Palestinians' rage grows — against their own governing authority

The death of an activist in custody last week sparked outrage in the West Bank, with some taking to the streets. It's the culmination of long-simmering anger against an authority many Palestinians feel is out of touch.


Palestinians in the West Bank are angry at their own governing body, the PA

The Israeli-occupied West Bank is no stranger to political upheaval. But in the past week, Palestinian protesters have directed rising anger against their own government, the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the territory.

Hundreds took to the streets in several towns over the past weekend to protest the violent death in Palestinian custody of Nizar Banat, a well-known critic of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

Last weekend in Ramallah, protesters waved Palestinian flags alongside pictures of Banat, with some calling for an end to the long-term rule of the Palestinian president. At one point, they were met with teargas fired by Palestinian security forces in full riot gear, while others were physically attacked by plainclothes officers.

Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq also reported that several journalists covering a demonstration were attacked and had their equipment confiscated.

Nizar Banat was a critic of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank

A spokesperson for the Palestinian security forces, Col. Talal Dweikat, said they acted in a "positive way" to avoid friction during the demonstrations. He added that the official committee investigating the circumstances around the death of Nizar Banat had begun its work.

"There will be full transparency regarding the committee. We want to reach the truth about what happened," Dweikat told DW.

Watch video 01:31Protesters clash with Palestinian security forces

Prominent critic killed

Banat had previously been detained several times over his candidness, on social media, alleging corruption and authoritarianism with regard to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his inner ruling circle.

Banat was a primary candidate on the "Dignity" party list in the runup to parliamentary elections, which were originally scheduled for May but have since been postponed.

According to his family, Banat was severely beaten and pepper-sprayed at his home by Palestinian security forces during his arrest and was taken away in the early morning hours on June 24 in Hebron. His death was announced afterwards.

In a statement by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), the initial findings of the autopsy showed injuries "represented by bruises and abrasions in many areas of the body, including the head, neck, shoulders, chest, back and upper and lower extremities, with binding marks on the wrist and rib fractures."

The preliminary results indicated that Banat's "death is abnormal" — although further laboratory testing would be necessary to determine the principal cause of death, the statement concluded.

Police used tear gas on protesters in Ramallah

As he announced the formation of the investigative committee, Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said that those responsible for Banat's death "will be held accountable," according to the official WAFA news agency.

Banat's family, however, has deemed the results of the commission's work to be likely one-sided, and has said it will not accept them.
Public anger and growing backlash

The Palestinian Authority is facing growing criticism in recent years from Palestinians who view it as corrupt, ineffective and increasingly autocratic. Postponing long-overdue elections for the legislature added fuel to that criticism.

And during the latest military escalation in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah was politically sidelined by its own near-complete silence on the events.

"I think the government [regime] is in a deep political crisis. The political leadership can't really talk to the Palestinian public anymore," says Jihad Harb, a political analyst and writer in Ramallah. "They don't really seem to have answers for what people care about. They seem only to protect themselves and their interests."

The killing of Banat and the violence toward protesters mourning his death have dismayed ordinary Palestinians. "There were demonstrations because people value freedom — it's important to go out and demonstrate; but the authorities didn't accept that," said Jihad Kadami, a young teacher in Ramallah.

"It's normal that after what happened with Nizar Banat, people want to express themselves in a democratic manner."

Watch video 01:44 Frustration and sadness in Gaza

Another Palestinian, Samer Khalil, said of Nizar Banat, "he was just criticizing and saying his opinion." And though Banat had a history of butting heads with the administration, this does not justify the authority's behavior, certainly "not to the extent of beating or brutally killing him."

Violence at the protests added to the frustration, with protests on previous occasions having also been met with heavy-handedness by the security forces. "It's very sad, I don't think it expresses people's values. I see a lot of people, among friends and co-workers, who are upset about it," added Khalil.

Some observers believe that at this point, another spark could trigger wider anti-government protests. Political analyst Jihad Harb said people are starting to realize "that what happened to Nizar Banat could happen to anybody who is critical or who has problems with the regime."
International support props up Abbas

Palestinian and international human rights groups have long criticized the Palestinian Authority and its security forces for being heavy-handed at demonstrations, and for becoming increasingly suppressive of dissent. They have also criticized President Abbas' rule by decree.

"We are lacking a legislative council where legislation should be made, that has the role to do it. And we need a government that goes in line with the separation of powers," said Catherine Abuamsha, an advocacy lawyer at the Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq.

Mahmoud Abbas has been in power for 16 years

Abbas was elected in 2005 for a four-year term, but has now been in office for 16 years.

The Palestinian Authority denies accusations of mistreatment of people for their political views or of the use of excessive force. And after the last war between Israel and Hamas in May, the Palestinian Authority continues to be the key partner to rebuild Gaza, which is ruled by the militant group Hamas.

Over the past two decades, the international community has consistently provided political backing to the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by Abbas' Fatah party. The United States and the European Union have also provided it with financial support, and have extensively trained its security forces.

And Banat's death did prompt swift international reactions. The US, the EU and the United Nations have called for an investigation, with the EU mission to the Palestinians saying that the death of Banat is "of serious concern and takes place against the backdrop of an increasingly persistent practice by Palestinian security forces of detention."

Whether this can stave off further heavy-handedness — and wider protests — remains to be seen.

GERMANY

New ID Cards: More control, less freedom?

Very soon, digital fingerprinting will be mandatory in German ID cards. The question is: Will it make the cards more secure? Or is it an invasive threat to our freedom?

Fingerprints will soon be stored electronically on German ID cards

"It was a really creepy feeling," says data protection activist Leena Simon, describing the moment when she last visited the citizens' service center at her local town hall and they wanted to take her fingerprints.

She was instructed to press the index fingers of both hands on the glass surface of a scanner. The idea was that the resulting fingerprints would be included in her new passport. However, she used a trick that she's not willing to share to spoil the scan. Leena is a member of a German organization called Digitalcourage, which is committed to privacy and digital rights.

So, did it work? Leena says she can't be sure. But what she does know: "For the rest of the day, I felt awful." She says it is "invasive" when the state forces law-abiding citizens to allow their fingerprints to be taken. After all, she says, it's a tool ordinarily used by the police in criminal investigations: "I don't understand why I should have to give the state access to my prints when I haven't broken the law."

Simon has no ID card: In addition to her passport, she uses this photo ID, issued by Digitalcourage, with her preferred data

Fingerprinting mandatory for ID cards

There's a pressing reason why data protection activists like Leena Simon are raising the alarm: From August 2, authorities in Germany are planning to massively extend requirements for fingerprints to be registered. From that day on, all German citizens applying for a new government-issued ID will be obliged to permit their fingerprints to be stored electronically on the card. So far, this was a voluntary procedure for ID cards and obligatory only for separate passport documents.

More than 62 million Germans have an ID card. They have the same dimensions as a credit card and are valid for 10 years. Most people use them for everyday movements within the country, although they can also be used for traveling around the EU.
Two biometric characteristics

ID cards used in Germany and elsewhere in Europe include an integrated chip with the same biometric photo that is also visible on the front of the card. In the future, a second biometric characteristic will be registered: Fingerprints.

Watch video01:17 Networker: Jan Krissler, the Biometrics Hacker

According to Josef Oster, internal affairs expert for Germany's governing Christian Democrats (CDU), the new measure will make ID cards more secure: "It enables us to determine clearly and quickly whether person and card go together," he tells DW. Oster specializes in digital security as a member of the German parliament's Internal Affairs Committee. "We've imposed extremely high-security standards," he says, referring to the new ID cards with fingerprints. And, he says, there has been little resistance to the proposal.
Uniform standards across Europa

The new regulation won't apply only in Germany. Beginning on August 2, travel documents with a combination of photos and fingerprints will be issued across the European Union — as agreed in 2019 following a tight vote in the European Parliament. The main aim is to protect against counterfeiting.

If there is suspicion that a document has been forged or is being used illegally, the fingerprints stored in the chip can be used to establish whether the rightful holder is in possession of the document. For this purpose, special reading devices are available to the police, border guards and customs officials. In cases of uncertain identity, they have the authority to call up and read encrypted data on the chip.
Forgery rare

But will new ID cards with digital fingerprinting really guarantee more security? Critics are not convinced. German ID cards without fingerprinting "already enjoy such a high level of validity that they are only rarely forged or end up in the wrong hands," argues the lawyer and data protection specialist Thilo Weichert.


According to the Interior Ministry, 42.5% of the new ID cards issued in 2020 contained voluntary fingerprints

And that claim was confirmed by Interior Ministry data made available to DW, according to which, in the year 2020, only 34 forged versions of German ID cards were confiscated during border controls. In 2019, that figure was even lower, totaling just 26 cases. Given these figures, Thilo Weichert questions the necessity of registering the fingerprints of more than 60 million Germans. He calls it "a disproportionate violation of people's rights" that he believes is also unconstitutional.
Immutable data

For data protection activists, there is another serious concern: A growing number of digital systems are using fingerprinting because of the immutable biometric characteristics that it provides. It's a technology that is employed, for example, to unlock smartphones or open office doors. And it involves the kind of fingerprinting that will shortly be mandatory in ID cards.

Watch video 01:54 Security Check: Biometrics vs Passwords

Maja Smoltczyk, Berlin's commissioner for data protection, says the damage is especially serious in cases of document theft or misuse, as "biometric characteristics can't simply be replaced like a password." This explains why activists have been calling for printing only one little finger instead of both index fingers. So far, however, their calls have been in vain.
Central storage?

It is true that the proposed new legislation permits fingerprints to be stored only on the ID card's own chip and nowhere else. What's more, only a limited number of people have access to this data, such as officials at the relevant government agencies and members of the police. Still, Thilo Weichert warns: "I'm sure things are not going to stay that way." Hindsight shows that the state always tends to seek access to more and more sensitive private data.

Weichert, from the network 'Data protection expertise,' feels ID cards with fingerprints are unconstitutional

Weichert fears that sooner or later fingerprints will be stored in a central data bank and used to crosscheck with other data sources or fuel larger surveillance systems. "In China and many other authoritarian states, we've already begun to see how biometrics can be used to keep an entire population under control," he says.

 
Skepticism in many citizens' service centers

Through to August 2, providing fingerprints is voluntary. So, how have people who applied for a new ID card between the beginning of January and mid-June responded to the transition? DW asked that question at service centers in 20 German towns and cities.

The answer was surprising. In Nuremberg, Düsseldorf and Bochum, for instance, there was strong resistance: "There is minimal willingness to allow fingerprints to be included in ID cards. The attitude is one of suspicion," Bochum city representatives told DW.

In Düsseldorf meanwhile, only 15% of all applicants said that they accepted the integration of fingerprints. In Hamburg, Leipzig, Essen, and Dortmund, skepticism prevailed and between 54% and 60% of applications made since the beginning of the year did not include fingerprints.

German officials in charge of issuing ID cards currently have a lot of explaining to do

Opinions were evenly divided in three other cities: In Münster, Hannover and Bremen, support for and opposition to fingerprinting was more or less fifty-fifty. And only one German city gave broad backing to the proposed new regulation. That was Frankfurt, where nearly two-thirds of people said they would voluntarily support fingerprinting.
No rush for IDs without fingerprints

There was no perceptible rush to apply for "old-style" ID cards without fingerprints. On the contrary, many people were apparently unaware that a practice that is still voluntary will soon be compulsory.

What is for sure is that the relevant authorities had a lot of questions to answer. Why are fingerprints so important? Who has access to the data? And how is it protected? Officials in Essen said the public response, however, had been largely positive, "especially since the fingerprints are an additional security measure and taking them free of charge!

Watch video 03:29 Facial recognition: Safer spaces or a kick in the face? | GMF Compact

Legal challenge

Even when August 2 comes around, activist Leena Simon doesn't expect people to come out in huge numbers to protest. But she does herself plan to take legal action against fingerprinting. "I have to admit," she says," that when it comes to the sensitive issue of data protection, I simply don't trust the state."

Other opponents of fingerprinting have adopted a different strategy. Sources have let it be known to DW that they have been destroying their still-valid "old" ID cards by, for instance, "accidentally" leaving them in their microwave ovens. That enabled them to apply for a new document without fingerprints: an ID card valid, after all, for another 10 years. Quite a long time — even in a rapidly changing world.

'Zebra murders' convict dies in California medical prison

© Provided by The Canadian Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man convicted along with three others in the racially motivated killing spree that terrorized San Francisco in the 1970s died in a prison cell while on hospice care, officials announced Thursday.

Jessie Lee Cooks, 76, was found dead Wednesday in his bed at the California Medical Facility, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said. The cause of death will be determined by the Solano County Coroner, officials said.

Cooks was sentenced in San Francisco County on March 29, 1976, to serve life with the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, kidnapping and first-degree robbery.

Cooks, Manuel More, J.C.X. Simon and Larry C. Green were convicted of targeting white victims between October 1973 and April 1974 in a rampage that terrorized San Francisco and left 14 people dead.

The murder victims included a woman who was beheaded with a machete, an 81-year-old man and a 19-year-old college student carrying a teddy bear as a Christmas present.

The attacks were known as the “Zebra murders” because investigators communicated their information in the case over the police broadcast band Z. The wounded included Art Agnos, who would go on to serve as San Francisco’s mayor.

The mayor at the time, Joseph L. Alioto, ordered a citywide dragnet to catch the killers. Police officers stopped and questioned nearly every young Black man they encountered between the ages of 20 and 30 who were 6 feet tall or a few inches shorter. Those questioned and cleared were given a card to show other officers who might detain them for questioning.

J.C.X. Simon passed away at San Quentin State Prison in 2015 at age 69. Manuel Moore passed away at California Health Care Facility in Stockton in 2017. He was 73.

Larry C. Green, 69, is incarcerated at California State Prison-Solano in Vacaville.

The Associated Press

1. Zebra murders - Wikipedia

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_murders

   

   The "Zebra" murders were a string of racially motivated murders and related attacks committed by seven Black Muslim serial killers in San Francisco, California, United States, from October 1973 to April 1974 ; they killed at least 15 people and wounded eight others. Police gave the case the name "Zebra" after the special police radio band they assigned to the investigation. Some authorities believe …

   • First wave of murders, 1973
   • Second wave of murders, January-April 1974
   • Arrests and convictions
   • See also
   • Bibliography
   • External links

   On October 19, 1973, Richard Hague (30) and his wife, Quita (28), were walking near their Telegraph Hill home in San Francisco when they were kidnapped by a group of Black men and forced into a van. Quita was fondled by two of the men, and then nearly decapitated by a third man who cut her neck with a machete. One of the first pair attacked Richard and left him for dead, but he survived. …

   Wikipedia · Text under CC-BY-SA license

The Hurdles Wally Funk, 82, Overcame to Finally Get a Seat on a Spacecraft

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space company said that Wally Funk, an 82-year-old female aviator, will fly on the first crewed flight of its New Shepard rocket later this month

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© Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Wally Funk with other prospective space tourists at the first public landing of the Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise spacecraft in New Mexico in October 2010. Funk has been trying to get to space for decades.

Funk was one of the Mercury 13, a group of women whom NASA selected to become the first female astronauts—before the project was scrapped in the early 1960s.

She had a keen interest in flight and spaceflight ever since she was young, making planes out of balsa wood when she was seven, The Guardian reported.

In her teens, she got a flying license and went on to study education at Oklahoma State University, simply because it had an aviation team—the Flying Aggies—which she joined. She then went on to become the sole female flight instructor at a U.S. military base.

After some time, Funk heard about a private program to put the first woman in space, run by aerospace physician and NASA committee member William Randolph Lovelace.

Lovelace was in charge of developing tests to check if astronaut candidates could handle being in space. But his program to test whether women could also do it wasn't sanctioned by NASA.

Funk got in touch, detailing her experience, and stated that she wanted to apply for the program. Despite being 22 and three years under the minimum age requirement, she was accepted.

Funk and the other candidates were then submitted to a series of tests to determine whether they could deal with spaceflight, including being placed into a sensory deprivation tank. She told The Guardian she spent more than 10 hours inside and broke the record.

Funk and 12 other women, including Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb who scored in the top 2 percent of all candidates regardless of gender, had made the final cut by the end of 1961. They became known as the Mercury 13.

Space Project Cancelled

But Funk and the project soon hit a hurdle. The U.S. government didn't want to allow Lovelace to use the military equipment required to test the women for spaceflight properly because NASA had no intention of considering a female astronaut at the time, according to Space.com.

Two of the 13 women pleaded their case, but ultimately the project was cancelled.

Funk was undeterred. "Well, it's not going to stop me," she told The Guardian. "Things were cancelled? So what?"

Over the years she continued to take tests when she could, even travelling to Russia to take cosmonaut tests. She tried to get a college engineering degree—a training program requirement for NASA—but said she was turned away because she was female. So she continued her career as a flight instructor.

On July 20, 2021, Funk will finally achieve her dream of getting to space after being invited aboard New Shepard.

She said in an Instragram post shared by Jeff Bezos: "I'll love every second of it."

SO MUCH FOR WOKE PROGRAMING

'Lovecraft Country' Won't Be Getting a Second Season on HBO

Ross A. Lincoln 

THE WRAP

"Lovecraft County" won't be getting a second season, HBO announced Friday.

© TheWrap Jonathan Majors in

"We will not be moving forward with a second season of Lovecraft Country. We are grateful for the dedication and artistry of the gifted cast and crew, and to Misha Green, who crafted this groundbreaking series. And to the fans, thank you for joining us on this journey," HBO said in a statement provided to TheWrap.

Based on the novel by Matt Ruff, "Lovecraft Country" followed Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors) as he journeys with his childhood friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett) and his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) on a road trip from Chicago across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father Montrose (Michael Kenneth Williams). Following the journey, they must deal with supernatural horrors and racist terrors alike.

The book is a standalone work, but similar to other HBO shows based on novels with no sequels, such as "Big Little Lies," HBO and the show's creators were discussing the possibility of a second season.

The show was executive produced by Green, along with executive producers include JJ Abrams, Jordan Peele, Bill Carraro, Yann Demange (who also directed Episode 1), Daniel Sackheim (who also directed Episodes 2 and 3) and David Knoller (executive producer on Episode 1).

The series was produced by afemme, Inc., Bad Robot Productions and Monkeypaw Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.

Deadline first reported the news.

On Ghana's Lake Volta, child slavery is in plain sight

Opinion by Lisa Kristine CNN

The steel gray clouds hung like an ominous slate blanket over the far reaches of Lake Volta, Ghana. From the shores I stood gazing out at a wooden fishing boat on what I presumed to be a family out fishing for the afternoon: two older boys and their three younger brothers, messing around with fishing poles and nets, catching fish for their evening meal.

© Lisa Kristine A child working on Lake Volta.

My comment to that effect drew a sharp retort from my translator. This was not a family outing; these were enslaved teenagers and their young charges on a predawn to after-dark workday on the lake. It brought me up short. As a photographer who has traveled to more than 150 countries, often to document forced labor and human trafficking in dangerous conditions, I thought I had a pretty thorough awareness of the social and humanitarian horrors of modern slavery.

Unlike some of my other expeditions, however, there was nothing secretive about this. I did not have to sneak into a Nepalese brick kiln factory to document workers stacking and loading dozens of bricks on their heads in sweltering 100-plus degree heat. Or climb 200 feet down a rickety abandoned mine shaft to photograph enslaved gold miners. No, here on Lake Volta, the largest artificial lake in the world, child slavery was in plain sight. There was no attempt to hide anything: right before me were children as young as five forced to work up to 18 hours a day, with no pay, often little or no food, in dangerous, dirty conditions. The sheer brazenness stunned me.

According to the nonprofit organization Free the Slaves, more than one-third of the 1,620 households surveyed in and around Lake Volta housed a victim of child trafficking or someone held in slave-like conditions. Yet this is not an ancient, entrenched tradition in this place: Lake Volta was only created in 1965 when the forestland it now covers was flooded during the construction of a hydroelectric dam to provide Ghana's electricity supply.

These children are often brought from all over Ghana by traffickers. Traffickers cunningly manipulate vulnerable families who cannot adequately feed their kids two meals a day. They offer false promises of education for a child if the young person would just come to help out at the home of a "relative" of the trafficker in another town. Once out of the villages, the children are sold. Other traffickers buy the kids from their impoverished parents for a pittance or trade them for a farm animal.

Read: Child slaves risk their lives on Ghana's Lake Volta

Children are prized for their small and nimble fingers, able to untether and mend nets. The kids are often beaten, and the girls are at great risk of being sexually exploited. In addition to backbreaking labor hauling nets and fish, they are forced to do the most dangerous job: jump overboard into parasite-infested water to free the fishing nets that become entangled in submerged tree branches.

The children are not taught how to swim; too many of them drown. I recall one boy, perhaps eight years old, whose entire body quivered in terror as our boat approached his on the lake. He was afraid the waves would knock him out of the boat, or worse, we would take him away someplace even more terrible. During my time at Lake Volta, I did not meet a single child -- not one -- who did not know another who had drowned.

In 2021, designated the International Year of Child Labor by the United Nations, it is timely to re-dedicate ourselves to raising awareness about exploitative child labor practices. Revisiting the images I made of enslaved children in Lake Volta, I am mindful that the International Labour Organization estimates there are 20,000 children living and working in slavery in the Volta region and surrounding fishing communities. It is not acceptable to shut our eyes, to ignore this horror. Child forced labor is dangerous, illegal and yet pervasive around the world.

The past year of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement called broad attention to racial and social justice inequities, not only in America but around the world. The ravages of the pandemic have made starkly apparent how unequal access to education, healthcare, housing and gainful employment have had devastating, too often deadly outcomes for the poor and disadvantaged everywhere.

Although progress has been gained over the last decade, showing a 38% decrease in child labor, a new report from the ILO lists an increase of 8.4 million children over the previous four years, raising the global number of child labor to 160 million. That is not taking into account the millions more at risk due to Covid-19's impact.

On a positive note, this has resulted in heightened awareness of shared humanity that surpasses divisions of race, ethnicity, class, and geography. If we act together to demand change, we can make and change laws and re-envision policies and practices to better the world.

If we hold onto a divisive, "us versus them" mentality, we can become numb to the suffering of others -- stepping over the homeless person huddled on the sidewalk, willfully ignorant of the many struggling to feed their families on limited or no incomes, or the children pulling nets weighing hundreds of pounds out of frigid waters at 1 a.m. on Lake Volta.

I offer my photographs documenting these harsh realities as a way to help others see our shared humanity. Look into the eyes of these enslaved children. Maybe that compels someone to donate funds; to call on their government to engage in fair trade, vote to support laws regulating child labor, pressure big businesses and government agencies worldwide to enforce improved labor practices -- perhaps registering boats and licensing fishermen on Lake Volta. This is how enslaved workers will be freed and protected, how children will return to school. It's time to step up and speak out, take action.

Afghan pullout has US spies reorienting in terrorism fight


WASHINGTON (AP) — The two-decade war in Afghanistan has given U.S. spies a perch for keeping tabs on terrorist groups that might once again use the beleaguered nation to plan attacks against the U.S. homeland. But that will end soon

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is leaving intelligence agencies scrambling for other ways to monitor and stop terrorists. They’ll have to depend more on technology and their allies in the Afghan government — even as it faces an increasingly uncertain future once U.S. and NATO forces depart.

“You may not be blind, but you’re going to be legally blind,” said Rep. Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican and Green Beret who served in Afghanistan. Waltz said in an interview that while he believed American forces would still be able to detect threats, they would have to respond with lesser intelligence and more complex operations from bases outside the country.

The Afghanistan withdrawal was ordered by President Joe Biden. He has said it's time to end America's longest war after two decades of a conflict that killed 2,200 U.S. troops and 38,000 Afghan civilians, with a cost as much as $1 trillion.

But that withdrawal comes with many uncertainties as a resurgent Taliban captures ground and fears mount that the country could soon fall into civil war. The U.S. is still working on agreements to base counterterrorism forces in the region and evacuate thousands of interpreters and other Afghans who helped the American war effort.

CIA Director William Burns testified in April that fighters from al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are still operating in Afghanistan and “remain intent on recovering the ability to attack U.S. targets."

“When the time comes for the U.S. military to withdraw, the U.S. government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish. That’s simply a fact,” Burns said. He added that the CIA and other U.S. agencies “retain a suite of capabilities” to monitor and stop threats.

Burns made a secret visit to Afghanistan in April and reassured Afghan officials that the U.S. would remain engaged in counterterrorism efforts, according to two officials familiar with the visit.

The CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment for this story.

The CIA has had a role in Afghanistan for more than 30 years, dating back to aiding rebels fighting the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989. During the U.S. war, it is said to have carried out strikes against terror targets and trained Afghan fighters in groups known as Counter Terrorism Pursuit Teams. Those teams are feared by many Afghans and have been implicated in extrajudicial killings of civilians.

The Associated Press reported in April that the CIA was preparing to turn over control of those teams in six provinces to the Afghan intelligence service, known as the National Directorate of Security. The closure of posts near Afghanistan's borders with Iran and Pakistan will make it harder to monitor hostile groups operating in those areas, and the withdrawal of Americans from Afghan agencies could worsen already troubling problems with corruption, experts said.

Washington has long struggled to gather intelligence even from its allies in Afghanistan. In the early years of the conflict, the U.S. was drawn into rivalries that resulted in targets that were driven by score-settling among factions in the country.

Retired Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, who led the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2017 to 2020, said U.S. authorities may be able to replace some of their lost footprint with intercepted communications as well as publicly available information posted online, particularly with the growth of cellphone networks compared with the 1990s. And while Afghan forces have faltered against the Taliban, they can also provide valuable information, Ashley said.

“We shouldn’t discount their ability to understand their ground truth,” said Ashley, now an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “It’s their nature, it’s their culture, it’s their language.”

Former intelligence officials and experts noted that the CIA and other agencies already have to work without a military presence in other countries where militant groups threaten Americans.

Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, said human sources in Afghanistan were already limited and the U.S. has monitoring capabilities today that it didn't have two decades ago.

“It's still going to be very robust,” Crow said. “When you don’t have boots on the ground, it’s certainly more challenging, but we have capabilities and things that allow us to meet that challenge. It just becomes a little more difficult.”

Crow and Waltz are among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who have pushed the White House to quickly process visas for thousands of interpreters and other Afghans who helped American forces. More than 18,000 applications are pending. Senior U.S. officials have said the administration plans to carry out an evacuation later this summer but has not settled on a country or countries for what would likely be a temporary relocation.

Failing to protect Afghans waiting for visas could have “a huge chilling effect on people working with us going forward,” Waltz said.

Analysts differ on what to expect from the Taliban if it were to consolidate control over the country. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported in May that the Taliban's “desires for foreign aid and legitimacy might marginally moderate its conduct over time," driven in part by international attention and the proliferation of phones.

But Colin Clarke, director of policy and research at the Soufan Group, said he expected the Taliban to continue harboring al-Qaida and worried of a possible insurgency that could embolden extremists and become a regional conflict similar to what happened in Iraq after the American withdrawal there.

“I want us to pull out of Afghanistan in theory and be safe," he said. "That’s just not from my analysis what’s going to happen.”

___

Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Kabul contributed to this report.

Nomaan Merchant, The Associated Press

Why France is losing its 'Great Game' in western Africa
Don Murray 

CBC

JULY 2,2021

© Benoit Tessier/Reuters A French soldier uses an explosive detection kit in Ndaki, Mali, on July 28, 2019. French President Emmanuel Macron has said France will start pulling back some of its 5,100 troops fighting Islamist extremists in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The British used to call it "the Great Game" — the military and political jockeying of great powers in the late 19th century in Afghanistan, India and the areas around southern Russia.

France, too, has played its "Great Game" in western Africa for 150 years. Now it's losing. Islamist extremists are winning.

And other big players, like Russia and above all China, are moving in.

French President Emmanuel Macron made a downbeat announcement on June 10.

"The role of France isn't to be a perpetual substitute for the states on the ground," he said.

Then he said France would in the coming months start pulling back some of the 5,100 French troops fighting Islamist extremists in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

© Pascal Rossignol/Reuters Macron has said 'the role of France isn’t to be a perpetual substitute for the states on the ground.'

"This is defeat, that's clear," Thierry Vircoulon, an expert on Africa at the French Institute for International Relations, said in an interview.


"The lesson for France is not to get into wars you can't win."
Another losing fight

Vircoulon linked Macron's decision directly to another losing fight in the modern Great Game.

"The French move must be seen in the light of the American decision in Afghanistan. If the Americans hadn't started talks with the Taliban and then announced their pullout, the French government might not have taken the decision it did."

The French began their desert guerrilla war in 2013 to dislodge Islamist extremists who had taken Timbuktu in the centre of Mali. That offensive was a success but, since then, the guerrilla war has continued, the jihadis have grown in number and the number of civilians killed, most by marauding extremists, has multiplied.

There were more than 6,000 civilian deaths in 2020, an increase of 30 per cent on the previous year, according to ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data). The French have seen 55 soldiers killed, the armies of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have lost thousands more in eight years.

© Benoit Tessier/Reuters A French soldier goes on inspection in Ndaki, Mali, on July 29, 2019.

Six years ago, the extremists were 600 kilometres from the capital of Mali, Bamako. Today they attack less than 100 kilometres from Bamako.

The extremists control large swathes in the centre of Mali and along the borders in Niger and Burkina Faso.

That's despite a large UN military contingent based in Gao, Mali, at the urging of the French. There are 13,000 soldiers patrolling there. Canada was part of the contingent for 18 months until September 2019.
'The state isn't in control'

Assiminar Ag Rousmane is "quite pessimistic." He's the head of Azhar, an NGO based in the capital of Bamako that helps civilian victims in the conflict.

"I deal with people on the ground and we go around the country from village to village, we can see that the state isn't in control. It's almost bankrupt," he said in an interview.

"There are already towns close to Bamako which are insecure. There are places where it's the law of the jungle."

Assiminar confirmed an open secret that the Malian army and local leaders are engaged in unofficial negotiations with extremist groups to "liberate" some areas.

© Joe Penney/Reuters Rubble from an ancient mausoleum destroyed by Islamist militants is seen in Timbuktu, Mali, on July 25, 2013.

"They're looking for at least a guarantee of a minimum of security. It's pretty negative for the local population, because rebel extremists have demands. It means closing schools, and even Sharia law."

A long chapter in French colonial and post-colonial rule is drawing to a close. The French set up a West African Federation in 1895 comprising eight modern-day countries — Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Benin and Guinea. It was, in fact, a giant colony.

After these countries gained independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the "federation" was replaced by something known as "Francafrique." This was a form of sometimes paternal and sometimes very muscled oversight in these countries, backed by French troops stationed in several of them.

In this way French-backed leaders stayed in power, often for years, and bilateral government agreements with France, often secret, gave French companies priority to exploit their countries' natural resources
No restoration of prestige

France even set up a West African currency, the CFA Franc (Financial Community of Africa Franc), backed by the French central bank. But each country had to keep half of its currency reserves in the French bank.

The French National Assembly voted to end that regulation only last year.

Operation Barkhane, the military offensive against Islamists in sub-Sahara Africa, was supposed to restore French prestige and influence. Instead it's done the opposite.

Rather than reinforce democratic institutions, the operation has been capped by not one but two military coups d'état in Mali in the last year.

© Reuters TV Macron sits with French military forces during a visit with troops who were participating in Operation Barkhane in Niamey, Niger, on Dec. 22, 2017.

And the French Cour des Comptes, the national audit commission, criticized the French strategy in a report in April. It said the yearly cost of the military mission had climbed to $1.8 billion while money for aid and development had dropped over eight years to $495 million annually.

"The announced priority in the sub-Sahara zone hasn't been translated into reality," the report said in language akin to a diplomatic dagger.

Others have noticed.

In 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited African heads of government and state to his southern palace in Sochi. The response was enthusiastic: 43 showed up.

© Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, meets with Angolan President Joao Lourenco on the sidelines of the Russia–Africa Summit in Sochi, Russia, on Oct. 24, 2019.

Since then, according to Vircoulon, the Russians have been on an "African military safari," offering to sell their services and arms to embattled governments.

Russian mercenaries, the so-called Wagner group financed by a rich businessman close to Putin, have already moved into the Central African Republic, dislodging French troops.

And the Russians are making similar offers to governments like that of Mali.

According to Vircoulon, this follows a pattern developed by the Russians in Libya and Syria. The Wagner group moves in and then works with the Russian armed forces to train soldiers, set up bases and extend Russian influence. You could see them in Mali or Burkina Faso in a few years, he said.

The trigger was Ukraine. Russia invaded the Ukraine territory of Crimea in 2014 and then backed rebels in an ongoing war in eastern Ukraine. The West responded with economic sanctions against the Kremlin.

"Because of the Western sanctions, we're once again in a situation of rivalry with Russia. And they're using all the cards at their disposal. So creating problems for France in this part of Africa is part of that strategy, " said Vircoulon.
Just a sideshow

But the Russian incursion is a sideshow. They don't have the economic clout.

China does.

"China began by finding common political ground with African leaders and playing to Africa's stance against Western hegemony and colonialism," Mandira Bagwandeen, a South African expert on Chinese-African relations, said in an interview

"But the trump card now is that it comes with the money. China is really willing to provide massive loans for mega-industrial and infrastructure projects that can really unlock Africa's potential. Their approach is muscular."

© Thomas Mukoya/Reuters A train runs on the Standard Gauge Railway line constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation and financed by the Chinese government in Kimuka, Kenya, on Oct. 16, 2019.

And unlike Western lenders, they didn't ask too many questions about good governance and how the money would be spent.

The result is that China, as of 2019, had a total $165 billion in direct investments in Africa, according to a study by the London School of Economics. In the five years before the COVID-19 crisis, China invested almost double what the U.S. and France did in Africa.

"There's a lot of China bashing by the West but that's not going to deter African countries from relying on China," Bagwandeen said. "You're going to have to write the cheques to be taken seriously."

In the new Great Game in Africa, the most powerful weapon is money.

Dominica fights to save Creole forged by slaves in Caribbean


SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The elementary school student stood up, pulled down her face mask and leaned into the microphone. She swallowed hard before trying to spell the word “discover” in French Creole.

“D-E-K-O-V-I” she tried as she clasped her hands behind her back while standing in front of a row of gleaming trophies.

Seconds later, the teacher announced: “Sorry, that’s incorrect." The word, she said, is “dékouvè.”

The student pursed her lips and sat down, temporarily felled at a Creole spelling bee in the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica. Her difficulty with the language is far from unique on the tiny nation, which is trying to preserve and promote that centuries-old creation by Africans who melded their original tongues with those of the European plantation owners who held them in slavery.

Kwéyòl, as it’s known in Dominica, is one of many Creole variants spoken on more than a dozen Caribbean islands — complex cultural creations that were long considered informal, inferior and broken languages spoken by uneducated people.

“Your ability to use the European language, be it English, French or Dutch, is seen as an indicator of educational attainment,” said Clive Forrester, a linguistics professor at Canada’s University of Waterloo and secretary of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics. “The attitudes have improved, but the underlying feeling is still there. Almost everything related to African culture is seen not as prestigious as European culture.”

Officials in Dominica, an island of some 75,000 people, hope to change that perception: They’ve started teaching Kwéyòl in 16 of the island’s 56 primary schools this year in brief snippets: “A five-minute pause for the Creole cause.” They say a lack of Kwéyòl-speaking teachers holds back a broader program.

Students learn the language’s roots and simple words and phrases and some compete in a spelling bee introduced 11 years ago, said Charlene White-Christian, modern language coordinator for Dominica’s Ministry of Education.

She herself is still learning more of the language since her parents never spoke it with her: She learned via friends and from studying linguistics.

“We don’t want to lose it,” she said. “We view the language as part of our culture. It’s nothing without the language.”

To help preserve the language, Dominican scholars have published two Kwéyòl dictionaries — the newest 150 pages long — and are working on a third as they debate how to say words like “computer” or “flash drive,” which never had a Creole equivalent.

“We’re kind of struggling with that,” said Raymond Lawrence, chairman of Dominica’s Committee for the Study of Creole. “Dictionaries take a lot of time.”

Pride in local Creole languages has grown in recent years, though only a handful of Caribbean nations so far have declared them official, including Haiti, Aruba and Curacao. Only a few offer regular classes, and experts say they don't know of any place where it's the main language of education.

The version spoken in Dominica and nearby Saint Lucia originally mingled African languages with the French spoken by the first colonists and occasionally a bit of the Indigenous language. Dominica was a French colony for 48 years and then a British one for 215 years, which also led to the rise of English Creole on that island.

The most widely spoken French Creole is in Haiti, a country of more than 11 million inhabitants. A few thousand also speak the Kouri-Vini creole of Louisiana, also once a French colony. Linguists say that some people in very rural areas of nations including Haiti and Jamaica speak only Creole languages, often because they did not go to school.

Papiamento, a Portuguese-based Creole, is used in Aruba and Curacao, where it was adopted by a local Sephardic Jewish community, said Hubert Devonish, a Jamaican linguistics professor and member of the International Center for Caribbean Language Research.

English-based Creoles range from the Gullah of coastal North Carolina to the Patois of Jamaica that echoes through that nation's music.

English Creole may have developed in Barbados in the late 1640s after a local population of African slaves grew larger than that of white people, Devonish said. He added that French Creole might have first developed in St. Kitts, the first French plantation colony.

The languages then evolved across the centuries, affected by education, migration and the island’s' relationship with their former colonial powers.

Some people abandoned Creole languages to escape poverty and discrimination, while some of the educated elite eventually seized upon them as symbols of national identity and campaigned for them, Devonish said.

In many Caribbean nations, “there is a broad acceptance that to participate in national life, you have to talk the languages of the people,” he said. That has not yet happened in Dominica.

"Up until now, you can be Dominican without being able to speak Creole,” he said. “Dominica has ended up in a serious situation of language loss.”

Experts aren't sure why the language eroded more in Dominica than on other islands. Some suggest it might be due to a rigorous teaching emphasis on English, or to the presence of a competing English-based Creole known as Kokoy introduced by workers from other islands in the late 19th century and spoken by residents in the island’s northeast.

A push to save and promote Creole languages was born in the 1960s when the Caribbean experienced its own Black power movement, Forrester said.

“Different artifacts of Caribbean culture, the music, the spirituality, the languages, all of those things were being reexamined and, in a sense, elevated by cultural advocates,” he said. “The language came along for the ride.”

Social media also now plays a role, with teens and young adults posting in Creole, said Forrester, whose first language is Jamaican Creole. He noted that there’s a certain pride in using Creole, but that it’s more pronounced in people who also have mastered English.

He said the most at-risk language in the Caribbean now is a dying French Creole in Trinidad spoken only by a handful of aging people despite attempts to revive it, A Berbice Dutch Creole in the South American country of Guyana died more than a decade ago.

“Languages are living things,” he said. “No living thing lives forever.”

Dánica Coto, The Associated Press

U.S. DoJ investigates Lordstown Motors - WSJ

(Reuters) -The Department of Justice is investigating electric-vehicle startup Lordstown Motors Corp, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

© Reuters/REBECCA COOK A Lordstown Motors sign is seen outside the Lordstown Assembly Plant

The inquiry into the company - handled by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan - is in the early phase, the report said https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-is-probing-lordstown-motors-11625239730?mod=latest_headlines. Lordstown Motors and DoJ did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

Shares of the company were down nearly 10% at $9.35.

In March, the shares slumped after investment research firm Hindenburg Research disclosed its short position on the stock, saying Lordstown had misled consumers and investors about its pre-orders worth $1.4 billion for its Endurance truck.

Following the accusations, Lordstown Motors's chief executive and finance head quit suddenly, days after the company had warned it may not have enough money to stay in business over the next year.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission asked the company for information related to its SPAC merger and pre-orders of its vehicles.

(Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

CANADA

Senator proposes plan to get conversion therapy bill passed this summer

© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press The Senate of Canada is on a summer break until September 20 at the earliest.

A senator is pitching a plan to reconvene the Senate in order to adopt legislation that would ban the practice of conversion therapy in Canada.

The Senate went on its summer break earlier this week before it was able to vote on the legislation, titled Bill C-6.

With the Senate not scheduled to return until Sept. 20 at the earliest, supporters of the legislation fear it could be further delayed or wiped out entirely if a widely anticipated federal election is called in the late summer or early fall.

"It has become increasingly clear that the inability of the Senate to complete its study of this legislation before the fall has generated a great deal of concern, anxiety and frustration for those in our LGBTQ2 community," said Sen. Marc Gold, the government representative in the upper house, in a public letter issued on Friday.

Under Gold's proposal, the Senate's committee on legal and constitutional affairs would examine the bill during virtual meetings this month and finish its work by July 26.

The Senate referred Bill C-6 to that committee during its final days before summer break, but committees typically do not meet when the Senate itself is not sitting.

The Senate would then return on July 26 to vote on the bill by the end of the week.

"I believe this would be a responsible approach that would bring hope to LGBTQ2 Canadians and to the Senate's role as a chamber of sober second thought," Gold wrote.

Bill C-6 proposes changes to the Criminal Code that would effectively outlaw conversion therapy — the widely discredited practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation to heterosexual or their gender identity to cisgender (which means identifying with the sex assigned to them at birth).

Video: Liberals’ conversion therapy bill fails to pass the Senate before summer break (cbc.ca)

The bill would make it illegal in Canada to subject a person to conversion therapy without their consent, and would make it illegal to subject children to the practice, regardless of consent.

Conservatives say government playing 'petty politics'

Opposition to the bill has come almost exclusively from Conservative MPs and senators, who have said the legislation's definition of conversion therapy is too vague.

Critics say that could turn voluntary conversations about personal identity and sexuality into criminal acts.

Conservatives also have criticized the timing of the bill, arguing that the Trudeau government set it up to fail by introducing the bill so late in the Parliamentary calendar. That created an opportunity for the Liberals to make conversion therapy an election issue, those critics say.

"It is clear by the latest actions of this government that the priority isn't now, nor was it ever, putting an end to this terrible practice," said Sen. Leo Housaskos, a Conservative.

"The priority is in using it as a tool to play petty politics in the lead up to an election campaign rather than in advancing good legislation."

The Liberal government also delayed the bill by proroguing Parliament in August 2020, which removed the bill from the House of Commons agenda.

The Speaker of the Senate, currently Sen. George Furey, has the power to recall the upper house "if satisfied that the public interest so requires."

That happened as recently as April 30 and during the summer of 2020, when the Senate was debating COVID-19 emergency bills.

David Lametti, Canada's justice minister and attorney general, said he hoped the plan to recall the Senate could save the bill.

"I hope Conservative senators take this opportunity to do the right thing and finally pass our ban on conversion therapy this month," Lametti said.

Paris airport workers block terminal to protest pay cut

PARIS (AP) — Paris airport workers protesting pay cuts on Friday blocked a busy terminal at a Charles de Gaulle Airport and skirmished with police, prompting flight delays and causing travel chaos and confusion among passengers.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Police fired pepper spray to try to disperse the protesters at the 2E terminal, primarily used for international travel. An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw passengers wiping their stinging eyes and children frightened.

Banging drums and tooting horns, a few hundred union activists blocked the terminal’s passport control area, causing hundreds of passengers to miss their flights. Riot police with helmets and shields fanned out, and passengers were re-routed to a neighboring terminal.

Unions have been negotiating with Paris airport management over pay cuts linked to the collapse in air travel amid the pandemic. Management of the Paris airport network says revenue was down 80% in 2020 and that it is trying to avoid layoffs by trimming pay instead.

Unions announced strikes and protests through Monday, just as many French families leave on summer holidays. The airport warned passengers of possible delays and disruptions to road traffic and check-in procedures throughout the duration of the union action.

The Associated Press

Biden says teachers deserve 'a raise, not just praise'


Speaking to the nation’s largest teachers union, President Joe Biden said Friday that the pandemic has given America’s parents the “ultimate education” on the challenges of the teaching profession. But even more, he said, the last year has proved that teachers across the U.S. deserve higher pay.

 Provided by The Canadian Press

“You deserve a raise, not just praise,” Biden said in remarks at the National Education Association’s annual meeting in Washington. “Every parent in this country who spent the last year educating their children at home understands that you deserve a raise.”


Biden made the case while selling his proposed legislative priorities and budget for next year, which includes $20 billion in new funding that aims to spur states to increase teacher pay. A close ally of teachers unions, the president went on to describe educators as “the single most important component of America’s future.”

Biden and first lady Jill Biden gave remarks at a mostly empty Washington Convention Center while union members watched virtually. Biden is the first president in recent history to address the labor group, whose 3 million members include his wife, a longtime community college professor.

After a year in which some teachers unions were villainized for slowing the return to the classroom, the president and his wife had nothing but praise. Jill Biden called teachers heroes who adapted overnight to support students and families.

“You spoke out for safely reopening schools and more student support,” she said. “You carried families through the darkest year in modern history with patience, compassion and care. And you did it all while you worried about your own families' health and education and safety."

The president mostly used the speech to push his proposals. He made the case for the bipartisan infrastructure deal, including its plan to improve broadband access. He said the problem was laid bare last year as many children struggled to access remote classes offered by their schools.

He promoted his American Families Plan, which would offer two years of free community college to all Americans, along with two years of preschool for all 3- and 4-year-old children. And he pitched further investments for teachers, including a proposal to double the amount of a federal grant for aspiring teachers and to boost career training for current teachers.

Both of the nation's major teachers unions endorsed Biden as a presidential candidate, and he has kept close ties with them since his election. While introducing Biden, NEA President Becky Pringle applauded Biden for nominating Miguel Cardona, a former teacher and principal, to lead the Education Department.

Some Republicans have accused Biden of being too close to the powerful unions, saying he should have taken stronger action to press teachers to return to in-person instruction. And some said his goal to have most elementary and middle schools reopened within 100 days — a goal he achieved in May — was not ambitious enough.

Biden addressed the union days before a July Fourth holiday that he said should be celebrated as a “summer of freedom” as the nation recovers from the coronavirus. He drew attention to a recent survey by the teachers union finding that 84% of its members had been vaccinated. But he also looked forward to challenges as schools work to recover from the pandemic.

“On Sunday we’ll celebrate our independence as a nation, as well as our progress against the virus,” he said. “In the days ahead, we have a chance to make another beginning, the beginning of a stronger, fairer education system. But it can’t be done without you.”

Collin Binkley, The Associated Press

Workers are 'epiphany-quitting' their jobs after the pandemic forced them to rethink everything about their lives

sjackson@insider.com (Sarah Jackson) 

 People are quitting their jobs at rates not seen in two decades. 

shironosov/Getty Images

The pandemic prompted many people to reevaluate their personal and professional fulfillment.

With new clarity and urgency, some people left their jobs to pursue new priorities.

Some people said they quit to start a business or move to another country in search of better work-life balance.

Lauren Good had been working in healthcare administration for about a decade when the pandemic struck. At the time, Good had a 9-month-old daughter and struggled navigating new motherhood alongside her demanding job.

"Seeing so many people around me losing their lives, losing loved ones, losing their jobs - it put things into perspective," she told Insider. "I said to myself, 'Why am I, like, busting my butt for a place that doesn't even really support me?'"

So Good quit in September. Five months later, she became a pre- and post-natal health coach to provide the support she said her workplace never gave her following her pregnancy.

Good is among a group of workers who could be called epiphany quitters for deciding to quit their jobs after reevaluating their lives in the midst of the pandemic. Insider spoke with nine people who said they quit their jobs within the last year to pursue new priorities. Several people walked away without other offers ready. Some started businesses. Others moved to another country or retired early.

The state of the pandemic job market deterred many people from quitting in case they couldn't find other work. But with hiring now on the upswing, emboldened workers are taking their chances in greater numbers. Four million Americans quit their jobs in April, a 20-year high.

"Workers are finally fed up and saying the jig is up," said Sylvia Allegretto, co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at UC Berkeley.
Pivoting from 'constant fire' and looking for a big change

Pandemic burnout and weakened work-life boundaries motivated some people to start businesses to wrest back control over their work lives in a year that took much of that away.

Jen Reeves is one of them. She was working in communications for the University of Missouri last summer when she started a consulting firm on the side. Increased work demands during the pandemic - which Reeve described as "constant fire" - compelled her to quit in October to run her business full-time.

"Everything was so constantly urgent" at her former job, she said. "It's strange to think that a pandemic offered something positive, but I do think it was the one push that finally got me into doing what I was meant to do."

For others, pandemic-inspired epiphanies meant leaving the workforce altogether. The anonymous writer behind the finance blog A Purple Life said she left her marketing job in October and retired at 30 after spending five years working toward an early retirement goal. She quit to move closer to family to care for them if they got sick.

"It was a global pandemic that seemed to disproportionately harm people of color; I'm a Black woman, so I was worried even moreso for my family," she said. "I don't really care about the money in comparison."

Some workers quit so they could relocate. Jessica Byrne, a software engineer, said she left Santa Barbara, California, in March to join a micromobility startup in Amsterdam for better work-life balance and travel opportunities.

"After being cooped up from the pandemic for so long, I knew I needed a big change," she said. "I wanted a culture that appreciated lots of time off and [understood] that there's more to life than just staying at home coding. I didn't want to be expected to be tethered to my computer."

As the economic reopening continues, quit rates may keep rising, especially among those who have the financial freedom to leave their jobs. Forty-four percent of US workers plan to look for new jobs in the next year, according to a study conducted by experience management company Qualtrics. Their reasons for doing so include burnout, stress, lack of growth opportunities, and desire for higher pay.

"The fact that workers are quitting is a sign of optimism," said Allegretto. It's also a sign that workers are gaining more bargaining power.

"People are saying, 'I need to make a change here. Things weren't working, there seems to be some opportunity out there. ...I can maybe bargain for a bit of a higher wage. I can maybe bargain for some benefits,'" Allegretto said. "And that's a really good thing because that has been lacking for far too long."

Read the original article on Business Insider