Snubbing Joe Biden, Saudi Arabia is aiding Putin with oil output cut. Here's how

Joe Biden has got the opposite of what he was hoping for: a major oil production cut of 2 million barrels a day from OPEC+, where Saudi Arabia is the prime mover.

World News
Published on Oct 06, 2022 

When Joe Biden swallowed his pride and flew to Saudi Arabia in July to fist bump with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he expressed optimism that Riyadh would take steps to boost oil supplies “in the coming weeks.”

Instead, less than three months later, the US president has got the opposite of what he was hoping for: a major oil production cut of 2 million barrels a day from OPEC+, where Saudi Arabia is the prime mover.

For US officials, who spent the past few days in a frantic lobbying effort to persuade Riyadh and other members of the oil producers’ group to change course, the implication is clear: in the increasingly hostile energy war between Russia and the West, Saudi Arabia is willing to help Vladimir Putin and snub Joe Biden.

“It’s clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia with today’s announcement,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters

While Saudi officials said the cut is motivated by the concern over the global economy, the effect has been to trigger a rally in oil prices of more than 10% from last week’s lows. Against a backdrop of low inventories, some analysts warned the move could push prices higher still. Damien Courvalin at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the cuts could add $25 a barrel to Brent prices in 2023 should OPEC+ maintain them for the full year.

There’s “potential for price spikes even higher should inventories fully deplete,” Courvalin said.

For Biden, the decision to cut production is a blow. It is a personal rebuff to a president who had vowed during his election campaign to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah,” only to seek to patch up relations this year in the hope of securing higher oil supplies. It also hinders his attempts to bring down prices and squeeze Russia’s revenues -- by lobbying for a price cap on Russian oil and releasing stocks from the US strategic petroleum reserve.

“This cut was driven by geopolitics, not just market fundamentals,” said Ben Cahill, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “OPEC+ is pushing back against efforts by oil importers to shape the market, including the price cap on Russian oil, US SPR releases, and coordinated action among buyers. It’s a risky move.”

The US was blindsided by the decision to pursue such a large cut, and as the producer group’s plans became clear in the past few days a succession of US officials including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called counterparts in Gulf OPEC members to try to persuade them to change course. She had calls with several regional ministers but got no firm commitments from them, according to people familiar with the matter.

On Wednesday, the White House said that Biden was “disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas” and threatened to consider further action to “reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices.”

Some US politicians were more forthright. Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator for Connecticut and a member of the foreign relations committee, tweeted: “I thought the whole point of selling arms to the Gulf States despite their human rights abuses, nonsensical Yemen War, working against US interests in Libya, Sudan etc., was that when an international crisis came, the Gulf could choose America over Russia/China.”

The production cut will be smaller in reality than on paper, at around 1 million barrels a day, because many OPEC+ countries are already pumping below their quotas -- a fact that will give US officials some comfort -- but the decision’s political impact is likely to reach beyond its effect on the market.

For MBS, as Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is universally known, the decision marks a return to the oil-fueled confidence that characterized the period before the murder of critic and columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

His economy is on track to be one of the fastest growing in the G20, he just helped broker a Russia-Ukraine prisoner swap, and he was last week named prime minister, expanding his powers on paper and potentially granting him immunity from lawsuits accusing him of ordering Kashoggi’s killing.

Saudi officials said the OPEC+ decision underscores the kingdom’s evolving foreign partnerships, driven in part by perceived slights from Washington. While some senior US officials have sought to repair the relationship, that hasn’t been enough to outweigh the fissures created partly by the president himself, the Saudis said.

On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, refused to discuss the politics of the decision to cut production, saying only: “This is way above our pay grade.”

Asked to justify the decision to cut production in a market where prices remain relatively high, despite dropping from more than $130 in March, he pointed to the fact that natural gas and coal prices had risen by much more than oil.

For some, the analogy is ominous: the surge in gas and coal prices is the result of what the West sees as Russia’s use of gas a political weapon by curtailing supplies to Europe.

“After gas markets, now oil markets are getting weaponized,” said veteran OPEC-watcher Roger Diwan.

Haiti's PM Henry calls for foreign help amid gang blockade

Haitians protest over rising fuel prices during a nationwide strike, in Port-au-Prince

Haiti's PM Henry calls for foreign help amid gang blockade
Ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles

Wed, October 5, 2022 at 8:56 p.m.·1 min read


PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Wednesday called on the international community to help the Caribbean nation, as a gang blockade of a key fuel terminal has created widespread shortages of goods including drinking water.

Gangs have since last month been blocking the entrance to the Varreux fuel terminal, creating dire shortages of diesel and gasoline and crippling day-to-day activities in Haiti.

Authorities over the weekend confirmed an outbreak of cholera, which is typically propagated by contaminated water.

"I am asking the entire international community, all countries that are friends of Haiti, to stand with us and help us fight this humanitarian crisis," Henry said in a televised address.

"We want potable water and medicine to reach sick people when cholera starts to return, for factories that produce potable water to start working again. We need doctors and nurses ... to reach the hospitals."

He did not elaborate on what specific type of assistance he was seeking.

The fuel blockade began shortly after his Sept. 11 announcement that the government would cut fuel subsidies, triggering anger among Haitians already struggling with sky-rocketing prices.

Henry on Wednesday said the subsidies were an unsustainable expense for the Haitian state.

"When we ... subsidize a single product for the benefit of a group of people, there is no longer any way to help mothers and fathers send their children to school," he said. "There is no money left for subsidies to lower food prices."

(Reporting by Harold Isaac and Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Op-Ed: The very first stars, and maybe the Uncertainty Principle finds a use for itself


By Paul Wallis
Published October 6, 2022

The James Webb Telescope peers into one of the earliest phases of the Universe. — © AFP

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is doing a lot of very interesting work, but this case is very special work. This is looking way back to the very start of a functional universe as we know it. These are the very early days of star formation, and even, interestingly, quasars and a couple of ancient black holes.

There are also remnants of ancient stars near a black hole. (Link is to Anton Petrov’s excellent YouTube channel. He’s a very good, clear, narrator, and this story isn’t simple.) The star remnants look like the end of the standard universal star life cycles, at the spin-dry stage. There also begins a story which might possibly even justify the existence of the science of physics.

Commentary on the JWST is a bit like race calling. This is an interesting tale, this here universe critter. The universe was a very different place in the beginning. There were barely enough non-H and He elements available to provide even the pretense of a Table of Elements. (This is true to the classic model of what it’s supposed to look like, but don’t despair. JWST has found a lot of fascinating stuff.

Multiple generations of supernovae have since added the current contents of the Table, but the holistic view of the early universe is, well, primitive. So when you see a big quasar or two rattling around, it’s big news. It’s also not necessarily “audited physics” news. Where does this sort of stellar goop get enough energy for quasars?

A quasar is now a super-energy entity and quite common. Then, it wasn’t. Ancient quasars are only now becoming visible, and there obviously aren’t many of them so far. These items of ancient interest are monsters. They’re big, and powerful. That’s a bit weird in this sort of micro, all-over-the-place version of the current universe-ish environment.

Remember this is an extremely new, high-energy, environment. The rulebook was being written for cosmic physics. This original rulebook doesn’t seem to be too pedantic.

The plot, like some theories and some heads, thickens at this point.

Seems the first stars in the universe included a few monsters. One of those monsters was a very large supergiant. It was a supergiant with a twist, though. It blew up in what’s called a pair-instability supernova. It’s one of the very first of its kind.

It may also be a clue to the sheer range and scope of types of matter in the current universe. Maybe even dark matter, which must have some point of origin, surely?

These supernovae have been known for a while. This time, however, the observations included the key trick of direct-pair supernovae – Incredibly high pressures. Gamma ray type pressures, inside the star.

What’s so special about these pressures is that they turn photons into positrons and electrons. This is a classic Uncertainty Principle one-or-the-other outcome.

Why not all electrons or all positrons? Same pressure on the same things produces opposite properties? Why?

To digress for a moment:

There’s a cat laughing its head off.

They ask it what was so funny.

It replies, “They think there’s somebody called Schrödinger”.

Which is what this situation is about. I’ve been marvelling at the Uncertainty Principle for many years The ability of people to start a process to prove beyond doubt they have no idea what happens next fascinates me.

That other well-established axiom of science, “Look long enough and you may find something that proves you right” is another favorite of mine. Can’t imagine why.

Meanwhile, you’ve just been given a map of how to produce positrons and electrons. Have fun.

ALMOST 3D
See The Best Webb Telescope Images So Far Now With New ‘X-Ray Vision’ Layers

Jamie Carter
Senior Contributor
I inspire people to go stargazing, watch the Moon, enjoy the night skyFollow
Oct 5, 2022,08:00pm EDT


Stephan's Quintet as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with an added X-ray layer by ... [+]X-RAY: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (SPITZER): NASA/JPL-CALTECH; IR (WEBB): NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI)

Our great telescopes are designed to complement each other, as shown last week when both Webb and Hubble captured the aftermath of NASA’s DART mission to change the orbit of an asteroid.

Further proof of that comes this week with the public release of four new composite images that combine data from both the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Chandra Telescope.

While the former works in infrared light, the latter detects x-rays. Both are invisible to the human eye, so these images use filters that assign colors to different wavelengths of light to bring them back into human vision.



Images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with an added X-ray layer by NASA’s Chandra X-ray ... [+]X-RAY: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (SPITZER): NASA/JPL-CALTECH; IR (WEBB): NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI)

The four images are from the first batch or two released after Webb’s “first light” earlier this year. They include its ground-breaking observations of a cluster of galaxies (SMACS J0723), a galaxy group (Stefan’s Quintet), a star-forming nebula (Carina), and a galaxy (the Cartwheel).

In recent weeks Chandra has been pointed at the same objects to collect data in the X-ray wavelengths of light, which capture higher-energy processes than the infrared view from Webb.

1. Stephan’s Quintet

You’ve probably seen this image (main article image, top) before, but not like this. Look in the centre and you will see a new layer of light blue captured by the Chandra telescope. This data reveals a shockwave of superheated gas caused by one of the galaxies passing through the others at two million miles per hour.


The Cartwheel galaxy from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with an added X-ray layer by NASA’s ... [+]X-RAY: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (SPITZER): NASA/JPL-CALTECH; IR (WEBB):

2. The Cartwheel galaxy

Chandra's contribution to this new composite image (above) of the Cartwheel galaxy can be seen in the all-new blue and purple colours, which reveal the presence of superheated gas, individual exploding stars, neutron stars and black holes that can be seen pulling material from other stars.

The Carina Nebula from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with an added X-ray layer by NASA’s ... [+]X-RAY: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (SPITZER): NASA/JPL-CALTECH; IR (WEBB): NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI)

3. Cosmic Cliffs of the Carina Nebula

Perhaps the most iconic of all the images the Webb telescope has taken so far, this new composite image of the Carina nebula (above), includes a new layer of pink data from Chandra. There are around a dozen pink areas in this new image which pinpoint the location of very young stars. That's because newborn stars are much brighter in x-ray wavelengths of light than old stars.

It’s a great example of how different wavelengths of light can help reveal different processes going on in regions of space previously imaged multiple times by other telescopes.

SMACS J0723 galaxy cluster from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with an added X-ray layer by ... [+]X-RAY: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (SPITZER): NASA/JPL-CALTECH; IR (WEBB): NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI)

4. SMACS J0723 galaxy cluster

This image (above) is perhaps the most important in astronomy for some years given that it has helped astronomers find some of the oldest stars and galaxies ever seen. This new composite from Chandra and Webb reveals the former’s blue layer of hot gas in the centre of this galaxy cluster.

As astronomers point the Webb telescope at more and more objects expect a lot more collaborations with both Chandra and the Hubble space telescope.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

'Watched the whole time': China's surveillance state grows under Xi


Jing Xuan TENG
Wed, October 5, 2022 


When Chen picked up his phone to vent his anger at getting a parking ticket, his message on WeChat was a drop in the ocean of daily posts on China's biggest social network.

But soon after his tirade against "simple-minded" traffic cops in June, he found himself in the tentacles of the communist country's omniscient surveillance apparatus.

Chen quickly deleted the post, but officers tracked him down and detained him within hours, accusing him of "insulting the police".

He was locked up for five days for "inappropriate speech".

His case -- one of the thousands logged by a dissident and reported by local media -- laid bare the pervasive monitoring that characterises life in China today.


Its leaders have long taken an authoritarian approach to social control.

But since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he has reined in the relatively freewheeling social currents of the turn of the century, using a combination of technology, law and ideology to squeeze dissent and preempt threats to his rule.

Ostensibly targeting criminals and aimed at protecting order, social controls have been turned against dissidents, activists and religious minorities, as well as ordinary people -- such as Chen -- judged to have crossed the line.

- Eyes in the sky -

The average Chinese citizen today spends nearly every waking moment under the watchful eye of the state.

Research firm Comparitech estimates the average Chinese city has more than 370 security cameras per 1,000 people -- making them the most surveilled places in the world -- compared with London's 13 or Singapore's 18 per 1,000.

The nationwide "Skynet" urban surveillance project has ballooned, with cameras capable of recognising faces, clothing and age.

"We are being watched the whole time," an environmental activist who declined to be named told AFP.

The Communist Party's grip is most stark in the far-western region of Xinjiang, where facial recognition and DNA collection have been deployed on mainly Muslim minorities in the name of counter-terrorism.

The Covid-19 pandemic has turbo-charged China's monitoring framework, with citizens now tracked on their smartphones via an app that determines where they can go based on green, yellow or red codes.

Regulations rolled out since 2012 closed loopholes that allowed people to purchase SIM cards without giving their names, and mandated government identification for tickets on virtually all forms of transport.
- Online offences -

There is no respite online, where even shopping apps require registration with a phone number tied to an identification document.

Wang, a Chinese dissident speaking to AFP under a pseudonym due to safety concerns, recalled a time before Xi when censors were not all-knowing and "telling jokes about (former Chinese president) Jiang Zemin on the internet was actually very popular".

But the Chinese internet -- behind the "Great Firewall" since the early 2000s -- has become an increasingly policed space.

Wang runs a Twitter account tracking thousands of cases of people detained, fined or punished for speech acts since 2013.

Thanks to the real-name verification system as well as cooperation between police and social media platforms, people have been punished for a vast array of online offences.

Platforms such as Weibo employ thousands of content moderators and automatically block politically sensitive keywords, such as tennis star Peng Shuai's name after she accused a senior politician of sexual assault last year.

Cyberspace authorities are proposing new rules that would force platforms to monitor comments sections on posts -- one of the last avenues for people to voice their grievances online.

- Ideological policing -

Many of the surveillance technologies in use have been embraced in other countries.

"The real difference in China is the lack of independent media and civil society able to provide meaningful criticism of innovations or to point out their many flaws," Jeremy Daum, from the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, told AFP.

Xi has reshaped Chinese society, with the Communist Party stipulating what citizens "ought to know, to feel, to think, and say, and do", Vivienne Shue, professor emeritus of contemporary China studies at Oxford University, told AFP.

Youngsters are kept away from foreign influences, with authorities banning international books and forbidding tutoring companies from hiring overseas teachers.

Ideological policing has even extended to fashion, with television stations censoring tattoos and earrings on men.

"What disturbs me more is not the censorship itself, but how it shaped the ideology of people," said Wang, the Twitter account owner.

"With dissenting information being eliminated, every website becomes a cult, where the government and leaders have to be worshipped."

tjx/je/kma/axn/qan

RIGHT WING HEADS EXPLODE (AGAIN)

Lizzo's Skills With James Madison's Flute Earn Her Another Historic Invite

Montpelier, Madison’s 2,650-acre Virginia estate, has reportedly extended an invitation for the “About Damn Time” singer to play at the home.


By Ben Blanchet
Oct 5, 2022

Pop star Lizzo’s performance with a two-century-old crystal flute ― a gift to President James Madison ― has sparked more potential ties to the Founding Father’s history.

Montpelier, Madison’s 2,650-acre Virginia estate, has extended an invitation to the “About Damn Time” singer to play at his home, according to Twitter and TMZ.

A representative of Madison’s Montpelier, a National Historic Landmark, told TMZ that Lizzo is invited to “take a private tour” of the estate following her performance with his crystal flute last week.

The performance followed an invitation from the Library of Congress to play the instrument while Lizzo was in Washington, D.C., for her Special Tour concert.

“We ❤️ that @lizzo & @librarycongress brought the story of the #MadisonFlute to light- and invite Lizzo to visit James Madison’s home any time 🙏🏼,” Madison’s Montpelier wrote on Twitter.

The estate spokesperson wrote to Billboard that the “talented and classically-trained” pop star “brought history to life” with her performance.

The estate highlights a number of aspects of its history, including “The Mere Distinction of Colour,” an exhibition that looks at Montpelier’s connection to slavery and how slavery “impacts today’s conversations about race, identity, and human rights,” according to Montpelier’s website.

“The three-time Grammy Award winner’s songs exemplify how music is a universal language that brings people together,” the estate’s spokesperson told the music news site.

“Whatever genre, music helps people connect, express emotions, and create deep, lasting bonds. As Lizzo continues her concert tour in the coming weeks, we’re crossing our fingers that she would consider adding a stop at James Madison’s Montpelier, once home to Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution.”

HuffPost has reached out to Lizzo’s representatives for further comment.

#1 CAR MAKER IN THE WORLD

Toyota restarts output of first EV after fixing safety issues

Satoshi Sugiyama
Wed, October 5, 2022 


LA Auto Show in Los Angeles

By Satoshi Sugiyama

TOKYO (Reuters) -Toyota Motor Corp said it would restart production of its first electric vehicle, the bZ4X, on Thursday after fixing potential safety problems that had halted sales of the new battery-powered model for more than three months.

Japan's largest automaker, a laggard in the EV market, recalled 2,700 bZ4Xs globally in June after discovering that there was a risk the car's wheels could come loose.

Subaru Corp, a fifth owned by Toyota, also had to recall units of the related Solterra model that it jointly developed with Toyota.

A recall notice submitted to Japan's transport ministry by Toyota in June said that sharp turns and sudden braking could cause a hub bolt to loosen, raising the risk of a wheel coming off the vehicle.

The automaker on Thursday said in a filing to the ministry that it would make sure hub bolts were replaced and properly tightened in new versions of the bZ4X.

In addition, Toyota said it had identified and fixed a potential problem with airbags in the car. Some airbags had been improperly installed at the factory and were at risk to fail or cause injury because of the placement of a strap inside the airbag assembly.

Toyota had not previously disclosed that problem.

Masahiko Maeda, Toyota's chief technology officer, told a briefing the automaker only became aware of the airbag issue in the last month or two.

"We apologise again for the concern, anxiety, and inconvenience we have caused to our customers, our dealers and our stakeholders," Maeda said.

He declined to comment on how much the recall had cost.

Toyota has faced criticism from environmental groups and investors who want the company to expand faster into battery EVs. Toyota has pushed back, saying it needs to offer car choices to suit different markets and customers.

Hybrids such as the Prius remain far more popular in Toyota's home market. Pure battery-electric vehicles accounted for just 1% of the passenger cars sold in Japan last year, according to industry data.

The bZ4X is available for lease only in Japan - a service which will resume on Oct. 26, Maeda said. He did not specify when U.S. sales would recommence.

Only 232 units of crossover, pitched as Toyota's answer to Tesla's Model Y and the Volkswagen's ID.4, have been sold this year in the United States.

Last year, the Japanese automaker committed about $30 billion to develop battery electric vehicles. It expects the company's annual sales of such cars to reach only 3.5 million vehicles by the end of the decade, about one-third of current annual sales of its gasoline-powered cars.

(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama and Maki Shiraki; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Edwina Gibbs)

CTHULHU KRAKEN STUDIES

Giant Squids Washed Ashore Give Scientists New Clues

Giant squids washed ashore on the Sea of Japan coast are providing researchers with new insights into how this mysterious marine animal mates and reproduces.

on October 6, 2022
By Saki Maehara

JAPAN FORWARD

Children observing giant squid specimen at San-in Kaigan Geopark Sea and Earth Nature Museum in Iwami Town, Tottori Prefecture, February 2, 2016.

The giant squid is one of the world's largest invertebrates that lives in the deep sea. It is believed to be the origin of the legend of "Kraken," a monster feared by sailors in the age of sea exploration.

Although the animal remains shrouded in mystery, recent research analyzing individuals that have drifted ashore on the Sea of Japan coast has revealed a unique reproductive method that differs from that of other squids.

There is still much to learn about this giant creature that lurks in the depths of the sea.
Giants Washing Ashore

In April of this year, a local fisherman discovered a large red squid drifting in the sea at Ugu Beach in Obama City of Fukui Prefecture.

A city official who rushed to the site upon hearing the news found a giant squid measuring 3.35 meters in length. It had washed ashore, but its arms were still flapping.

One resident among those gathered on the beach remarked in awe, "It was huge." Another noted, "It's rare to see one alive." Later, at the Echizen Matsushima Aquarium (Sakai City, Fukui Prefecture), children were able to see the squid on display.

Giant squid are often found washed ashore on the coasts of Japan. With their two long tentacles extended, they can reach up to 18 meters in length.

Another aspect of the mysterious giant squid is revealed.

The deep sea is broadly defined as depths over 200 meters. But according to Tsunemi Kubodera, 71, a marine biologist and honorary researcher at the National Museum of Nature and Science, giant squid mainly live in middle layers of the ocean between 600 to 1,000 meters.

Read the rest of this article here to find out more on the biology of the giant squid. And find more great articles on the environment and the challenges of achieving the SDGs, on our new website Japan 2 Earth, sparking a transition on the environment and SDGs.

Is There Something More Behind the Social Media Accounts Spreading Conspiracy Theories?

The same social media accounts spread rumors about the Abe assassination, pro-Russian theories on the Ukraine invasion, and COVID-19 conspiracies.

October 5, 2022
By Miki Kinoshita

JAPAN FORWARD

Looking into some of the Japanese Twitter accounts that were crucial in spreading misinformation about the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, it was learned in August that some of the same accounts actively spread other conspiracy theories in the past.

Is it a coincidence that the accounts that spread rumors saying the Abe assassination was a "fake" were previously linked to Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine and COVID-19 theories against vaccines?

Near the scene where former Prime Minister Abe of the Liberal Democratic Party was shot during a street speech = July 8, Nara City (from Kyodo News helicopter)

Never Tweeted About Abe Before

A Sendai-based internet security company, Sola.com, analyzed tweets posted in Japan regarding the Abe assassination from July 8, when Mr. Abe was gunned down, to July 11. Among other things, they followed the spread of tweets saying “The incident was staged” or “It was a hoax.”

Sampling accounts that were instrumental in spreading misinformation, the company focused on five accounts that had from 10,000 to 100,000 followers. These same companies gathered over five thousand likes and retweets of their posts about the Abe assassination, demonstrating strong influence.

Each of the accounts tweeted about 30 times per day. Some of the accounts started spreading misinformation immediately after the former prime minister was shot, even though they had never tweeted about Shinzo Abe before the incident.

Past tweets from those five accounts were also verified and analyzed. Sola.com found that the same five had also pushed Russian propaganda regarding the invasion of Ukraine. Starting in February, for example, they started false rumors on matters such as the existence of a US biological weapons lab inside Ukraine and that Ukrainians are neo-Nazis.

Going back further, Sola.com found the same accounts had pushed the false line that the COVID-19 vaccine was part of a plan to reduce the world’s population.

They were also connected to other groups retweeting each other, all of which shared the same characteristics of being pro-Russia and anti-vaccine.

“There were several suspicious details," said a representative of the security company. "For example, the contents of the tweets were unusual for Japan, and they were posted at times matching St Petersburg (Russia) business hours.”

The representative added that there is a possibility that foreign hands may be involved in spreading conspiracy theories about Mr Abe’s assassination.

The 'Rescuer Was an Actress' Ruse

Distortion of facts using doctored videos and photos has become a typical technique of those spreading fake news in recent years.

In the Abe assassination, two photos spread on social media alongside this phrase immediately after the incident. One showed the woman who provided first aid to Mr Abe on the scene. The other pictured a female journalist working abroad for a major television channel.

These posts compared the physical appearances of the two women, claiming that they were the same person and alleging she was an actress hired by the government.

“The incident was staged,” said some of the suspicious posts. Others said, “It’s a farce.”

However, the TV channel responded to a Sankei Shimbun inquiry, stating that in fact the journalist was not in Nara, where the assassination took place. Therefore, it seems, someone was trying to instigate more rumors among internet users while knowing they were spreading false information.

This is not the first such claim. In March 2022 it ws reported that three people were killed ー including children ー and seventeen were wounded in Russian bombing of a hospital in Mariupolis, the site of a bloody battle in Eastern Ukraine.

Images of a pregnant woman running away from the hospital were featured in media reports worldwide. Russia, however, insisted that the woman was just an actress and she was not pregnant. But when Ukraine’s UN ambassador raised the photo of the woman and her newborn child in front of the United Nations Security Council, it became apparent that Russia’s claims were false.

A healthcare worker receiving a COVID-19 vaccination.

Spreading Misinformation on COVID-19

Since the start of the pandemic, opportunities to use the internet have increased. At the same time, social media has become flooded with information spreading conspiracy theories. Aside from the pro-Russia propaganda dubbed "The Truth about Ukraine," the misinformation regarding the COVID-19 vaccine in particular stands out.

The Sankei Shimbun asked Associate Professor Shinichi Yamaguchi of the International University of Japan about the phenomenon. Yamagucni, an expert in online libel, says that "the human desire to feel a sense of superiority" is intimately linked to the spread of misinformation. Getting involved with and spreading baseless information makes people feel as if they know some hidden truth other people are unaware of, he argues.

“Vaccines are easy material for conspiracy theories,” says Professor Yamaguchi. While many citizens are asked to get inoculated, you cannot see the vaccines’ effects immediately. And “Unclear events that cannot be fully understood without technical knowledge leave plenty of room to the imagination.”

Their structure is very similar to that of the conspiracy theory that spread after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, which propagated the theory that President George W Bush orchestrated the attacks, he says as an example.

Preying on Public Fears

People tend to only look at information corroborating their ideologies or what they want to believe, explains Professor Yamaguchi. There is also the concern that this eventually influences people’s finances, as they may be persuaded to join seminars based on misinformation or to purchase expensive items.

Among those, he says, we can assume there are extreme examples that use wrong information to stir anti-patriotic feelings.

As technological innovation advances, new threats have emerged, such as “deep fakes,” which are videos altered using artificial intelligence. On the other hand, there have been confirmed cases of the systematic spread of false rumors overseas for commercial purposes.

What Professor Yamaguchi is most concerned about is the occurrence of fractures in society due to conspiracy theories. The propagation of rumors in such a world portends a time when contrasting powers would be unable to confront each other through dialogue. If that happens, Yamaguchi says, it would be a "crisis for democracy."

WAR ON DRUGS
The US is joining the fight against Captagon - will it make a difference?

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS
The notorious party drug has ravaged the Middle East, and America is taking notice

IT'S FUNDING SYRIAN WAR

THE NATIONAL
EDITORIAL

A Syrian officer examines seized Captagon pills. AP

Sometimes it comes hidden in a crate of tea. At others it’s disguised to look like a fava bean, or delicately moulded into the shape of a hummus bowl. No matter the method of concealment, for years millions of pills of Captagon, a highly addictive drug from the amphetamine family, have found their way into ports across the Arab world. For authorities in the region the scale of the problem has demanded constant vigilance. Captagon-related busts frequently make headlines in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

This week, the sense of urgency spread to the US, where Members of Congress are urging President Joe Biden to increase American support for Middle East allies combatting the Captagon trade. The drug, known to pharmacologists as fenethylline, was developed in the 1960s as a treatment for ADHD and depression. But its addictive nature and negative side effects quickly became known, and the US took steps to ban it in 1981, with most other countries following suit.

Nearly a decade ago, however, the drug gradually re-emerged as an illicit stimulant of choice in the Middle East, where it was first introduced by criminal gangs from South-East Europe. Its manufacture and distribution was swiftly co-opted by an established nexus of militants and drug runners.

The problem is particularly severe in Syria, where civil war has left huge swathes of the country in the hands of corrupt officials and organised crime, as The National highlighted in an in-depth investigation last year. Thomas Pietschmann, an expert at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), warned that the Captagon trade had become a hallmark of business in government-held Syrian territory. The drug is thought to be one of Syria’s largest exports, valued at more than $3 billion a year, giving the government in Damascus little incentive to crack down.

“The problem is,” one Jordanian official told The National last year, “there is no security partner on the [Syrian] side of the Jordanian border.”

Captagon-related busts frequently make headlines in Saudi Arabia and the UAE

The drug’s connections to Syrian regime-held areas are the primary impetus for the Captagon Act, a bill introduced by US Congressman French Hill, which was passed in the House of Representatives in September and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.

The aim of the Captagon Act, Mr Hill told The National, is “to think through how do we…cut off the funding as a result of Captagon to [the Syrian] regime?”

But the challenges posed by Captagon extend far beyond Syria. The web of middlemen with a hand in the trade features a wide array of terrorist groups.

Smuggling routes reach deep into Iraq, and sometimes follow tortuous paths that lead to ports in Europe before doubling back to the Middle East. Hezbollah, the militant political party controlling much of Lebanon, is an especially influential player; it has been a force in the regional drug trade since the 1980s.

While America’s sudden attention towards the Middle East’s Captagon crisis is driven largely by its security concerns in Syria, greater efforts on the part of the US, the region’s largest security partner, towards getting to the root of the problem and helping to bring criminal enterprises to justice will be welcome. For Washington’s allies in the Middle East, the problem has always been much more intimate than geopolitics – a matter, first and foremost, of public safety and public health.