MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

UBS is wealth management behemoth after Credit Suisse takeover

As a result of biggest banking deal since 2008 crisis, UBS will oversee $5 trillion in assets, giving it the lead position in key markets.

Published On 12 Jun 2023REUTERS  12 Jun 2023

UBS on Monday said it had completed its emergency takeover of embattled local rival Credit Suisse, creating a giant Swiss bank with a balance sheet of $1.6 trillion and greater muscle in wealth management.

Announcing the biggest banking deal since the 2008 global financial crisis, UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti and Chairman Colm Kelleher said it would create challenges but also “many opportunities” for clients, employees, shareholders, and Switzerland.

The group will oversee $5 trillion of assets, giving UBS a leading position in key markets it would otherwise have needed years to grow in size and reach. The merger also brings to an end Credit Suisse’s 167-year history, marred in recent years by scandals and losses.

Having peaked at more than 82 Swiss francs ($90.11) in 2007, Credit Suisse, plagued by scandals and heavy losses, plumbed to ever-deeper lows, closing at less than one franc ($1.10) on Monday.

Credit Suisse shares closed up roughly one percent on their last day of trading, while UBS shares were also up around 0.8 percent.

The two banks jointly employ 120,000 people worldwide, although UBS has already said it will be cutting jobs to reduce costs and take advantage of synergies.

UBS announced a string of management changes including at Credit Suisse AG, which is now a subsidiary that will be run separately.

Of the more than 160 leaders who are being confirmed or appointed today at UBS, over a fifth are joining from Credit Suisse, a spokesperson for UBS said.

Andre Helfenstein, head of Credit Suisse’s domestic business, will remain in his role. UBS has said it is considering all strategic options for the unit.

Closing rush

UBS agreed on March 19 to buy the lender for a knockdown price of 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.3bn) and up to 5 billion francs ($5.5bn) in assumed losses in a rescue that Swiss authorities orchestrated to prevent a collapse in customer confidence from pushing Switzerland’s number-two bank over the edge.

On Friday, UBS finalised an agreement on the conditions of a 9 billion Swiss franc ($10bn) public backstop for losses from winding down parts of Credit Suisse’s business.

UBS sealed the takeover in less than three months – a tight timetable given its scale and complexity – in a race to provide greater certainty for Credit Suisse clients and employees, and to stave off departures.

Myths debunked

However, the deal, which saw the state bankroll the rescue, exposed two myths: that Switzerland was entirely predictable, and that the banks’ problems would not rebound on taxpayers.

“It was supposed to be the end of too-big-to-fail and state-led bailout,” said Jean Dermine, professor of banking and finance at the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), adding that the episode showed this central reform after the global financial crisis had not worked.

The rescue also showed that even big global banks are vulnerable to bouts of bank panic, said Arturo Bris, professor of finance and director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center.

What’s more, the disappearance of Credit Suisse’s investment bank, which UBS has said it will seek to cut back significantly, marks yet another retreat of a European lender from securities trading, which is now largely dominated by United States firms.

Since the global financial crisis, many banks have pared back their global ambitions in response to tougher regulations.

Swiss regulator FINMA, which came under fire for its handling of the downfall of the country’s second-largest bank, said one of the most pressing goals for the newly merged bank was to quickly reduce the risk of the former Credit Suisse investment bank.

UBS is set to book a massive profit in second-quarter results after buying Credit Suisse for a fraction of its so-called fair value.

Ermotti has, however, warned that the coming months will be “bumpy” as UBS gets on with absorbing Credit Suisse, a process UBS has said will take three to five years.

Presenting the first snapshot of the new group’s finances last month, UBS underscored the high stakes involved by flagging tens of billions of dollars of potential costs and benefits, but also uncertainty surrounding those numbers.

New challenges

Possibly the first challenge for Ermotti, brought back to steer the merger, will be a politically fraught decision about the future of Credit Suisse’s “crown jewel” – the bank’s domestic business.

Bringing it into UBS’s fold and combining the two banks’ largely overlapping networks could produce significant savings, and Ermotti has indicated that as a base scenario.

But he will need to weigh that against public pressure to preserve Credit Suisse’s domestic business with its own brand, identity and, critically, workforce.

Analysts say public concerns the new bank will be too big – with a balance sheet roughly double the size of the Swiss economy – means UBS might need to tread carefully to avoid being exposed to even tougher regulation and capital requirements that its new scale would call for.

They also warn that uncertainty inevitably caused by a takeover of such scale can leave UBS struggling to retain staff and customers and that it remained an open question whether the deal can deliver value for shareholders in the long run.

SOURCE: REUTERS

Rights groups to screen BBC film on Modi before White House visit

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International schedule a private screening in Washington, two days ahead of Indian PM’s state visit.

The two-part documentary, India: The Modi Question, focuses on Modi's leadership as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat during riots in 2002 [File: Arun Chandrabos/AFP]

Published On 13 Jun 2023

Two human rights groups have invited policymakers, journalists and analysts to a screening in Washington of a BBC documentary on Narendra Modi that questions the Indian prime minister’s leadership during the 2002 Gujarat riots, ahead of his state visit to the White House.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have scheduled the private screening for June 20, two days ahead of Modi’s official state visit, hosted by United States President Joe Biden.

In announcing the screening on Monday, Human Rights Watch said it wanted it to serve as a reminder that the documentary had been banned in India.

The two-part documentary, India: The Modi Question, focused on Modi’s leadership as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat during riots in 2002 in which at least 1,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims. Activists put the toll at more than twice that.

Modi has denied accusations that he did not do enough to stop the riots, and a Supreme Court-ordered investigation found no evidence to prosecute him.

The Indian government had reacted angrily to the documentary, which was released in January, calling it a “propaganda piece” and blocked sharing of any clips from it on social media.

The White House last month defended Modi’s planned state visit when asked about human rights concerns in India. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden believes “this is an important relationship that we need to continue and build on as it relates to human rights”.

Advocacy groups have raised concerns over what they see as a deteriorating human rights situation in India in recent years under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Modi, especially when it comes to its treatment of minorities, dissidents and journalists.

The government denies the allegations and says it works for the upliftment of all the groups.

Tax officials inspected offices of the BBC in New Delhi and Mumbai in February and the financial crime agency opened an investigation into the broadcaster in April over charges of violations of foreign exchange rules. A government adviser had said the inspection was not “vindictive”.

The BBC has previously said it stood by its reporting for the documentary, which was not aired in India, and that it “does not have an agenda”.

SOURCE: REUTERS

SEE  LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

OPINION

Germany’s anti-Palestinianism is escalating

It is high time Germany stops conflating Palestinian activism with anti-Semitism in a flawed attempt to atone for its past.

Majed Abusalama
Published On 10 Jun 2023

The police in Berlin banned a demonstration marking the Nakba on May 15, 2022 

[File: Reuters/Christian Mang]


On June 6, the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) released a report on the suppression of Palestinian activism in the European Union and the United Kingdom. Focusing on the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism, the document found that there had been “widespread restrictions of the right of assembly and freedom of expression” related to criticism of Israel.

In one of the three countries the report focuses on – Germany – it found violations that ranged from dismissal of employees on false charges of anti-Semitism to denials of public spaces for pro-Palestinian events to defunding of organisations. None of ELSC’s findings surprised me.


As a Palestinian resident of Germany, I have seen it all. I came to the country in 2015, having survived almost three decades of constant Israeli aggression on Gaza.

I carried the trauma of war, of the brutal Israeli siege, of the constant ethnic cleansing and dispossession of my people at the hands of the Israeli occupiers. And when I tried to speak up about it, about the suffering of my people, I was immediately shut down.

I was constantly warned to be careful what I was saying because it did not reflect “German values”. I was told that I am an anti-Semite, that I am a terrorist.

I tried to make my voice heard on German mainstream media, but to no avail. If I had tried to write for an Israeli newspaper, I would have had greater freedom to express myself than I ever did on German media outlets.

I even got taken to court for my Palestinian activism. In 2017, two Israeli activists and I protested against Knesset member Aliza Lavie speaking at a hasbara event called “Life in Israel – Terror, Bias and the Chances for Peace” at Humboldt University in Berlin. The German media smeared and falsely accused us of anti-Semitism, while the university made a criminal complaint against us for “trespassing”. We were immediately criminalised for our peaceful protest. But after three years of legal battles, we were vindicated – we won!

I have been to several other countries in Europe and I have never faced such hostility from the state for my Palestinian activism as I have in Germany. And I feel that the German state’s violent anti-Palestinianism is reaching new peaks with every passing year.

As ELSC’s report pointed out, the justification for Germany’s crackdown on anything that is critical of Israel is often alleged anti-Semitism. It equates Zionism with Judaism despite the fact that this false equivalence has been rejected by countless Jewish scholars and groups across the world.

This accusation has been actively used by both public and private institutions to suppress not only the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement but anyone who speaks up to pressure the Israeli regime to comply with international and human rights law and grant Palestinians their rights.

In 2019, the German parliament passed a resolution describing the BDS movement as anti-Semitic. This motion has been used to shut down, silence and censor pro-Palestinian activism, despite the fact that German courts have already ruled against anti-BDS actions by state authorities on several occasions, finding that they violate freedom of expression.

The false charges of anti-Semitism have also been used to target specific individuals and especially people of migrants backgrounds who stand ridiculously accused of “bringing anti-Semitism to Germany”.

In February 2022, German state-owned broadcaster Deutsche Welle fired seven Palestinian and Arab journalists for alleged anti-Semitic statements. Two of the journalists, Maram Salem and Farah Maraqa, challenged their defamation campaign and dismissal in court and won.

But the German authorities’ anti-Palestinianism goes beyond trying to suppress anti-Israel criticism. Their ferocious response to attempts by the Palestinian community to mark the Nakba – the word Palestinians use for their ethnic cleansing from their homeland – demonstrates that they aim to literally deny Palestinian existence in public space.

Last year, I physically experienced the full extent of what this means. After the Berlin police banned a rally to mark the Nakba and two courts upheld its decision, hundreds of Palestinians and their allies decided to take to the streets in small groups anyway. We wore kufiyahs to show our solidarity.

Despite our small numbers, police presence was overwhelming, with armoured vehicles deployed that reminded me of home under Israel occupation and colonisation.

Wearing a kufiyah and looking Palestinian, I was stopped by a dozen police officers. They asked for my ID, and one asked why I am wearing a kufiyah, saying that I was protesting and violating the ban. While objecting to being stopped, I was suddenly grabbed, attacked brutally, and detained. They almost dislocated my shoulder and I had to be hospitalised for it.

However, the psychological pain of what I experienced was much worse than the physical one. I was not only denied the opportunity to publicly mourn my people’s dispossession, but two days earlier, I – and other Palestinians and our allies – had also been banned from mourning Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who had been killed by the Israeli army.

This year, we tried again to commemorate the Nakba. We tried to mobilise the left, encouraging environmental, feminist and migrant groups to join us and ran the preparations on the slogan “Free Palestine from German guilt”.

But yet again we were banned.

Some groups defied the ban, carrying Palestinian flags and a banner saying “Existence is resistance” through the streets. A heavy police presence made sure that not even a small flash mob event could take place. And yet again they accused us of anti-Semitism to justify our erasure from public space.

Not only is this an unfounded allegation, but it also raises the question of why the German police – so worried about public display of anti-Semitism – is not banning racist and neo-Nazi groups, who actually hold anti-Semitic beliefs, from marching all across the country. For example, last year, just two months after we were banned from marking the Nakba, neo-Nazis were allowed to march through the city of Mainz; and it was not the police that dispersed them but a large crowd of anti-fascists.

The Palestinian community in Germany is one of the largest in Europe, but they are made invisible, regularly intimidated by the German police and institutions, put under surveillance, and dehumanised in the media as anti-Semites and potential terrorists.

These tactics aimed at depoliticising Palestinians can affect their residency status, job search, or even accommodation.

One has to wonder what these “German values” are if in their name, Palestinians are systematically mistreated in this brutal way. One has to wonder if they are not simply a reflection of white supremacy, enabling the German state to extend Israeli apartheid against Palestinians onto its own territory.

This has taken a toll on Palestinian Germans. Many of them are fearful to speak up; others are exhausted by the constant struggle they have had to lead to claim the right of free expression that everyone else enjoys in Germany. Palestinian intellectuals have been attacked publicly and stigmatised, which has often affected their careers.


And yet, Palestinians in Germany continue to resist state repression and silencing. There is a young generation of Palestinians who no do not want to comply with German state diktats just so they feel they fit in. They do not stay silent in the face of humiliation and pressure. Organisations like Palästina Spricht (Palestine Speaks) are not letting any act of repression go by without a public reaction and challenge.

Criminalising Palestinians for speaking up for Palestinian rights, while neo-Nazis are allowed to raise their fascist slogans in public, is Germany’s moral failure. It is time Palestine is freed from German guilt. It is time Germany stops demanding that Palestinians pay for its historical sins and embraces the Palestinian struggle for justice and liberation.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Majed Abusalama
Majed Abusalama is an award winning journalist, scholar, campaigner and human rights defender from Palestine.
Majed Abusalama is a PhD candidate in Critical Human Geography and Regional Studies at Tampere University (Finland) and a contributing writer to Jadaliyya, Aljazeera English, MiddleEastEye and others. He grew up in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and is now based in Berlin. His research focuses particularly on complex vulnerabilities, and communal/individual ways of dealing and living with constant violence, death, and war. He serves as an international director of We Are Not Numbers organisation in Gaza.

 

Banned anthem 'Glory to Hong Kong' gets global airing on protest anniversary

Rallies mark the first tear gas attack on protesters outside the city's legislature in 2019

By Raymond Cheng, Wu Sui Lam and Amelia Loi for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin
2023.06.12

Dozens of people sang “Glory to Hong Kong” outside the main railway station in Taipei, Taiwan, on Monday.

 Credit: Zhong Guangzheng

Exiled protesters have been singing the banned anthem 'Glory to Hong Kong' in cities around the world to mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the 2019 mass protest movement, which falls on Monday.

The song, which has sparked a police investigation after organizers played it in error at recent overseas sporting fixtures, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protests, which ranged from peaceful demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between “front-line” protesters and armed riot police.

Dozens of people gathered in the democratic island of Taiwan on Monday in a flash-mob performance outside Taipei's main railway station, with many more singing along in the surrounding crowd.

Several other flash mobs gathered to sing the song across Taiwan, including in the central city of Taichung, and Taipei's Ximending district.

Symbol of resistance

It was banned in 2020 as Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on the city, and the Hong Kong government last week applied for a High Court injunction to prevent its performance or dissemination in the city, including online.

Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong, who took part in the Taichung event, said the song is a symbol of ongoing resistance by Hong Kongers.

"The Hong Kong government banned 'Glory to Hong Kong,' and wants to ban anyone from playing it, and suddenly, a whole lot of people are buying this song on iTunes," Wong said. "Hong Kongers scattered all over the world are using it as a means of resistance."

Sky Fung, secretary-general of the exile group Hong Kong Outlanders, said the song belongs to the people of Hong Kong.

"By [singing it], we want to encourage or remind our friends in Taiwan in the hope that what happened in Hong Kong won't be repeated in Taiwan."

"Everyone knows that Hong Kong was once one of the freest places, yet today we don’t even have the freedom to sing this song," Fung said.

Several people in the crowd had luggage with them, and appeared to be visiting the island. They declined to be photographed or interviewed for fear of political reprisals.

“Glory to Hong Kong” calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its "separatist" intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.

Show of solidarity

A Taiwan resident who gave only the surname Sun said he had come along to show solidarity with Hong Kongers.

"Today we are standing up to support the people of Hong Kong, who have suffered a lot in the past few years, to the extent that they can't even sing [certain songs]," Sun said. "I think the whole world finds the Hong Kong government's lack of human rights [protections] unacceptable."

Fu Tong, a Hong Konger who attended the event, said Hong Kongers overseas need to use their voices to speak out for those who can't, who remain in Hong Kong.

"Some people say we are for Hong Kong independence, but I want to say that we are in pursuit of freedom and democracy, just like you," Fu Tong said. "We weren't suppressed because we wanted independence but because we wanted freedom and democracy."

Demonstrators in Toronto, Canada, rally Sunday to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the 2019 mass protest movement in Hong Kong. Credit: Hu Huilan

He said Taiwan's 23 million people should take heed and not believe the Communist Party's proposal to "unify" Taiwan using the "one country, two systems" model it uses to rule Hong Kong.

"Don't believe China's promises, don't believe in 'one country, two systems', and please use your votes to protect Taiwan," he said.

London, Toronto protests

In London, protesters gathered in Parliament Square at the weekend to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2019 protest movement, and again in Piccadilly Circus on Monday evening to sing "Glory to Hong Kong," which is regarded by many as Hong Kong's "true national anthem."

Protesters in Toronto also took up the anthem, with protesters calling on people not to forget the protest movement in exile.

"A lot of Hong Kongers took to the streets peacefully in 2019 to express their demands, but sadly the government didn't respond to their calls," a participant who gave only the nickname Jenny told Radio Free Asia.

"Four years have gone by, and the political crackdown has only gotten more serious ... so Hong Kongers living in Canada have a responsibility to turn out so as not to forget June 12, and also to think about what we can do in the future," she said.

The use of tear gas and other forms of violence to contain the June 12 protests, which began peacefully outside the Legislative Council, was condemned by rights group Amnesty International at the time as a violation of international law.

Since then, more than 10,000 people have been arrested under public order and "rioting" offenses for taking part in the movement, of whom around 2,300 have been prosecuted.

A Hong Konger who attended the Toronto rally, who gave only the nickname Tom, said this is his second anniversary rally.

"My heart is heavy, because the political environment in Hong Kong is getting more and more restrictive," he said. "I have a responsibility ... to let everyone know that we haven't given up, and that our ultimate goal is to restore Hong Kong [to the way it used to be]."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Starbucks denies union claim it is banning Pride decorations in stores

BY JULIA SHAPERO 

THE HILL- 06/14/23 10:45 AM ET

Pedestrians pass a Starbucks in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, Tuesday, June 13, 2023, in New York. Starbucks is denying union organizers’ claims that it banned LGBTQ+ Pride displays in its U.S. stores after Target and other brands experienced backlash. The Seattle coffee giant says there has been no change to its policy and it encourages store leaders to celebrate Pride in June. 

(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Starbucks denied allegations from its workers’ union on Tuesday that the company is banning Pride decorations in stores.

“There has been no change to any policy on this matter and we continue to encourage our store leaders to celebrate with their communities, including for U.S. Pride month in June,” Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said in a statement, according to NBC News.

“We’re deeply concerned by false information that is being spread especially as it relates to our inclusive store environments, our company culture, and the benefits we offer our partners,” he added.

However, Starbucks Workers United has maintained that it is hearing reports from stores across the country that workers have not been allowed to decorate for Pride Month or that Pride flags have been taken down.

“This is contrary to previous years when workers were allowed, and even encouraged, to put up pride decorations without incident,” they said in a statement posted to Twitter on Tuesday.

The group accused Starbucks of engaging in an “anti-union campaign to intimidate workers and make them feel unwelcome in their own workplace.”

“Starbucks claims to be a true ally but they refuse to stand up for workers, especially during a time when LGBTQIA+ people are under attack,” they added.

The allegations come as several companies have faced backlash from conservatives over their Pride Month activities or other acts of support for the LGBTQ community.s

Target pulled some of its Pride merchandise and moved Pride displays to the back of stores in some southern states last month, after encountering “threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and wellbeing while at work.”

Stores in at least five states were evacuated last weekend, after receiving bomb threats over the company’s Pride collection.

Bud Light, owned by Anheuser-Busch, also faced a boycott by conservatives earlier this year, after partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Starbucks accused of caving to right-wing by banning LGBTQ+ decorations in Pride month

David Edwards
June 13, 2023, 

Workers at the Willow Lawn Starbucks in Richmond, Virginia show their support for unionization. The store's employees voted 19-0 to form a union on April 19, 2022. (Photo: @_devinonearth/Twitter)

Starbucks was accused of "caving" to right-wing activists by banning Pride decorations this week.

On Tuesday, Starbucks Workers United revealed that the corporation had moved against LGBTQ+ symbolism.

"In the middle of Pride Month, Starbucks BANS Pride decorations in stores across the United States," the union said on Twitter. "In union stores, where Starbucks claims they are unable to make 'unilateral changes' without bargaining, the company took down Pride decorations and flags anyway - ignoring their own anti-union talking point."

The organization noted that Starbucks employs "many queer workers, but management has failed to materially support the LGBTQ+ community."

The reported move comes after Target gave in to criticism by conservatives and removed some Pride merchandise. Target stores in at least five states received bomb threats amid the controversy.

The New Republic called Starbucks' decision to remove Pride decorations "a stunning cave to far-right anti-LGBTQ fury."

Will AI enslave us?

BY SEBASTIAN THRUN, 

OPINION CONTRIBUTOR 

THE HILL - 06/14/23 

Getty Images


Artificial intelligence is a tool to discover patterns in very large datasets. ChatGPT, for example, uses a form of AI that combs through hundreds of billions of documents and images to find plausible ways to respond to a given question.

Other forms of AI discover patterns in videos and even sound recordings. Recent results have been astonishing.

But to answer the underlying question, no: AI will not enslave us.

ChatGPT derives its wisdom from documents written by people. It is merely a mirror of how we communicate, not a malevolent force that can reduce our civilization to ruin.

Like any tool, AI can be used as a weapon, and this is something I worry about. Bad actors already use AI to generate fake news. With the most recent advancements, they can now create fake voice recordings, fake images and fake videos that are indistinguishable from reality. Such acts will lead to new forms of cybercrime and new threats to our democracy.

AI also allows authoritarian governments to spy on people at levels never experienced. And AI will lead to more potent cyber-attacks on our infrastructure, our corporations and our democracy. These are all threats I take seriously, and about which we should all worry.

But in all this, we should not forget why we are pursuing development of artificial intelligence in the first place.

AI has already saved countless lives by helping doctors to diagnose deadly diseases such as cancer.

As I write this, a plethora of driverless cars are operating in my neighborhood in San Francisco, bringing an unprecedented level of safety and access to transportation to us all.

AI also has become an indispensable tool for creatives, professionals who generate content for marketing, education and entertainment, and even software engineers.

Udacity now provides personalized AI mentors to more than 3 million students in the Arab-speaking world and Uzbekistan. Cresta provides AI coaches to call center agents. A recent study by researchers from MIT and Stanford found a 14 percent improvement in productivity. And AI has long been used by companies such as Google to find the information you are seeking.

In the present debate, we are missing the voice of reason. Some of our leaders link AI to nuclear and pandemic apocalypses. This is not the future I see. I see a technology that will make all of us better people.

Think how much of your daily work is mind-numbing, repetitive and unenjoyable. You will soon have your personal AI assistant, to whom you can hand over your menial tasks, freeing up your mind and your time. The assistant will be entirely under your control. And all children will have personalized AI tutors. The US has started a food fight with Mexico Biden, progressives and the perpetual-emergency presidency

We should all welcome a broad debate about the pros and cons of AI. But let’s not forget that AI is a tool used by people, which derives all of its signs of intelligence from things that other people have written. AI is not a living being that has evolved to survive, but a tool developed by us.

Like a kitchen knife, AI can be used as a tool or as a weapon. Let’s make AI serve for everyone’s benefit, and let’s work hard to prevent abuses.

Sebastian Thrun is an adjunct professor at Stanford and a pioneer in the field of AI. He co-founded Google X, Waymo and Udacity.

Bipartisan bill seeks to deny AI companies liability protections

BY REBECCA KLAR 

THE HILL- 06/14/23 

Photo illustration showing ChatGPT and OpenAI research laboratory logo and inscription on a mobile phone smartphone screen 

(Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A bipartisan bill introduced Wednesday seeks to clarify that artificial intelligence (AI) companies are not eligible for protections that keep tech companies from being held legally responsible for content posted by third parties.

The bill introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) aims to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act with a clause that strips the immunity given to tech companies in cases involving the use of generative AI.

Dubbed the No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act, the legislation would also empower Americans harmed by generative AI models to sue AI companies in federal or state court.

The bill comes as senators weigh proposals to regulate the booming AI industry.

The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the Technology newsletter
Subscribe

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s privacy, technology and law subcommittee, which Blumenthal and Hawley lead, held a hearing last month with the CEO of OpenAI — the maker of ChatGPT — about the risks and potential of AI.

The Judiciary panel has held two further hearings this month on AI: one on intellectual property last week and another on human rights concerns Tuesday.

During the hearings, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle raised concerns around how the controversial Section 230 provision would apply to AI technology.

The proposal is being introduced as the tech industry argues the provision could apply to generative AI content, while some experts and advocacy groups say it will likely not.

Without clarification by Congress, the decision will likely be left to how courts interpret the provision in various cases.

“AI platform accountability is a key principle of a framework for regulation that targets risk and protects the public,” Blumenthal said in a statement.

He said the proposal introduced Wednesday is the “first step in our effort to write the rules of AI and establish safeguards as we enter a new era.”

Both Blumenthal and Hawley are critics of the overarching Section 230 provision that provides legal protection for tech companies, yet a proposal to amend it has not moved forward in Congress amid broader debate over content moderation.

“We can’t make the same mistakes with generative AI as we did with Big Tech on Section 230,” Hawley said in a statement.

“When these new technologies harm innocent people, the companies must be held accountable. Victims deserve their day in court and this bipartisan proposal will make that a reality,” he added.

AI must not become a driver of human rights abuses

It is the responsibility of AI companies to ensure their products do not facilitate violations of human rights.

Eliza Campbell
Technology and inequality researcher with Amnesty International,

Michael Kleinman
Director of Amnesty International’s Silicon Valley Initiative

Published On 13 Jun 2023

More than 350 scientists AI professionals have signed a letter warning of AI's risks for humanity 

On May 30, the Center for AI Safety released a public warning of the risk artificial intelligence poses to humanity. The one-sentence statement signed by more than 350 scientists, business executives and public figures asserts: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

It is hard not to sense the brutal double irony in this declaration.

First, some of the signatories – including the CEOs of Google DeepMind and OpenAI – warning about the end of civilisation represent companies that are responsible for creating this technology in the first place. Second, it is exactly these same companies that have the power to ensure that AI actually benefits humanity, or at the very least does not do harm.

They should heed the advice of the human rights community and adopt immediately a due diligence framework that helps them identify, prevent, and mitigate the potential negative impacts of their products.

While scientists have long warned of the dangers that AI holds, it was not until the recent release of new Generative AI tools, that a larger part of the general public realised the negative consequences it can have.

Generative AI is a broad term, describing “creative” algorithms that can themselves generate new content, including images, text, audio, video and even computer code. These algorithms are trained on massive datasets, and then use that training to create outputs that are often indistinguishable from “real” data – rendering it difficult, if not impossible, to tell if the content was generated by a person, or by an algorithm.

To date, Generative AI products have taken three main forms: tools like ChatGPT which generate text, tools like Dall-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion which generate images, and tools like Codex and Copilot which generate computer code.

The sudden rise of new Generative AI tools has been unprecedented. The ChatGPT chatbot developed by OpenAI took less than two months to reach 100 million users. This far outpaces the initial growth of popular platforms like TikTok, which took nine months to reach as many people.

Throughout history, technology has helped advance human rights but also created harm, often in unpredictable ways. When internet search tools, social media, and mobile technology were first released, and as they grew in widespread adoption and accessibility, it was nearly impossible to predict many of the distressing ways that these transformative technologies became drivers and multipliers of human rights abuses around the world.

Meta’s role in the 2017 ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, for example, or the use of almost undetectable spyware deployed to turn mobile phones into 24-hour surveillance machines used against journalists and human rights defenders, are both consequences of the introduction of disruptive technologies whose social and political implications had not been given serious consideration.

Learning from these developments, the human rights community is calling on companies developing Generative AI products to act immediately to stave off any negative consequences for human rights they may have.

So what might a human rights-based approach to Generative AI look like? There are three steps, based on evidence and examples from the recent past, that we suggest.

First, in order to fulfil their responsibility to respect human rights, they must immediately implement a rigorous human rights due diligence framework, as laid out in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This includes proactive and ongoing due diligence to identify actual and potential harms, transparency regarding these harms, and mitigation and remediation where appropriate.

Second, companies developing these technologies must proactively engage with academics, civil society actors, and community organisations, especially those representing traditionally marginalised communities.

Although we cannot predict all the ways in which this new technology can cause or contribute to harm, we have extensive evidence that marginalised communities are the most likely to suffer the consequences. The initial versions of ChatGPT engaged in racial and gender bias, suggesting, for instance, that Indigenous women are “worth” less than people of other races and genders.

Active engagement with marginalised communities must be part of the product design and policy development processes, to better understand the potential impact of these new tools. This cannot be done after companies have already caused or contributed to harm.

Third, the human rights community itself needs to step up. In the absence of regulation to prevent and mitigate the potentially dangerous effects of Generative AI, human rights organisations should take the lead in identifying actual and potential harm. This means that human rights organisations should themselves help to build a body of deep understanding around these tools and develop research, advocacy, and engagement that anticipate the transformative power of Generative AI.

Complacency in the face of this revolutionary moment is not an option – but neither, for that matter, is cynicism. We all have a stake in ensuring that this powerful new technology is used to benefit humanity. Implementing a human rights-based approach to identifying and responding to harm is a critical first step in this process.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance

.
Eliza Campbell
Technology and inequality researcher with Amnesty International,
Eliza Campbell is a technology and inequality researcher with Amnesty International, focusing on the human rights implications of emerging technologies.

Michael Kleinman
Director of Amnesty International’s Silicon Valley Initiative
Michael Kleinman is the Director of Amnesty International’s Silicon Valley Initiative, helping lead the organisation’s work on the human rights implications of new and emerging technologies.

The case for bottom-up AI

With an open source approach, AI can help us build a more inclusive, innovative, and democratic society.


OPINION
Jovan Kurbalija
Published On 12 Jun 2023

Bottom-up AI challenges the dominant view that powerful AI platforms can be developed only by using big data, as is the case with ChatGPT, Bard, and other large language models, writes Kurbalija [Florence Lo/Reuters]


ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools are rising in popularity. If you have ever used these tools, you might have realised that you are revealing your thoughts (and possibly emotions) through your questions and interactions with the AI platforms. You can therefore imagine the huge amount of data these AI tools are gathering and the patterns that they are able to extract from the way we think.

The impact of these business practices is crystal clear: a new AI economy is emerging through collecting, codifying, and monetising the patterns derived from our thoughts and feelings. Intrusions into our intimacy and cognition will be much greater than with existing social media and tech platforms.

We, therefore, risk becoming victims of “knowledge slavery” where corporate and/or government AI monopolies control our access to our knowledge.

Let us not permit this. We have “owned” our thinking patterns since time immemorial, we should also own those derived automatically via AI. And we can do it!

One way to ensure that we remain in control is through the development of bottom-up AI, which is both technically possible and ethically desirable. Bottom-up AI can emerge through an open source approach, with a focus on high-quality data.

Open source approach: The technical basis for bottom-up AI

Bottom-up AI challenges the dominant view that powerful AI platforms can be developed only by using big data, as is the case with ChatGPT, Bard, and other large language models (LLMs).

According to a leaked document from Google titled “We have no Moat, and Neither Does OpenAI”, open source AI could outcompete giant models such as ChatGPT.

As a matter of fact, it is already happening. Open source platforms Vicuna, Alpaca, and LLama are getting closer in quality to ChatGPT and Bard, the leading proprietary AI platforms, as illustrated below.

Open source solutions are also more cost-effective. According to Google’s leaked document: “They are doing things with $100 and 13B params that we struggle with at $10M and 540B. And they are doing so in weeks, not months.”

Open source solutions are also faster, more modular, and greener in the sense that they demand less energy for data processing.

As algorithms for bottom-up AI become increasingly available, the focus is shifting to ensuring higher quality of data. Currently, the algorithms are fine-tuned mainly manually through data labelling performed mainly in low-cost English-speaking countries such as India and Kenya. For example, ChatGPT datasets are annotated in Kenya. This practice is not sustainable as it raises many questions related to labour law and data protection. It also cannot provide in-depth expertise, which is critical for the development of new AI systems.

At Diplo, the organisation I lead, we have been successfully experimenting with an approach that integrates data labelling into our daily operations, from research to training and management. Analogous to yellow markers and post-its, we annotate text digitally as we run courses, conduct research or develop projects. Through interactions around text, we gradually build bottom-up AI.

The main barrier in this bottom-up process is not technology but cognitive habits that often favour control over knowledge and information sharing. Based on our experience at Diplo, by sharing thoughts and opinions on the same texts and issues, we gradually increase cognitive proximity not only among us colleagues as humans, but also between us humans and AI algorithms. This way, while building bottom-up AI, we have also nurtured a new type of organisation which is not only accommodating the use of AI but also changing the way we work together.

How will bottom-up AI affect AI governance?

ChatGPT triggered major governance fears, including a call by Elon Musk, Yuval Harari and thousands of leading scientists to pause AI development on account of big AI models triggering major risks for society, including high concentrations of market, cognitive, and societal power. Most of these fears and concerns could be addressed by bottom-up AI, which returns AI to citizens and communities.

By fostering bottom-up AI, many governance problems triggered by ChatGPT might be resolved through the mere prevention of data and knowledge monopolies. We will be developing our AI based on our data, which will ensure privacy and data protection. As we have control over our AI systems, we will also have control over intellectual property. In a bottom-up manner, we can decide when to contribute their AI patterns to wider organisations, from communities to countries and the whole of humanity.

Thus, many AI-related fears, including those raised in relation to the very survival of humanity (leaving aside whether they are realistic or not), will become less prominent by our ownership of AI and knowledge patterns.

Bottom-up AI will be essential for developing an inclusive, innovative, and democratic society. It can mitigate the risks of power centralisation, which is inherited from generative AI. Current legal, policy, and market mechanisms cannot deal with the risk of knowledge monopolies of generative AI. Thus, bottom-up AI is a practical way to foster a new societal “operating system” built around the centrality of human beings, their dignity, free will, and realising creative potential, as Diplo proposed via our humAInism approach, we began developing back in 2019.
Will bottom-up AI take off?

Technological solutions for bottom-up AI are feasible today. Will we use them as an alternative to top-down AI? For the time being, it remains anyone’s guess. Some individuals and communities may have more incentives and abilities to experiment with bottom-up AI than others. Some may continue to rely on top-down AI out of sheer inertia. And the two approaches may even co-exist. But we owe it to ourselves and to humanity to question what is being served to us, and to both explore and encourage alternatives. And, ultimately, to make informed decisions.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.    

Jovan Kurbalija
Founding Director of the DiploFoundation and Head of the Geneva Internet Platform
Jovan Kurbalija is the Founding Director of the DiploFoundation and Head of the Geneva Internet Platform. He previously served as Executive Director of the UN High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation (2018-2019). Kurbalija has been a leading expert on the impact of AI and digitalisation on diplomacy and modern society. His book ‘Introduction to Internet Governance’, translated into 11 languages, is a textbook at many universities worldwide.

How Biden’s big investments spurred a factory boom

BY TOBIAS BURNS 

THE HILL

- 06/13/23 

A surge in manufacturing construction across the country is grabbing the attention of economists and workers on the ground as legislative efforts to reinvigorate the U.S. industrial base are bearing fruit.

Experts say these changes have been long-awaited, and they represent a watershed moment for U.S. heavy industry and a shift toward more environmentally friendly methods of production amid an ongoing climate emergency.


“We waited for so long to have these kinds of initiatives,” Miki Banu, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, told The Hill. “This is probably the first time in my life when I’ve seen so many resources become available, which are able to let us put our ideas into practice.”

Annual spending on manufacturing construction held somewhat steady during the 2010s, generally keeping within the range of $50 billion to $80 billion, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Levels were lower and the range of spending tighter in the decade before.

But following the passage of three large-scale economic packages loaded with tax incentives and direct funding for industrial projects and operations, investment in manufacturing construction shot up to $189 billion in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, more than doubling pre-pandemic levels.
Factory boom sets off hiring frenzy

According to new experimental data from the Census Bureau, the construction build-out has happened especially fast in the Mountain division of the West region in the country, which includes states like Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. The South Central divisions, which is where the most manufacturing construction happens in the U.S., have also seen a marked rise.

Construction workers say there is more manufacturing activity happening in these regions than they’re currently prepared to handle.

“Honest to goodness, [the top of my agenda] is finding and training qualified manpower, because that’s what’s needed. We don’t have enough,” Courtenay Eichhorst, president of the New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council, told The Hill.

“If somebody tells me they need a welder who can do X, Y and Z right now in the state of New Mexico, everybody that has those qualifications is already working.”

Eichhorst said he was working to meet the demands of companies including Facebook and Intel, as well the Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories.
Big federal investments are paying off

The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law along with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and CHIPS and Science Act, both passed in 2022, are the main drivers behind the construction boom, economists say.

A portfolio of 21 manufacturing and recycling projects for the battery industry funded by $2.8 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the Department of Energy shows the kinds of facilities that are being primed for additional capital expenditures.

“The Inflation Reduction Act’s advanced manufacturing tax incentives provide a long-term investment signal for critical mineral processing and battery production, and the structure of the [IRA’s] tax credits for electric vehicles depends on domestic assembly and domestic batteries,” Trevor Higgins, a vice president at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, testified to Congress earlier this year.

The incentives to reshape industrial production and operation in the U.S. included in the various legislative packages go beyond plant construction and are aimed at retrofitting existing technology pipelines and processes to make them better for the environment.

Heating and cooling systems in commercial and residential buildings that eliminate natural gas are one such area of focus. Technicians and construction workers who can help building owners secure federal rebates offered in the IRA are also in critically high demand.

“The Inflation Reduction Act has a huge part that focuses on heat pump systems,” Joan Baker, the political affairs director of the United Association Local 412 plumbers and pipefitters union in New Mexico, told The Hill.

“As far as heating, cooling and ventilation technicians go, we in New Mexico have been in a pinch for those particular trades,” Baker said.

Domestic manufacturing plays key foreign policy role

Initiatives to reshore U.S. manufacturing jobs in the wake of geopolitical tensions fanned by the coronavirus pandemic have been a key focus for senior Biden administration officials.

This has been especially true for the semiconductor industry, which experienced a major shortage following the pandemic. The semiconductor industry’s concentration in traditional East Asian manufacturing hubs like Taiwan helped to spur the passage of the CHIPS Act over concerns about the territorial ambitions of China, the U.S.’s main economic rival.

But even larger-scale trends in the international economy and growing dissatisfaction with global trade may be providing tailwinds to the U.S. construction manufacturing bonanza.

A speech in April by national security adviser Jake Sullivan revisited the theme of “industrial policy” — a term that went out of fashion in the 1990s as free trade agreements starting with NAFTA and culminating in the World Trade Organization (WTO) stepped into the limelight.

“We are not walking away from the WTO, but the WTO needs fundamental reform to account for … the presence of this massive non-market economy that just has a different structure to it,” Sullivan said, referring to China. “We can’t wait for WTO reform. We have to be pursuing a range of other strategies to deal with the fact of China as it is.”

While the manufacturing construction boom may hearken to the era of U.S. industrial policy, it’s too soon to declare a fundamentally new direction for the U.S. economy, which is still overwhelmingly service-based.

More than 71 percent of nonfarm payrolls are held by private service-providing employees, with the biggest subdivisions including transportation and warehousing, health care, retail and professional services. Manufacturing accounts for less than 10 percent of the U.S. workforce, down from more than a quarter in 1970.

It’s also too soon to assess the impact of the new production methods on the destruction of Earth’s climate, which grows increasingly urgent and multivariate. Phenomena including mass extinction, deforestation and land degradation, rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, mass migration and human displacement, and entrenched pollution are all factors raising tough questions for all industries.

Whether industrial production writ large can be reconciled with the long-term health of the climate has yet to be demonstrated at scale, but economists are hopeful.

“I think it’s not a conflict if it’s developed in a smart way,” the University of Michigan’s Banu said. “If smart businesses can realize that expanding their manufacturing products and bringing in underdeveloped areas into the process chain — this will help.”

$400B in pandemic aid possibly stolen, improperly distributed: AP investigation 

BY LAUREN SFORZA - 06/12/23 

Greg Nash

An investigation by The Associated Press found that more than $400 billion in federal emergency pandemic aid was possibly stolen or wasted.

The Trump and Biden administrations approved a combined $5.2 trillion in COVID-19 relief funding, the AP noted. Its analysis estimated that fraudsters stole about $280 billion in pandemic aid, and another $123 billion was wasted or misspent, combining to roughly 10 percent of the $4.2 trillion already disbursed by the government.

The Justice Department established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force in 2021 to investigate fraud in emergency pandemic spending. The AP analysis noted that more than 2,230 defendants have been charged in connection with pandemic-related fraud crimes.

Michael Horowitz, the inspector general who chaired the federal Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, told Congress last year the fraud is “clearly in the tens of billions of dollars.” He said at the time that the total could eventually exceed more than $100 billion.

“I’m hesitant to get too far out on how much it is,” he told the AP recently. “But clearly it’s substantial and the final accounting is still at least a couple of years away.”

The Small Business Administration spearheaded two significant pandemic relief aid initiatives, the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan and Paycheck Protection programs. These programs were responsible for doling out billions in aid but did not include key safety nets meant to protect the programs from fraud schemes, like allowing borrowers to “self-certify” their applications, the analysis said.

The AP’s analysis said the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan and Paycheck Protection programs lost $86 billion and $20 billion, respectively, to fraud.

Gene Sperling, the White House American Rescue Plan coordinator, told the news service the loss total “emanates overwhelmingly from three programs that were designed and originated in 2020 with too many large holes that opened the door to criminal fraud.”

“We came into office when the largest amounts of fraud were already out of the barn,” Sperling added.

Earlier this year, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee group issued a report that found nearly 70,000 “questionable” Social Security numbers were used to obtain federal loans from these programs.

In March, President Biden introduced a three-part proposal to combat pandemic-related fraud. His proposal included ramping up investigations to prosecute those who engaged in fraudulent schemes, investing in fraud protection and helping victims of identity theft.

Claims that UFO information was inappropriately withheld from Congress deemed ‘credible,’ ‘urgent’

BY MARIK VON RENNENKAMPFF, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/09/23 


Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct misleading assertions about the nature of the intelligence community inspector general’s findings. We regret the error.

According to explosive reporting, and a subsequent clarification, the powerful internal investigative body that oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies found a whistleblower’s assertion that UFO-related information was inappropriately concealed from Congress “urgent and credible.”

Beyond this stunning revelation, the whistleblower – a former high-level intelligence official – was represented until recently by a lawyer who served previously as the intelligence community’s first inspector general, a Senate-confirmed position. The managing partner of the law firm representing the whistleblower reportedly co-signed the complaint submitted to the current intelligence community inspector general.

In a June 9 press release, the firm that formerly represented the whistleblower clarified that it “took no position and takes no position” on the substance of the explosive information provided to the intelligence community inspector general, which the whistleblower “has now publicly characterized.”

Importantly, current and former officials vouched for the whistleblower, David Grusch, while also corroborating the broad outlines of his allegations. Moreover, Grusch spoke to Congress for hours, generating hundreds of pages of transcripts. Grusch also gave an exclusive interview to Ross Coulthart of NewsNation, which like The Hill is owned by Nexstar Media Group.

For their part, Grusch and other knowledgeable individuals who have spoken to investigators seem to have little incentive to lie. “Knowingly and willfully making false statements” to the intelligence community inspector general carries the risk of financial penalties and imprisonment.

The facts enumerated above should, on their face, captivate every newsroom and living room in America. But there are reasons to be skeptical.

For one, Grusch has not provided proof of his allegations. Similarly, the notion that such monumental revelations could remain secret for any appreciable amount of time strains credulity.


In a statement to NewsNation, the Department of Defense denied that the Pentagon’s new UFO office has uncovered the sort of activity alleged by Grusch.

According to Grusch, the evidence supporting his allegations is highly classified, a reasonable claim. However, logic suggests that, given the profound nature of the allegations, the classified evidence [that] Grusch provided to Congress and two inspectors general [alleging that UFO information was improperly withheld] would have to have been robust, detailed and substantiated by other knowledgeable individuals for the intelligence community watchdog to deem his claims “credible and urgent.”

To be sure, Grusch could have conducted a Daniel Ellsberg-style leak of highly classified information. But from what is known publicly, Grusch is making use of the well-established, legally protected whistleblower process. By honoring his commitment not to divulge classified information improperly, Grusch appears to be proceeding “by the book.” As a former top secret security clearance holder, I can certainly respect this decision.


With the House Oversight Committee vowing to hold a hearing, it is now up to congressional staff and the relevant inspectors general to adjudicate their investigations based on the evidence presented by Grusch and, as noted, reportedly corroborated by individuals involved in the alleged program.

Some of those individuals appear to have spoken in detail with author and political commentator Michael Shellenberger. As Shellenberger writes, numerous current and former officials confirmed the outlines of Grusch’s explosive allegations. The officials also provided context and descriptions of the vehicles allegedly recovered by the surreptitious UFO retrieval and reverse engineering effort.

If Grusch’s allegations are ultimately substantiated, how could such a monumental, earth-shattering development have remained secret for so long? This is a perplexing question which, based on my experience in government, left me deeply skeptical of long-standing rumors of the existence of such activities. While only a thorough, objective investigation will answer this question, it is plausible that the many individuals necessarily on the margins of such alleged efforts were led to believe that they were recovering terrestrial, as opposed to more exotic, vehicles.

Earlier this week, the Department of Defense released a statement in response to Grusch’s stunning allegations. According to the department, the Pentagon’s new UFO office “has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”

However, this may be clever wordsmithing. Grusch claims that staff of previous UFO analysis programs were not “read in” — that is, given access — to information regarding the kind of activities that he and others allege exist. As such, it is conceivable that, like its predecessor organizations, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (the Defense Department’s current UFO analysis effort) is simply not privy to the alleged program.

Of note, Grusch’s striking statements about the retrieval of “exotic” craft of “non-human” origin were reportedly approved by the Pentagon’s pre-publication review office, which scrutinizes books, movie scripts and statements by former officials to ensure that no sensitive information is inadvertently disclosed. Some critics have questioned how, if such information is so highly classified, the Pentagon cleared Grusch to make these explosive statements.

However, logic suggests that if a UFO retrieval and exploitation effort operated illegally, as is alleged, it would be unknown to the Pentagon’s censors. After all, if the pre-publication review office were “read in” to such activities, it would likely have been exposed long ago.AI gets political: How do we keep fake news out of campaign ads?The US is losing the Global South: How to reverse course

Key national security-focused members of Congress seem to have found explosive allegations of illegal UFO crash retrieval activities credible. A major defense bill, signed by President Biden in December, establishes robust whistleblower protections for individuals with knowledge of UFO programs engaged in “material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering [and] research and development.”

Federal law now bears the unmistakable imprint of individuals committed to exposing what they are convinced is a profound and long-concealed truth.


Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense.TAGS ALIENS UAP UFO

France exposes mega Russian disinformation campaign

The Kremlin is undermining ‘conditions for democratic debate,’ says French foreign minister.

The disinformation campaign consisted of spreading pro-Russian content and impersonating various media outlets 

| Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

BY LAURA KAYALI AND CLEA CAULCUTT
JUNE 13, 2023 

PARIS — France has uncovered a wide-ranging Russian disinformation campaign to undermine Western support to Ukraine, the country's agency in charge of spotting foreign interference online announced today.

"The involvement of Russian embassies and cultural centers that actively participated in amplifying this campaign, including via their institutional accounts on social networks, is a further illustration of the hybrid strategy Russia is implementing to undermine the conditions for democratic debate," French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said, according to Agence France-Presse.

According to agency Viginum's report, the campaign consisted of spreading pro-Russian content; impersonating media such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and Le Parisien, as well as government websites including France's ministry of European and foreign affairs; creating websites on francophone news with polarizing angles; and coordinating fake accounts to spread the content created.

The disinformation campaign was named Reliable Recent News, after the pro-Russian website. It's the second wave of the so-called Doppelgänger operation which was uncovered last year by NGO EU DisinfoLab and Meta, AFP reported, adding that German media such as FAZ, Der Spiegel and Bild were also targeted.

Despite the shutdown of Kremlin-backed outlets RT and Sputnik, Russian disinformation is still spreading across EU countries. Earlier this month, Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová told POLITICO that Russian narratives are finding fertile ground in her country.

The main narratives pushed by the disinformation campaign are the ineffectiveness of sanctions against Russia; the alleged Russophobia of Western states; the supposed predominance of Nazi ideology among Ukrainian officials; and the negative effects of welcoming Ukrainian refugees for European countries.

In 2021, France created an agency — Viginum — to spot manipulation of information coming from outside the country, which is under the secretariat-general for defence and security's authority.