Over two million homes in the Tokyo region were left without power.
This is a breaking story… Please check back for possible updates…
A series of earthquakes off the coast of Japan on Wednesday triggered a tsunami advisory for Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures—just over 11 years after the region endured a major nuclear disaster.
The first two earthquakes, with magnitudes of 6.4 and 7.3, struck within two minutes of each other, followed by another 5.5 magnitude quake over an hour later, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The strongest quake hit about 60 kilometers or 37 miles below the sea and left more than two million homes without electricity in an area serviced by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Associated Press reported.
The AP noted that TEPCO said workers were checking for any possible damage at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, the site of the March 2011 disaster—which was caused by a 9.0 magnitude quake and resulting tsunami that led to multiple meltdowns at the facility.
No abnormalities were found at the Fukushima plant, The Japan Timesreported, citing the nation’s Nuclear Regulation Authority.
TEPCO also found no abnormalities at the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant in Miyagi Prefecture, according to Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK.
“There is a possibility that another earthquake as strong as an upper 6 could strike in the next week or so,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters just after midnight local time. “We need to be on alert.”
As Common Dreamsreported last week, environmental defenders marked the 11th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster with calls for a renewable energy future free of nuclear power.
“This is a bill to reduce gas prices and hold Big Oil accountable,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, who led the measure in the U.S. House.
Congressional Democrats on Thursday introduced the bicameral Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax to target price gouging by profit-gorging fossil fuel companies amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We need to curb profiteering by Big Oil and provide relief to Americans at the gas pump—that starts with ensuring these corporations pay a price when they price gouge.”
“This is a bill to reduce gas prices and hold Big Oil accountable,” declared Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who’s leading the measure in the U.S. House.
“As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sends gas prices soaring,” said Khanna, “fossil fuel companies are raking in record profits. These companies have made billions and used the profits to enrich their own shareholders while average Americans are hurting at the pump.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced the legislation in the upper chamber along with co-sponsors including Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The proposal followed President Joe Biden’s announcement earlier this week of a ban on U.S. imports of Russian fuels and amid swelling accusations that Big Oil has been taking advantage of the crisis in Ukraine to “pad their bottom line with war-fueled profits.”
The Democrats’ proposal aims to get some relief for Americans, who are facing average gas prices of $4.31 a gallon.
Big oil companies, specifically those that produce or import at least 300,000 barrels of oil per day, are targeted under the measure. They would face a per-barrel tax—whether the oil is domestically produced or imported—equal to 50% of the difference between the current price of a barrel of oil and the average price per barrel between 2015 and 2019.
The measure exempts smaller companies, which, according to a statement from the lawmakers, account for roughly 70% of the domestic production. This approach is meant to deter the larger multinational producers from simply raising prices.
The tax imposed on the energy firms would be quarterly. Consumers would receive quarterly rebates, with the relief phasing out for single filers earning more than $75,000 annually and joint filers earning more than $150,000 annually. The lawmakers project the tax to raise $45 billion per year at $120 per barrel of oil, delivering to single filers $240 annually and joint filers $360 annually.
Last year, oil & gas companies made $174 billion in profits. This year they're on track to make more. We cannot allow big oil to use Ukraine & "inflation" as an excuse to rip-off Americans. I'm proud to join @SenWhitehouse to introduce a windfall profits tax. Let's get it done.
“While Putin’s war is causing gas prices to go up, Big Oil companies are raking in record profits,” Warren said in a statement. “We need to curb profiteering by Big Oil and provide relief to Americans at the gas pump—that starts with ensuring these corporations pay a price when they price gouge, and using the revenue to help American families,” she said.
A number of social justice and climate groups heaped praise on the legislative proposal.
According to Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, “The oil and gas industry got the world into this mess by lobbying and lying to keep us hooked on fossil fuels. Now they’re using the war in Ukraine to distract us from the fact that they are ripping off hard working Americans with high gas prices as they reap record earnings.”
“It’s time we stop allowing Big Oil to use its record profits, earned on the backs of hard-working American families, to reward wealthy shareholders and CEOs, and instead make them pay a fair share to lower the cost for consumers,” he added.
Collin Rees, U.S. program director at Oil Change International, welcomed the proposal as precisely the opposite of what the fossil fuel lobby has called for to counter Putin’s power, namely expanded domestic fossil fuel production.
“The so-called ‘solutions’ to the energy crisis being put forward by Big Oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute would do nothing but further line their own pockets and lock in a climate-wrecking, fossil-fueled future,” he said. “What’s needed now is immediate relief for American consumers, which is what this commonsense windfall profits tax bill would provide.”
The bill also drew plaudits from Lukas Ross, program manager at Friends of the Earth, which released an analysis Thursday along with BailoutWatch finding that Big Oil CEOs have “absolutely” used the spiked in fuel prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to “price-gouge and profiteer.”
In a statement responding to the new legislation, Ross said: “All-American oil oligarchs are profiteering off the war in Ukraine while sacrificing our communities and climate. The windfall profits tax will require Big Oil to pay their fair share while putting billions of dollars back into the pockets of taxpayers.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by ANDREA GERMANOS and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Russia’s Defense Ministry announced plans for a bombing campaign in the Ukrainian capital.
Above: Photo Collage / Reuters / Time / Lynxotic
This is a developing news story… Check back for possible updates…
The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday warned Kyiv residents to leave their homes immediately as Russia’s forces advanced on the Ukrainian capital and announced plans to bomb targets in the city.
In a statement, Russia’s Defense Ministry said the military intends to strike the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the 72nd Center for Information and Psychological Operations (PSO) in Kyiv.
“In order to thwart informational attacks against Russia, [Russian forces] will strike technological objects of the SBU and the 72nd Main PSO Center in Kyiv,” the ministry said. “We urge Ukrainian citizens involved by Ukrainian nationalists in provocations against Russia, as well as Kyiv residents living near relay stations, to leave their homes.”
Shortly following the Russian Defense Ministry’s warning, one Ukrainian media outlet reported that an explosion was heard in Kyiv, where Ukrainian forces have thus far beaten back Russia’s incursion attempts.
Video footage from Kyiv showed residents scrambling to flee on Tuesday as Russia’s 40-mile-long convoy of tanks and armored vehicles approached the city.
Footage also showed that a Russian airstrike hit a TV tower in Kyiv. Reporters Without Borders, an international advocacy group, condemned the attack as an “attempt to close access to information.”
⚡️The moment of the Russian attack on a TV tower in Kyiv, captured by a witness.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 1, 2022
Russians are destroying the Kyiv TV Tower. They are trying to cut us off from communications. pic.twitter.com/ppi264K5Jf
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) March 1, 2022
With Russia’s assault on major Ukrainian cities intensifying, media outlets in Ukraine reported that the second round of diplomatic talks is set to take place on Wednesday.
Originally published on Common Dreams by JAKE JOHNSON and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
The first casualty of war, says historian Ronald Suny, is not just the truth. Often, he says, “it is what is left out.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin began a full-scale attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022 and many in the world are now getting a crash course in the complex and intertwined history of those two nations and their peoples. Much of what the public is hearing, though, is jarring to historian Suny’s ears. That’s because some of it is incomplete, some of it is wrong, and some of it is obscured or refracted by the self-interest or the limited perspective of who is telling it. We asked Suny, a professor at the University of Michigan, to respond to a number of popular historical assertions he’s heard recently.
Putin’s view of Russo-Ukrainian history has been widely criticized in the West. What do you think motivates his version of the history?
Putin indicates that Ukraine by its very nature ought to be friendly, not hostile, to Russia. But he sees its current government as illegitimate, aggressively nationalist and even fascist. The condition for peaceful relations between states, he repeatedly says, is that they do not threaten the security of other states. Yet, as is clear from the invasion, he presents the greatest threat to Ukraine.
Putin sees Ukraine as an existential threat to Russia, believing that if it enters NATO, offensive weaponry will be placed closer to the Russian border, as already is being done in Romania and Poland.
It’s possible to interpret Putin’s statements about the historical genesis of the Ukrainian state as self-serving history and a way of saying, “We created them, we can take them back.” But I believe he may instead have been making a forceful appeal to Ukraine and the West to recognize the security interests of Russia and provide guarantees that there will be no further moves by NATO toward Russia and into Ukraine. Ironically, his recent actions have driven Ukrainians more tightly into the arms of the West.
The Western position is that the breakaway regions Putin recognized, Donetsk and Luhansk, are integral parts of Ukraine. Russia claims that the Donbass region, which includes these two provinces, is historically and rightfully part of Russia. What does history tell us?
During the Soviet period, these two provinces were officially part of Ukraine. When the USSR disintegrated, the former Soviet republic boundaries became, under international law, the legal boundaries of the post-Soviet states. Russia repeatedly recognized those borders, though reluctantly in the case of Crimea.
Historical claims to land are always contested – think of Israelis and Palestinians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis – and they are countered by claims that the majority living on the land in the present takes precedence over historical claims from the past. Russia can claim Donbass with its own arguments based on ethnicity, but so can Ukrainians with arguments based on historical possession. Such arguments go nowhere and often lead, as can be seen today, to bloody conflict.
Why was Russia’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics as independent such a pivotal event in the conflict?
When Putin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states, he seriously escalated the conflict, which turned out to be the prelude to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That invasion is a hard, harsh signal to the West that Russia will not back down and accept the further arming of and placing of weaponry in Ukraine, Poland and Romania. The Russian president has now led his country into a dangerous preventive war – a war based on the anxiety that sometime in the future his country will be attacked – the outcome of which is unpredictable.
A New York Times story on Putin’s histories of Ukraine says “The newly created Soviet government under Lenin that drew so much of Mr. Putin’s scorn on Monday would eventually crush the nascent independent Ukrainian state. During the Soviet era, the Ukrainian language was banished from schools and its culture was permitted to exist only as a cartoonish caricature of dancing Cossacks in puffy pants.” Is this history of Soviet repression accurate?
Within the strict bounds of the Soviet system, Ukraine, like many other nationalities in the USSR, became a modern nation, conscious of its history, literate in its language, and even in puffy pants permitted to celebrate its ethnic culture. But the contradictory policies of the Soviets in Ukraine both promoted a Ukrainian cultural nation while restricting its freedoms, sovereignty and expressions of nationalism.
History is both a contested and a subversive social science. It is used and misused by governments and pundits and propagandists. But for historians it is also a way to find out what happened in the past and why. As a search for truth, it becomes subversive of convenient and comfortable but inaccurate views of where we came from and where we might be going.
This article has been updated to reflect the correct ethnic and linguistic character of the villages in the Donbas during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. They were Ukrainian.
Sergiy Kyslytsya also denounced the Russian president’s decision to put nuclear forces on special alert as “madness.”
Amid rapidly escalating fears of global nuclear war, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin should follow in the footsteps of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Echoing the condemnation of anti-war activists worldwide, the Ukrainian ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, called Putin’s Sunday decision to put Russian nuclear forces on special alert “madness.”
“If he wants to kill himself, he doesn’t need to use [a] nuclear arsenal. He has to do what… the guy in Berlin did, in a bunker,” the ambassador said.
During his U.N. speech, Kyslytsya did not name the notorious German leader, who consumed cyanide and shot himself in the head on April 30, 1945, just days before Germany surrendered to Allied forces.
‘This war was not provoked. It was chosen by someone right now that is sitting in the bunker. We know what happened to the person who sat in the bunker in Berlin, in May, 1945,’ said Ukraine’s U.N. envoy Sirgiy Kyslytsya https://t.co/gyYHI0BslXpic.twitter.com/C5ZQTysdcV
Kyslytsya also gained global attention last week for his remarks during a U.N. Security Council meeting chaired by his Russian counterpart, Vasily Nebenzya.
“There is no purgatory for war criminals; they go straight to hell, ambassador,” the Ukrainian told Nebenzya.
In response, the Russian ambassador claimed that “we are not carrying out aggression against the Ukrainian people—this is against that junta, that seized power in Kyiv.”
Following several war crime allegations against Russia over the past week, Karim A.A. Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announced Monday that he has “decided to proceed with opening an investigation into the situation in Ukraine, as rapidly as possible.”
More than 5,500 peace advocates have been detained across the country since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine, according to a human rights group.
Above: Photo collage – Times / Lynxotic
Russian police arrested 2,114 people at anti-war protests in 48 cities across the country on Sunday, the fourth consecutive day that demonstrators have risked their personal safety to hit the streets in opposition to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
That’s according to OVD-Info, a Russian human rights group that has long documented crackdowns on civil liberties in the country. A total of 5,500 anti-war protesters have now been detained since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale military assault on Ukraine, said the independent monitor.
Many held posters that read “No to war,” “Russians go home,” and “Peace to Ukraine.”
“It is a shame that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of us and not millions,” said 35-year-old engineer Vladimir Vilokhonov, who took part in the protest.
Another protester, Alyona Stepanova, 25, came to the protest with a packed bag in case “we get taken away.”
“We believe it is our duty to come here,” she said.
More than 350 civilians, including 14 children, have been killed in Ukraine since the start of Putin’s attack, according to the country’s health ministry. In addition, it said that 1,684 people, including 116 children, have been wounded. According to the World Health Organization, Ukraine’s hospitals are quickly running out of oxygen supplies.
United Nations officials have said that more than 368,000 people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries, and they estimate the war could produce four million refugees. European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic, meanwhile, has said that the number of people displaced from Ukraine could reach seven million.
While Kyiv has agreed to attend talks with Moscow at the Ukraine-Belarus border—negotiations are reportedly set to begin Monday morning—Russia’s former deputy foreign minister Andrei Fedorov toldAl Jazeera on Sunday that Putin is seeking a complete victory by Wednesday.
“Everything will depend frankly speaking on the coming two days because, according to my knowledge, Putin orders for complete military operation with a victory by March 2,” said Fedorov, who added that the Kremlin has been surprised by the strength of Ukrainian resistance and by European governments’ unified decision to impose far-reaching sanctions despite their reliance on Russian gas.
Western sanctions have “caused a lot of problems over here now,” said Federov. Some commentators argued Sunday that an economic collapse in Russia could make Putin more likely to escalate his threat to use nuclear weapons.
In a rare move, the U.N. Security Council voted for the 193-member General Assembly to hold an emergency session Monday on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As the BBCexplained, “the resolution, called ‘Uniting for Peace,’ allows members of the Security Council to call a special session with the General Assembly if the five permanent members (Russia, U.S., U.K., France, and China) cannot agree how to act together to maintain peace.”
Sunday’s vote to authorize an emergency meeting was supported by 11 of the Security Council’s 15 members. Russia opposed the measure while China, India, and the United Arab Emirates abstained. Even though Russia, China, and other permanent members can typically exercise veto power, is was a procedural vote and therefore only required nine votes in favor.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said that an emergency session had been called for the first time in decades because “this is no ordinary moment.”
“We need to take extraordinary action to meet this threat to our international system,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “So let us do everything we can to help the people of Ukraine.”
The Security Council is holding another meeting on Monday at 3:00 p.m. ET to discuss Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis. On Tuesday, France and Mexico are expected to submit a Security Council resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, the protection of civilians, and a guarantee that aid can be delivered.
Russia, which on Friday blocked a Security Council resolution condemning Moscow’s “premeditated aggression” in Ukraine, is expected to prevent the passage of France and Mexico’s planned resolution.
Originally published on Common Dreams by KENNY STANCIL and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
There must be “an immediate halt to use of the internationally banned weapon,” said the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munition Coalition.
Allegations on Friday that Russian forces have used cluster munitions in its ongoing assault on Ukraine elicited sharp condemnation Friday from critics of the indiscriminate weapons.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC) expressed alarm in a statement about “the threat of further harm to civilians including humanitarian mine action partners.”
“We call for an immediate halt to use of the internationally banned weapon, and urge all parties to guarantee protection of civilians, respect for international humanitarian law, and the international norm banning use of cluster munitions and landmines,” the group said.
One hundred twenty-three nations have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions, committing states to ban the use, production, stockpiling, or transfer of the weapons, which disperse bomblets over a widespread area and pose lasting threats as unexploded fragments become de facto landmines.
The international treaty also obligates signatories to destroy their stockpiles of the weapons. Neither Ukraine, Russia, nor the United States are signatories to the international treaty.
ICBL-CMC’s statement came after the New York Timesreported Thursday that remnants left by a likely Russian strike near a hospital in the eastern Ukrainian city of Vuhledar “suggest the possible use of cluster munitions.”
The Times referenced a tweet by Mark Hiznay, associate arms director at Human Rights Watch, in which he shared photos from the Ukraine Weapons Tracker account purportedly showing the aftermath of the attack:
An attack using a cluster munition, specifically a 9M79-series ballistic missile with 9N123K warhead containing 50 9N24 HE-FRAG submunitions. Same type used in Syria. @banclusterbombs@MineMonitorhttps://t.co/5rp6amCVKa
The Washington Post also reported Thursday that “as it encircled Ukraine in recent weeks, the Russian military brought forward an array of aircraft capable of firing guided air-to-ground missiles or dropping ‘dumb’ munitions such as cluster or fragmentation bombs.”
Further evidence suggesting Russia has used the pernicious weapons came Friday from independent and open source investigative outlet Bellingcat, which shared in Twitter posts photos of a cluster munition canister in the eastern Ukraine city of Okhtyrka and said the canister’s location just a short distance from a school means it “may be connected” to an alleged attack on a local kindergarten.
Currently there is not enough information to establish if the two are linked, but the location of the canister remains, and that it appears to have landed from the direction of the school, suggests this Russian cluster munition may be connected to the kindergarten attack.
Russia’s alleged attack on a kindgergarten as well as an orphanage in Okhtyrka prompted Ukraine to call for a war crimes investigation.
In a Friday tweet, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote: “Today’s Russian attacks on a kindergarten and an orphanage are war crimes and violations of the Rome Statute. Together with the general prosecutor’s office we are collecting this and other facts, which we will immediately send to the Hague. Responsibility is inevitable.”
Human rights groups have expressed concern about harm to civilians, including through the potential use of cluster munition, since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Thursday.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, accused the Russian military of having displayed “a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas.”
“Some of these attacks may be war crimes,” she said in a Friday statement. “The Russian government, which falsely claims to use only precision-guided weapons, should take responsibility for these acts.”
Advocacy group CIVIC also lamented Friday that “the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine is rising” and called on “warring actors” to “avoid using weapons that result in indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects.”
“Some of these weapons,” the group said, “include unguided munitions, multiple launch rocket systems, banned cluster munitions, and other explosive weapons with wide-area effect.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by ANDREA GERMANOSand republished under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
The ICC prosecutor, who is following the invasion “with increasing concern,” signals the court may launch an investigation.
Amnesty International declared Friday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “has been marked by indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas and strikes on protected objects such as hospitals” that may amount to war crimes.
“The Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives.”
The human rights group’s Crisis Evidence Lab analyzed photos, videos, and satellite imagery of three attacks—in the Ukrainian cities Vuhledar, Kharkiv, and Uman—carried out in the early hours of the invasion, which Russian President Vladimir Putin announcedbefore dawn on Thursday.
“The Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, in a statement.
“Some of these attacks may be war crimes,” she continued. “The Russian government, which falsely claims to use only precision-guided weapons, should take responsibility for these acts.”
Callamard added that “the Russian troops should immediately stop carrying out indiscriminate attacks in violation of the laws of war. The continuation of the use of ballistic missiles and other inaccurate explosive weapons causing civilian deaths and injuries is inexcusable.”
Amnesty’s researchers believe the trio of analyzed attacks killed at least six civilians and injured at least a dozen others. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the overall death toll had topped 130 and more than 300 people were wounded on the first day of the assault.
Though the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss Putin’s widely condemned invasion, Russia is one of the five permanent members—along with China, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States—meaning it has veto power over resolutions.
Russia also currently leads the 15-member UNSC—though Ukraine’s ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, suggested during a meeting earlier this week that his Russian counterpart, Vasily Nebenzya, should relinquish the rotating presidency, which is set to shift to the United Arab Emirates in March.
That meeting concluded with Kyslytsya telling Nebenzya that “there is no purgatory for war criminals; they go straight to hell, ambassador,” to which the Russian responded that “we are not carrying out aggression against the Ukrainian people—this is against that junta, that seized power in Kyiv.”
'There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell' — As the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in full force, Ukraine's UN ambassador called out his Russian counterpart in a fiery speech pic.twitter.com/CYqOtUsnxN
Given the current limitations of the UNSC, Amnesty International is calling for an emergency session of the U.N. General Assembly. As Callamard put it: “If the Security Council is paralyzed through veto, it is up to the entire membership to step up.”
Warning that the “lives, safety, and well-being” of millions of Ukrainians are at stake, she urged the General Assembly to adopt a resolution denouncing Russia’s “unlawful attack and calling for an end to all violations of humanitarian law and human rights.”
Amnesty was far from alone in sounding the alarm about Russia violating international law.
A spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Friday that “we are gravely concerned about developments” in Ukraine and “we are receiving increasing reports of civilian casualties.”
“Civilians are terrified of further escalation, with many attempting to flee their homes and others taking shelter where possible,” added the spokesperson. “As the high commissioner has warned, the military action by the Russian Federation clearly violates international law. It puts at risk countless lives and it must be immediately halted.”
International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan similarly said Friday that “I have been closely following recent developments in and around Ukraine with increasing concern.”
The International Criminal Court prosecutor reminds the warring parties in Ukraine (including Russian forces) that the court has jurisdiction over any war crimes or crimes against humanity committed there, pursuant to a declaration filed by the Ukrainian government in 2015. https://t.co/Spn1SyTjvH
Though neither Ukraine nor Russia is a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, Khan pointed out that due to a 2015 declaration following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, “my office may exercise its jurisdiction over and investigate any act of genocide, crime against humanity, or war crime committed within the territory of Ukraine” since February 20, 2014.
“Any person who commits such crimes, including by ordering, inciting, or contributing in another manner to the commission of these crimes, may be liable to prosecution before the court, with full respect for the principle of complementarity,” he said. “It is imperative that all parties to the conflict respect their obligations under international humanitarian law.”
The ICC also investigates crimes of aggression, but Khan explained that because neither involved nation is party to the Rome Statute, “the court cannot exercise jurisdiction over this alleged crime in this situation.”
The prosecutor—who is on mission in Bangladesh but plans to release a fuller statement upon returning to The Hague—vowed that his office “will continue to closely monitor the situation” and “remains fully committed to the prevention of atrocity crimes and to ensuring that anyone responsible for such crimes is held accountable.”
After reports that Russia attacked a kindergarten and orphanage in the city of Okhtyrka, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Friday that officials are collecting evidence of “war crimes and violations of the Rome Statute” that will be sent to The Hague.
Today’s Russian attacks on a kindergarten and an orphanage are war crimes and violations of the Rome Statute. Together with the General Prosecutor’s Office we are collecting this and other facts, which we will immediately send to the Hague. Responsibility is inevitable.
As Common Dreamsreported earlier Friday, Russian forces also have been accused of using cluster munitions in the ongoing assault of Ukraine, leading an international coalition to call for “an immediate halt to use of the internationally banned weapon.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by JESSICA CORBETT and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
“Ahmaud Arbery was lynched in broad daylight,” said the NAACP’s president, “and today’s verdict brings us one step closer to justice.”
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates…
A jury on Tuesday found three white men who murdered unarmed Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery guilty of federal hate crimes.
Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. “are accused of interfering with Arbery’s right to use a public street because of his race as well as attempted kidnapping,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreports. “The McMichaels are also accused of using weapons during a crime of violence because both were armed during the deadly chase.”
The verdict came about three months after the trio was found guilty of murdering the 25-year-old Black man in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia on February 23, 2020. They were each sentenced to life in prison last month and only Bryan was given the possibility of parole.
Ben Crump, a nationally recognized civil rights attorney who represented the Arbery family, has said that the murder was “so reminiscent of the motivations for lynchings.” Crump on Tuesday welcomed the development, joined by Ahmaud Arbery’s parents, Wanda Cooper-Jones and Marcus Arbery.
"You all did that."
Benjamin Crump speaks after three men found guilty on federal hate crime charges for killing Ahmaud Arbery.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Cooper-Jones called out the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for proposed plea deals with the McMichaels that were ultimately rejected by U.S. District Judge Lisa Wood.
“They ignored my cry,” Cooper-Jones said of members of the Justice Department directly involved in the case. “I begged them.”
“That’s not justice for Ahmaud,” she said of the DOJ’s attempted plea deals. “What we got today, we wouldn’t have gotten today if it wasn’t for the fight that the family put up.”
"That's not justice for Ahmaud."
Ahmaud Arbery's mother called out the DOJ for attempting a plea deal with his murderers: "They were made to do their job today … They didn't have a son that was lying in a cold grave, and they still didn't hear my cry." pic.twitter.com/E8MBOjMkyJ
“The guilty verdict of the three murderers of Ahmaud Arbery of hate crimes is a precedent-setting verdict,” Rev. Al Sharpton tweeted Tuesday. “Even in the Deep South the feds will convict you of hate actions. I salute Ahmaud’s parents for forcing the trial.”
NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement that “two years ago today, none of us knew of Ahmaud Arbery. But two years ago tomorrow, his story shook the conscience of our nation and world. Ahmaud Arbery was lynched in broad daylight, and today’s verdict brings us one step closer to justice.”
Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way, declared that “this is a just verdict for three men that chased, cornered, and killed Ahmaud Arbery.”
“This is the kind of accountability we must have to address the ongoing terror of white supremacy that’s reigned in our country for hundreds of years, where Black people can be killed with impunity,” Jealous added. “We must continue to fight for justice for every American who has been the victim of white domestic terrorism and the injustice it fosters.”
Others also recognized the fight ahead. As the advocacy group NARAL Pro-choice America put it: “This shred of justice only points to a larger problem, how insidious white supremacy and white supremacist violence is within this country.”
We must continue our work towards true justice and anti-racism. We’re holding in our hearts the family of Ahmaud Arbery. Every parent should have the freedom to watch their child grow up without the threat or fear of racist violence. That’s the world we’re working toward. 3/3
The jury in the case consisted of eight white members, three Black people, and one Hispanic person, according to the Journal. They deliberated for less than four hours.
“I, as a mom, will never heal,” said Cooper-Jones. “We got a victory today, but there’s so many families who don’t get victories.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by JESSICA CORBETT and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
The 2022 Winter Games in Beijing provide many benefits for China, and really don’t have any downsides for the country.
For China’s leader, Xi Jinping, the most important result of the Games will likely be their impact on his domestic audience, as Chinese media coverage of the Games will be highly nationalistic and laudatory, aimed at impressing the Chinese people. To this home audience, the spectacle of the Games reinforces government propaganda about China’s success and progress toward achieving the “Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
But I don’t predict the 2022 Games will have the same effect, either domestically or internationally, that the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics had, partially because the Winter Olympics are smaller and the weather is harsher, and partially because 2008 was the first time China hosted the Olympics.
In 2008, stunning opening ceremonies including 5,000 syncopated dancers telling a stylized story of 5,000 years of Chinese history astonished the international audience. The power of that first time cannot be repeated. https://www.youtube.com/embed/T9PmD3K1eJc?wmode=transparent&start=0 CCTV+, a China state video news agency, issued video of rehearsals for the 2022 Olympics opening ceremony on Jan. 25, 2021.
Chinese leaders care about improving the nation’s international status, but they’re already working from a position of relative strength. China’s rise internationally, especially since 2008, is undeniable. Its status as the number two power in the world is almost universally acknowledged.
But that is less important to him than the domestic effect of the Games.
China is not traditionally strong in winter sports. But the country has invested heavily in preparing increasingly competitive teams for these Games. The success of Chinese athletes at the Games will enhance China’s reputation and thus Chinese citizens’ sense of pride. In turn, this will mute competition from Xi’s opposition within the Chinese Communist Party.
FreeSki world champion Eileen Guchose to compete for China – her mother is Chinese – and not the U.S., where she was born and is a citizen. Her choice may yield golds in areas where China is not a strong competitor.
There may be individual acts of protest by some non-Chinese athletes against Chinese human rights practices. But those protests will not be shown on Chinese television, and the protesters will likely be forced to leave China. The Washington Post reported that in late January, Yang Shu, a member of China’s Olympic Organizing Committee, said in a press conference that “Any expression that is in line with the Olympic spirit I’m sure will be protected … Any behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment.”
With no spectators and a highly controlled environment for the athletes and foreign observers, there is little chance for significant demonstrations to break out.
What’s the payoff?
China spent billions to construct the sites for the events and it will use untold millions of gallons of water to manufacture artificial snow for the skiing competitions. Winter is the dry season in Beijing, and snowfall is rare despite the very cold temperatures.
The costs may produce some grumbling by environmentally and fiscally concerned Chinese which will quickly be suppressed. And if the Chinese team performs well, these complaints may be seen as unpatriotic.
For Xi Jinping and the rest of Chinese leadership, the gains of the Olympics are immediate, and the costs are diffuse and longer-term. In the end they will – through propaganda and the suppression of dissent – tell a story of triumph to their domestic audience, which makes holding the Olympic Games useful for their political purposes.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Jan. 19, 2022, that he thinks Russia will invade Ukraine, and cautioned Russian president Vladimir Putin that he “will regret having done it,” following months of building tension.
Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine over the past several months.
In mid-January, Russia began moving troops into Belarus, a country bordering both Russia and Ukraine, in preparation for joint military exercises in February.
Putin has issued various security demands to the U.S. before he draws his military forces back. Putin’s list includes a ban on Ukraine from entering NATO, and agreement that NATO will remove troops and weapons across much of Eastern Europe.
Ukraine’s layered history offers a window into the complex nation it is today — and why it is continuously under threat. As an Eastern Europe expert, I highlight five key points to keep in mind.
What should we know about Ukrainians’ relationship with Russia?
Ukraine gained independence 30 years ago, after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has since struggled to combat corruption and bridge deep internal divisions.
Ukraine’s western region generally supported integration with Western Europe. The country’s eastern side, meanwhile, favored closer ties with Russia.
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine peaked in February 2014, when violent protesters ousted Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in what is now known as the Revolution of Dignity.
Around the same time, Russia forcibly annexed Crimea. Ukraine was in a vulnerable position for self-defense, with a temporary government and unprepared military.
Putin immediately moved to strike in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The armed conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed over 14,000 people.
Unlike its response to Crimea, Russia continues to officially deny its involvement in the Donbas conflict.
What do Ukrainians want?
Russia’s military aggression in Donbas and the annexation of Crimea have galvanized public support for Ukraine’s Western leanings.
Ukraine’s government has said it will apply for European Union membership in 2024, and also has ambitions to join NATO.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who came to power in 2019, campaigned on a platform of anti-corruption, economic renewal and peace in the Donbas region.
In September 2021, 81% of Ukrainians said they have a negative attitude about Putin, according to the Ukrainian news site RBC-Ukraine. Just 15% of surveyed Ukrainians reported a positive attitude towards the Russian leader.
Why is Putin threatening to invade Ukraine?
Putin’s decision to engage in a military buildup along Ukraine is connected to a sense of impunity. Putin also has experience dealing with Western politicians who champion Russian interests and become engaged with Russian companies once they leave office.
Western countries have imposed mostly symbolic sanctions against Russia over interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential elections and a huge cyberattack against about 18,000 people who work for companies and the U.S. government, among other transgressions.
Without repercussions, Putin has backed Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown on mass protests in the capital city, Minsk.
In several instances, Putin has seen that some leading Western politicians align with Russia. These alliances can prevent Western countries from forging a unified front to Putin.
Other senior European politicians promoting a soft position toward Russia while in office include former French Prime Minister François Fillon and former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl. Both joined the boards of Russian state-owned companies after leaving office.
What is Putin’s end game?
Putin views Ukraine as part of Russia’s “sphere of influence” – a territory, rather than an independent state. This sense of ownership has driven the Kremlin to try to block Ukraine from joining the EU and NATO.
In January 2021, Russia experienced one of its largest anti-government demonstrations in years. Tens of thousands of Russians protested in support of political opposition leader Alexei Navalny, following his detention in Russia. Navalny had recently returned from Germany, where he was treated for being poisoned by the Russian government.
Putin is also using Ukraine as leverage for Western powers lifting their sanctions. Currently, the U.S. has various political and financial sanctions in place against Russia, as well as potential allies and business partners to Russia.
A Russian attack on Ukraine could prompt more diplomatic conversations that could lead to concessions on these sanctions.
The costs to Russia of attacking Ukraine would significantly outweigh the benefits.
While a full scale invasion of Ukraine is unlikely, Putin might renew fighting between the Ukrainian army and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Why would the US want to get involved in this conflict?
With its annexation of Crimea and support for the Donbas conflict, Russia has violated the Budapest Memorandum Security Assurances for Ukraine, a 1994 agreement between the U.S., United Kingdom and Russia that aims to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for its commitment to give up its nuclear arsenal.
Putin’s threats against Ukraine occur as he is moving Russian forces into Belarus, which also raises questions about the Kremlin’s plans for invading other neighboring countries.
Military support for Ukraine and political and economic sanctions are ways the U.S. can make clear to Moscow that there will be consequences for its encroachment on an independent country. The risk, otherwise, is that the Kremlin might undertake other military and political actions that would further threaten European security and stability.
A jury has found all three men charged in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery guilty of murder. Arbery was a 25- year old Black man killed last year while jogging in Brunswick, Georgia, and the murder sparked a heated national debate.
Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and Willian Bryan Jr. had all been charged. All three men had pleaded not guilty and and faced charges in addition to murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.
All men faced varying felony counts for Arbery’s murder. Gregory McMichael and Willian Bryan Jr. were found guilty on felony murder, while only Travis McMichael was found guilty on all charges, Travis being the man pulling the trigger.
In wake of what she calls “failed” Cop26 in Glasgow, a fitting gesture of truth
In the video above the real story of NetZero by 2050 is told, without window dressing and in total honesty. Frustration with government responses to global warming are on the rise, as well they should be. The video is a light hearted and yet deadly serious take on the situation and how it is going to affect all of us who live on this planet.
Though delivered in the trademark style of TheJuiceMedia the facts that are contained in the colorful and grimly entertaining clip are 100% accurate. And that is why it is so important to watch, like and retweet.
It has always been the case, sadly, that no Government will take action against the carbon emitting and producing infrastructure that they are beholden to, until that action is demanded by million upon millions of world citizens, in other words the people that are being affected most by the negative effects of climate change that are already surrounding us.
The underlying plea of both activists like Greta and TheJuiceMedia is that we all have to step up and get loud – now, as the plan for NetZero 2050 is more of the same blah blah blah that Governments have been spewing for more than 30 years.
Facebook Inc. has rebranded itself, now, as Meta, most likely as a means to separate the corporate identity of the social network that has been tied to a myriad of ugly controversies. The name change is meant to highlight the company’s shift to virtual reality and the metaverse.
CEO Zuckerberg spoke at the Facebook’s Connect virtual conference and commented on the name change, “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.”
The new name change does not affect the company’s share data or corporate structure, however the company will start trading under the new ticker, MVRS starting December 1.
Needless to say, Twitter comments and memes instantly rolled in after the rebrand announcement:
Facebook has named itself Meta, a word that means "please forget about all the leaked internal documents that are currently showing all the horrors of social media"
Organizers of the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol say that several congressional Republicans and White House officials helped plan former President Donald Trump’s coup attempt.
In response to new reporting that several congressional Republicans and White House officials were “intimately involved” in planning the January 6 Capitol attack—part of former President Donald Trump’s far-reaching election subversion plot—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday night demanded the expulsion of any lawmaker who aided and abetted the violent assault on U.S. democracy.
“Any member of Congress who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation’s Capitol must be expelled,” tweeted Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “This was a terror attack. 138 injured, almost 10 dead. Those responsible remain a danger to our democracy, our country, and human life in the vicinity of our Capitol and beyond.”
Any member of Congress who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation’s capitol must be expelled.
This was a terror attack. 138 injured, almost 10 dead. Those responsible remain a danger to our democracy, our country, and human life in the vicinity of our Capitol and beyond. https://t.co/D0qLlaFjTh
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) tweeted in response to the Rolling Stone report that her “resolution to investigate and expel the members of Congress who helped incite the deadly insurrection on our Capitol,” House Resolution 25, “is just waiting for a vote.”
My resolution to investigate and expel the Members of Congress who helped incite the deadly insurrection on our Capitol is just waiting for a vote.
On Sunday night, the magazine detailed “explosive allegations” about the January 6 riot, wherein a right-wing mob fueled by Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen stormed the halls of Congress in an attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
Amid an ongoing probe led by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, Rolling Stone has spoken with two unnamed individuals who were “involved in organizing the main event aimed at objecting to the electoral certification, which took place at the White House Ellipse,” and who are cooperating with the panel’s investigators. According to the magazine:
These two sources also helped plan a series of demonstrations that took place in multiple states around the country in the weeks between the election and the storming of the Capitol. According to these sources, multiple people associated with the March for Trump and Stop the Steal events that took place during this period communicated with members of Congress throughout this process.
Among other things, the magazine reported that prior to January 6:
The two sources say they engaged in “dozens” of planning conversations, in which Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) participated or “had top staffers join”;
The two sources say they “interacted with members of Trump’s team.” That includes former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, “who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence,” as well as Katrina Pierson, a former member of Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns whom one organizer called “our go-to girl” and “our primary advocate”;
Gosar, “who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters,” allegedly “dangled the possibility of a ‘blanket pardon’ in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.”
Both organizers received “several assurances” about the “blanket pardon” from Gosar, one source told Rolling Stone.
“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” said the source, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval… in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”
“I was just going over the list of pardons and we just wanted to tell you guys how much we appreciate all the hard work you’ve been doing,” Gosar said, according to the organizer.
The magazine has separately obtained documentary evidence that on January 6, both organizers were in contact with Boebert and Gosar, whose office is being investigated by the House select committee.
In addition, Rolling Stone reported, “both Brooks and Cawthorn spoke with Trump at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. In his speech at that event, Brooks, who was reportedly wearing body armor, declared, ‘Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.’ Gosar, Greene, and Boebert were all billed as speakers at the ‘Wild Protest,’ which also took place on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.”
One of the leading organizers of the latter event was Ali Alexander, leader of Stop the Steal, a key group promoting efforts to challenge Biden’s victory. In a since-deleted livestream broadcast, Alexander said that Gosar, Brooks, and Biggs helped develop the strategy for the so-called “Wild Protest.”
At a December 2020 Stop the Steal event in Phoenix, Alexander called Gosar, one of the main speakers, “my captain,” and he also heaped praise on Biggs, describing him as “one of the other heroes.”
Both sources maintain that ahead of January 6, “the plan they had discussed with other organizers, Trump allies, and members of Congress was a rally that would solely take place at the Ellipse, where speakers—including the former president—would present ‘evidence’ about issues with the election. This demonstration would take place in conjunction with objections that were being made by Trump allies during the certification on the House floor that day,” Rolling Stonereported.
During his speech at the Ellipse, however, Trump encouraged his supporters to make their way to the Capitol, and before he had finished talking, the barricades were being stormed.
According to the two organizers, Alexander had agreed to not hold his “Wild Protest” at the Capitol, but when it appeared that the event may materialize, Meadows—one of four Trump allies subpoenaed by the House select committee—was made aware of concerns about the potential for violence.
Although there were earlier indications that the Trump administration and members of Congress “played some role in the Jan. 6 events and similar rallies that occurred in the lead-up to that day,” Rolling Stone noted, “the two sources say they can provide new details about the members’ specific roles in these efforts.”
“The sources plan to share that information with congressional investigators right away,” according to the magazine. “While both sources say their communications with the House’s Jan. 6 committee thus far have been informal, they are expecting to testify publicly.”
Just hours after the violent right-wing attack they helped foment through baseless allegations of voter fraud was contained, 147 GOP lawmakers—including more than two-thirds of House Republicans plus several Senate Republicans—voted in the early morning of January 7 to overturn election results in key states, attempting to disenfranchise millions of voters in the process.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) on Sunday urged people to “never forget” Trump’s failed coup attempt.
291 days ago terrorists ransacked the US Capitol and *hours later* 138-of-202 (68%) House republicans voted to make trump a dictator. They tried to finish the rioters’ job and end democracy. Never forget it.
Yale historian Timothy Snyder, meanwhile, warned that “a failed coup is a trial run for a successful coup.”
“Instead of just a person who makes a disorganized attempt,” said the expert on authoritarianism, “we now have that person, plus institutional machinery, time to plan, and the Big Lie.”
Since last year’s election, GOP lawmakers at the state level have weaponized lies about electoral fraud to legitimize anti-democratic electoral review mechanisms and a nationwide campaign of voter suppression, prompting University of Pennsylvania political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. to declare in a recent essay that maintaining Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress is necessary to prevent 2022 or 2024 from marking “the end of the proceduralist democracy to which we’ve been accustomed.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by KENNY STANCIL and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Above:Photo Collage / Lynxotic / Original Image by ICIJ
“U.S. President Biden must match his own rhetoric on shutting down global illicit finance, and start with the biggest offender—his own country.”
The leak of an enormous trove of tax haven files over the weekend offered a further glimpse into the secretive world of offshore finance—a system facilitated by the U.S. and other rich nations—and prompted calls for immediate changes to global rules that let the powerful hide their wealth, skirt their obligations, and starve governments of crucial revenue.
“This is where our missing hospitals are,” Susana Ruiz, the tax policy lead at Oxfam International, said in a statement. “This is where the pay-packets sit of all the extra teachers and firefighters and public servants we need. Whenever a politician or business leader claims there is ‘no money’ to pay for climate damage and innovation, for more and better jobs, for a fair post-Covid recovery, for more overseas aid, they know where to look.”
“Tax havens cost governments around the world $427 billion each year,” Ruiz added. “That is the equivalent of a nurse’s yearly salary every second of every hour, every day. Ordinary taxpayers have to pick up the pieces. Developing countries are being hardest hit, proportionately. Corporations and the wealthiest individuals that use tax havens are out-competing those who don’t. Tax havens also help crime and corruption to flourish.”
Like the 2016 Panama Papers, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) Pandora Papers shine additional light on the functioning of a “shadow economy” that world leaders, celebrities, and billionaire business moguls—including some accused of egregious crimes—are exploiting to shield trillions of dollars in assets from transparency and taxation.
The 11.9 million files obtained, analyzed, and leaked by the ICIJ reveal the closely-guarded financial maneuverings of more than 330 politicians and top public officials from nearly 100 countries and territories, including dozens of current national leaders.
“The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya, and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair,” ICIJ notes in a summary of its sprawling cache of documents. “The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘unofficial minister of propaganda’ and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey, and other nations.”
The trove also links prominent athletes, models, and artists to offshore assets, including India’s famous cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, pop music star Shakira, and supermodel Claudia Schiffer.
But Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, cautioned that a narrow focus on the individuals who have made use of an international tax system rigged in their favor diverts attention from the institutions and countries that have done the rigging.
“These personal actions are shameful and will no doubt come under great scrutiny in the coming days, but it’s important that we don’t lose sight of one crucial fact: few of the individuals had any role in turning the global tax system into an ATM for the superrich,” Cobham wrote in a blog post on Sunday. “That honor goes to the professional enablers—banks, law firms, and accountants—and the countries that facilitate them.”
Cobham observed that the Pandora Papers—the product of a nearly two-year investigation by more than 600 journalists in 117 countries and territories—confirm that the United States is “the world’s biggest peddler of financial secrecy.”
“The biggest blockers to transparency are the U.S. … and the U.K., the leader of the world’s biggest tax haven network,” Cobham wrote. “We need full transparency so we can hold tax abusers accountable, especially when our politicians are among them. U.S. President Biden must match his own rhetoric on shutting down global illicit finance, and start with the biggest offender—his own country.”
This is fundamental – every government leader should match this commitment, and then hold themselves publicly accountable by publishing results of each investigation https://t.co/2MiospKxuR
— Alex Cobham @alexcobham@mastodon.social (@alexcobham) October 3, 2021
As the ICIJ notes, the new files show in some detail “how the United States, in particular, has become an increasingly attractive destination for hidden wealth, although the U.S. and its Western allies condemn smaller countries for allowing the flow of money and assets tied to corruption and crime.”
“The Pandora Papers include documents from 206 U.S. trusts in 15 states and Washington, D.C., and 22 U.S. trustee companies,” the ICIJ points out. “The documents provide details about the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars from offshore havens in the Caribbean and Europe into South Dakota, a sparsely populated American state that has become a major destination for foreign money.”
“We in the U.S. should be embarrassed that we’ve become a magnet for kleptocratic funds,” said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Conspicuously absent from the Pandora Papers is any mention of the wealthiest people in the U.S., including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos—the richest man in the world. But as the Washington Postexplains, that could be because “the uber-rich in the United States tend to pay such low tax rates that they have less incentive to seek offshore havens.”
In response to the Pandora Papers revelations, Oxfam called on world governments to crack down on tax havens by taking a number of steps, including:
Ending tax secrecy on individuals, offshores, and multinational corporations. Set up a public register on the real owners of bank accounts, trusts, shell companies, and assets. Require multinational corporations to publicly report their accounts where they do business, country-by-country.
Increasing the use of automatic exchange, allowing revenue authorities access to information they need to track the money.
Ending corporate profit shifting to tax havens via new rules, and by setting a global minimum tax under the OECD’s BEPS deal, ideally of around 25%.
Agreeing a global blacklist of tax havens and taking counter measures, including sanctions, to limit their use.
Setting a new global agenda on taxing wealth and capital fairly; addressing tax competition between countries on high-net-worth-individuals, either on income or wealth, against agreed standards.
“Governments’ promises to end tax havens are still a long way from being realized,” said Ruiz. “We cannot allow tax havens to continue to stretch global inequality to breaking point while the world experiences the largest increase in extreme poverty in decades.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by JAKE JOHNSON and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Frances Haugen said the company’s leaders know how to make their platforms safer, “but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.
Two days after a bombshell “60 Minutes” interview in which she accused Facebook of knowingly failing to stop the spread of dangerous lies andhateful content, whistleblower Frances Haugen testified Tuesday before U.S. senators, imploring Congress to hold the company and its CEO accountable for the many harms they cause.
Haugen—a former Facebook product manager—told the senators she went to work at the social media giant because she believed in its “potential to bring out the best in us.”
“But I’m here today because I believe Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy,” she said during her opening testimony. “The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.”
“The documents I have provided to Congress prove that Facebook has repeatedly misled the public about what its own research reveals about the safety of children, the efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems, and its role in spreading divisive and extreme messages,” she continued. “I came forward because I believe that every human being deserves the dignity of truth.”
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen: "I saw Facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profits and our safety. Facebook consistently resolved its conflicts in favor of its own profits."
“I saw Facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profits and our safety,” Haugen added. “Facebook consistently resolved its conflicts in favor of its own profits.”
“In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people,” she said.
Addressing Monday’s worldwide Facebook outage, Haugen said that “for more than five hours, Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies, and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.”
“It also means that millions of small businesses weren’t able to reach potential customers, and countless photos of new babies weren’t joyously celebrated by family and friends around the world,” she added. “I believe in the potential of Facebook. We can have social media we enjoy that connects us without tearing apart our democracy, putting our children in danger, and sowing ethnic violence around the world. We can do better.”
Doing better will require Congress to act, because Facebook “won’t solve this crisis without your help,” Haugen told the senators, echoing experts and activists who continue to call for breaking up tech giants, banning the surveillance capitalist business model, and protecting rights and democracy online.
She added that “there is nobody currently holding Zuckerberg accountable but himself,” referring to Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)—chair of the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security Subcommittee—called on Zuckerberg to testify before the panel.
“Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror today and yet rather than taking responsibility, and showing leadership, Mr. Zuckerberg is going sailing,” he said.
Frances Haugen strongly shakes her head in agreement as Richard Blumenthal says "Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror" and "Zuckerberg, you need to come before this committee." pic.twitter.com/QC0B6zK9tW
“Big Tech now faces a Big Tobacco, jaw-dropping moment of truth. It is documented proof that Facebook knows its products can be addictive and toxic to children,” Blumenthal continued.
“The damage to self-interest and self-worth inflicted by Facebook today will haunt a generation,” he added. “Feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, rejection, and self-hatred will impact this generation for years to come. Our children are the ones who are victims.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by BRETT WILKINSand republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Photo by Extinction Rebellion NYC / Twitter @XR_NYC
At least 40 climate activists were arrested Friday at the New York City offices of JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, and Bank of America, organizers said, as campaigners across the United States demanded financial institutions stop supporting the destruction of the planet.
“People are in denial about the mess we’re in,” said Kerith Creo of Extinction Rebellion (XR) NYC. “We’re sending a message loud and clear that the little action that politicians and greenwashing CEOs have taken so far does not begin to deal with the magnitude of this crisis.”
The protest actions included delivering 150,000 petition signatures as part of the Stop the Money Pipeline (STMP) coalition‘s “Deadline Glasgow: Defund Climate Chaos” campaign to pressure banks ahead of COP 26, a United Nations summit set to start on October 31.
Despite financial institutions’ net-zero emissions by 2050 pledges, the petition highlights, “they are providing loans, insurance, and billions in investment capital to corporations expanding the fossil fuel industry and deforesting the Amazon and other tropical forests―companies that are guilty of human rights abuses and violations of Indigenous sovereignty.”
The petition calls out some specific projects—such as Line 3—and urges banks, insurers, asset managers, and the Biden administration to “end their support for companies engaged in climate destruction and human rights abuses” before the two-week U.N. summit in Scotland.
@XR_NYC is staging a boat outside @Chase HQ, who is the biggest fossil fuel funder in the world.
They poured $317 billion poured into fossil fuels since the 2015 Paris Agreement. Who pays the price for Hurricane Ida? We do.https://t.co/1pZUyDyRLD
The upcoming negotiations in Glasgow “are the most important international climate talks since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015,” STMP said in a statement Friday. “It is also supposed to be ‘the climate finance COP.'”
In New York City, climate activists set up a boat outside the office of JPMorgan Chase, urging the bank to “stop the greenwashing,” and draped a banner that read “#1 Funder of Climate Death” over the building’s entrance.
At Bank of America’s Manhattan office, “half a dozen women blockaded the entrance and a seventh woman sat in a hammock supported by a large tripod on the sidewalk,” according to XR. Outside Citibank’s building, “activists set up a camp on the lawn near the entrance and put up a tripod to which they locked themselves down.”
And thank you to these activists at @Citibank HQ this morning for also risking arrest to bring attention to the SECOND worst fossil fuel funder @XR_NYChttps://t.co/4bLjmuPgff
“We’ve reached the breaking point,” said Christina See of XR NYC. “We need our government leaders to take action immediately. The New York City area saw over 40 deaths due to record breaking floods just a few weeks ago. The climate crisis is here, now.”
The remnants of Hurricane Ida—which initially made landfall in Louisiana on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina—caused fatal flooding across the Northeast, sparking warnings from not only climate activists but also political leaders about what the future holds.
While touring damage in New York and New Jersey, President Joe Biden said that “we got to listen to the scientists and the economists and the national security experts. They all tell us this is code red; the nation and the world are in peril. And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact.”
Climate campaigners responded to Biden’s comments by urging him to declare a national climate emergency and stop all fossil fuel projects, highlighting his refusal to block the Line 3 tar sands pipeline opposed by Indigenous leaders and environmentalists in Minnesota.
The protests came as the U.S. president held a climate meeting with leaders of major economies and confirmed a new global pledge to reduce methane pollution at least 30% by 2030. Biden’s event followed his leadership summit in April, during which he pledged to cut the nation’s overall planet-heating emissions in half within this decade.
Activists on Friday “shut down 4th Avenue in downtown Seattle, and disrupted business at the Canadian Consulate, Chase, and Bank of America,” according to the Washington city’s arm of 350.org.
STMP explained that “they’re targeting the world’s biggest financers of climate chaos, as well as the Canadian government, who bought the troubled Trans Mountain oil pipeline in 2018.”
The demonstrations in New York City, Seattle, and beyond came as a new U.N. analysis revealed that recent emissions reduction pledges governments have made in anticipation of COP 26 are nowhere near ambitious enough to meet the Paris agreement’s 1.5°C target.
According the new report, the world is on track for 2.7°C or warming by 2100—a revelation that prompted U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to warn that a failure to meet the Paris temperature goal “will be measured in the massive loss of lives and livelihoods.”
The cameras are at the center of what makes an iPhone 13 a Pro investment
Direct hands on experience with something as complex and interesting as the new iPhone 13 Pro Max is invaluable for a useful assessment. After a few days and also taking into account some observations of others I will attempt to shed light on the state of the art of iPhone as of September 2021.
Comparing this iteration of iPhone with the previous versions is meaningful for buying decisions, but it must also be compared based on what it can do for a professional that has a need for a higher grade of gadget.
Judging and comparing the machine as a whole is also necessary, since the cameras are not cameras at all be just one part of an integrated system of visual (and audio!) production tools.
Big changes that begat others and on the circle goes
The first thing I noticed, out of the box was the sheer size of the 13 Pro Max, particularly compared to the 11 Pro Max, which was my previous workhorse. From photos I had gathered that the three cameras stuck out more and, yet they do, so much so that it is almost comical.
If you brave the world sans case and put this monster in your the back pocket of your loose fitting jeans, the bulge from the cameras will feel like you are doing something crazy, as it is as if they are rubbing against anything they touch, continuously.
That’s not all about the physical size, though. Looking at the diameter of the three circles (lenses) they appear significantly larger. Believe me, they are. Since the 11 Pro max and the 12 Pro Max have the same size triple camera layout (spec upgrades notwithstanding) this is an immediate and obvious change.
Above: Photo / Lynxotic
The increased size and weight of the camera itself is noticeable, more than I expected. The screen appears far larger due to the new specs and it is a bit of a shock at first, but the level of quality is the biggest and most noticeable feature.
The design logic has an implied history that jumps out once you start to use the camera system.
The changes to the three cameras are significant. After two years of using the 2019 11 Pro Max the framing options, based on the three lenses is a complete new experience.
The ultra wide 13mm equivalent is a bit of a bold and crazy choice. If I was ordering a set of lenses for a music video shoot the ultra wide might go as far as 11mm (very wide!) but that is basically an EFX look and causes an almost fish-eye look.
The 13mm is literally as wide as you can get without getting into potential “clown” territory, which is fun but not usable for a non-EFX composition.
What is odd, in a way, is that the “main” lens at 26mm equivalent is still very wide meaning that the standard 40mm equivalent, which was always considered the closest to a neutral look, is absent here.
Similarly, the telephoto lens at a 77mm equivalent is exactly the same type of choice – once again in my kit this would have been a 100mm for a deep bokeh and a noticeable sweet spot that is ultra-flattering for close ups and head shots.
The 77mm, therefore, is a long enough lens to get the magnification and emulate the look of a telephoto style. But wait, no glass no bokeh.
Both the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max have the same sensors, optics, stabilization and features. The three cameras in the Pro models span a 6x optical focal length range.
This is where the logic of the design and how the system works, as a whole, begins to get deep.
Once you have made the commitment to not only extend the range of the entire optical focal length range to 6x the differences between a glass & steel 77mm prime lens and a “cell phone camera” must be addressed.
The 77mm requires the bokeh and relatively narrow in-focus range of a “real” telephoto lens is the stylized creative uses that a full kit of prime lenses makes possible is to be achieved.
This is addressed with the already present portrait mode – with enhanced functionality made possible by the A15 chip, the machine learning, AI and neural network – in other words software and computational assists.
And for video, cinematic mode is an absolute must – since the same bokeh effect and stylized effects are needed and desired for video.
All of this does not include the macro effects that effectively extend the range into the nearly microscopic. This feature requires a whole article, which you can check out here.
Getting to a full photographic system in your pocket, and beyond.
Once the effects and artifacts of the 77mm style glass prime lens have been added to the mix, emulated things get more interesting.
Since the bokeh and artifacts in the cinematic mode for video are computational and not photographic, they are stored separately and can be altered after the fact, just like has been the case with portrait mode all along.
This is a big deal in one way, since it could never be conceived of with traditional lenses and cameras. It also, however, one more variable to consider when putting together a large batch of footage for a project. This adds a new layer of creative flexibility, and choices to contend with.
Further, since the long lens stylizations are a byproduct of and influenced by focus settings, that has to be in the mix also. That produced the need for the cinematic mode which you can think of as a slightly stoned robot focus puller. who is also a little bit psychic.
The first robot camera assistant is already in the box when your phone arrives
Let me explain…. A real life focus puller (doing rack focus settings) in real life would function roughly as follows:
A shot is planned that requires a focus pull from one subject to another – this could be a close shot of a face panning to another face, or a close up that refocuses from the foreground to the background, for example. The focus must also factor in any movement of the camera / dolly.
The two desired subject distances are measured (using a tape measure) and the focus settings noted. In complex shots this can be multiple focus settings and a particular speed of the “rack pull” from one to the next.
Often such complex focus / dolly set ups must be rehearsed multi times just for the focus puller – so that his error does not ruin a perfect take when, for example, the actors get their best performances.
So, in the robot world practice is also good – and a plan is almost essential, but the virtual focus puller will go with the flow, and try to anticipate and predict what you want him to focus on in real time as you shoot.
This is pretty incredible and also, much like autocorrect typing, sometimes very successful and sometimes comical in the outcome. What is tricky is how to get the robot puller to know what you are trying to have as a subject if it is not a persons head or face.
Also, if the action is fast or if you are shooting something that has no pre-determined outcome or script, like a political protest or a sporting event, you will get somewhat random results.
This makes the name apt, since cinematic also implies a movie with a plot and a script.
Conclusions and a few known limitations and caveats
Human greed is a powerful thing. When given a photographic system that even attempts to approximate a profession system based on prime and zoom lenses and accessories, there’s a tendency to want it all, right now!
Of course, instead, what we get is an amazing extension of the iPhone photo tradition – taken up a bunch of notches at once. The computational enhancements are incredible and will only get better – in many cases without a new phone as they are based on AI and machine learning, which as the name implies, are continually improving while you sleep.
There are specific limitations though that should be mentioned about the iPhone 13 Pro camera system.
Cinematic mode only works (currently) in 1080p. This is a serious limitation, since the whole idea of Pro is 4k and above. There are rumors that this could get a software upgrade during the year but it is not clear if or when that will happen.
Along with the lack of slo-mo at any resolution above 1080p there is a lot of disappointment in this issue. It is the reality of how difficult the computational “assist” really is to achieve that makes this a big step that is still in the future.
It is also the reason why real lenses and traditional DLSR cameras still have an important use and value.
The new system unveiled with the iPhone 13 pro is revolutionary precisely because of the potential for people to create new visual expressions and ways of communicating.
These photographic traditions and the efforts that were made in the design to emulate them are important and valuable. However, the future will benefit from the spontaneous and new ways that people will decide to use this evolving system and the current extensions of our eyes, ears and minds….
“The climate crisis has not disappeared,” said Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. “It’s the opposite—it’s even more urgent now than it was before.”
Young people by the hundreds of thousands took to the streets across the globe on Friday to deliver a resounding message to world leaders: The climate crisis is getting worse, and only radical action will be enough to avert catastrophe and secure a just, sustainable future for all.
“As emissions and inequalities increase, we rise up and demand climate justice.”
From Pakistan to Italy to Germany to the Philippines, the worldwide “Uproot the System” actions marked the largest climate demonstrations since the coronavirus pandemic forced campaigners to take their protests online last year. Climate activists in developing countries—where access to vaccines is limited due to artificial supply constraints and hoarding by rich nations—were still forced to limit the size of their demonstrations Friday as a public health precaution.
“Last time it was digital and nobody was paying attention to us,” Yusuf Baluch, a 17-year-old activist from the Pakistani province of Balochistan, toldReuters. “In the global north, people are getting vaccinated so they might be out in huge quantities. But in the global south, we are still limited.”
The Global Climate Strike continues! Balochistan is predominantly agriculture-based. They have been affected by drought due to climate change and the problems faced by people are increasing alarmingly.
Above: Photo Collage / Great Thunberg – via Instagram / Lynxotic
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, whose solitary sit-down strike outside her home country’s parliament in 2018 helped spark the global Fridays for Future movement, said that “it has been a very strange year and a half with this pandemic.”
“But of course, the climate crisis has not disappeared. It’s the opposite—it’s even more urgent now than it was before,” said Thunberg, who on Friday joined a large demonstration in Berlin, which was hammered by massive, climate-linked floods in July.
Watch Thunberg’s full speech in front of the Reichstag building:
Organizers said that more than 1400 climate strikes are set to take place in at least 70 countries Friday, with hundreds of thousands expected to attend demonstrations in Germany alone.
“As emissions and inequalities increase, we rise up and demand climate justice,” saidBerlin-based climate activist Luisa Neubauer.
The latest youth-led global action kicked off just weeks ahead of the pivotal COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, which many civil society organizations want to be postponed over fears that inequities in coronavirus vaccine access could prevent delegates from developing nations—those most vulnerable to the climate crisis—from attending.
Equalizing global vaccine distribution is one of the six demands that climate campaigners are aiming to put before world leaders during Friday’s mass demonstrations. The full list is as follows:
The Global North needs to cut emissions drastically by divesting from fossil fuels and ending its extraction, burning, and use. We need concrete plans and detailed annual carbon budgets with roadmaps and milestones to ensure we get to net-zero with justice and equity in the time needed to address climate change.
The colonizers of the north have a climate debt to pay for their disproportionate amount of historic emissions and that starts with the increase of climate finance to implement anti-racist climate reparations, the cancellation of debts especially for damage caused by extreme weather events, and providing adaptation funds that serve the communities.
Work towards a genuinely global recovery from Covid-19 by ensuring equitable vaccine distribution worldwide and suspending intellectual property restrictions on Covid-19 technologies. This is an essential step towards a global, green, and just recovery.
Recognize the tangibility of the climate crisis as a risk to human safety and secure the rights of climate refugees in international law.
Recognize the invaluable impact of biodiversity on indigenous communities’ lives and culture, and commit to make ecocide an international punishable crime.
Stop the violence and criminalization against indigenous peoples, small farmers, small fisherfolk, and other environmental and land defenders. Support the work they do. Respect and listen to our defenders.
The worldwide demonstrations came a week after the United Nations warned that even if the 191 parties to the Paris Agreement meet their current climate targets, global greenhouse gas emissions will still rise 16% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels. The U.N. also estimated that the planet is on track for 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century, a level of heating that experts say would be cataclysmic—particularly for developing nations.
At the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week, the leaders of vulnerable countries pushed wealthy nations—the largest contributors to the climate emergency—to stop shirking their responsibilities to confront the planetary crisis.
“We simply have no higher ground to cede,” Marshall Islands President David Kabua said Wednesday. “The world simply cannot delay climate ambition any further.”
Participants in Friday’s global action pointedly amplified that message. Valentina Ruas, a Brazilian activist, toldThe Guardian that “the global north should be developing climate policies that have at their core climate justice and accountability to the most affected people and areas.”
“Instead,” she added, “they continue to exploit vulnerable communities and recklessly extract fossil fuel, while bragging about their insignificant emission reduction plans.”
”It Just Works” is the basic how-to for the new Macro-Mode on iPhone 13 Pro
Steve Jobs was famous for repeatedly using this line to describe in product demos how something was so intuitive that no user manual would ever be needed. While this phrase has also often been used to try to help Apple accountable when something doesn’t “just work” it is a core design principal and an important part of the legacy of Steve Jobs, up until the current day.
The new iPhone 13 Pro (we are using an iPhone 13 Pro Max for photos and testing) has so many new features that it can be overwhelming to try and absorb, at first. Fortunately this one is almost completely intuitive to learn to use, if not obvious.
A short history of what the heck macro photography is
I will never forget when I was first taught about macro lenses and learned how to shoot extreme close ups. I was working with a professional camera operator (as a music video director) and I wanted to do a close up that would be so close as to be considered a macro shot.
Novice that I was at the time, I assumed that you could just keep pushing the camera closer and closer and focus on the tiny area desired, with no further ado. When my operator told me we would need a special “macro” lens adaptor (that we had not ordered as part of our kit), I felt a bit foolish and knew I would need to bone up on the macro ins-and-outs for the future shoots.
For traditional photography and film shooting there are macro lenses and adaptors that can enable super-close-up shots. These can be simple and relatively cheap or more elaborate and expensive for traditional film cameras and digital DSLRs. There have also always been lens attachments that can be used with an iPhone to get some macro capabilities.
Now, with the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max you have a built-in software enhanced macro capability that “just works”. Currently this feature is not supported on the iPhone 13 (regular) or mini.
Above: Photo / Lynxotic
Real world test shows some extreme possibilities that beg for more
As with many of the new camera features in iOS15, when using an iPhone 13 Pro, the macro mode is built-in and needs only be triggered by your behavior.
To shoot your first macro photo follow these steps:
Open the camera app and choose either photo or video (not cinematic or portrait
Move the phone closer to the object that you want to shoot a macro photo of. When you get close enough you should see a “jump-cut” indicating that you have automatically switched to macro mode due to the untra-close object in frame have been detected by the software. The macro range appears to be 14cm to 6cm according to specs.
Move camera into position (you might be almost touching the object if you want an ultra-macro-look) so that the object is in focus and shoot.
Above: Photo / Lynxotic
Above: Photo / Lynxotic
Some considerations: With large professional macro lenses, which are “slow”, extra light would be required to get the proper exposure. This is less true with the “computational photography” hybrid on the iPhone 13 Pro, but light conditions, as always, will impact the photo quality, a lot.
In particular, with a huge phone so close to the subject of the photo it is sometimes difficult to avoid shadows cast on the object being shot by the phone itself. It is also a somewhat surreal feeling, at first, to be shooting an object that you are almost touching with the lens.
Our live real world experiments (shown in the various photos above and below) are using every possible combination of lens and the automated software to see just how extreme the results can be. In a word, the answer is; very.
Above: Photo / Lynxotic: A reference photo to give scale, the two following photos show the extreme macro close up possible magnification
Above: Photo / Lynxotic: A reference photo to give scale, the two following photos show the extreme macro close up possible magnification
The future of computational and software manipulated imagery production using iPhone and iOS
Anyone who had initially learned about photo techniques based on the “real world” environment of glass, steel and celluloid will no doubt at times feel confusion, anxiety or even a sense of loss when confronted with software, AI and machine learning based computational photography.
And, yes, purists have commented and complained about the various trade-offs when images are produced with software manipulation during the shooting process.
But, as results here show, most of us will feel a sense of exhilaration at the visual and artistic potentials that are becoming possible – all using a device that is, pretty much always, “in your pocket”.
While a multi-thousand dollar high end professional lens, using optical grade, painstakingly engineered glass (usually from Germany), can be used to produce world class image quality, now and in 100 years, the benefits of computational hybrid photography techniques are already going in a whole new direction.
An important, and nearly infinite, benefit is that these enhancements are being improved, both through human based code improvements, and even more so, by machine learning and AI on a continual basis.
As we’ve discussed in previous articles, the fact that these improvements are inevitable and will potentially even accelerate, “while you sleep” is a mind-blowing concept that spills into all aspects of future potential for iPhone photo techniques.
The trade off is large, if you want to turn off these “artificial” enhancements, you will have to wait for macro mode (or use current work arounds) and then switch off night-mode and personalized filters and other beautifying add-ons in order to get a more “natural” or realistic look.
Apple, meanwhile, is 100% all-in with the idea of making iPhone photography intuitive and as beautiful as possible, even if, in some cases the “beauty” is enhanced beyond reality (!).
The photos and degree of magnification possible with macro mode on an iPhone 13 Pro, as seen in these rough test photos, is almost surreal. So much so that it’s easy to imagine that, not long in the future, a medical grade microscope could be possible. One that “just works”, of course, and usable by anyone, anywhere and all on a device that’s already in your pocket.
Pro 12MP camera system: Telephoto, Wide, and Ultra Wide cameras
Telephoto: ƒ/2.8 aperture
Wide: ƒ/1.5 aperture
Ultra Wide: ƒ/1.8 aperture and 120° field of view
3x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 6x optical zoom range
Digital zoom up to 15x
Night mode portraits enabled by LiDAR Scanner
Portrait mode with advanced bokeh and Depth Control
Portrait Lighting with six effects (Natural, Studio, Contour, Stage, Stage Mono, High‑Key Mono)
Dual optical image stabilization (Telephoto and Wide)
Sensor‑shift optical image stabilization (Wide)
Six‑element lens (Telephoto and Ultra Wide); seven‑element lens (Wide)
China is at the forefront of government opposition to cryptocurrencies
The central bank of China stated as a declaration that all transactions involving Bitcoin and any “virtual” currencies illegal, according to the AP.
This seems to be an escalation of the various methods being used to block and prohibit the use of any currency or “money” outside the direct control of the Chinese government.
In a notice released by the central bank the reasoning was elaborated on – stating that digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and others disrupt the current financial system and encourage and help facilitate money-laundering and other crimes.
“Virtual currency derivative transactions are all illegal financial activities and are strictly prohibited,”
–the People’s Bank of China
The price of Bitcoin fell, to $41,180, in the hours after the announcement. Other major cryptocurrencies also fell. . Ethereum dropped almost 10%, falling from $3,100 to around $2,758.
Those levels appeared to be a short term low as there has been a recovery bounce since the initial reaction selloff.
China is gearing up for it’s own ‘innovations’ involving digital currencies and transactions
This clampdown follows the banning of Bitcoin mining and an exodus of a large number of Chinese mining operations, many relocating to the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. At the peak, Chinese miners accounted for around 3/4 of the world’s electricity consumption related to crypto mining, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption index.
That share is still the highest, though far lower, with the USA being the second largest consumer of electricity used for Bitcoin mining.
There is a worldwide “showdown” of sorts building, with cryptocurrency adherents touting, often with great resolve, the privacy, anonymity and “freedom” of using the coins, while many governments, China, and Turkey being outspoken, consider the potential losses that could come from allowing private actors to control financial transactions.
Although fiat currencies all have cash, paper bills, that can also be used anonymously, the potential criminal laundering has government controls and laws in place to minimize (or at least attempt to minimize) the magnitude of the problem.
tumbles
Governments getting increasingly worried as crypto adoption continues to expand worldwide
Many governments, including the People’s Bank of China, are developing electronic versions of the local fiat currency, such as China’s yuan for example. to facilitate cashless transactions which, unlike with Bitcoin, can be more easily tracked and controlled by the local authorities, communist or otherwise.
Calls and warning are also building with Regulators in many countries, including the US, warning of the dangers and emphasizing that they want cryptocurrencies to have greater oversight.
For example, Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, recently said that investors need more protection in the cryptocurrency market, calling the current state of the largely unregulated market “rife with fraud, scams and abuse” and compared it to the “Wild West.”
The SEC has already cracked down on cases of alleged freud involving crypto, but Gensler believes that the agency will need more authority from Congress to and funding to adequately regulate the market..
As a result, miners have been moving operations out of China.
Two years ago, China alone accounted for around three-quarters of all the electricity used for crypto mining, by far the most in the world, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption index.
Expect more government announcements involving crypto and new ways to try to control or inhibit its proliferation
The looming showdown appears heading for a significant and dangerous climax, with both sides, crypto enthusiasts and private holders and users of the coins on the one side, and, in some cases, terrified governments on the other wanting to outlaw and stamp out the entire sector.
In the US this will be difficult, with so many high profile and powerful individuals and companies already embracing the idea that the future will contain, at least for the foreseeable time frame, both the government controlled fiat system and the surging and diverse cryptocurrency systems.
