vaidya said at an annual shareholders meeting on Thursday.
NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Indian Oil Corp IOC.NS, the country's top refiner, plans to invest more than $25 billion to achieve net-zero emissions from its operations by 2046, its chairman S. M. Vaidya said at an annual shareholders meeting on Thursday. India, one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters, is aiming to reach net-zero emissions for the country by 2070.
"The company is embarking on a decarbonisation journey that will be crucial not only for the company’s destiny but also for the planet," Vaidya said.
"On the 99th year of India’s independence (2046), Indian Oil will be operationally independent of emissions," he said.
IOC plans an investment of over 2 trillion rupees ($25 billion) to mitigate emissions to about 0.7 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by then.
Vaidya said IOC has prepared a roadmap to achieve net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions - that is, emissions produced from its crude refining operations and energy consumption.
Most of IOC's efforts will be targeted at decarbonising its refineries and petrochemical complexes, which account for 97% of its operations, he said
($1 = 79.8580 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Tom Hogue)
‘Blowback:’ UK, Libya & the Manchester Attack
Phil Miller introduces a film probing the role of British foreign policy in contributing to the atrocity. Still from Declassified UK documentary “Blowback Blowback: The Road to Manchester.”
The father of the youngest person to be killed in the Manchester Arena attack believes the government and MI5, the domestic military intelligence service, “have blood on their hands” for failing to prevent the suicide bombing.
Salman Abedi, a British man of Libyan heritage, murdered 22 people at a pop concert in May 2017. The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility.
Andrew Roussos, whose 8-year-old daughter Saffie-Rose died in the atrocity, says counter-terrorism police “should be embarrassed of themselves” over their monitoring of Abedi and his family.
Roussos also accuses the British authorities of “using them for their own gain” in a reference to how the Abedi family fought on the same side as NATO forces during the uprising against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Bereaved father Andrew Roussos. (Phil Miller/DCUK)
Unlike other documentaries about the Manchester Arena attack, which tend to focus on failures by the emergency services in the hours before and after the bombing, Blowback examines the longer-term political causes of the tragedy.
Produced by myself and presented by Mark Curtis, the author of Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion With Radical Islam, the film traces the links between the bomber’s family and U.K. foreign policy towards Libya.
We investigate the claim made days after the attack by the Labour Party’s then leader, Jeremy Corbyn, that there were connections between terrorism at home and wars Britain had fought abroad – something that at the time was deemed controversial.
The U.K. Home Office allowed a wave of Libyan dissidents to settle in Manchester in the aftermath of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which the West blamed on Gaddafi’s regime.
Among these exiles was Salman Abedi’s father, Ramadan, who arrived in the city in 1993 having fought in Afghanistan on the same side as Osama Bin Laden.
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, LIFG
Ramadan Abedi was a supporter of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a militant organisation associated with Al Qaeda.
Kenny MacAskill MP, who handled the Lockerbie file when he was Scotland’s justice secretary, tells the film, “Britain wasn’t acting against them because the focus was Gaddafi.”
Blowback explores the complex relationship between the LIFG and British intelligence, who initially supported the group in a plot to kill Gaddafi. After 9/11, MI6 switched sides and handed over the LIFG’s leadership to be tortured in Libya, as part of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “deal in the desert.”
The Arab Spring saw another dramatic policy shift, when former Prime Minister David Cameron allied with LIFG remnants to overthrow Gaddafi in 2011.
A lawyer for the Roussos family, Pete Weatherby QC, says Cameron’s government had “an incredibly stupid and naïve British colonial approach to my enemy’s enemy is my friend. So they completely blank out who they are backing.”
Among the LIFG veterans fighting alongside NATO was Ramadan Abedi, accompanied by his three teenage sons Ismail, Salman and Hashem.
Weatherby, who works at barristers’ chambers Garden Court North in Manchester, believes Salman Abedi “was radicalised by the people he was almost certainly knocking around with” in the 2011 conflict. “There was the experience of extreme violence and all that comes with it, death and injury,” he said.
The RAF gave air cover for Islamist militias, led by LIFG veterans, to take over Libya’s capital Tripoli. Hillary Clinton’s U.S. State Department then paid a militia linked to the Abedis, the February 17th Martyrs Brigade, to protect U.S. diplomats in post-war Libya.
Blowback
Islamists failed to win a majority at elections that were held in Libya after Gaddafi’s death. However, they refused to disarm their militias, sending the country into another round of civil war. The chaos provided fertile ground for Al Qaeda and the Islamic State terrorist group.
The Abedi family continued travelling between Britain and Libya during this civil war. The Royal Navy evacuated Salman and Hashem from Tripoli in 2014. Once back in Manchester, MI5 overlooked the Abedi brothers’ increasing links to IS.
Commenting on British policy towards young men going to fight in Libya, Andrew Roussos tells us: “I don’t understand the reasons why, when you do bring them back to this country and you do know what these people are involved in, not to have a close eye on them. That’s what I can’t swallow.”
Curtis traces the bomber’s movements in the years leading up to the attack. He navigates viewers through a wall of silence from MI5, the Home Office and even, at times, the official inquiry, to show how many opportunities there were to prevent the massacre.
MacAskill, who oversaw the U.K.’s second largest police force, draws a disturbing parallel between British state collusion with terrorist groups in Northern Ireland and their haphazard handling of the Abedi family. He comments: “The fact that Libyans would be allowed to come and go, some would be let in and out. None of that surprises me.”
The film, released last month, comes at a volatile time in Libya, where in early July protesters torched a parliament building. The country is split between two prime ministers.
One of them, Fathi Bashagha, recently told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee: “More than a decade after the revolution that got rid of the Gaddafi regime…we are still in chaos.”
Bashagha claimed that his British-backed rival, Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh, is “sitting in Tripoli protected by a limited number of militias, some of which are believed to be linked to international terrorist groups.”
Read Declassified UK’s investigations into the Manchester bombing here.
Phil Miller is Declassified UK’s chief reporter. He is the author of Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes. Follow him on Twitter at @pmillerinfo
An FIR was registered against him under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act at the Margalla police station for threatening the judge and other senior officers of the Islamabad Police during the rally.
However, Imran Khan appeared before the anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Islamabad today and filed a petition for pre-arrest bail in a case of hurling threats at police officers and a lady judge.
The former premier adopted in his petition that the police registered an anti-terrorism case against him out of vengeance, demanding that the court accept his request for pre-arrest bail.
ATC Judge Raja Jawad conducted the hearing and approved Imran Khan’s interim bail until September 1. The court ordered the PTI chairman to submit a surety bond of Rs100,000.
Meanwhile, a large number of PTI workers gathered outside the ATC, and they chanted slogans in favour of Imran Khan and against the government.
Foolproof security arrangements have been ensured around and on the premises of the Judicial Complex as over 400 personnel deployed. All roads leading to the Judicial Complex have been closed, and no irrelevant person is allowed entry into it.
However, today was the last day of the protective bail given to Imran Khan by the Islamabad High Court (IHC).
It also merits a mention here that the IHC had granted transit remand to Imran Khan in the case, ordering him to appear before the trial court within three days.
The IHC had given Imran Khan a transit remand in the case, requiring him to appear before the trial court within three days.
“Had better relations with Trump than with Biden,” said Imran Khan in an interview with CNN. What do both Donald Trump and Imran Khan have in common? Since the EU referendum and Donald Trump’s election to the US presidency in 2016, scholars and commentators have spoken of the emergence of a ‘post-truth era’ or post-truth politics, defined as a break-down of ‘rational’ opinion in favour of emotion. Most potent examples of post-truth politics as a style available to individual politicians are instances in which outright lies about things that technically anyone could verify are used – albeit perhaps not always consciously – for various political purposes
towards both adversaries and one’s supporters Ex-prime minister Imran Khan built the narrative of an imported government when he was ousted by a coalition of thirteen parties in April 2022. Let’s dissect how many imported people Imran Khan hired in his cabinet or as his special assistants on various issues versus which people are serving in the same posts in the “imported” government, as Khan likes to call it. Starting with Sania Nishtar, who was SAPM on poverty alleviation and the Chairperson of the Ehsaas Programme, before assuming power in Khan’s government, had co-chaired WHO’s High-Level Commission on Non-communicable diseases along with the Presidents of Uruguay, Finland and Sri-lanka, member of the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on the future of healthcare. She still co-chairs the US Academy of National Sciences, chairs the UN’s International Institute for Global Health’s International Advisory Board, and is a member of the International Advisory Board on Global Health of the German federal government. On the contrary, Shazia Atta Marri is the current federal minister for poverty alleviation. She has served in Pakistan all her life, mainly in Sindh.
The concept of ‘post-truth’ has been criticized for overpowering the long history of marginalization of minority groups from knowledge construction.
Secondly, Hafeez Sheikh in Khan’s government was his finance minister who had served in the World Bank before coming to Pakistan and came only to assume the power of a ministry. Irony! No? Moving forward, PTI had Malik Amin Aslam as the minister of state for the environment. Mr Aslam was also imported from outside Pakistan. He was working at the World Bank and UNO and also the vice-president of IUCN. Sherry Rehman has replaced him, and she has a history of serving in Pakistan representing the Pakistan People’s Party. In a recent development, Jamil Ahmed has assumed the position of governor of the State Bank. He has served in various positions at State Bank all his life, whereas the previous governor, Reza Baqir had been imported from abroad by PTI. He had been serving in various positions at the IMF. Similarly, the ministry of petroleum was held by Nadeem Babar in Khan’s government. He is the CEO of Oman Oil Company and vice-president at Cogen Technologies, Houston. His post has been held by Musaddiq Malik who was the federal minister for water and power in PML-N’s government. Zulfi Bukhari was SAPM on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, and Chairman of Pakistan Tourism Development in the self-proclaimed nationalist government. As most of us know, he is a business tycoon, who owns HPM developers and properties in the UK. Sajid Hussain has replaced him as federal minister of overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development. Turi had previously served as a member of the National Assembly. Furthermore, many other people in Khan’s government were his special assistants i.e. Shahbaz Gill, Tania Aidrus, Moeed Yusuf, Tariq Mahmood ul Hassan, Shehzad Qasim, and Robert Laurent Grenier.
The irony is that all these people have spent their entire lives serving the “west” and go back to the “west” once the next government takes power and Pakistan stops serving their interests. The concept of ‘post-truth’ has been criticized for overpowering the long history of marginalization
of minority groups from knowledge construction. It also risks reproducing a public/private and a rational/emotional binary embedded within the Enlightenment separation of ‘mind’ and ‘body’ that underpinned the European colonial project and served to marginalize women, non-binary people, and minority groups. The contemporary political life in Pakistan and more specifically, the post-truth politics of Imran Khan seems to be on a certain kind of agenda, as explained above. He largely seems to believe that he is the only pious Muslim and links every political debate to religion which further tells that he is not a great believer in inclusivity. He refuses to accept his failure to make laudable changes in three years of his power. He only resorts to religious rhetoric to appeal to the masses, which also sadly excludes the Muslims of Hazara because he felt “blackmailed” by such marginalized communities. It is yet to see what his populist and post-truth rhetoric has for him in the store because the plight of Baloch people affected by floods, and a large number of the population bearing the brunt of inflation cannot suffice just by the hollowness of Khan’s words.
The writer is a staff member of Daily Times and can be reached at raesaf21@gmail.com
Fake accounts promoted pro-Western narratives while trying to discredit China, Russia and Iran, researchers say.
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter disrupted pro-US covert influence operations that used “deceptive tactics” to shape opinion in Central Asia and the Middle East, according to internet researchers
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter disrupted pro-United States covert influence operations that used “deceptive tactics” to shape opinion in Central Asia and the Middle East, according to a report by internet researchers.
Dozens of fake accounts promoted pro-Western narratives while trying to discredit countries including China, Russia and Iran over a nearly five-year period, according to the report released on Wednesday by Graphika Inc and the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO).
The most active campaign targeted Russian-speaking internet users in Central Asia, with much of the activity focused on criticising Russia over civilian deaths and other atrocities following its invasion of Ukraine, according to the study.
“These posts primarily focused on US support for central Asian countries and their people, presenting Washington as a reliable economic partner that would curb the region’s dependence on Russia,” the report said.
“Other posts argued that the US was the main guarantor of Central Asia’s sovereignty against Russia, frequently citing the war in Ukraine as evidence of the Kremlin’s ‘imperial’ ambitions.”
The Central Asia campaign, consisting of 12 Twitter accounts, 25 Facebook profiles and pages, and 10 Instagram accounts, also spread negative messaging about China’s treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, where human rights activists say more than one million ethnic minority Muslims have been detained without trial.
“These accounts — a fake persona and sham media outlet — mainly focused on the genocide of Uighurs and Muslim minorities in ‘reeducation’ camps in Xinjiang,” the report said.
“Posts described alleged organ trafficking, forced labour, sexual crimes against Muslim women, and suspicious disappearances of ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang. The assets also posted about the Chinese Communist Party’s poor treatment of women in the country and often framed these stories around news about domestic violence.”
Other networks sought to exert influence in Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Limited reach
In some cases, the accounts shared news articles from Washington-funded media outlets, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and links to websites run by the US military.
Graphika and SIO did not attribute the operations to a specific group or organisation, but Facebook parent company Meta and Twitter said the “presumptive” or known countries of origin for the activity were the US and the United Kingdom.
The tactics outlined in the report resemble many of the same strategies that US officials have accused Russia and China of using to sow divisions and discord in their country.
In the case of one account involved in the Central Asia campaign, a Facebook profile used a doctored photo of the Puerto Rican actress Valeria Menendez.
[Courtesy of Graphika Inc and Stanford Internet Observatory]
Other accounts and pages posed as media outlets, including a sham outlet called Vostochnaya Pravda that claimed to report “absolute facts” about Central Asia.
The propaganda effort came to light after Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and Twitter shared a collection of data with researchers after removing a number of accounts for “platform manipulation” and “inauthentic behaviour”.
The dataset shared with Graphika and SIO spanned 299,566 tweets sent by 146 accounts between March 2012 and February 2022.
The campaigns, however, had a questionable degree of success, according to the report, due to their limited reach.
“Importantly, the data also shows the limitations of using inauthentic tactics to generate engagement and build influence online,” the report said.
“The vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed received no more than a handful of likes and retweets, and only 19 percent of covert assets we identified had more than 1,000 followers.”
Graphika and SIO said their findings appeared to be the first case of a covert pro-Western influence campaign being identified and disrupted by Twitter and Meta.
In February, Meta announced it had suspended about 40 fake pro-Russian accounts, groups and pages for disseminating propaganda about the war in Ukraine.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
No evidence of Indian companies circumventing sanctions on Russia: US official
US Deputy Secretary of Treasury Wally Adeyemo said that there is no evidence to suggest that Indian companies are circumventing sanctions on Russia.
US Deputy Secretary of Treasury Wally Adeyemo was on a visit to IIT-Bombay on Wednesday. (Photo: Twitter)
There is no evidence of Indian companies circumventing the US-led sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, a senior Biden administration official said on Wednesday.
"I've seen no evidence of Indian companies circumventing sanctions that have been placed on Russia," US Deputy Secretary of Treasury Wally Adeyemo told reporters during a visit to IIT-Bombay here.
He added that companies around the world, including those in India, the US and Europe, are taking the sanctions seriously and implementing them as well.
The remarks come days after reports quoted RBI Deputy Governor Michael Patra as saying that the US is concerned over India being used to export fuel made from Russian crude in violation of sanctions imposed by Washington.
According to Patra, transfers of Russian crude are taking place on the high seas and the ships come to a port in Gujarat, where the oil is refined and shipped to New York in the US itself.
Adeyemo, who began his three-day visit on Wednesday, said he will be discussing Russia and Ukraine, along with bilateral topics in his parleys with Indian officials.
He, however, declined to spell out the exact contours of the discussions that he will be having.
Adeyemo also said that the US-led coalition of the sanctions has broadened and the ultimate objective of the same is to reduce revenues Russia earns through oil exports while ensuring that there is a steady supply of energy.
"We have to look at the Russian invasion beyond the immediate concern about the sovereignty of Ukraine getting compromised," he said, pointing to the economic consequences of the war, especially inflation.
He said Indian consumers are paying a lot more for energy than they ought to.
Adeyemo is scheduled to visit New Delhi, after spending two days in the financial capital.
Ahead of his visit, the US Treasury Department had said that it will focus on discussing key shared priorities such as bolstering energy security, addressing food insecurity globally and combating illicit financial flows.
Adeyemo said he will be meeting officials from the government, businesses, entrepreneurs and civil society during the visit, which is focused on deepening the Indo-US ties.
The visiting economic policy maker had a chat with innovators and startups at the premier technology school and said that in the next few years, American consumers will rely on products created by some of the people he met.
"I can tell that many of them will be the companies, in the years and decades to come, that will not only solve problems that will enrich their founders, but will solve problems that will benefit society, helping deal with challenges like climate change or medical diseases for which we have no solution today," he said.
He also exuded confidence that India's recent history and conversations he has had, make him believe that the country will continue to be a "leader alongside America in the digital economy."
"What is clear to me is that both of our countries will play pivotal roles in the next wave of technological innovation and how it is deployed responsibly to the benefit of all segments of society especially when our people and companies work together," he added.
Six months on, US adds fuel to Ukraine crisis with $3b aid as world order alters, West hegemony weakens
Published: Aug 24, 2022 11:35 PM Illustration:Liu Rui/GT
It's been six months since the Russia-Ukraine military conflict exploded in February, and the crisis has turned into grinding battles with no clear endgame in sight. While the US and NATO continue to fan flames as the Biden administration announced nearly $3 billion in military aid to Kiev on Wednesday, also the Independence Day of Ukraine, Russia claimed that it has deliberately slowed down its military advance in the special military operation in Ukraine "in order to reduce civilian casualties."
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu made the remarks on Wednesday and said the Russian troops are paying efforts to restore peace in the Russian-controlled areas, TASS reported, while according to the White House statement about the new military aids, Ukraine will receive "air defense systems, artillery systems and munitions, counter-unmanned aerial systems, and radars to ensure it can continue to defend itself over the long term."
After the six-month conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it is no doubt the crisis has profoundly changed the world order in many aspects including world peace, global supply chains, international relations and also food and energy security for many countries around the globe.
Who should be blamed? What will happen next? Chinese analysts believe the conflict was not sparked by an "unprovoked invasion" by Russia as the US claimed, but was fundamentally caused by NATO's expansionism and the US strategy to contain Russia with increasing military deployments in Europe and instigate color revolutions in Russia's neighbors.
But the crisis gives rise to both danger and transformation, as the world order is getting more and more multi-polarized rather than uni-polarized, and the US hegemony that has caused chaos and instabilities worldwide in the past decades is weakening.
The military operation launched by Russia has always been accused by the US and many Western countries as an "unprovoked invasion," but in the past six months very few non-Western countries have shown interest to join the Western-launched condemnation and sanctions against Russia. The West is also becoming more divided, not only in executing anti-Russia sanctions but also in supporting Ukraine with weapons and money, experts said, noting that since both Russia and Ukraine are stronger than expected, the conflict will also take a longer time than initially expected. The world needs to be prepared, the experts said.
The assassination of Darya Dugina, a Russian commentator and scholar, for which Russia accused a Ukrainian suspect, showed that the conflict between the two countries has produced irreversible hatred and tragedies, and the ceasefire and the restore of peace will not be that easy, experts noted.
US fans flames by offering more weapons to Ukraine
Editor: Feng Qingyin/GT Graphic: Xu Zihe/GT
Who should be blamed?
"US' attempt to secure its hegemony via manipulating the eastward expansion of NATO, leaving Russia no choice but to create a buffer zone for the sake of its national security, was the main cause of conflict." However, while the military industrial complex of the US has benefited in the process, Europe has been dragged down with major economic and social problems, Song Zhongping, a military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
The prolonged conflict will eventually backfire on the US, as its dollar-based sanctions have in fact pushed forward a reverse-dollarization. Many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have realized what the US is after in the conflict and shown reluctance to follow blindly, which has also further cemented a multi-polarization and true multilateralism, and made the US hegemony come close to going bankrupt, Song said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with the media on Tuesday that it was necessary to continue providing assistance to Ukraine, however he admitted that it would be tough and that Europe would pay a price for its support to Kiev, TASS reported.
CNN also published an article on Monday saying that "A grim winter will test Europe's support for Ukraine like never before." Officials across Europe are worried that the consensus could fall apart as the continent enters a bleak winter of rising food prices, limited energy to heat homes and the real possibility of a recession. "Western officials and diplomats spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe sensitive conservations among governments," according to the report.
Some analysts believe in the past six months, Russia, Ukraine and the EU are all losing in different aspects, but the US, especially US arm dealers and military industrial giants, are the absolute winners as they have successfully ruined the peace and stability in Europe, and undermine the euro zone again by pushing NATO expansion and hyping anti-Russia sentiment in Ukraine, so that Washington could even let its European allies, who are actually victims of US zero-sum strategy, to sanction Russia with huge costs and spend huge amount of money to buy US weapons.
Weakening US hegemony
But is the US really winning only because of these short-term benefits? Chinese analysts said in this profound change of the world order, the US hegemony has already been shaken, and the world has discovered the weakness of such a hegemonic system and the risk of standing too close with the US during this crisis.
"The conflict has shaken the US-led international order; Russia's special military operation in Ukraine could be viewed as the aftershock from the 2014 Ukraine crisis, the cause of which is the US-led NATO's eastward expansion and US' using of color revolution to jeopardize regional order and balance of power," Cui Heng, an assistant research fellow from the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
The recent decade has witnessed constantly renewed new lows of the US and its allies, and they have repeatedly trampled on their so-called orders. It seems on the surface that the US and the EU have continually achieved new breakthroughs, but in fact, their reckless actions have undermined the authority and constraining force of the rules that they had established, making other powers no longer willing to follow such orders, Cui said, citing the Russia-Ukraine conflict as the latest evidence that the US-led world order has collapsed.
The conflict has inflicted huge pressure to the world economy. Europe has been the most affected victim with shortage crises emerging in both food and energy sectors. Even if Europe is trying hard to reduce dependence on Russian energy, it cannot be done in a short time, Cui pointed out.
European natural gas prices surged on Monday after Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom said it would shut down Europe's single biggest piece of gas infrastructure for three days from the end of the month, CNBC reported.
Global governance has also been affected by the conflict, as sense of insecurity has been surging after the breakout of the crisis. Conservative ideas emphasizing security and geopolitics are gaining ground, replacing the idea of mutual cooperation and creating common interests on which global governance depends. When the country focuses on how to mobilize resources to develop military power and solve security dilemmas, how can it be possible to solve problems such as climate change, pollution control, and global poverty reduction that require joint efforts of countries around the world, according to Cui.
Majority of Asian, African and Latin American countries choose to keep distance from the US and its allies, holding a neutral ground in the conflict as they understand the boots Russia is in and even though they are not expressing support for Russia's counter strike, they cannot agree on the US-led Western smears against Russia, Cui said.
"For instance, Saudi Arabia is a close US ally in the Middle East, and it's benefited from the hegemony of US dollars, but now it has found that such system is highly risky, and it's also seeking more alternative to reduce dependency over the US-dominated payment system, and many other countries like Indonesia, Argentina, Turkey are also sharing the similar concerns, and this is why they are interested in the non-Western mechanism like the BRICS Plus and to develop closer relations with China," said a Beijing-based expert in international relations who asked for anonymity.
After the world witnessed the ruthless Western sanctions against not only the Russia government but also Russian individuals and even animals and cultures, the West is destroying the "rules," and the so-called "rule-based order" already collapsed long ago since the US bypassed the UN Security Council to invade Iraq, and bombed countries like Libya and Syria to spread chaos in the name of "democracy and human rights," said the expert, noting the West has to face the consequence that other major powers like Russia will refuse to follow the "rules" as well.
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The Florida teacher shortage is a multifaceted consequence of several hardships challenging today’s teachers, according to professor of literary studies Jenifer Jasinski Schneider. SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE
As of late July, the state of Florida needed to fill 9,000 teacher vacancies across the state, according to the Florida Department of Education. Many components contribute to this immense shortage, including teachers’ concerns regarding low pay and challenging work conditions.
When Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Ana Cranston-Gingras graduated with her bachelor’s in English education from St. John’s University in 1980, the field looked different than it does today.
“Young women now have limitless opportunities. So that, I think, is a factor because the teaching profession historically has been predominantly female,” Cranston-Gingras said.
In the early 20th century, women predominantly filled the roles of teachers as the position called for patience and caring that coincided with female gender expectations of the time, according to a 2019 Atlantic article. However, now women account for 45% of all college students pursuing STEM degrees, an April Forbes article said, which were paths formerly reserved for men.
Due to the low pay, Cranston-Gingras recalled that she, as well as many of her colleagues, had to work additional jobs at the beginning of her career. This problem remains present today considering that one-third of new teachers have to work an additional job, according to the National Education Association.
This is something incoming college students consider when choosing a career in education, professor of literary studies Jenifer Jasinski Schneider said.
“What deters them, is the fact that they can’t make a living salary, that teachers will often need to have multiple jobs to maintain a house or a family,” she said.
Initial salaries of teachers are equivalent to other fields, said Cranston-Gingras, but raises are not as large and don’t come as quickly for teachers.
Teacher pay rates are not increasing with the speed of inflation. Therefore, the 1.4% increase in starting teacher salary in 2020-21 resulted in a 4% decrease due to inflation rates, according to the National Education Association.
In fact, the average annual salary for teachers in Florida has decreased over the course of the past 20 years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Between 1999-2000 elementary and secondary school teachers were making what is equivalent to $57,081 at today’s rate. Yet, in 2020-21, the average salaries dropped about 13%, leaving teachers only $49,583 annually.
In the past five years, the College of Education has experienced a 26% decline in enrollment, said Cranston-Gingras. At the time USF was considering dropping the program in 2020, the school had witnessed a decline of 63% in enrollment over the past decade, according to a 2021 WUSF article.
Budgeting strains from the impacts of the pandemic influenced the discussion on top of the already declining enrollment numbers, according to a 2020 Oracle article.
After receiving feedback from local school districts and superintendents, the decision was quickly discarded the following January, according to Jansinski Schneider. Area superintendents wrote an op-ed voicing their concerns regarding the decision, echoing a need for the programs at USF.
The pressures teachers in Florida have been facing have often come from outside of the classroom, as the DeSantis administration puts them under a microscope as to what they are allowed to discuss during lessons, threatening their employment if transgressed.
Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Law, popularized as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” and The Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act, both seek to filter the dialogue facilitated in classrooms surrounding the intersectionality of members of the LGBTQ community and the teaching of critical race theory, according to a July The 19th* article.
Boarding discussion of critical race theory or vocalizing support for LGBTQ students and movements are not allowed by the bills, according to a June Click Orlando.com article. While broaching subjects that commonly cross with these ideas, teachers now have the added stress of having to be nimble when addressing them or else it could result in their funding being withheld.
Even prior to the activation of these bills, Florida’s teachers have been under more pressure to adhere to state politics since the pandemic as they were some of the first to return to in-person K-12 instruction in 2021, according to a 2021 Wall Street Journal article.
While COVID-19 was still at large, teachers were ordered back into the classroom via a state order, according to Ballotpedia, forcing them to go about their schedule while following mitigations, such as social distancing and regular testing.
Another major factor of the teacher shortage is the retention, looking at who not only goes into teaching but who stays, according to Cranston-Gingras.
While the motivation remains, the amount of students taking teaching classes in certain areas remains low. For example, special education enrollment has dropped 40% and there has been a 45% decrease in enrollment in science education in the past five years, according to Cranston-Gingras.
“When there is a teacher shortage, there’s a job waiting for you when you finish college. So why aren’t people flocking to education?” she said. “It’s not so much about what’s happening inside of the College of Education as much as what’s happening in the career past it.”
Teacher shortages could be an ongoing problem that impacts the students, according to Jasinski Schneider. She said that it is a possibility that marginalized students and those in poverty will be disproportionately impacted.
“Teaching is not a high-paying, high-status job in society, but for those who have great teachers and have been impacted, they know that it is a high-status career [that] has real impact,” Jasinski Schneider said.
In an attempt to remedy the shortage, Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed Senate Bill 896, which would allow first responders, including military veterans, to fill teaching positions. The program launched July 1, resulting in 209 people signing up for the program as of Aug. 17, according to WFTV 9 News.
Jasinski Schneider holds concerns regarding how effective this bill might be in filling the gap. The value of teaching was represented during the height of COVID-19, proving that teaching is not as easy as one might think, she said.
She worries that incoming teachers with no training or experience are not going to be able to execute the strategies and teach the curriculum well once in the classroom.
“There is no direct transfer from any other career into teaching. Just because someone has great skill in another field, doesn’t mean they will know how to teach,” Jasinski Schneider said.
“Teaching is about taking processes and strategies that could be internal to someone and then you turn them outside, but it’s also about working with a variety of learners and being able to adapt.”
WTF! Trial of Finnish journalists accused of high treason begins Thursday
August 25, 2022 The Sanomatalo building houses Finland's largest daily newspaper, the Helsingin Sanomat. EPA/MAURITZ ANT
Three journalists from Finland’s largest daily are expected to appear in a Helsinki court on Thursday, suspected of publishing classified defence intelligence in an unprecedented case for the Nordic country renowned for its press freedom.
Two journalists at Helsingin Sanomat, and their former editor, who all deny any wrongdoing, may face a prison sentence of between four months and four years if found guilty of revealing national defence secrets in a report published in 2017.
The case is unusual in Finland because it has for years been among the top countries in a global press freedom ranking published annually by Reporters Without Borders.
But it slipped to fifth position this year, partly due to the upcoming court case, the journalist association’s Finnish branch said.
The 2017 investigative report by Helsingin Sanomat, entitled “Finland’s most secret place”, revealed the rough location and tasks of an intelligence unit of the defence forces at a time when Parliament was debating whether to expand its powers to monitor private data in digital networks.
According to the prosecutor, the article contained harmful information the publication of which was against the law.
Helsingin Sanomat Editor-in-Chief Kaius Niemi, who had charges against him in connection with the case dropped earlier for lack of evidence, said the journalists had not broken the law.
“We can show for each published sentence that the information could be found on the internet or in books prior to the publication of our article. Public information cannot be classified,” he told Reuters.
Hanne Aho, chairwoman of the Finnish Journalists’ Union, said the case was first of a kind.
“It is completely exceptional that Finnish journalists are being accused of high treason,” she told Reuters.
Aho said it was problematic that most of the legal proceedings in the case had taken place behind closed doors and called for the court to publish its reasoning to explain on what grounds freedom of speech could be restricted if the journalists were found guilty.
“The threat of a prison sentence can lead to self-censorship,” she said.
The trial will begin with a preparatory session at the Helsinki district court on Thursday.
