Thursday, April 13, 2023

Should Internet Access be Declared a Basic Human Right?

Credit: Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. June 2022

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 13 2023 (IPS) - The United Nations defines human rights as “rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status”.

Back in 1948, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), whose 75th anniversary is being commemorated this year.

The rights spelled out include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

Enter the University of Birmingham (UoB), UK.

A new UoB study, released last week, has proposed that internet and online access be declared a human right.

“People around the globe are so dependent on the internet to exercise socio-economic human rights such as education, healthcare, work, and housing that online access must now be considered a basic human right”, says the study.

“Particularly in developing countries, internet access can make the difference between people receiving an education, staying healthy, finding a home, and securing employment – or not.”

“Even if people have offline opportunities, such as accessing social security schemes or finding housing, they are at a comparative disadvantage to those with Internet access.”

Publishing his findings in Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Dr Merten Reglitz, Lecturer in Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, calls for a stand-alone human right to internet access – based on it being a practical necessity for a range of socio-economic human rights.

He calls for public authorities to provide internet access free of charge for those unable to afford it, as well as providing training in basic digital skills training for all citizens and protecting online access from arbitrary interference by states and private companies.

Dr Reglitz said: “The internet has unique and fundamental value for the realisation of many of our socio-economic human rights – allowing users to submit job applications, send medical information to healthcare professionals, manage their finances and business, make social security claims, and submit educational assessments.

“The internet’s structure enables a mutual exchange of information that has the potential to contribute to the progress of humankind as a whole – potential that should be protected and deployed by declaring access to the Internet a human right.”

Emma Gibson, Campaign Lead for Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), told IPS “with so much of our lives conducted online, access to the internet has now become a de facto human right”.

There is a gender dimension at play because women are less likely to be able to get online than men, and this is reversing some of the progress we’ve made on women’s equality.

“Access to the internet is becoming the new gender divide. When women can’t access education online, search for a higher paying job, independently manage their finances or set up a business with its own website, then it’s inevitable that the equality gap between men and women will widen,” declared Gibson.

Amanda Manyame, Digital Law and Rights Consultant at Equality Now, told IPS accessing the internet is important because it is intrinsically linked to various rights, including the right to freedom of expression and association, and the right to information.

The internet, she pointed out, plays a central role in ensuring full participation in social, cultural and political life, but not being safe online deters many women and girls from accessing the internet where it is available.

“As part of ensuring digital participation, consideration should be given to online safety concerns such as online sexual exploitation and abuse, especially in relation to women and girls who are disproportionately affected.”

“The United Nations, she said, has been playing a role in ensuring internet access through its agencies and other mechanisms involved in internet-related activities, such as international public policy, standardization, and capacity-building efforts.

These include the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Summit on the Information Society, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and more recently, the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, which has been making advances toward the Global Digital Compact, in close consultation with Member States, the technology industry, private companies, civil society, and other stakeholders.

One of the thematic areas for the Global Digital Compact is “Connect all people to the Internet, including all schools” focusing on ensuring safe and secure access to the Internet for all.

“National and international law and mechanisms need to address human rights and accountability in the digital realm, including incorporating access to the internet and digital technologies, which is key to ensuring equality for all women and girls, and other vulnerable groups, in both digital and physical spaces,” Manyame declared.

Dr Ruediger Kuehr Head of the Bonn Office of the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Manager, Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme, told IPS SCYCLE has not substantially researched on internet access yet.

“But we know from our daily activities that illiteracy, availability of end devices and access points and stable energy systems are also limiting factors for internet access”

And many argue that shipments of used end devices shall help to close the gap, also by making machines available for an affordable price for the majority of the population, he noted.

“But it turns out that many of these machines are no longer useable. And that too many of the receiving countries are without the necessary infrastructure, policies/legislation and systems to address the issue of waste electrical and electronic equipment”.

But without that, he argued, the environmental, economic and social consequences will be enormous as well – leading to pollution, loss of scarce and valuable resources, creation of primitive jobs not even meeting the least security standards and systems, which pick the “cherries” but leaving the rest unattended adding to, for example, the plastics avalanche many are yet confronted with.

The UoB study outlines several areas in developed countries where internet access is essential to exercise socio-economic human rights:

Dr Reglitz’s research also highlights similar problems for people without internet access in developing countries – for example, 20 per cent of children aged 6 to 11 are out of school in sub-Saharan Africa.

Many children face long walks to their schools, where class sizes are routinely very large in crumbling, unsanitary schools with insufficient numbers of teachers.

“However, online education tools can make a significant difference – allowing children living remotely from schools to complete their education. More students can be taught more effectively if teaching materials are available digitally and pupils do not have to share books”.

For people in developing countries, he said, internet access can also make the difference between receiving an adequate level of healthcare or receiving none.

Digital health tools can help diagnose illnesses – for example, in Kenya, a smartphone-based Portable Eye Examination Kit (Peek) has been used to test people’s eyesight and identify people who need treatment, especially in remote areas underserved by medical practitioners.

People are often confronted with a lack of brick-and-mortar banks in developing countries and internet access makes possible financial inclusion.

Small businesses can also raise money through online crowdfunding platforms – the World Bank expects such sums raised in Africa to rise from $32 million in 2015 to $2.5 billion in 2025.

Meanwhile, in a new report released last June, the UN Human Rights Office says the dramatic real-life effects of Internet shutdowns on people’s lives and human rights have been vastly underestimated and urges member states NOT to impose Internet shutdowns.

The link to the report: A/HRC/50/55 (un.org)

“Too often, major communication channels or entire communication networks are slowed down or blocked,” the report says, adding that this has deprived “thousands or even millions of people of their only means of reaching loved ones, continuing their work or participating in political debates or decisions.”

The report sheds light on the phenomenon of Internet shutdowns, looking at when and why they are imposed and examining how they undermine a range of human rights, first and foremost the right to freedom of expression.

“Shutdowns can mean a complete block on Internet connectivity but governments also increasingly resort to banning access to major communication platforms and throttling bandwidth and limiting mobile services to 2G transfer speeds, making it hard, for example, to share and watch videos or live picture broadcasts.”

The report notes that the #KeepItOn coalition, which monitors shutdowns episodes across the world, documented 931 shutdowns between 2016 and 2021 in 74 countries, with some countries blocking communications repeatedly and over long periods of time.

“Shutdowns are powerful markers of sharply deteriorating human rights situations,” the report highlights. Over the past decade, they have tended to be imposed during heightened political tensions, with at least 225 shutdowns recorded during public demonstrations relating to social, political or economic grievances.

Shutdowns were also reported when governments carried out security operations, severely restricting human rights monitoring and reporting. In the context of armed conflicts and during mass demonstrations, the fact that people could not communicate and promptly report abuses seems to have contributed to further insecurity and violence, including serious human rights violations, according to the report.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Lowest rainfall in decades threatens Turkey’s grain production

Wheat harvesting in Sivas, central Turkey. / Maurice Flesier, cc-by-sa 4.0

By bne IntelIiNews April 11, 2023

Severe drought will pose a bigger threat than earthquake impacts to Turkey’s grain production in marketing year 2023-24.

The dire situation is outlined in a Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report from the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Turkey’s cumulative rainfall totals from last October to February dropped to their lowest levels in decades at around 30% below the historical average for the period, the report noted.

“The lack of rain is particularly concerning for both winter wheat and winter barley, most of which are unirrigated,” the USDA said. “In addition, the shortfall in precipitation has also contributed to lower water levels in reservoirs and dams in different parts of the country, which may limit the amount of water available for irrigation later in the year for rice and corn.”

The two massive earthquakes that hit southern Turkey and Syria, killing towards 60,000 people according to latest estimates, caused more than $100bn in damage across 11 Turkish provinces—but the USDA reiterated that the drought, rather than earthquake consequences, was set to take the larger toll on Turkey’s grain harvest.

However, while, because of the dry conditions, Turkey’s wheat output was forecast to remain unchanged at 17.25mn tonnes, despite the difficulties, the country’s corn production was expected to hit a record 7.7mn tonnes, the USDA added.

It also said that the wheat-harvested area was projected to increase by 350,000 hectares in 2023-24, a prediction based on the expectation that relatively stronger domestic wheat prices would motivate farmers to plant more wheat instead of cotton and sunflower

The USDA forecast that Turkish wheat imports would be unchanged from 2022-23 at 10mn tonnes, but also observed that they could move higher if drought persists and production declines.

Around 70% of the wheat Turkey imports is re-exported as flour and pasta. Turkey is the world’s number one flour exporter.

Most of the earthquake damage occurred in four provinces that produce a relatively small amount of grain, the USDA pointed out. Those provinces account for 5% of Turkey’s wheat production, 5% of corn and 4% of barley, it added.

According to industry sources cited by World-Grain.com, 10 small- and medium-sized flour mills in Turkey were damaged in the earthquake disaster, but it was not anticipated that the damage would impact the country’s overall flour production.

“In other words, mills unaffected by the earthquakes can easily pick up the slack for those damaged facilities,” the USDA said.

From Forever War to Eternal War

BY KAREN J. GREENBERG

APRIL 13, 2023
Facebook

“It is time,” President Biden announced in April 2021, “to end the forever war” that started with the invasion of Afghanistan soon after the tragic terror attacks on this country on September 11, 2001. Indeed, that August, amid chaos and disaster, the president did finally pull the last remaining U.S. forces out of that country.

A year and a half later, it’s worth reflecting on where the United States stands when it comes to both that forever war against terrorism and war generally. As it happens, the war on terror is anything but ended, even if it’s been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine and simmering conflicts around the globe, all too often involving the United States. In fact, it now seems as if this country is moving at breakneck speed out of the era of Forever War and into what might be thought of as the era of Eternal War.

Granted, it’s hard even to keep track of the potential powder kegs that seem all too ready to explode across the globe and are likely to involve the U.S. military in some fashion. Still, at this moment, perhaps it’s worth running through the most likely spots for future conflict.

Russia and China

In Ukraine, as each week passes, the United States only seems to ramp up its commitment to war with Russia, moving the slim line of proxy warfare ever closer to a head-to-head confrontation between the planet’s two great military powers. Although the plan to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia clearly remains in effect, once taboo forms of support for Ukraine have over time become more acceptable.

As of early March, the United States, one of more than 50 countries offering some form of support, had allocated aid to Ukraine on 33 separate occasions, amounting to more than $113 billion worth of humanitarian, military, and financial assistance. In the process, the Biden administration has agreed to provide increasingly lethal weaponry, including Bradley fighting vehicles, Patriot missile batteries, and Abrams tanks, while pressure for even more powerful weaponry like Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs) and F-16s is only growing. As a recent Council on Foreign Relations report noted, Washington’s aid to Ukraine “far exceeds” that of any other country.

In recent weeks, the theater of tension with Russia has expanded beyond Ukraine, notably to the Arctic, where some experts see potential for direct conflict between Russia and the U.S., branding that region a “future flashpoint.” Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently raised the possibility of storing tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, perhaps more of a taunt than a meaningful gesture, but nonetheless another point of tension between the two countries.

Leaving Ukraine aside, China’s presence looms large when it comes to predictions of future war with Washington. On more than one occasion, Biden has stated publicly that the United States would intervene if China were to launch an invasion of the island of Taiwan. Tellingly, efforts to fortify the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region have ratcheted up in recent months.

In February, for example, Washington unveiled plans to strengthen its military presence in the Philippines by occupying bases in the part of that country nearest to Taiwan. All too ominously, four-star Air Force General Mike Minihan went so far as to suggest that this country might soon be at war with China. “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me [we] will fight in 2025,” he wrote in a memo to the officers he commands in anticipation of a future Chinese move on Taiwan. He also outlined a series of aggressive tactics and weapons training maneuvers in preparation for that day. And the Marines have been outfitting three regiments for a possible future island campaign in the Pacific, while war-gaming such battles in Southern California.

North Korea, Iran, and the War on Terror

North Korea and Iran are also perceived in Washington as simmering threats.

For months now, North Korea and the U.S. have been playing a game of nuclear chicken in parallel shows of missile strength and submarine maneuvers, including the North’s mid-March launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and, at least theoretically, reaching the U.S. mainland. In its leader Kim Jong-un’s words, it was intended to “strike fear into the enemies” of his country. In the last days of March, his military even launched a reputed underwater nuclear-capable drone, taking the confrontation one step further. Meanwhile, Washington has been intensifying its security commitments to South Korea and Japan, flexing its muscles in the region, and upping the ante with the biggest joint military drillsinvolving the South Korean armed forces in years.

As for Iran, it’s increasingly cooperating with an embattled Russia when it comes both to sending drones there and receiving cyberweapons from that country. And since Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the JCPOA nuclear treaty with Iran in May 2018, tensions between Washington and Teheran have only intensified. International monitors have recently concluded that Iran may indeed be approaching the brink of being able to produce nuclear-grade enriched uranium. At the same time, Israel has been ramping up its threats to attack Iran and draw the United States into such a crisis.

Meanwhile, smaller conflicts are sizzling around the globe, many seemingly tempting Washington to engage more actively. On President Biden’s agenda in his recent meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for instance, was the possibility of deploying a Canadian-led multinational force to Haiti to help quell the devastating gang violence ravaging that country. “We believe that the situation on the ground will not improve without armed security assistance from international partners,” a National Security Council official told NPR’s Morning Edition ahead of the summit. Trudeau, however, backed away from accepting such a role. What Washington will now do — fearing a wave of new immigrants — remains to be seen.

And don’t forget that the forever war on terror persists, even if in a somewhat different and more muted form. Although the U.S. has left Afghanistan, for instance, it still retains the right to conduct “over the horizon” air strikes there. And to this day, it continues to launch targeted strikes against the al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia, even if in far lower numbers than during the Trump years when drone strikes reachedan all-time high of more than 200. So far, the Biden administration has launched 29 such strikes in the last two years.

American drone attacks persist in Syria as well. Only recently, in retaliation for a drone attack against U.S. troops there that killed an American contractor and wounded another, as well as five soldiers, the Biden administration carried out strikesagainst Iranian-backed militias. According to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, President Biden has still not ruled out further retaliatory acts there. As he told Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation at the end of March, referring to ISIS in Syria, “We have under 1,000 troops [there] that are going after that network, which is, while greatly diminished, still viable, and still critical. So we’re going to stay at that task.”

Other than Syria and Iraq (where the U.S. still has 2,500 troops), the war on terror is now particularly focused on Africa. In the Sahel region, the swath of that continent just below the Sahara Desert, including Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Sudan, among other countries, the legacies of past terrorism and the war in Ukraine have reportedly converged, creating devastatingly unstable and violent conditions, exacerbating what USAID official Robert Jenkins has called “decades of undelivered promises.”

As journalist Walter Pincus put it recently, “With little public notice, the two-decades-long U.S. war on terrorism continues in the Sahel.” According to the 2023 Global Index for Terrorism, that region is now the “epicenter of terrorism.” The largest U.S. presence in West Africa is in Niger, which, as Nick Turse reports, “hosts the largest and most expensive drone bases run by the U.S. military,” intended primarily to counter terrorist groups like Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State. Weapons from the war in Ukraine have found their way to such terrorist groups, while climate-change induced weather nightmares, deepening food insecurity, and ever more dislocated populations have led to an increasingly unstable situation in the region. Complicating things further, the Wagner group, the Russian mercenary paramilitary outfit, has been offering security assistance to countries in the Sahel, intensifying the potential for violence. U.S. military forces and bases in the region have grown apace as the war on terror in Africa intensifies.

Legislative Support for Eternal Warfare

Legislative moves in Congress unabashedly reflect this country’s pivot to Eternal War. Admittedly, the push for an ever-expanding battlefield didn’t start with the great-power conflicts leading today’s headlines. The 2001 congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which paved the way for the invasion of Afghanistan, gave the president essentially unlimited authority to take offensive action in the name of countering terrorism by not naming an enemy or providing any geographical or time limits. Since the fall of 2001, just as Representative Barbara Lee(D-CA) predicted while casting the only vote against it, that AUMF has served as a presidential “blank check” when it comes to authorizing the use of force more or less anywhere.

Former State Department lawyer Brian Finucane has pointed out that the perpetuation of “much of the legal, institutional, and physical infrastructure that underpin this decades-long” war on terror is now being extended to the Sahel, no matter the predictable results. As Soufan Group terrorism expert Colin Clarke told me, “A global war on terrorism has never been winnable. Terrorism is a tactic. It can’t be fully defeated, just mitigated and managed.”

Nevertheless, the 2001 AUMF remains on the books, available to be tapped in ever-expansive ways globally. Only this month, Congress once again voted against its repeal.

Admittedly, the Senate did recently repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the use of force that undergirded the Iraq War of 1991 and the 2002 invasion of that country. Notably, a new amendment proposed by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to also create an AUMF against Iran-backed militias in the region was defeated. As recent military engagements in Syria have shown, new authorizations have proven unnecessary.

Congress seems to be seconding the move from Forever War to Eternal War without significant opposition. In fact, when it comes to funding such a future, its members have been all too enthusiastic. As potential future war scenarios have expanded, so has the Pentagon budget which has grown astronomically over the past two years. In December, President Biden signed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which granted the Pentagon an unprecedented $816.7 billion, 8% more than the year before (with Congress upping the White House’s suggested funding by $45 billion).

And the requests for the 2024 budget are now in. As Pentagon expert William Hartung reports, at $886 billion dollars, $69 billion more than this year’s budget, Congress is on a path to enacting “the first $1 trillion package ever,” a development he labels “madness.” “An open-ended strategy,” Hartung explains, “that seeks to develop capabilities to win a war with Russia or China, fight regional wars against Iran or North Korea, and sustain a global war on terror that includes operations in at least 85 countries is a recipe for endless conflict.”

Whatever Happened to the Idea of Peace?

When it comes to the war in Ukraine, there is a widely shared sense that it’s going to last and last — and last some more. Certain experts see nothing short of years of fighting still on the horizon, especially since there seems to be little appetite for peace among American officials.

While French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to consider peace talks, they seem to have few illusions about how long the war is likely to go on. For his part, Zelensky has made it clear that, when it comes to Russia, “there is nothing to talk about and nobody to talk about over there.” According to Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the mood in both Moscow and Kyiv could be summed up as “give war a chance.”

China is, it seems, an outlier when it comes to accepting a long-term war in Ukraine. Even prior to his visit to Russia in late March, President Xi Jinping offered to broker a ceasefire, while releasing a position paper on the perils of continued warfare and what a negotiated peace might aim to secure, including supply-chain stability, nuclear power plant safety, and the easing of war-caused global humanitarian crises. Reportedly, the summit between Xi and Putin made little headway on any of this.

Here in the U.S., calls for peace talks have been minimal. Admittedly, last November, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley reportedly told the Economic Club of New York, “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment.” But there has been no obvious drive for diplomatic negotiations of any sort in Washington. In fact, John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, responded to President Xi’s proposal this way: “We don’t support calls for a ceasefire right now.” The Russians, he claimed, would take such an opportunity “to only further entrench their positions in Ukraine… [and] rebuild, refit, and refresh their forces so that they can restart attacks on Ukraine at a time of their choosing.”

Disturbingly, American calls for peace and diplomacy have tended to further embrace the ongoing war. The New York Times editorial board, while plugging future peace diplomacy, suggested that only continued warfare could get us to such a place: “[S]erious diplomacy has a chance only if Russia accepts that it cannot bring Ukraine to its knees. And for that to happen, the United States and its allies cannot waver in their support [of Ukraine].” More war and nothing else, the argument goes, will bring peace. The pressure to provide ever more powerful weapons to Ukraine remains constant on both sides of the aisle. As Robert Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee put it, “[T]his approach of ‘more, better, faster’ would give the Ukrainians a real shot at victory.”

Whether in Ukraine, in the brewing tensions of what’s being called a “new cold war” in Asia, or in this country’s never-ending version of the war on terror, we now live in a world where war is ever more accepted as a permanent condition. On the legal, legislative, and military fronts, it has become a mainstay for what passes as national security activity. Some of this, as many critics contend, is driven by economic incentives like lining the pockets of the giant weapons-making corporations to the tune of multibillions of dollars annually; some by what passes for ideological fervor with democracy pitched against autocracy; some by the seemingly never-ending legacy of the war on terror.

Sadly enough, all of this prioritizes killing and destruction over life and true security. In none of it do our leaders seem to be able to imagine reaching any kind of peace without yet more weapons, more violence, more conflicts, and more death.

Who even remembers when the First World War was known as “the war to end all wars”? Sadly, it seems that the era of Eternal War is now upon us. We should at least acknowledge that reality.

This first appeared on TomDispatch.

The Similarity of Russian and American Torture

BY JACOB G. HORNBERGER

APRIL 13, 2023
Facebook

In the context of Russia’s arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, I wrote about the similarities between Russia’s criminal-justice system and the Pentagon’s criminal-justice system in Cuba. I also pointed out that as the Russian prosecution of Gershkovich unfolds, it will provide valuable lessons for Americans about what the Pentagon has done to pervert long-established principles of criminal justice in American law.

After I posted my article, the Journal published an article about the jail in which Gershkovich is being held. It is an infamous and sinister prison called LeFortovo, which has been used since at least the Stalinist era.

According to former prisoners of the jail who were interviewed by the Journal, the treatment of prisoners revolves around the concept of isolation. The official prison policy is to subject prisoners to the maximum isolation possible. For example, when a prisoner is being transferred from his cell to an interrogation room, the guards ensure that he will not see anyone on the way to the interrogation room.

As mental-health experts have long attested, isolation is a form of torture that produces severe and permanent mental damage. But the advantage of this type of torture from the standpoint of the torturer is that it leaves no physical marks. It’s what can be called “touchless” torture.

Guess what! The Pentagon wields the same power to inflict touchless torture that the Russian authorities wield. Moreover, the Pentagon’s power to torture extends not just to foreign citizens but also to American citizens.

That was what the Jose Padilla case was all about. Padilla was an American citizen. The Pentagon subjected him to the same isolation-type torture to which Evan Gershkovich is being subjected. Padilla sued the Pentagon in federal court, claiming that the U.S. Constitution prohibited the Pentagon from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments on him, including isolation.

The federal Court of Appeals upheld the power of the Pentagon to torture American citizens. It was truly a phenomenal development in the history of American criminal-justice jurisprudence. Since the founding of the United States until that judicial decision, the federal government was precluded from torturing people, both citizens and non-citizens alike. With the Padilla ruling, the Pentagon, as well as the CIA, now wield the same power that Russian officials wield to torture citizens and non-citizens alike.

Why did the federal Court of Appeals buckle to the demands of the Pentagon? It buckled for the same reason the federal judiciary has always deferred to the national-security establishment from the time that the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state occurred. The federal judiciary fully understands the omnipotent power that the national-security branch of the federal government wields. The judiciary knows that if the Pentagon, the CIA, or the NSA were to disobey a court order, there is nothing the court could do to enforce its order. Therefore, rather than expose the impotence of the federal judiciary in the face of omnipotent power, the judiciary has long chosen to simply defer to whatever the national-security establishment wants and to come up with judicial rationalizations for its deference.

That’s why, for example, the federal judiciary has deferred to the omnipotent power of the Pentagon and the CIA to assassinate people. The judiciary is fully aware that the Fifth Amendment expressly prohibits federal officials, including the Pentagon and the CIA, from killing anyone without due process of law. But they also know that the Pentagon and the CIA would never comply with a ruling declaring state-sponsored assassinations illegal under our form of constitutional government. So, the judiciary has chosen to simply defer to the omnipotent power of Pentagon and the CIA and, in the process, come up with ridiculous rationalizations to justify its deference to such power.

There is something important to note about the power to torture and, for that matter, the power to assassinate. Simply because such powers are not being currently exercised in a major way doesn’t mean that the American people are now living in a free society. A free society turns on the lack of power to do such things, not on the “benevolent” nature of how such power is being exercised. If the right “emergency” arises, make no mistake about it: the Pentagon and the CIA will remove their torture and assassination swords from their sheaths and show no hesitation or mercy in using them.

Isn’t it ironic that the Russian treatment of Evan Gershkovich is showing us what has happened to our nation?

This originally appeared on Hornberger’s Explore Freedom blog.

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

KAZAKHSTAN

Police break up oil worker demo in Astana

Unemployed people in Zhanaozen seen delivering demands in a screenshot of a video message filmed some weeks after last year's "Bloody January" unrest was put down.

/ RFE/RL, screenshot

By bne IntelIiNews

April 12, 2023

Police in Astana on April 11 detained more than 80 oil workers from Kazakhstan’s volatile southwestern town of Zhanaozen, who journeyed to the capital to demand jobs.

The workers organised the protest after their company lost an oil tender in the energy-rich western region of Mangystau that would have provided work. Officials in Kazakhstan are still very much on edge about demonstrations and any sign of wider unrest following the “Bloody January” events of last year in which at least 238 people were killed. That unrest was triggered by initial demonstrations in the town of Zhanaozen over a fuel price hike. Zhanaozen is also known for its December 2011 oil workers’ strike, which led to the “Zhanaozen massacre”, with at least 14 of the workers killed by police who opened fire in the city square.

Prior to the arrests in Astana, workers demanded jobs at OzenMunaiGaz, a subsidiary of state energy giant KazMunaiGaz.

Artur Alkhasov of the Kazakh Bureau of Human Rights and Rule of Law told RFE/RL that more than 80 former workers of BerAli Manghystau Company were detained after they spent a night in front of the energy ministry.

Last week, dozens of women in Zhanaozen staged a protest demanding permanent jobs for their sons and husbands, while hundreds of former oil industry employees gathered in front of OzenMunaiGaz offices to demand employment.

Following the April 11 police crackdown on the protest in Astana, Eurasianet reported that anger over the authorities’ response spread quickly in Mangystau, with workers at several oil companies declaring wildcat strikes and spontaneous marches taking place in the city of Aktau and Zhanaozen. In Zhanaozen, large numbers of local people were said to have assembled in front of the city hall to call for the release of picketers detained in Astana.

Mangystau governor Nurlan Nogayev issued a late-night address to urge the public not to engage in any activities that might cause instability.

“We must understand that this situation must be resolved within the framework of the law. We all want stability and certainty in the future,” Nogayev said.

Internet and phone signals were reportedly patchy in Zhanaozen. Observers took that as a sign that the authorities were anxious that protests could escalate and spread.

CENTRAL ASIA BLOG: Turkmenistan, undisputed heavyweight champion of the world for methane emissions

East of Hazar, Turkmenistan, a port city on the Caspian Sea, 12 plumes of methane stream westward. The plumes were detected by NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation mission. / NASA/JPL-Caltech

By Aida Kadyrzhanova in Almaty March 29, 2023

Turkmenistan, methane emissions champion of the world. It’s quite some anti-award for a little-known, remote country of 6mn in Central Asia that many would struggle to pinpoint on a map.

For those struggling to believe it, further data from ‘satellite detectives’ has confirmed that when it comes to fossil fuel facility “methane super-emitter sites”, Turkmenistan is top of the table, ahead of big emitters such as the US and Russia. Its biggest satellite-tracked event was a leak of 427 tonnes an hour last August near a major pipeline by Turkmenistan’s Caspian Sea coast. That single leak was equivalent to the rate of emissions from 67mn cars, or the hourly national emissions of France.

Satellite data analysed by the French climate tech company Kayrros identified 1,005 methane super-emitter events worldwide in 2022, with 559 from oil and gas fields, 105 from coal mines and 340 from waste sites such as landfills. The events can last from a few hours to several months.

Turkmenistan had the highest number of super-emitting events – 184.

“They vent like crazy,” Christian Lelong at Kayrros recently told the Guardian.

In terms of Turkmenistan, the bad news, unfortunately, does not end with super-emitter events.

Scientists have also revealed 55 “methane bombs” around the world, namely fossil fuel extraction sites where gas leaks from future production would emit methane levels equivalent to 30 years of all US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Turkmenistan, which has the sixth-highest gas reserves in the world, is home to one of these major bombs (Yolotan South), giving it a place in a top 10 that also includes Texas, Louisiana, Canada, Russia (with three major methane bombs) and Qatar.

Now for some good news. No, Turkmenistan’s totalitarian rulers did not voluntarily all of a sudden get on the phone to the UN climate change supremos to volunteer immediate action against their methane leaks. However, persuading the country’s reclusive autocrats to fix the emissions should not be an impossible ask, especially given that for 80% of oil and gas sites, and 98% of coal mines, measures to plug methane leaks and end deliberate venting would pay for themselves. That’s because, according to the UN, the extra gas captured could be sold, and plugging projects could be implemented at low net cost.

Outside experts are yet to get an on-the-ground look at secretive Turkmenistan’s outsized methane emissions. The speculation says the leaks are caused by ageing Soviet-era equipment or stem from attempts to avoid scrutiny that would be caused by the easily visible flames of flaring, where vented gas is ignited to create less damaging CO2.

Getting Turkmenistan’s Berdimuhamedov administration to sign up to the global methane pledge that requires signatories to cut human-caused emissions by 30% by 2030 would be the logical next move. Some 150 nations now back the pledge, though there remain some big non-signatories alongside Turkmenistan, including Russia, China, Iran and India.

Kayrros is signed up to provide methane leak data to the UN Environment Programme’s new methane alert and response project. The programme will use the near-real-time satellite data to pinpoint super-emitting polluters. They can then be pressed to address the leaks.

* Note: The full list of methane bombs and information on the methodology for defining them is here. Methane bomb analysis is based on 2020 information on gas-rich fields from industry data provider Rystad Energy and builds on the research published in the journal Energy Policy on carbon bombs by Kühne and colleagues.

Russia is world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency miner

Russia has overtaken Kazakhstan to become the biggest cryptocurrency miner in the world behind only the US, as the Kremlin looks for ways to dodge sanctions on international money transfers. / bne IntelliNews

By bne IntelliNews April 13, 2023

Russia has overtaken Kazakhstan to become the world's second-largest cryptocurrency mining country in 2023, Kommersant reports on April 12.

Bitriver, Russia's largest bitcoin mining provider, says that Russia's coin generating capacity had reached 1 GW in January-March this year, second only to the US with a capacity of 3-4 GW.

Cut off from the international payments system following the imposition of the SWIFT sanctions shortly after the start of the war a year ago, Russia has accelerated its plans for digital currencies, which operate outside the control of international regulators. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has already launched a pilot programme to test the use of a state-backed digital ruble.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are already being widely used by the population to get around the restrictions on transferring money to the EU. And Russian companies are investing in developing new cryptocurrencies.

Russia has achieved significant progress in the crypto mining industry in recent years. In contrast, Kazakhstan has slipped down to ninth position due to its restrictions on crypto mining activities in 2022, due to its drain on the power sector and unlicensed activity.

As reported by bne IntelliNews, the Kazakh Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) shut down ABS Change, a cryptocurrency trading platform that was operating illegally without a licence since 2021. Three people were arrested and $342,000 and KZT7mn ($16,000) in cash were seized during a raid in the company's headquarters in Astana. Additionally, ABS Change had $23,000 worth of crypto assets in two wallets on Binance, which was temporarily restricted.

Kazakhstan, which attracted many cryptocurrency miners with its cheap electricity following China's move to put in place a crypto industry ban, has taken steps to regulate the sector, including laws restricting mining farms' access to low-cost power, and introduced licences for miners. Kazakhstan suffered multiple power outages across 2021 and 2022 due to the surge in crypto-mining operations.

Inhabitants of Ekibastuz in the north-eastern Kazakhstan’s Pavlodar Region were left without heating during the freezing winter days this year after cryptocurrency miners drained the local utility of power, until authorities shut down their operations.

China has been implementing a similar crackdown since 2021 and also did not make it to Bitriver's top ten list. China banned crypto mining in 2021.

However, bitcoin use is limited in Russia due to restrictive laws on cryptocurrencies, including President Vladimir Putin's 2020 law on digital financial assets. Although the law legalised cryptocurrencies, it banned their use to pay for goods and services. The CBR’s compromise has been to propose a regulated digital ruble, which is not a true cryptocurrency, as the regulator controls the supply of the coins and hence can fulfil a central bank’s traditional role of controlling the money supply.

After initially rejecting the idea of cryptocurrencies, the famously conservative Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has more recently softened its stance on the potential use of cryptocurrency as recognised means of payment. Deputy Head of the CBR Xenia Yudaeva said the regulator was toying with the idea of allowing the use of crypto for international payments and signalled a more lax stance on crypto-mining in June last year.

“We have changed our position on mining, and we [could] allow the use of crypto-currency in foreign trade and outside of the country,” Yudaeva said in June 2022.

However, Yudaeva reiterated the regulator’s position that crypto was a highly speculative instrument that is actually a ponzi scheme. She warned that legalising crypto in Russia could boost illegal activity and tax evasion.

In search of solutions to avoid sanctions restrictions, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin added his name to the roster of Russian high officials endorsing the use of digital money to settle international trade deals in September.

The US, aware that the unregulated and decentralised cryptocurrencies represent a threat to the effectiveness of the SWIFT sanctions on Russia’s ability to make international payments, has already started to try to close the loopholes. The US has already blacklisted a bitcoin and an ether address in February, suspecting their involvement in Russian defence equipment sales abroad, and is examining various crypto-exchanges for their role in sanctions busting.

One of the largest crypto-currency exchange platforms, Binance, announced last April that following the EU’s fifth sanction package it is “required to limit services for Russian nationals or natural persons residing in Russia, or legal entities established in Russia, that have crypto-assets exceeding the value of €10,000”. Another exchange, Coinbase, also warned Russian users that their accounts will be blocked on May 31.

Additionally, the European Union imposed a total ban on carrying out cryptocurrency transactions with Russian citizens and anyone residing in the country as part of its eighth round of sanctions introduced last summer. The US Treasury Department also targeted Swiss-based Russian crypto-currency mining holding BitRiver in September.

But Russia has taken the first step towards international crypto-payment when the Russian Ministry of Industry and the Central Bank of Iran agreed that imports could in theory be processed using crypto-currencies last August.

Iran is another cryptocurrency hotspot, accounting for 4.5% of the global coin mining, according to a study made last year, partly because of the country's cheap electricity.

If it happens, Russia’s use of cryptocurrencies to settle international trade deals won’t happen soon. In May 2022 Moody’s Investor Service warned that crypto-currencies will not help Russia bypass sanctions due to the limited market size and payment-tracing mechanisms. Moody’s believes that the low liquidity of the ruble/bitcoin pair of about $0.2mn makes crypto-currency an unlikely instrument to cover $46bn of daily transactions of Russian financial institutions for the foreseeable future.

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