New research documents the rising economic burden of US firearm injuries and deaths

An in-depth analysis of costs associated with US fatal and nonfatal firearm injuries conducted by investigators at CDC and reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine revealed a 16% increase in 2020 compared with 2019

Peer-Reviewed Publication

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FROM 2029 TO 2020, THE COST OF FIREARM DEATHS INCREASED 16% WITH NON-HISPANIC BLACK PERSONS, MALES, YOUNG AND MIDDLE-AGED ADULTS EXPERIENCING THE LARGEST INCREASE.

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CREDIT: CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

Ann Arbor, November 27, 2023 – The economic impact of fatal and nonfatal firearm injuries in the United States increased by 16% in 2020 compared with 2019, according to new research reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier. The study also provides evidence of significant disparities in costs associated with firearm deaths in 2019−2020, with non-Hispanic Black individuals, males, and young and middle-aged groups being most affected, along with those who reside in urban areas and the South.

Firearm-related injuries are among the five leading causes of death for people one to 44 years of age in the United States. These fatal and nonfatal injuries take a human toll on individuals, families, and communities—and come at a high economic cost to the nation.

Investigators at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed data from the following data sources to provide estimates of the economic burden of fatal and nonfatal firearm injuries in the United States in 2020: 2019−2020 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) database, the most recent data available; and the 2019−2020 multiple cause-of-death mortality data from the restricted-use National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). The majority of nonfatal costs are attributed to hospitalization, while fatal costs are largely attributable to value of lives lost. Previous estimates have not included person-specific measures like lost quality of life and lives lost, which heavily impact the economic burden.

Lead investigator, Gabrielle F. Miller, Health Scientist, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at CDC, Atlanta, elaborated, “The bulk of the costs associated with firearm injuries across all demographic and geographic categories does not come from the medical costs, but rather from lost quality of life and lives lost.”

Key findings from this analysis include:

• The total cost of firearm-related injuries and deaths in the United States for 2020 was $493.2 billion, a 16% increase compared with 2019.

• The cost of fatal firearm injuries vastly outweighs the cost of nonfatal firearm injuries.

• Nonfatal firearm injuries costs increased from $7.58 billion in 2019 to $9.30 billion in 2020.
• Fatal firearm injuries costs increased from $418.88 billion in 2019 to $483.90 billion in 2020.

• There were significant disparities in the cost of firearm related injuries and deaths in 2019−2020 by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and geographic location, including:

• Non-Hispanic Black people, males, young and middle-aged adults experienced the largest increases in costs related to firearm deaths.
• Urban areas and the South had higher costs than rural areas and the Northeast, Midwest, and West regions.
• For firearm homicide, the highest costs were borne by non-Hispanic Black people in 2019−2020, whereas for firearm suicide the highest costs were borne by non-Hispanic White people.

• Suicide accounted for about half of the total cost of fatal firearm injuries while assaults accounted for close to 1005 of the total cost of nonfatal firearm injuries.

James A. Mercy, PhD, Director, Division of Violence Prevention, CDC, Atlanta, added, “The human toll of firearm injuries and deaths in our nation is vast and cannot be fully captured by these economic costs. Nevertheless, these costs are a valuable tool for measuring the economic benefit of the many strategies available that work to prevent firearm deaths and injuries.”

Interventions and preventive measures include reducing access to lethal means among individuals at risk of harming themselves or others, strengthening economic supports and access to health and mental health care, education, and social services, and addressing systemic and structural inequities.

Dr. Miller noted, “Continued prevention efforts can reduce the costs to our society and ease the risks and inequities of the costs associated with firearm injuries and deaths.” 

CDC investigates injuries and violence to find the best ways to prevent firearm violence and suicide, applying science and creating real-world solutions to keep people safe, healthy, and productive. Understanding the economic burden that the immediate and long-term harms of firearm injuries pose on society tells us about the impact of injury prevention.

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.amepre.2023.09.026 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Costs of Fatal and Nonfatal Firearm Injuries in the U.S., 2019 and 2020

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Nov-2023

Characteristics and obtainment methods of firearms used in adolescent school shootings

JAMA Pediatrics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: School shooting incidents in the U.S. were typically executed using low- and moderate-powered firearms, according to this analysis of data from 262 adolescents who discharged firearms in 253 school shootings spanning 26 years. These weapons were most frequently stolen from family members or relatives of the perpetrators. These findings may significantly influence discussions around gun control policy, particularly in advocating for secure firearm storage to reduce adolescents’ access to weapons. 

Authors: Brent R. Klein, Ph.D., of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: 

 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.5093?guestAccessKey=8eea46f0-4c80-408d-9e19-4def3e4a7ec0&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=112723

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JOURNAL

JAMA Pediatrics

 

Gig workers saw greater financial hardship during COVID-19 compared to other workers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO

Many gig workers experienced financial hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic, including food insecurity and trouble paying bills, according to a recent study published in Work and Occupations.

“In a nutshell, our study shows gig workers were harmed more by the COVID-19 pandemic than any other workers,” said Dr. Mathieu Despard, a co-author on the paper and faculty member in UNC Greensboro’s Department of Social Work.

Despard – who collaborated closely with first author Daniel Auguste at Florida Atlantic University and co-author Stephen Roll at Washington University in St. Louis – said the findings challenge the popular premise in the United States that gig work provides a sustainable alternative to traditional employment.

These results suggest that gig working can make it tricky for these individuals to make financial ends meet, said Despard.

“We have this very romantic narrative in this country that we’re the land of opportunity. If you want to start your own business, you can go for it. But when you peel that narrative back, you begin to realize that people who are doing gig work are often struggling for economic survival.”

The scientists found that about 33% of surveyed gig workers experienced food insecurity, 12% had skipped housing payments, and 33% had unpaid credit card findings between April 2020 and June 2021. Economic hardships were more pronounced for gig workers who had children, those with less savings, and those who worked multiple gig jobs.

Despard says that the unreliable nature of gig work can help explain why many experience more financial difficulty. For example, a food delivery driver may have one busy night followed by a day with little work. “This introduces unpredictable volatility, which can make it difficult to pay your bills and plan ahead,” he says.  

Their findings are relevant to the approximately 15% of Americans who have gig worked at some point, according to the PEW Research Center.

A strength of the new study is the robust sample of gig workers, says Despard. The Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis’s Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 Survey includes responses from 4,756 workers from a range of ages, income, genders, and race and ethnicities. Approximately 29% of respondents had engaged in gig work in the three months before they were surveyed.

“It’s a rigorous survey, and the respondents looked like the U.S. population,” Despard says. “The data is nationally representative.”

Despard says his research is, in general, driven by a desire to better understand the structural barriers that prevent Americans from reaching their financial goals.

“The bottom line is that it should not be this difficult for people to meet their basic needs because it has a toll on their mental health, a toll on their physical health, and it takes time away from their families,” Despard says.

Many gig workers experienced financial hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic, including food insecurity and trouble paying bills, according to a recent study published in Work and Occupations.

“In a nutshell, our study shows gig workers were harmed more by the COVID-19 pandemic than any other workers,” said Dr. Mathieu Despard, a co-author on the paper and faculty member in UNC Greensboro’s Department of Social Work.

Despard – who collaborated closely with first author Daniel Auguste at Florida Atlantic University and co-author Stephen Roll at Washington University in St. Louis – said the findings challenge the popular premise in the United States that gig work provides a sustainable alternative to traditional employment.

These results suggest that gig working can make it tricky for these individuals to make financial ends meet, said Despard.

“We have this very romantic narrative in this country that we’re the land of opportunity. If you want to start your own business, you can go for it. But when you peel that narrative back, you begin to realize that people who are doing gig work are often struggling for economic survival.”

The scientists found that about 33% of surveyed gig workers experienced food insecurity, 12% had skipped housing payments, and 33% had unpaid credit card findings between April 2020 and June 2021. Economic hardships were more pronounced for gig workers who had children, those with less savings, and those who worked multiple gig jobs.

Despard says that the unreliable nature of gig work can help explain why many experience more financial difficulty. For example, a food delivery driver may have one busy night followed by a day with little work. “This introduces unpredictable volatility, which can make it difficult to pay your bills and plan ahead,” he says.  

Their findings are relevant to the approximately 15% of Americans who have gig worked at some point, according to the PEW Research Center.

A strength of the new study is the robust sample of gig workers, says Despard. The Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis’s Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 Survey includes responses from 4,756 workers from a range of ages, income, genders, and race and ethnicities. Approximately 29% of respondents had engaged in gig work in the three months before they were surveyed.

“It’s a rigorous survey, and the respondents looked like the U.S. population,” Despard says. “The data is nationally representative.”

Despard says his research is, in general, driven by a desire to better understand the structural barriers that prevent Americans from reaching their financial goals.

“The bottom line is that it should not be this difficult for people to meet their basic needs because it has a toll on their mental health, a toll on their physical health, and it takes time away from their families,” Despard says.

 

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JOURNAL

Work and Occupations

DOI

10.1177/073088842312020 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Democratizing the Economy or Introducing Economic Risk? Gig Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic

 

Hacking the Infocomms Department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Katyusha and the secrets of General Konashenkov

on 11/27/2023 | | Cyber Resistance | News | Russian-Ukrainian war 

Ukrainian hacktivists of the Cyber Resistance group penetrated the Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Russian Ministry of Defense (DIMC) and handed over unique internal documentation and provided access to the software used by Russian military propagandists to InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community.

The DIMC is the realm of the notorious Igor Konashenkov, the spokesperson who is daily voicing Russian reports from the combat zone. In the Ukrainian eyes, Igor Konashenkov has long become a walking meme, as it was, he who day after day rattled out the phrase “there are no losses” during the first weeks of the invasion and claimed thousands of destroyed Ukrainian tanks – more than Ukraine had before the invasion.

LONG READ MULTI MEDIA SITE CONTINUE READING HERE

Hacking the Infocomms Department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Katyusha and the secrets of General Konashenkov (informnapalm.org)

 CANADA

Indian consular camps in Surrey go ahead despite heavy protests

ByAnirudh Bhattacharyya, Toronto

Nov 27, 2023 

Devotees and members of the Indo-Canadian community in the town of Surrey in British Columbia confronted pro-Khalistan elements who had come to protest a consular camp at the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir on Sunday.

Devotees and members of the Indo-Canadian community in the town of Surrey in British Columbia confronted pro-Khalistan elements who had come to protest a consular camp at the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir on Sunday.

Devotees and community members at the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir in Surrey, British Columbia, facing off against pro-Khalistan elements gathered there to protest against a consular camp organised by India’s Consulate in Vancouver at the temple on Sunday.

According to temple officials nearly 200 counter-protestors faced off for over three hours against the pro-Khalistan protest, which had been called by the secessionist group Sikhs for Justice or SFJ.

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Temple president Satish Kumar said, referring to the consular camp organised at the temple, “Everything ran very smoothly.”

“They had about 25 protestors and we had nearly 200,” he added.

The two groups faced off across the road in front of the temple as Surrey Police deployed nearly 20 personnel to keep them apart.

“The way they had given us an ultimatum, we were ready to face them. They never expected we were prepared to give them a taste of their own medicine,” temple council chair Parshotam Goel said.

“If the consulate needs to deliver services to the community, we will welcome them, regardless of the threat. We are not going to get intimidated and we’re not going to take it lying down,” he stressed.

After almost three hours of the confrontation, police officers at the venue intervened to disperse the two groups. Police also prevented masked Khalistani elements in a vehicle from disrupting the camp, which had been organized by India’s Consulate in Vancouver.

Earlier in the day, the temple posted on social media, “Mandir Attack. Come and Save.”

SFJ has warned the Hindu community to “stop sponsoring” the killers of the its principal in the province Hardeep Singh Nijjar. He was killed on June 18 in Surrey.

Nijjar’s killing led to a rupture in relations with India after Trudeau’s statement in the House of Commons on September 18 that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between his murder and Indian agents. Part of the information that led to that statement came from the US. India had described those allegations as “absurd” and “motivated.”

Canada has sought India’s cooperation in the investigation being conducted by the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team or IHIT in BC but India has said it has been provided with no evidence to support Ottawa’s allegations.

There were similar protests at a consular camp organised by India’s Consulate in Toronto at the Toronto Kali Bari in the town of Mississauga in the Greater Toronto Area or GTA. However, the Consulate posted on X that camps held over the weekend at five locations in Ontario were successful with nearly 900 life certificates issued to pensioners and queries of the community answered.

Similar camps were also held at six locations in Canada the previous weekend, under heavy police presence due to the threat to disruption by pro-Khalistan elements.

Such camps are organised in areas with large Indo-Canadian populations so that the elderly do not have make the journey to India’s missions in Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver for the purpose.

Priced out by imports, Ghana’s farmers risk death to work in Italy

Farmers in Ghana say cheap Italian tomatoes are ruining their businesses. Many have travelled to seek work abroad

Sam Okyere
27 November 2023

An officer gives instructions to migrants waiting to board a plane at Lampedusa airport, Italy |
Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images | All rights reserved

Adu Poku was a farmer in Ghana. It was all he’d ever known. The maize, okra and tomatoes he grew had brought in enough money to pay for his wedding, and to prepare for the birth of his twins. But then everything changed.

A mining company came and took over most of his land, and what he grew on the patch he had left was no longer enough to make ends meet. Cheap tomatoes from Italy had flooded the market and driven prices down. Most people in the area were struggling, and few could still afford to eat the more expensive local produce. If Adu kept farming, he was afraid he was going to starve.

He heard that people were travelling to Italy, and there they were earning enough to keep their families alive back in Ghana. He decided he had no choice but to try his luck as well. What happens after such a decision is made is the focus of this series.

Adu is one of six Ghanaians who tell the story of their attempt to get Europe. All risked death in search of a better future, and many of them witnessed their travelling companions die along the way. These six men are still alive to tell us what they saw.
The economics of survival

This series sheds light on how, in the age of globalisation, agricultural exports from rich countries impact livelihoods and migration in poorer ones.

We’re not the first to report on stories like this. The documentary Displaced: Tomatoes and Greed from Deutsche Welle and the results of the Modern Marronage research project both corroborate the series’ main point. But here you will hear it straight from the people experiencing it, in their own words. Their message is simple: people are leaving Ghana’s Bono region, once the country’s bread basket, because canned and frozen foods from abroad are causing their farms to fail.

People are leaving Ghana because canned and frozen foods from abroad are causing their farms to fail

For them, the taste of this is made more bitter by what happens next. Farming is what these men know, so in Europe they often end up producing the products that had made their livelihoods unviable in the first place. They become the problem they’re trying to escape. On top of all this, their lack of papers makes them highly vulnerable in Europe. Exploitation, violence, dismal living and working conditions, precarity, and deportation are all commonplace for people in their position. All our contributors who made it were eventually detained and sent back. Getting their security back isn’t part of the bargain, despite the risks they take to get it.

That is, if they get there. Many never make it all the way. For several of our contributors, the journey ended in Libya, where they were arrested after failing in their attempts to cross the sea. They describe their time in detention as “torture”, but what they had experienced up until that point wasn’t much better. In order to pay for their sea crossing, most had spent weeks, months, sometimes even years labouring on construction sites, trying to save money while running the gauntlet of abusive employers, kidnappers, robbers, and armed actors every single day.

Simplified illustration of the journey from Ghana to Italy and 'voluntary return' |
Base map from freevectormaps.com

Giving in to ‘voluntary return’

Once caught, all our contributors eventually chose to be ‘voluntarily returned’ to Ghana. Usually this is done by the International Organization for Migration – the UN body in charge of coordinating such repatriations. What they say about that experience highlights the ethically ambiguous nature of the idea.

Voluntary returns are often presented as humanitarian. Proponents say they are good because they help people exit bad situations, even if they take migrants away from their goal rather than toward it. And to make that easier to accept, coordinators often offer migrants various kinds of support if they cooperate. This can include work and skills training, as well as capital to start small businesses or to invest in old ones.

Researchers have long argued that migrants’ experiences of voluntary return are often very different to what is being advertised. Our contributors confirm this.

Returning people to a problem is not a solution.

To start with, they take issue with how the whole process is framed. They say that ‘voluntary’ is a strange word to use when their only alternative is continued detention in Italy or abuse by their Libyan jailers. That is a choice in name only, rather than saying ‘yes’ to something they want.

They also believe they were misled – they claim they were offered substantially more help than they ended up receiving. They got a plane trip to Ghana and a bus ticket back to their home villages, but not the support for a fresh start that they believe they were promised. As a result, most returned worse off to the same situation they had left.

Except for getting out of jail, nothing had been solved by voluntary return. Instead, it had exacerbated the challenges. Even after they were back for a year, our contributors said they were still facing worse socio-economic economic hardship, marginalisation, and vulnerability than before they first decided to travel. And the only solution they could see for that is more travel.

Returning people back to an on-going problem isn’t a solution. Our contributors call instead for safe and accessible travel options, equal rights, and dignity for all. They also call for their home government, the international system, and the EU to change practices and policies so that a dignified life at home is possible.

I left Ghana to farm in Italy. I was exploited in both places

FASCISM COMES TO AMERIKA
Trump hints at expanded role for the military within the U.S. A legacy law gives him few guardrails

GARY FIELDS
WASHINGTON
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

In this June 1, 2020 file photo, then-U.S. President Donald Trump departs the White House in Washington.

PATRICK SEMANSKY/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Campaigning in Iowa this year, Donald Trump said he was prevented during his presidency from using the military to quell violence in primarily Democratic cities and states.

Calling New York City and Chicago “crime dens,” the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination told his audience, “The next time, I’m not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it and we’re going to show how bad a job they do,” he said. “Well, we did that. We don’t have to wait any longer.”

Trump has not spelled out precisely how he might use the military during a second term, although he and his advisers have suggested they would have wide latitude to call up units. While deploying the military regularly within the country’s borders would be a departure from tradition, the former president already has signalled an aggressive agenda if he wins, from mass deportations to travel bans imposed on certain Muslim-majority countries.

A law first crafted in the nation’s infancy would give Trump as commander in chief almost unfettered power to do so, military and legal experts said in a series of interviews.

The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call on reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by the courts. One of its few guardrails merely requires the president to request that the participants disperse.

“The principal constraint on the president’s use of the Insurrection Act is basically political, that presidents don’t want to be the guy who sent tanks rolling down Main Street,” said Joseph Nunn, a national security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice. “There’s not much really in the law to stay the president’s hand.”

A spokesman for Trump’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment about what authority Trump might use to pursue his plans.

Donald Trump is telling the world who he is. We need to listen

Congress passed the act in 1792, just four years after the Constitution was ratified. Nunn said it’s an amalgamation of different statutes enacted between then and the 1870s, a time when there was little in the way of local law enforcement.

“It is a law that in many ways was created for a country that doesn’t exist any more,” he said.

It also is one of the most substantial exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits using the military for law enforcement purposes.

Trump has spoken openly about his plans should he win the presidency, including using the military at the border and in cities struggling with violent crime. His plans also have included using the military against foreign drug cartels, a view echoed by other Republican primary candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor.

The threats have raised questions about the meaning of military oaths, presidential power and who Trump could appoint to support his approach.

Trump already has suggested he might bring back retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as Trump’s national security adviser and twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during its Russian influence probe before being pardoned by Trump. Flynn suggested in the aftermath of the 2020 election that Trump could seize voting machines and order the military in some states to help rerun the election.

Attempts to invoke the Insurrection Act and use the military for domestic policing would likely elicit pushback from the Pentagon, where the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is Gen. Charles Q. Brown. He was one of the eight members of the Joint Chiefs who signed a memo to military personnel in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The memo emphasized the oaths they took and called the events of that day, which were intended to stop certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, “sedition and insurrection.”

Trump and his party nevertheless retain wide support among those who have served in the military. AP VoteCast, an in-depth survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide, showed that 59% of U.S. military veterans voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election. In the 2022 midterms, 57% of military veterans supported Republican candidates.

Presidents have issued a total of 40 proclamations invoking the law, some of those done multiple times for the same crisis, Nunn said. Lyndon Johnson invoked it three times – in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington – in response to the unrest in cities after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

During the Civil Rights era, Presidents Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower used the law to protect activists and students desegregating schools. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central High School after that state’s governor activated the National Guard to keep the students out.

George H.W. Bush was the last president to use the Insurrection Act, a response to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the white police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King in an incident that was videotaped.

Repeated attempts to invoke the act in a new Trump presidency could put pressure on military leaders, who could face consequences for their actions even if done at the direction of the president.

Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank, said the question is whether the military is being imaginative enough with the scenarios it has been presenting to future officers. Ambiguity, especially when force is involved, is not something military personnel are comfortable with, he said.

“There are a lot of institutional checks and balances in our country that are pretty well-developed legally, and it’ll make it hard for a president to just do something randomly out of the blue,” said O’Hanlon, who specializes in U.S. defence strategy and the use of military force. “But Trump is good at developing a semi-logical train of thought that might lead to a place where there’s enough mayhem, there’s enough violence and legal murkiness” to call in the military.

Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, the first graduate of the U.S. Military Academy to represent the congressional district that includes West Point, said he took the oath three times while he was at the school and additional times during his military career. He said there was extensive classroom focus on an officer’s responsibilities to the Constitution and the people under his or her command.

“They really hammer into us the seriousness of the oath and who it was to, and who it wasn’t to,” he said.

Ryan said he thought it was universally understood, but Jan. 6 “was deeply disturbing and a wake-up call for me.” Several veterans and active-duty military personnel were charged with crimes in connection with the assault.

While those connections were troubling, he said he thinks those who harbour similar sentiments make up a very small percentage of the military.

William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor and expert in national security law, said a military officer is not forced to follow “unlawful orders.” That could create a difficult situation for leaders whose units are called on for domestic policing, since they can face charges for taking unlawful actions.

“But there is a big thumb on the scale in favour of the president’s interpretation of whether the order is lawful,” Banks said. “You’d have a really big row to hoe and you would have a big fuss inside the military if you chose not to follow a presidential order.”

Nunn, who has suggested steps to restrict the invocation of the law, said military personnel cannot be ordered to break the law.

“Members of the military are legally obliged to disobey an unlawful order. At the same time, that is a lot to ask of the military because they are also obliged to obey orders,” he said. “And the punishment for disobeying an order that turns out to be lawful is your career is over, and you may well be going to jail for a very long time. The stakes for them are extraordinarily high.”

 

MH370

Beijing court begins hearings for Chinese relatives of people on Malaysia Airlines plane

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

November 27, 2023

Hu Xiufang, whose son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter were on the missing MH370, hold a banner in Beijing, Nov. 27, 2023. The banner reads 'Malaysian Airline MH370 case.' (AP Photo)

BEIJING--A Beijing court began compensation hearings Monday morning for Chinese relatives of people who died on a Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared in 2014 on a flight to Beijing, a case that remains shrouded in mystery after almost a decade.

Security was tight around the Chinese capital’s main Chaoyang District Intermediary Court and no detailed information was immediately available. Police checked the identities of journalists onsite and sequestered them in a cordoned-off area. Reporters were able to see relatives enter the court but were unable to speak with them before the hearing began.

Various theories have emerged about the fate of the plane, including mechanical failure, a hijacking attempt or a deliberate effort to scuttle it by those in the cockpit, but scant evidence has been found to show why the plane diverted from its original route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The Boeing 777 with 227 passengers and 12 crew aboard is believed to have plunged into the Southern Ocean south of India but months of intense searching found no sign of where it went down and only fragments of the plane have washed up on beaches in the area.

Among the passengers onboard, 153 or 154 by differing accounts were citizens of China, causing the disaster to resonate especially in Beijing, where daily briefings and vigils were held for those missing. Some relatives refused to believe the plane had disappeared, believing it had been taken to an unknown site and that their loved ones remained alive, and refused a accept relatively small compassionate payments from the airline.

Details of the lawsuit remain cloudy but appear to be based on the contention that the airline failed to take measures to locate the plane after it disappeared from air traffic control about 38 minutes after takeoff over the South China Sea on the night March 8, 2014.

Relatives have been communicating online and say they expect the hearings to extend to mid-December

Given the continuing mystery surrounding the case, it remains unclear what financial obligations the airline may have and no charges have been brought against the flight crew. However, relatives say they wish for some compensation for a disaster that deprived them of their loved ones and placed them in financial difficulty.

China’s largely opaque legal system offers wide latitude for judges to issue legal or financial penalties when criminal penalties cannot be brought.

Similar cases brought in the U.S. against the airline, its holding company and insurer have been dismissed on the basis that such matters should be handled by the Malaysian legal system.

China itself says it is still investigating the cause of the crash of a China Eastern Airlines jetliner that killed 132 people on March 21, 2022. The disaster was a rare failure for a Chinese airline industry that dramatically improved safety following deadly crashes in the 1990s.

The Boeing 737-800 en route from Kunming in the southwest to Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, went into a nosedive from 8,800 meters (29,000 feet), appeared to recover and then slammed into a mountainside.

 

Commentary: 'Once opened, the door of China-U.S. relations cannot be shut again'

(People's Daily Online) 10:19, November 27, 2023

"I am convinced that once opened, the door of China-U.S. relations cannot be shut again. Once started, the cause of China-U.S. friendship cannot be derailed halfway. The tree of our peoples' friendship has grown tall and strong; and it can surely withstand the assault of any wind or storm," said Chinese President Xi Jinping in a speech at a welcome dinner hosted by friendly organizations in the U.S. on Nov. 15, 2023.

China and the U.S., as the world's two largest economies, account for more than a third of the global economy and nearly a quarter of the world's population. Bilateral trade represents about a fifth of the global total.

The establishment of a harmonious coexistence between China and the U.S. is vital for global peace and the future of humanity.

On Nov. 14, 2022, President Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden met in Bali, Indonesia. President Biden stressed that the U.S. does not seek a new Cold War with China, has no intention of trying to change China’s system, is not revitalizing its alliances to oppose China, does not support “Taiwan independence,” and is not seeking conflict with China.

However, over the past year, the U.S. fell short of taking necessary actions and even deviated from the consensus spirit, posing new challenges to the bilateral relationship.

In recent months, there has been an increase in bilateral interactions between China and the U.S. This includes visits by high-ranking U.S. officials and friendly personnel to China, indicating a positive trend toward stabilizing the relationship.

During the San Francisco summit meeting, the two presidents acknowledged their respective teams’ efforts to discuss the development of principles related to China-U.S. relations since their meeting in Bali. They stressed the importance of all countries treating each other with respect, finding ways to coexist peacefully, maintaining open lines of communication, preventing conflict, upholding the U.N. Charter, cooperating in areas of shared interest, and responsibly managing competitive aspects of the relationship. These discussions laid out a roadmap for steering China-U.S. relations back on a positive course.

Correctly recognizing the realities of each side and the call for greater people-to-people exchanges are crucial for advancing mutual respect and understanding between China and the U.S., said Dr. Kenneth Hammond from New Mexico State University in an interview with People's Daily Online.

There has been an apparent deeply flawed perception of China on the American side, failing to understand China’s great efforts to develop its economy and improve the lives of its people. China has a social and economic system which differs from that of the United States, and it has clearly been difficult for American politicians to comprehend this. A better, less biased appreciation that China has its own long history and culture would be a sounder basis for a healthy relationship which could yield benefits for both sides, said Hammond.

China and the U.S. have broad common interests in a wide range of areas. Annual bilateral trade between the two countries has reached $760 billion, and two-way investment has surpassed $260 billion. The countries have established 284 pairs of sister provinces/states and sister cities. Up to 300 scheduled flights operated between the two countries every week, and more than 5 million trips were made annually between them.

The summit meeting between the two heads of state produced deliverables in several areas. The two sides discussed dialogue and cooperation in various fields in the spirit of mutual respect, equality, and mutual benefits. They reached more than 20 deliverables in areas such as political affairs and foreign policy, people-to-people exchanges, global governance, and military and security. Some of these deliverables had already been achieved in the lead-up to the summit, and others were agreed upon through consultation during the summit.

Suisheng Zhao, professor and director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, U.S., said the outcomes of the San Francisco summit meeting demonstrate the significance both countries place on their shared interests.

Both countries recognize the importance of stabilizing and enhancing China-U.S. relations during this crucial historical period. Zhao commended the progress achieved in reestablishing high-level military communication and institutionalized dialogue, as well as expanding cooperation in cultural exchanges, judicial law enforcement, and global governance.

During the summit meeting, President Xi called on China and the U.S. to adopt a new vision and jointly build five pillars for bilateral relations. The two countries should develop a right perception together, manage disagreements effectively, advance mutually beneficial cooperation, shoulder responsibilities as major countries, and promote people-to-people exchanges.

Through joint efforts in these five areas, five pillars can be established for steady growth in China-U.S. relations and foster the "San Francisco Vision" for their future.

Zhao emphasized that these joint efforts highlight the common interests and shared vision between China and the U.S. The aim is to find a suitable path for coexistence between the two countries and offer guidance for bringing bilateral relations back on the right track.

The five pillars set out a basic approach to U.S.-China relations which is based on mutual respect and the recognition that while the two countries have their differences, these should not be seen as antagonistic. Each side should act responsibly, and both should seek the best ways to cooperate on addressing issues of great importance to their peoples, expressed Hammond.

The recent meeting in San Francisco between the two presidents was a very important moment in the ongoing development of U.S.-China relations. Actions speak louder than words, so the true significance of the San Francisco meeting will be seen in the way American policies and practices develop in the months and years to come, Hammond noted.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Du Mingming)