Hiring immigrants, workers from around globe key to solving labor shortage problem in Ohio


Steve Stivers
Fri, December 10, 2021

Hindo Salad, director of businesses, background, and Asma Ali, director of housing, work at The Somali Community Link on May 3, 2021. A majority of Somali immigrants to the Columbus area have started their own businesses, according to economic development experts.More

Over my career as a state senator, a U.S. Congressman and now the Ohio Chamber of Commerce CEO, I’ve come to believe that global talent is a key ingredient to our economic vitality. Of course, the Ohio Chamber supports getting people to move to Ohio from other states, but we need to attract talent from other countries as well.

More: Demand for workers in Ohio, Greater Columbus continues to surge

With our rapidly aging population and global competitors intent on stealing our foreign-born university graduates, we need a new approach to attracting and retaining talent. That’s why one year ago, the Chamber joined Ohio Business for Immigration Solutions, a coalition of Ohio businesses, trade organizations, city chambers and economic development groups who support common sense immigration reform.

Steve Stivers is the president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and a former U.S. representative for Ohio’s 15th Congressional District.

Ohio’s business community knows the status quo isn’t an option to solve our workforce issues, so we advocate for policies that will grow the workforce and help us fill job vacancies. For example, improving access to green cards for in-demand sector employees and increasing work visa quotas for foreign workers to reflect current skills gaps.

More: Ohio business leaders launch coalition in support of immigration reform

It’s been tremendous to see the business community stand up to tackle the workforce crisis.

Over the last 12 months, Ohio Business for Immigrant Solutions tripled in growth, from 20 to almost 70 members, and now includes every geographic region of Ohio and business sector, from healthcare and manufacturing to agriculture and tech.

We’ve brought business leaders into roundtable discussions with elected officials and given them a platform to share their personal stories. So many of our businesses have real-life examples of how immigrants helped to turn things around.

Take, for example, Ross McGregor, the president of Pentaflex Inc. He recently joined Ohio Business for Immigrant Solutions because he believes immigration reform can help alleviate workforce issues. Like many business owners, he is not only facing a labor shortage, but also high turnover rates.

More: Economic pulse check: CEO survey finds labor is top concern, and diversity work continues

He recently hired 20 Haitian immigrants to stabilize his workforce and reduce turnover.

At first, there was a language barrier, but that issue was quickly addressed by translating working instructions to the workers’ native language. The Haitian workers are reliable and hardworking employees.

This positive experience led him to become a member of Ohio Business for Immigrant Solutions and share his story with policy makers at all levels of government.

Attracting and retaining global talent also has benefits beyond the business community. It creates a more robust tax base: foreign-born Ohioans paid $6 billion in taxes in 2019, according to New American Economy.

Immigrants also have a positive impact on entrepreneurship, as immigrants launch new businesses at significant rates; today, more than 29,000 foreign-born entrepreneurs create services and support our local economies across Ohio.

More: How Northland's Global Mall became a landmark for Columbus' Somali community

Finally, immigrants are key to economic recovery.

A new report from NAE assessing the aftermath of the Great Recession, found that metro areas with more immigrants were able to recover faster than others. On average, each additional percentage point of foreign-born residents was associated almost 800 more employed workers in 2015.

I’m proud that Ohio attracts global talent to our doorstep. And I’m proud that business leaders see the vital role that newcomers play in our communities. We are building a movement for our businesses, for our economy, and for all of our Buckeye neighbors. We hope you will join us.

Steve Stivers is the president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and a former U.S. representative for Ohio’s 15th Congressional District.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: What role could immigrants, foreign workers play in solving labor shortage?

In Myanmar's Chin state, a grassroots rebellion grows

Fri, December 10, 2021
By Devjyot Ghoshal and Chanchinmawia

CHAMPHAI, India (Reuters) - The former boxer said he and his comrades were perched on a hillside near the town of Mindat, in Myanmar's northwest, and preparing to ambush a patrol of soldiers when the troops opened fire and a bullet smashed into his forearm.

"I tried to run but I got shot again in the upper arm," Za Latt Thwey, who requested that he be identified by the name he uses as a boxer, told Reuters near a safe house in India's Mizoram state, which borders Myanmar.

An Indian orthopaedic surgeon's note said the 25-year-old had suffered a gunshot wound and an X-ray showed where his bone had been shattered.

That skirmish in mid-May was part of what seven people involved in the rebellion, including five fighters, said was a growing popular resistance to Myanmar's military in Chin state.

Their accounts include previously unreported details of how the rebellion there began and expanded.

As in other parts of the country, civilians enraged by the military coup in February and subsequent crackdown on protesters are taking up arms. The junta appears to be worried about the threat they pose in Chin.

In the last few weeks, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, has sent reinforcements to Chin, which had been largely peaceful for years, and launched a major offensive against rebels, according to some analysts and rights groups.

More than a dozen so-called Chinland Defence Force (CDF) opposition groups have sprung up in the state, according to three of the sources, who described an expanding network of fighters whose knowledge of local terrain is a major advantage.

They said the groups had established supply chains, food stockpiles and weapon depots and linked up with a long-established ethnic group called the Chin National Front (CNF) to train in combat and better coordinate operations.

The military has said all resistance forces and the shadow government are "terrorists".

CNF spokesman Salai Htet Ni told Reuters the group had helped train Chin youth and protesters in basic guerrilla warfare after the military coup.

"Our unity and public support is our strength," said a 32-year-old fighter from Chin's capital Hakha.

Reuters was not able to independently verify some claims made by the sources about the strength of the rebellion and scale of the Tatmadaw's response.

Myanmar's military spokesperson and the Ministry of Information did not respond to requests for comment on the growing resistance in Chin or the armed forces' deployments.

The Tatmadaw's response to resistance in Chin and elsewhere has prompted warnings from the United Nations and United States that the brutal clampdown on Rohingya Muslims in neighbouring Rakhine state in 2017 risked being repeated.

More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Rakhine that year and refugees accused the military of mass killings and rape. UN investigators said the military had carried out the atrocities with "genocidal intent".

Myanmar authorities said they were battling an insurgency and deny carrying out systematic atrocities.

The military has not released details of overall battlefield losses since the February coup.

NOODLES AND SHOTGUNS

Before he took up arms, the fighter from Hakha said he was a postgraduate student of history who joined widespread public demonstrations against the February coup.

Like the four other fighters Reuters interviewed in Mizoram, he said his decision to join the resistance was triggered by the military's suppression of peaceful protests that demanded civilian rule be restored.

Local monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) says junta forces have killed more than 1,300 people and detained thousands in a bid to crush opposition to the coup.

The military has outlawed AAPP, saying it is biased and uses exaggerated data. The AAPP has not responded to that accusation.

Groups of young protesters in Hakha began stockpiling food including rice, oil and noodles and medical supplies in multiple locations in the jungle surrounding the township of around 50,000 people, two of the fighters said.

In April, some CDF groups met in Camp Victoria, the CNF's headquarters, to coordinate armed resistance against the Tatmadaw, according to the fighter from Hakha.

The CNF, which has a military wing, has become pivotal to the resistance, providing training and other support to several CDF groups across the state, said two fighters and a senior leader of the National Unity Government (NUG).

The NUG, effectively a shadow government, comprises pro-democracy groups and remnants of the ousted civilian administration. It has held talks with foreign officials, including from the United States.

In the early months of the resistance, nearly 2,000 volunteers from Hakha were sent to Camp Victoria for combat training under the CNF, the two fighters said, a level of coordination not previously reported.

NEW KIND OF CRISIS

By May, three of the CDF fighters said they were taking on the Tatmadaw in several parts of Chin, a 36,000 square kilometre province with nine major townships.

Outside Mindat, Za Latt Thwey said he was among the guerrillas, some trained by the CNF, who targeted Tatmadaw patrols.

In cellphone footage taken by fighters, and shown to Reuters by Za Latt Thwey, small groups of young men could be seen perched on wooded hillsides firing homemade guns and automatic rifles. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

Financial support for the rebels in Mindat has mostly come from the Chin diaspora and the NUG, said an ousted Chin lawmaker, who declined to be named.

Through multiple routes, including from India, the lawmaker said food, clothes, medicine and equipment were reaching the rebels each month.

Weapons and explosives were the hardest to procure, according to the lawmaker, the NUG leader and three of the fighters.

The CDF Hakha, with some 2,000 volunteers, is run by a 21-member council that oversees command stations, smaller camps and supporting units, two of the rebels said.

Across Chin violence has escalated in the last four months as the Tatmadaw clashes with a rising number of rebel groups, according to analysis from the Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO).

"We have never had this kind of crisis before in Chin," said CHRO's Salai Za Uk Ling.

Once a thriving settlement of some 10,000 people, the hilltop town of Thantlang is now virtually deserted, surrounded by soldiers who set alight more than 500 buildings since early September, according to two former residents and the CHRO.

The U.S. State Department singled out events in Chin, and Thantlang in particular, in a statement last month urging the military to end the violence.

Pa Hein, 55, who said he was among the last people to leave the town in late September, told Reuters by telephone that he saw Tatmadaw troops ransack shops and set buildings on fire.

The Myanmar military has denied the accusations, and blamed insurgents for instigating fighting in Thantlang and burning homes.

SEEKING TREATMENT

After the first police defectors trickled into India's Mizoram state in early March, followed by Myanmar lawmakers and thousands of others seeking shelter, the mountainous border province has become a buffer zone for Chin guerrillas.

The Indian government did not respond to a request for comment.

Mizoram authorities estimate around 12,900 people have crossed over from Myanmar, including 30 ousted state and federal lawmakers, according to a senior Mizoram police official who declined to be named.

Some of the lawmakers and leaders have been helping the resistance, and as fighting intensifies they are seeking to unify and support the rebels.

The NUG wants to bring all armed resistance groups under a single command with the assistance of the CNF, said the Chin lawmaker and senior NUG leader.

CNF's Salai Htet Ni said the group and the NUG had agreed to work together, with the CNF "taking a leadership role in Chin State's defence and military warfare."

After he was shot, Za Latt Thwey said he tried for months to find a safe route to the Myanmar city of Mandalay, but eventually deemed the journey too risky.

In early November, he collected money from family and friends and undertook a five-day journey, mostly by motorcycle, to cross into India.

"I can't box anymore," Za Latt Thwey said. "But I need my arm to be fixed so that I can continue my normal life, so that I can farm."

(Additional reporting by Myanmar bureau; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

 

Tibetan students lock themselves to Olympic rings to protest Beijing games


FILE PHOTO: Staff members work near the emblem for Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics displayed at the Shanghai Sports Museum in Shanghai

Sat, December 11, 2021

LAUSANNE (Reuters) -Two Tibetan students chained themselves to the Olympic rings outside the Swiss headquarters of the International Olympic Committee on Saturday to call for an international boycott of next year's winter games.

The pair were part of the latest protest against the 2022 Olympic Games over Beijing's abuse of human rights and its treatment of minorities.

The United States will not send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics due to China's human rights "atrocities," it said earlier this month.

Members of the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe (TYAE) and Students for a Free Tibet held a sit-in at the IOC building in Lausanne as officials gathered for a meeting.

The activists demanded countries withdraw from the event they have called the "Genocide Games", which they say are being used to burnish China's reputation.

China seized control of Tibet after its troops entered the region in 1950 in what it calls a "peaceful liberation". Tibet has since become one of the most restricted areas in the country. Critics, led by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, say Beijing's rule amounts to "cultural genocide".

Two activists unfurled a banner over the entry to the building reading, "No Beijing 2022," while five students got inside the building and held a sit-in protest.

"Despite mounting international criticism of the IOC and China, the Chinese regime's human rights abuses in Tibet, East Turkestan, and Hong Kong continue unabated," said Tenzing Dhokhar, Campaigns Director of TYAE, one of the protesters.

"By collaborating with China, the IOC is making itself an accomplice of the Chinese Communist Party's crimes, which will be sports-washed by the Beijing Olympics."

Police started removing the campaigners after three hours of protests. Organisers and a Reuters eyewitness described the protest as peaceful, but the IOC said one of its security guards was injured.

"The IOC always listens to all concerns that are directly related to the Olympic Games. We have engaged multiple times with peaceful protesters and explained our position, but we will not engage with violent protesters who used force to enter the IOC building and injured a security guard by doing so," the IOC said in a statement.

The organisation has previously said it is a force for good and cannot have any influence over sovereign states.

Chinese authorities have been accused of facilitating forced labour by detaining around a million Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim minorities in camps since 2016.

China denies wrongdoing, saying it has set up vocational training centres to combat extremism.

(Reporting by Denis Balibouse, writing by John Revill, editing by Ros Russell)

EU to impose sanctions on Russian military contractor Wagner Group, official says

Fri, December 10, 2021
By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will impose sanctions on Russian private military contractor Wagner Group on Monday, as well as on three entities and seven or eight individuals, a senior EU official said, after France pressed for punitive measures citing human rights abuses.

Over a dozen people with ties to the Wagner Group have previously told Reuters it has carried out clandestine combat missions on the Kremlin's behalf in Ukraine, Libya and Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in December 2018 that Russian private military contractors had the right to work and pursue their interests anywhere in the world as long as they did not break Russian law. In January 2020, Putin said the Wagner Group, whose members are mostly ex-service personnel, neither represented the Russia state nor were paid by the Russian state.

Moscow has repeatedly told the EU that sanctions on its citizens were akin to meddling in Russia's domestic affairs and would face retaliation.

"Wagner is active in Syria, Libya, in Ukraine and the individual (sanctions) are related to gross violations of human rights in different countries," the EU senior official said.

Two diplomats said the sanctions would be approved by EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday and published in the bloc's official journal.

Since the Wagner Group has no direct links with the EU, the addition of the three other entities and individuals aims to have an impact by hitting companies working with the mercenaries, diplomats said.

Reuters reported in September that Mali's military junta was in discussions about deploying the Wagner Group in Mali, which France says is not acceptable because it has its own troops in the region.

French officials say the junta is turning to Wagner as part of efforts to cling to power beyond a transition period due to end after the Feb. 27 presidential and legislative elections.

Two diplomats said Mali also faces EU sanctions and that a legal framework for such measures would be agreed on Monday, although no names would be decided by then.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Frances Kerry)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Fugitive Portuguese banker Joao Rendeiro arrested in South Africa

Joao Rendeiro (L), then president of the Portuguese Private Bank, is shown during a press conference on November 10, 2005, in Seville, Spain. File photo by Chema Moya/EPA

Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Fugitive Portuguese banker Joao Rendeiro, who was sentenced to more than five years in connection with the collapse of the Portuguese Private Bank, was arrested Saturday, police said.

Portugal's Judiciary Police announced that Rendeiro was taken into custody on an international warrant after fleeing the country in September.

Judiciary Police Director Luís Neves said at news conference in Lisbon the fugitive financier was arrested in South Africa, CNN and the Portuguese newspaper Publico reported.

Neves said Rendeiro was taken into custody with the help of South African police, adding that he had been "living in the wealthiest area of Johannesburg" while on the lam, including staying at "five-star hotels."

"He was being very careful," Neves also said. "He was surprised because he wasn't expecting it."

Rendeiro has been sentenced three times in connection with the collapse of the Portuguese Private Bank, which provided private banking, corporate advice and private equity services to mostly wealthy clients. The bank ran into severe financing difficulties during the 2008 financial crisis and went into liquidation two years later.

In 2018, Rendeiro, the bank's former chairman, was sentenced to five years and eight months for computer and document forgery; in May 2021, he drew a term of 10 years for tax fraud, breach of confidence and money laundering; and in September he was sentenced to more than three years for fraud.

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The former banker fled the country after his initial sentence became final in September.

Judiciary Police did not reveal where in South Africa Rendeiro was detained, but indicated it was "far from Pretoria and Johannesburg."

South African National Police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo told the Lusa press agency Rendeiro was apprehended near Durban and will appear in that city's Magistrates' Court on Monday as part of an extradition process.

RELATED Jury indicts Texas billionaire in $2B decades-long tax fraud scheme

Rendeiro's wife told authorities last month her husband was in hiding in South Africa. The banker said in an interview with CNN Portugal last month that he would not return to Portugal on his own unless he was cleared of what he called the unfair charges against him or was pardoned by Portugal's president.

'LIKE EVERY COP IS A CRIMINAL'*

DEA agent gets 12 years for conspiring with Colombian cartel


Former DEA agent Jose Irizarry arrives at the United States Courthouse Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021, in Tampa, Fla. Irizarry, a once-standout U.S. narcotics agent who used his badge to build a lavish lifestyle of expensive cars, parties on yachts and Tiffany jewels, was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021, for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)More

JOSHUA GOODMAN and JIM MUSTIAN
Thu, December 9, 2021

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A once-standout U.S. narcotics agent who used his badge to build a lavish lifestyle of expensive cars, parties on yachts and Tiffany jewels was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison Thursday for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel.

But even as José Irizarry admitted to his crimes, he blamed former colleagues at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for fostering a culture of corruption that desensitized him to the implications of violating the law.

“When my client joined the DEA he was schooled in how to be corrupt, he was schooled in how to break the law," his attorney, María Dominguez, said in court. “In this alternate universe it became easier and less suspect to accept money and gifts" from criminal informants who worked with the U.S. premier narcotics agency.

U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Honeywell in handing down her sentence expressed disgust with the DEA for its failings and said other agents corrupted by “the allure of easy money” also needed to be investigated.

"This has to stop,” the judge said. “You were the one who got caught but it is apparent to this court that there are others.”

The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Prosecutors have described Irizarry’s crimes as a “shocking breach of the public’s trust.”

Irizarry’s allegations underscore the porous oversight he received during his career, in which he was entrusted with the government’s use of front companies, shell bank accounts and couriers to combat international drug trafficking.

They also raise new questions about whether his colleagues in the Miami field office, where Irizarry’s criminal activity began, similarly abused the badge in their handling of confidential informants who every year move tens of millions of dollars in dirty money under the DEA's supervision.

Dominguez in court filings revealed that since Irizarry's arrest last year he has met with prosecutors for “endless hours” to provide information on the criminal activities of “fellow law-enforcement agents who initiated him in a life of crime.”

Honeywell recently sealed “sensitive” documents filed in the criminal case, saying their disclosure could potentially impede an ongoing criminal investigation, cause targets to flee and hinder cooperation from other witnesses. So far, other than Irizarry's wife, Nathalia Gomez-Irizarry, and a Colombian customs worker, nobody else has been charged in the conspiracy.

The U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General slammed the DEA in a report over the summer for failing to properly oversee what are supposed to be tightly monitored stings of the sort Irizarry worked on. As a result of the rebuke, which came on the heels of a string of scandals involving agents overseas, Anne Milgram, the DEA's new administrator, ordered an outside review of the agency's foreign operations, which is ongoing.

The DEA has been shaken by repeated cases of misconduct in recent years, including agents charged with wire fraud, bribery and selling firearms to drug traffickers. Thursday’s hearing came just four months after another longtime DEA agent, Chad Scott, was sentenced to more than 13 years behind bars for stealing money from suspects, falsifying government records and committing perjury.

The DEA hired Irizarry, 47, and allowed him to handle sensitive financial transactions even after he failed a polygraph exam, declared bankruptcy and kept close ties to a suspected money launderer who would go on to become the godfather of the agent's twin daughters with his Colombian wife.

He pleaded guilty last year to 19 federal counts, including bank fraud, admitting he parlayed his expertise in money laundering into a life of luxury that prosecutors said was bankrolled by $9 million he and his co-conspirators diverted from undercover money laundering investigations.

The spoils included a $30,000 Tiffany diamond ring for his wife, luxury sports cars and a $767,000 home in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena — on top of residences in south Florida and Puerto Rico. Before he resigned in 2018, Irizarry’s ostentatious habits and tales of raucous yacht parties had become well known among DEA agents and prosecutors with whom they worked.

To further the scheme, prosecutors said, Irizarry filed false reports and ordered DEA staff to wire money slated for undercover stings to international accounts he and associates controlled. The money should’ve been carefully tracked by the DEA as part of undercover money laundering investigations, prosecutors said.

Irizarry has claimed the bank accounts in question amounted to a profit-producing “slush fund” for official and personal travel of federal law enforcement, U.S. prosecutors and confidential sources.

Dominguez said Irizarry accepted full responsibility for his actions but that his take of the conspiracy never surpassed $600,000.

At Thursday's sentencing, Irizarry broke down in tears as he addressed the court, saying the biggest punishment was not being able to explain two his two young daughters why he would be going away for so long. He said when he became a federal law enforcement agent two decades ago he did so with a sense of great pride.

“Unfortunately, there came a time when I made a decision that went against the person who I was, that damaged my wife and embarrassed my country," he said. “I should’ve known better and I didn’t. I failed.”

__

Mustian reported from New Orleans.

*SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL, ROLLING STONES

Analysis-Rohingya lawsuit against Facebook a 'wake-up call' for social media


Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is displayed behind a smartphone with the Facebook logo in this illustration picture

Fri, December 10, 2021
By Rina Chandran and Avi Asher-Schapiro

BANGKOK/LOS ANGELES (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A landmark lawsuit by Rohingya refugees against Meta Platforms Inc, formerly known as Facebook, is a "wake-up call" for social media firms and a test case for courts to limit their immunity, human rights and legal experts said.

The $150 billion class-action complaint, filed in California on Monday by law firms Edelson PC and Fields PLLC, argues that Facebook's failure to police content and its platform's design contributed to violence against the Rohingya community.

British lawyers also submitted a letter of notice to Facebook's London office.

While analysts are split over the merits of the case and its chances of success, Rohingya activists said their status of being deemed illegal immigrants in Myanmar left them with few options.

"The Rohingya lost everything. But in Myanmar, there is no law for the Rohingya," said Nay San Lwin, co-founder of advocacy group Free Rohingya Coalition, who has faced abuse on Facebook.

"Facebook profited from our suffering. The survivors have no option other than a lawsuit against Facebook. It will be an injustice if Rohingya survivors are not compensated for their losses," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

In an earlier statement in response to the lawsuit, a Meta spokesperson said the company was "appalled by the crimes committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar."

"We've built a dedicated team of Burmese speakers, banned the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military), disrupted networks manipulating public debate and taken action on harmful misinformation to help keep people safe. We've also invested in Burmese-language technology to reduce the prevalence of violating content."

A day after the lawsuit was filed, Meta said it would ban several accounts linked to the Myanmar military, and said on Wednesday it had built a new artificial intelligence system that can adapt more easily to take action on new or evolving types of harmful content faster.

It was a sign that the tech giant was rattled, said Debbie Stothard, founder of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN), an advocacy group.

"The timing of these announcements shows the lawsuit is a wake-up call. The lawsuit itself is quite a bold move, but the Rohingya clearly felt there were sufficient grounds," she said.

"Strategic litigation like this - you never know where it can go. In recent times we have seen climate-change litigation becoming more commonplace and getting some wins," she added.

NO PRECEDENT

More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar's Rakhine state in August 2017 after a military crackdown that refugees said included mass killings and rape. Rights groups documented killings of civilians and burning of villages.

Myanmar authorities say they were battling an insurgency and deny carrying out systematic atrocities.

United Nations human rights investigators said in 2018 that the use of Facebook had played a key role in spreading hate speech that fuelled the violence against the Rohingya.

A Reuters investigation that year, cited in the U.S. complaint, found more than 1,000 examples of posts, comments and images attacking the Rohingya and other Muslims on Facebook.

But in the United States, platforms such as Facebook are protected from liability over content posted by users by a law known as Section 230.

The Rohingya complaint says it seeks to apply Myanmar law to the claims if Section 230 is raised as a defence.

"Based on the precedents, this case should lose," said Eric Goldman, a professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law. "But you've got so much antipathy towards Facebook nowadays - anything is possible."

While the technology industry and others have long held that Section 230 is a crucial protection, the statute has become increasingly controversial as the power of internet companies has grown.

Earlier this year, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg laid out steps to reform the law, saying that companies should have immunity from liability only if they follow best practices for removing damaging material from their platforms.

The lawsuit is a good test case for courts to limit how much immunity platforms are afforded, said David Mindell, a partner at Edelson PC, one of the law firms that brought the suit.

"This case is about what happens when a powerful company has this unchecked power over the world," he said.

WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINTS

Goldman and Mindell said that recent whistleblower complaints from inside Facebook, which allege the company did not act even when it knew its platform was being used for human rights abuses, could buttress the lawsuit, as could the company's admission that it was "too slow" to contain the abuse.

The lawsuit highlights that "a company can apologise all they like, but at the end of the day, people were harmed," said David Kaye, a human rights lawyer who chairs the board of the Global Network Initiative, a group that includes Facebook and other tech firms.

"And those stateless people can't go to the government of Myanmar for remedy. And if they can't go to the company - what's the remedy?"

The International Criminal Court has opened a case into the accusations of crimes. In September, a U.S. federal judge ordered Facebook to release records of accounts connected to anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar that the social media giant had shut down.

The progress of the lawsuit would be keenly watched by not just the Rohingya, but also other groups and individuals who have been harmed by online hate speech, said Stothard.

"Refugees, migrants, LGBT people, other minorities - they have all suffered serious harm," she said.

"The question to ask is not, will the lawsuit succeed, but why was it necessary? It's about making social media companies accountable," she said.

(Reporting by Rina Chandran and Avi Asher-Schapiro; Editing by Zoe Tabary. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Purchases Raise Question Among Citizens


Oluwapelumi Adejumo
Fri, December 10, 2021

El Salvador’s Bitcoin decision has won it an equal number of friends and foes around the world. While the crypto community has continued to hail the adoption of the country, the Bukele-led administration has faced some level of backlash from some of its citizens who have accused the government of bad governance and being corrupt.
El Salvador’s BTC Purchase Lacks Transparency

A recent report from a local media house in El Salvador has revealed that the Salvadoran government has not been totally transparent in its dealing with the flagship digital asset. According to the report, the government has been making various Bitcoin purchases without providing any information on where the fund is coming from.

The media outlet estimated that El Salvador has spent over $160 million on Bitcoin purchases, however, there is little to no information on where the coin is being stored or knowledge of those who have access to it.

Bitcoin City is a Risky Project

The report described El Salvador’s proposed Bitcoin city project as a “risky” and “desperate measure” being implemented by the government.

According to economist Ricardo Castaneda, “If [the BTC bonds and Bitcoin City projects] go well, President Bukele will be an example and will be able to tell multilateral organizations and the international community that we don’t need them. But if this goes wrong, the whole population is going to lose out.”

The economist considered that the Bitcoin City announcement “is like selling an illusion for bitcoiners and that with that they have an incentive.”
Bukele Remains Bullish About Bitcoin

Despite the concerns raised by different international organizations and locals of the country, President Nayib Bukele has maintained a bullish sentiment towards the flagship digital asset as he pushed for the adoption of the coin in the country.

Since he revealed his intention to legalize BTC in the Central American country, the government has introduced a number of pro-crypto policies like incentivizing the use of the Chivo wallet, airdropping $30 worth of BTC to citizens while also revealing some statistics that show a positive sentiment of the citizens towards the asset.

However, a study by the Center for Citizen Studies at Francisco Gavidia University has negated some of his claims. The research result shows that 91% of the country’s citizens prefer the US dollar to the digital asset. Per the research, 40% of the citizens still oppose the country’s adoption of the asset as a legal tender.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; NARCO STATE

Exclusive-U.S. preparing indictments against Salvadoran officials over alleged pact with gangs -sources


Chief of the Salvadoran Penal System and Vice Minister of Justice and Public Security Osiris Luna Meza speaks during the inauguration of the new cell area, in Ayutuxtepeque


Fri, December 10, 2021
By Sarah Kinosian, Drazen Jorgic and Matt Spetalnick

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are preparing criminal charges against El Salvador's deputy justice minister Osiris Luna and another senior official, accusing them of negotiating a secret truce with gangs, two sources said, amid rising tensions between Washington and President Nayib Bukele's government.

According to the sources, the indictments are being prepared by a Department of Justice (DOJ) taskforce against Luna and Carlos Marroquin, a close Bukele ally who heads a Salvadoran government social welfare agency.

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Luna and Marroquin on Wednesday, accusing them of cutting a deal with the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 gangs, in which the gangs would reduce violence in El Salvador and provide political backing in return for money and easier prison conditions.

Bukele has repeatedly denied his government negotiated any truce and denounced the sanctions.

The two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the DOJ was now preparing criminal charges against Luna and Marroquin.

Luna, a member of Bukele's cabinet who is also in charge of El Salvador's prison system, and Marroquin did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The DOJ declined to comment.

The investigation is being handled by the Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV), a DOJ unit set up in 2019 to coordinate efforts by U.S. law enforcement agencies to dismantle MS-13, which has made inroads in U.S. cities and prisons, both sources said. U.S. officials say the gangs have ordered murders on U.S. soil from inside prisons in El Salvador.

The U.S. government claims broad authority to prosecute for a wide range of crimes committed abroad, including for acts committed by or against American citizens.

The task force has indicted several MS-13 leaders on terrorism charges in the Eastern District of New York.

El Salvador classifies MS-13 as a terrorist organization and U.S. prosecutors have accused some of the group's leaders of terrorist acts.

While the timeline has not been finalized, the indictments are expected in coming months, said the sources, who sought anonymity as they are not authorized to publicly speak about the planned indictments. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was involved in the probe, said one of the sources.

The FBI did not respond to requests for comment.

The two sources said the exact charges have not been finalized. The second source said they were likely to focus on corrupt practices and consorting with groups responsible for violent crimes.

Building on Wednesday's Treasury sanctions, the U.S. State Department on Thursday imposed a new set of penalties on Luna and Marroquin for "misappropriating public funds."

The sanctions and the indictments being drafted are likely to further strain relations between Bukele and Washington, where the Salvadoran leader is seen as an increasingly authoritarian figure.

Bukele on Thursday called the allegations "absurd."

"It's clear that the United States' government does not accept collaboration, friendship or alliances," said Bukele, a former mayor of the capital, San Salvador. "It's absolute submission or nothing."

URBAN CONTROL

U.S. authorities also discovered that the MS-13 gang had put out a hit on an FBI agent when they intercepted a small piece of paper, known as a "wila," that the gangs use to pass on coded messages to their members outside prisons. The agent fled El Salvador with his family, according to the first source.

Successive Salvadoran presidents have wrestled with how to curtail MS-13 and Barrio 18's control over urban areas, where violence and extortion have spurred waves of emigration to the United States.

Bukele was a staunch critic of a 2012 clandestine accord between the former government and gang leaders that collapsed two years later, resulting in a sharp increase in the country's murder rate and leading to the arrest of several government officials.

Rumors of a fresh accord swirled after the murder rate tumbled about 50% in the year after Bukele took office in June 2019.

Homicides dropped to 17 murders per 100,000 people in 2021, down from 51 in 2018, according to the National Police.

Bukele has credited the drop in homicides to his policies.

In September 2020, newspaper El Faro, citing internal government documents, reported that Luna and Marroquin offered better prison conditions to gang members in exchange for reduced homicide rates and electoral support for Bukele's party.

(Reporting by Sarah Kinosian in San Salvador, Drazen Jorgic in Mexico City and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Additional reporting by Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Rosalba O'Brien)

El Salvador government accused of falsely claiming to crack down on gangs while giving backhanders


Simeon Tegel
Sat, December 11, 2021

President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele - MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele has been accused of falsely claiming to crack down on some of the world’s most violent street gangs while his government secretly gave them backhanders, including “mobile phones and prostitutes” for jailed gang leaders.

The accusation comes from the United States Treasury, which this week sanctioned two of Mr Bukele’s key allies for agreeing a “secret truce” with the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 gangs, whose rampant bloodshed has brought the Central American nation to its knees.

It activated the Magnitsky Act, used to target foreign officials involved in corruption and human rights abuses, against Osiris Luna, head of El Salvador’s prison system and deputy minister for public security, and Carlos Marroquin, who leads a welfare agency.

That means that any assets the pair have in the US will be frozen and US citizens will be barred from doing business with them. Luna was also accused of stealing government Covid-19 supplies.

Gang-related crimes are a big problem in El Salvador - 

MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

In a statement, Washington accused the pair of striking the clandestine deal with the violent criminals, in furtive meetings in El Salvador’s high security jails, to ensure that “incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low. Over the course of these negotiations with Luna and Marroquin, gang leadership also agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party [of Bukele] in upcoming elections.”

The revelation comes as aides to Leftist former president Mauricio Funes are being tried for a similar pact with the gangs in 2012. Mr Bukele has tweeted that those functionaries are “worse than [trash]” and had “negotiated with the blood of our people.”

“This is very serious,” José Miguel Cruz, an El Salvadoran security expert at Florida International University, told The Telegraph. “The US is formally saying that the Bukele administration colluded with one of the most violent criminal organisations in the Western hemisphere to make security policy.”

Mr Bukele, 41, took office in 2019 after running as a populist independent promising to tackle corruption and crime with an iron fist.

Initially, his approach appeared wildly successful, with just 519 homicides in the nation of six million in the first five months of 2020, compared to 1,345 for the same period the previous year. But it now appears that the dramatic reduction was due to his government kowtowing to the criminals.

Mr Bukele responded furiously to the Biden administration’s allegations, tweeting: “How could they put out such an obvious lie without anyone questioning it? There are videos, yes, but of their friends doing that, not us.”

The news is hardly Mr Bukele’s first brush with controversy. He has previously sent soldiers into Congress, fired an attorney general who had launched corruption proceedings into his government, and made Bitcoin legal tender, taking a huge risk with the national economy.

Latin America’s first millennial head-of-government, Mr Bukele initially had a warm relationship with then US President Donald Trump, even visiting him in the White House.

But relations with the Biden administration are frosty. Earlier this year USAid, Washington’s international aid agency, announced it would re-channel its funding in El Salvador, many of whose citizens attempt to flee the poverty and violence of their homeland by migrating illegally to the US, towards NGOs rather than the Bukele administration.

EXPLAINER: Gang negotiations sensitive topic in El Salvador


El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele speaks to the press at Mexico's National Palace after meeting with the President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City, March 12, 2019. The government of President Bukele secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the country’s powerful street gangs, the U.S. Treasury announced Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, cutting to the heart of one of Bukele’s most highly touted successes in office: a plunge in the country’s murder rate. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)More

CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Thu, December 9, 2021

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Allegations from the United States government that President Nayib Bukele’s administration negotiated with El Salvador's powerful street gangs touched a sensitive topic. Previous administrations in El Salvador both from the left and right have done so and paid a political price. Prosecutions of some former officials are ongoing for past pacts. The U.S. Treasury said an investigation had revealed that officials with Bukele's government offered financial benefits to the gangs, as well as perks to their imprisoned leaders like prostitutes and cellphones, in exchange for lowering the homicide rate and political support in this year’s legislative elections. The U.S. government did not present evidence and Bukele has vehemently denied any deal with the gangs.

WHY ARE GANGS A SENSITIVE TOPIC IN EL SALVADOR?

The street gangs, which originated in the United States and took root in El Salvador when gang members were deported, are a force in Salvadoran society. They control neighborhoods and swaths of territory. There is no reliable figure on how many member the gangs have, but estimates are in the tens of thousands. They extort businesses, move drugs, murder, recruit children and restrict the free movement of people. Much of their leadership is imprisoned, but continues to run the criminal enterprises.


“The problem of the gangs is like a cancer,” said Carlos Carcach, the research coordinator at the Higher School of Economics and Business in San Salvador. “It is something so present in everything that occurs in the country that it is difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate it.”

IS NEGOTIATING DEALS WITH GANGS NEW IN EL SALVADOR?

No. Past governments have been accused of doing it for short-term political gain.

In 2012, officials with the government of then President Mauricio Funes negotiated “the truce” with the country's gangs that lowered the homicide rate, but has been blamed for allowing the gangs to strengthen and expand their territory. There were a variety of carrots offered to the gangs, including payments to members, but the most significant was moving imprisoned gang leaders from maximum security facilities to less secure prisons where they could continue running their criminal activities.

A number of former officials are being prosecuted for crimes related to that pact. Funes fled to Nicaragua where he received asylum. Bukele has been extremely critical of previous governments for making deals with the gangs.

The U.S. government’s allegations are not the first against Bukele’s government. Local news outlet El Faro reported last year that officials were secretly meeting with gang leaders to make a deal, which the president also denied at the time.

IF IT RESULTS IN FEWER MURDERS, WHY SHOULDN'T THE GOVERNMENT NEGOTIATE A TRUCE?

On the surface, the idea of the government making a deal with organized crime is distasteful. The government is responsible for citizens’ safety. At a deeper level, it’s an illustration of who really has power.

A drop in homicides is great, but must be accomplished with good public policies, security and effective investigations and prosecutions, said Leonor Arteaga, program director at the Due Process of Law Foundation, a regional rule of law organization based in Washington.

“What has happened is that the gangs are the ones imposing the conditions and the government the one that has accepted them,” she said. “Given that this reduction is in reality a pact, a negotiation, it’s the gangs who have control and who just as they’ve now reduced homicides, they could raise them again tomorrow.”

A problem is motivation, Arteaga said. “The government’s objective in entering these negotiations is not to obtain a benefit for the people ... but rather to obtain a political benefit,” she said.

WILL THIS HURT BUKELE'S POPULARITY?

Bukele is extremely popular. He rolled to victory over the traditional parties from the right and left in 2019 after corruption scandals largely discredited them. His New Ideas party romped to victory earlier this year in legislative elections that gave them control of the congress.

Bukele supporters laud him for the drop in murders, early acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines and government handouts of food and laptops for school children.

“I don’t see his popularity levels reducing dramatically,” Arteaga said. “The people are more interested in having some way to survive and get along to a certain point with the gangs.”

Benin opposition leader Madougou sentenced to 20 years in prison

Her crime: to have embodied a democratic alternative to the regime of Patrice Talon."


Sat., December 11, 2021



Benin opposition leader Reckya Madougou has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for terrorism by a special court in the capital Porto-Novo, following a brief trial that her lawyers condemned as a "political attack".

After more than 20 hours of hearings, Madougou was found guilty of "complicity in terrorist acts" by the Economic Crime and Terrorism Court, which on Tuesday sentenced another key opposition figure to 10 years.

Critics say the court, set up in 2016, has been used by President Patrice Talon's regime to crack down on the opposition and pushed Benin into authoritarianism.

Speaking before her prison sentence was announced, Madougou said: "This court has deliberately decided to penalise an innocent person."

"I have never been and I will never be a terrorist," the 47-year-old former justice minister added.

Madougou was one of several opposition leaders banned from running in an election in April in which Talon won a second term with 86 percent of the vote.

She was arrested in the economic capital Cotonou in March -- just weeks before the election -- accused of financing an operation to assassinate political figures to prevent the vote, in an alleged bid to "destabilise" the country.

"Tried at 6am, without witnesses, without documents, without evidence, Recky Madougou was sentenced to 20 years in prison by three accomplices of those in power," her France-based lawyer Antoine Vey tweeted after the sentencing.

"Her crime: to have embodied a democratic alternative to the regime of Patrice Talon."

Political attack

Vey had told the trial on Friday that "this procedure is nothing but a political attack".

"Even before her arrest, everything was orchestrated," Vey said a day after arriving from Paris.

He asked for the trial to be cancelled, before leaving the court and never returning -- Madougou's Benin-based lawyers stayed for the remainder.

On the stand at the trial, Madougou said that she had "no illusions" about its outcome.

"I offer myself to the democracy of my country, if my sacrifice can give your court back its independence," she said.

Judge flees the country over political pressure

Less than a week before the April election, a judge from the special court fled Benin denouncing political pressure to make rulings, in particular the case of Madougou's arrest.

Government officials dismiss claims of political interference and say Benin's judiciary is independent.

Benin has long been praised for its thriving multi-party democracy in a troubled region.

But critics say the state's democracy has been steadily eroded under Talon, a 63-year-old cotton magnate first elected in 2016.