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China Appointed to Influential UN Human Rights Council Panel
Last week, China was appointed to a seat on the Consultative Group of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Jiang Duan, an official at the Chinese Mission in Geneva, was nominated and confirmed by the Asia regional grouping and will hold the seat until March 2021. The appointment places China on an influential panel that oversees candidate recommendations for UN human rights experts and is likely to raise some concerns given China's less than perfect record on human rights issues.
As China has become more integrated in international organizations over the past 40 years or so, particularly within UN bodies and agencies, the scope of issue areas it is willing to not only engage with but also shape has expanded.
[...] The Consultative Group, the body to which China was just appointed, is charged with recommending candidates to fill positions according to the mandates of the Special Procedures, the Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Expert Mechanism on the Right of Development. The panel consists of five ambassadors, each representing the five UN regional groups, and facilitates the appointment of experts on issues of freedom of speech and religion; water and sanitation; housing; food; health; poverty; and conditions in countries such as Cambodia, Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea.
[...] In recent years, China has actively submitted proposals to the UNHRC as a member, albeit not without pushback. These resolutions have been challenged for their framing of human rights issues and the right to development within a state-centric approach, privileging the sovereignty of states over groups of people and communities. Experts have been outspoken about the implications of such proposals, raising concern that an overemphasis on dialogue and consensus might dilute the commitments to transparency and accountability. Separately, in July 2019, two coalitions of states sent competing letters to the UNHRC about China's Xinjiang policies — one criticizing China for its massive detention program and the other opposing the "politicization" of human rights issues and supporting Chinese counterterrorism and deradicalization efforts. More recently, there has been heightened international outcry about human rights in China amid the harsh measures Beijing put in place to combat the coronavirus.
A federal judge on Monday dismissed charges against a Russian company accused of funding the Kremlin's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, after federal prosecutors said the company has flaunted court rules and made the prosecution more trouble than it is worth.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich came hours after the Justice Department asked to drop the charges against Concord Management and Consulting.
"There is a substantial federal interest in defending American democratic institutions, exposing those who endeavor to criminally interfere with them, and holding them accountable, which is why this prosecution was properly commenced in the first place," the government said in a 9-page motion filed Monday. "In light of the defendant's conduct, however, its ephemeral presence and immunity to just punishment, the risk of exposure of law enforcement's tools and techniques and the post-indictment change in the proof available at trial, the balance of equities has shifted."
Part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, a grand jury in February 2018 indicted Concord Management and Consulting, as well as 13 Russian nationals and two other companies in connection with Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections using social media troll farms and influence campaigns.
Concord Management was the only alleged conspirator to enter an appearance in court and vigorously contested the charges over the ensuing two years.
But prosecutors say Concord Management has never really participated in the prosecution, instead using court proceedings to collect information about how the U.S. government responds to and monitors efforts from foreign countries to interfere in its elections.
Open Source Initiative bans co-founder, Eric S Raymond:
Last week, Eric S Raymond (often known as ESR, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and co-founder of the Open Source Intiative) was banned from the Open Source Intiative[sic] (the "OSI").
Specifically, Raymond was banned from the mailing lists used to organize and communicate with the OSI.
For an organization to ban their founder from communicating with the group (such as via a mailing list) is a noteworthy move.
At a time when we have seen other founders (of multiple Free and Open Source related initiatives) pushed out of the organizations they founded (such as with Richard Stallman being compelled to resign from the Free Software Foundation, or the attempts to remove Linus Torvalds from the Linux Kernel – both of which happened within the last year) it seems worth taking a deeper look at what, specifically, is happening with the Open Source Initiative.
I don't wish to tell any of you what you should think about this significant move. As such I will simply provide as much of the relevant information as I can, show the timeline of events, and reach out to all involved parties for their points of view and comments.
The author provides links to — and quotations from — entries on the mailing list supporting this. There is also a conversation the author had with ESR. The full responses he received to his queries are posted, as well.
New US Bill Aims to Protect Researchers who Disclose Govt Backdoors:
New legislation has been introduced that amends the Espionage Act of 1917 to protect journalists, whistleblowers, and security researchers who discover and disclose classified government information.
The goal of the new legislation is to amend the Espionage Act of 1917 so it cannot be used to target reporters, whistleblowers, and security researchers who discover and publish classified government secrets.
Concerned that the current laws are being used for partisan prosecution, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (D - California) introduced the new legislation to Congress on March 5th, 2020 and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D - Oregon) will soon introduce it to the Senate.
"My bill with Senator Wyden will protect journalists from being prosecuted under the Espionage Act and make it easier for members of Congress, as well as federal agencies, to conduct proper oversight over any privacy abuses. Our nation's strength rests on the freedom of the press, transparency, and a functioning system of checks and balances. This bill is a step toward ensuring those same principles apply to intelligence gathering and surveillance operations," said Rep. Ro Khanna.
"This bill ensures only personnel with security clearances can be prosecuted for improperly revealing classified information," Senator Wyden stated.
Facebook pulls Trump campaign ads for fake census claims:
Facebook infamously has a broadly laissez-faire policy for political candidates. If you're running for office, you can lie as much as you want in your paid and unpaid content—with one small catch. Anything that lies about voting or the census, such as sharing fake registration links or deliberately spreading incorrect polling dates, is prohibited. Even if it comes directly from the Trump campaign.
It just turns out that Facebook needs a lot of prodding—in the form of negative media attention—to follow through.
The site Popular Information first reported on the Trump campaign's ads early yesterday. The sponsored posts, which appeared on the accounts of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, were paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again committee, a joint fundraising effort by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
One ad Popular Information featured includes an image of a sheet of paper labeled "2020 census," next to a picture of Trump giving his characteristic thumbs up, and it exhorts readers, "President Trump needs you to take the Official 2020 Congressional District Census today." It continues, "The information we gather from this survey will help us craft our strategies for YOUR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT."
Clicking through the ad directed readers to a website labeled as the "Certified Website of President Donald J. Trump," Popular Information reported, billing itself as the "Official 2020 Congressional District Census."
Popular Information pointed out to Facebook that the ads seem to violate the company's bright-line policy prohibiting "misleading information about when and how to participate in the census," but a spokesperson for the company at first disagreed. According to Facebook, since the campaign ads also referenced the campaign, it was clear they were not official Census advertising.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/technology/facebook-trump-census-ads.html
WASHINGTON — Facebook said on Thursday that it had removed misleading ads run by President Trump’s re-election campaign about the 2020 census, in a stand against disinformation ahead of the decennial population count that begins next week.
Earlier this week, Trump Make America Great Again, a joint fund-raising arm of Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and the Republican National Committee, started running ads on the social media site that Facebook said could have caused confusion about the timing of the census.
“President Trump needs you to take the Official 2020 Congressional District Census today. We need to hear from you before the most important election in American history,” the ad said. The campaign asked followers to “respond NOW” to help our campaign messaging strategy, with an appeal to text “TRUMP to 8022.”
The Census Bureau will not begin to survey the public for its population survey until next week. The ad linked the census to the Trump campaign, a misrepresentation of the official government survey, said civil rights groups.
The census has become another disinformation test for social media companies. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have come under pressure for their handling of political speech and what has been a piecemeal approach to policing their platforms. Candidates in this year’s presidential election are expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on political ads, and the companies have already struggled to enforce consistent policies.
Facebook has taken the most permissive — and most criticized — approach to political speech, allowing candidates and their campaigns to post misleading information and target those messages to specific audiences.
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-removed-misleading-census-ads-from-trump-campaign-2020-3
- Facebook has removed a series of ads posted by the Trump campaign that gave the misleading impression respondents would be taking part in the official 2020 US census.
- One of the ads reportedly read: "President Trump needs you to take the Official 2020 Congressional District Census today," implying the survey it linked to – a survey on Republican talking points – was the official census.
- A Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider that "there are policies in place to prevent confusion around the official US Census and this is an example of those being enforced."
- Facebook has faced criticism for its general unwillingness to fact-check political ads published on its platform, though it seems to draw the line at interfering with the US census.
The story is also widely reported elsewhere.
With Brexit "done" [...] the starting position for the future relationship has been published (PDF) and, as expected, it appears the UK will have access to the Public Regulated Service (PRS) of Galileo required by the military.
It just won't be able to participate in developing the thing, and its use must also not "contravene the essential security interests of the Union and its Member States", which will doubtless set the "take back control" crowd a-frothing.
[...] Galileo was one of those moments of awakening when UK lawmakers realised that if you leave a club, you also lose access to its toys.
The UK was also blocked from working and bidding on sensitive parts of the system, much to the outrage of politicos taken by surprise at the prospect of not having access to a system into which [it] had poured funds.
[...] UK [announced] that it would build its own version.
The UK military already has access to sensitive bits of GPS, and Galileo's PRS would, certainly initially, be a handy backup. Access to PRS could also render redundant the proposed multibillion-pound Brexit Satellite (BS) system to give the UK its very own sat-nav system.
[...] And then there is the question of national ego. Dr Bleddyn Bowen, lecturer in International Relations and Space Policy at the University of Leicester, told The Register: "I don't know what prestige will be gained as the UK GNSS or Brexit System is widely seen as a waste of resources."
He added that the BS was regarded by many in the space community as "a political vanity project".
The final paragraph (136, b) of the section on Space also requires reciprocal access should the BS go ahead. Never let it be said that Eurocrats don't have a sense of humour.
[..]Should the UK find something better on which to spend the BS billions, and make use of the Galileo PRS instead, Dr Bowen observed that "the GNSS industry can fall into line with all the other industries that are finding it hard going thanks to Brexit".
[...] It wouldn't be the end of the world if 2021 rolls around and quivering fingers are pointing. "Britain could still try to negotiate on it separately again in future if it and the EU wishes," said Bowen.
"It is in the EU's defence and security interests to have the UK able to use the PRS element of Galileo as a passive user." ®
UK set for Brexit, as PM promises 'new dawn'
The UK [officially left] the European Union at 23:00 GMT, ending 47 years of membership.
[...] Pro and anti-Brexit demonstrations and marches are being held across the country, as the UK flag is taken down from EU institutions in Brussels.
Little will change immediately, as the UK begins a "transition period".
Most EU laws will continue to be in force - including the free movement of people - until the end of December, by which time the UK aims to have reached a permanent free trade agreement with the EU.
[...] The prime minister held a cabinet meeting at the National Glass Centre, a museum and arts centre in Sunderland, the city that was the first to back Brexit when results were announced after the referendum.
The meeting was held amid tight security.
[...] Mr Johnson told the Cabinet it was time to start a "new chapter in the United Kingdom's story" and end the division of the past three and a half years, according to a Downing Street spokesman.
The Cabinet discussed future trade deals, including seeking a a Canada-style free trade agreement with the EU, and Mr Johnson thanked Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay for the work of his department, which is being wound up.
The PM told ministers the government aimed to have 80% of the UK's trade with other nations covered by free trade agreements within three years.
[...] "This is the moment when the dawn breaks and the curtain goes up on a new act. It is a moment of real national renewal and change."
[...] A new commemorative 50p coin will also come into circulation to mark the UK's withdrawal.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Political polarization among Americans has grown rapidly in the last 40 years—more than in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Germany—a phenomenon possibly due to increased racial division, the rise of partisan cable news and changes in the composition of the Democratic and Republican parties.
That's according to new research co-authored by Jesse Shapiro, a professor of political economy at Brown University. The study, conducted alongside Stanford University economists Levi Boxell and Matthew Gentzkow, was released on Monday, Jan. 20, as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
In the study, Shapiro and colleagues present the first ever multi-nation evidence on long-term trends in "affective polarization"—a phenomenon in which citizens feel more negatively toward other political parties than toward their own. They found that in the U.S., affective polarization has increased more dramatically since the late 1970s than in the eight other countries they examined—the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden.
"A lot of analysis on polarization is focused on the U.S., so we thought it could be interesting to put the U.S. in context and see whether it is part of a global trend or whether it looks more exceptional," Shapiro said. "We found that the trend in the U.S. is indeed exceptional."
Using data from four decades of public opinion surveys conducted in the nine countries, the researchers used a so-called "feeling thermometer" to rate attitudes on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 reflected no negative feelings toward other parties. They found that in 1978, the average American rated the members of their own political party 27 points higher than members of the other major party. By 2016, Americans were rating their own party 45.9 points higher than the other party, on average. In other words, negative feelings toward members of the other party compared to one's own party increased by an average of 4.8 points per decade.
The researchers found that polarization had also risen in Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland in the last 40 years, but to a lesser extent. In the U.K., Australia, Germany, Norway and Sweden, polarization decreased.
More information: Levi Boxell et al, Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization, (2020). DOI: 10.3386/w26669
300,000 jobs lost A report from Moody's Analytics [PDF] says that the trade war with China, which started in early 2018, cost 300,000 jobs through September, based on an economic simulation. While it's hard to know exactly how many jobs losses can be attributed to trade tensions, the Moody's report isn't the only one that suggests the duties are having an effect on US workers. A survey of businesses by staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that trade difficulties were cited as the reason for more than 10,000 job cuts in August alone. And an analysis by the Tax Foundation also suggests the trade war will result to job losses in the long-run.
American importers paid an extra $46 billion in tariffs Trump is wrong when he claims that China is paying the tariffs. The cost of the tariff comes directly out of the bank account of an American importer when the good arrives at the port. US companies have paid $46 billion more in tariffs than they would have without Trump's tariffs, according to an analysis of government data by the free-trade coalition called Tariffs Hurt the Heartland...
Tariffs cost US consumers Several studies show that tariffs end up costing US families. JPMorgan Chase said that the tariffs imposed in 2018 cost the average household $600 a year.
A separate report, from researchers at the NY Fed, Princeton, and Columbia University, estimated that those tariffs would cost households even more: $831 annually. Their research also considered the cost of shifting supply chains to avoid paying the tariffs....
Manufacturing takes a beating Trump has often argued that his tariffs are boosting the American manufacturing sector, but the industry is in a slump. In December, a measure of manufacturing activity weakened to its lowest point in more than a decade. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that just 46,000 net manufacturing jobs were added in 2019, an increase of less than 0.5%. While there are likely a lot of factors at play, a recent paper from economists at the Federal Reserve showed that the tariffs are certainly dragging down the sector.
Amazon is seeking a court order that would prevent Microsoft from doing work for the US Department of Defense under a contract that Amazon says was awarded improperly.
[...] Amazon alleges that the president "launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI Contract away from AWS [Amazon Web Services] to harm his perceived political enemy—Jeffrey P. Bezos," the founder and CEO of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post.
Amazon and the US have agreed to an expedited briefing schedule, in part to consider a motion for a restraining order or preliminary injunction that Amazon intends to file. A joint status report filed in court yesterday by Amazon, the US government, and Microsoft described what's happening next in the case:
AWS intends to file a motion for temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction to prevent the issuance of substantive task orders under the contract, which the United States has previously advised AWS and the Court will begin on February 11, 2020, given the United States' consistent position that the services to be procured under the Contract are urgently needed in support of national security. The parties have agreed to an expedited briefing schedule on the issue of preliminary injunctive relief, and respectfully request that the Court expedite consideration of the issue, as described below.
[...] both the US and Microsoft "intend to file partial motions to dismiss" the case, the status report said.
[...] The status report also says that the US government "does not intend to file an answer to AWS's complaint." Instead, "the parties will file cross-motions for judgment on the administrative record."
[...] Trump "escalated his intervention, jettisoning any appearance of impartiality by making clear to DoD (and to the world) that he did not want AWS to get the JEDI Contract," the lawsuit said.
Is it wrong to root for Microsoft to win?