- contact@ij-reportika.com
Category: Russia
Israel-Hamas war: How tech, social media spur misinformation
The adage “The first casualty when war comes is truth” remains as relevant today as it did when the U.S. Sen. Hiram Johnson first said it more than a century ago. The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas serves as a reminder of how truth can be overshadowed by falsehoods and propaganda during times of war. In the month since violence erupted, a second invisible battle has emerged online. Both sides are involved in spreading disinformation and fake news. Old images are being passed off as new. Video game footage is presented as reality. Credible news outlets like The New York Times have faced backlash over flawed reporting. While disinformation campaigns are nothing new in war, their efficiency today is unparalleled. Advances in AI have made it cheaper and simpler to generate deceptive, but convincing fabrications. As a result, impartial audiences find themselves grappling with the challenge of distinguishing fact from fiction. Faced with this flood of propaganda, numerous reports have examined its impact on domestic and international audiences. AFCL has reviewed several of these reports, highlighting how technology and social media enable online users and governments to take advantage of religious divides and cultural intolerance by spreading misinformation. The findings paint a troubling picture of truth obscured and tensions inflamed by the digital tools of modern war. AI muddles fact and fiction The weaponization of AI is muddying the waters of truth in the Israel-Hamas conflict. As revealed by Reuters, several viral images purporting to show support for Palestians or Israelis were actually AI-generated fakes, for instance, and these are only a tip of the iceberg. A widely shared image of Israeli citizens hanging flags off balconies was proven to be generated by AI. (Original image saved by Reuters Fact Check team, annotated by AFCL) Furthermore, advanced “deepfake” technology has enabled the creation of fabricated footage, such as a video of the U.S. President Joe Biden claiming he would send American troops to aid Israel. More dangerous than the false information itself, experts warn these AI fabrications sow doubts about even verifiable facts. As one AI researcher told The New York Times: “The real power of this technology is how it undermines truth and trust.” In an already polarized conflict, these insidious digital deceptions risk inflaming tensions by making truth itself seem unknowable. ‘Verified users’ lead in spreading misinformation Social media platforms have become hotbeds of misinformation amid the Israel-Hamas war. Services like X, formerly known as Twitter, are rife with unsubstantiated claims and outright falsehoods disseminated by both anonymous and supposedly “verified” users. On these digital battlegrounds, propaganda and lies gain traction faster than truth. One illustrative example comes from X user “Sprinter.” Originally blocked for spreading pro-Russian disinformation, Sprinter was reinstated under Elon Musk’s ownership and granted a blue verification checkmark. The user then falsely claimed the Wall Street Journal had reported that U.S.-made bombs were dropped on Gaza’s AI-Ahli Hospital. Ironically, this false claim received nearly six times more views than the American daily’s genuine tweet about the story earlier that day. According to internet monitoring group NewsGuard, nearly three-fourths of the 250 most popular tweets containing misinformation in the first week of conflict were posted by verified users. Jack Brewster, one of the authors of the report, told AFCL that unlike past wars which involved large amounts of automated accounts, he believes “overwhelmingly real individuals” are behind the current wave of disinformation. The X user Sprinter (right), spread misinformation that The Wall Street Journal had reported an attack on a Gaza hospital was conducted with U.S.-made artillery shells. X afterwards annotated the post to include a rebuttal of the claim by the WSJ itself. (Screenshot/Sprinter’s and official WSJ X accounts) Business model for monetization In their quest to maximize revenue, social media platforms have instituted business models that reward viral lies over verifiable facts, and experts warn these profit-driven decisions fundamentally undermine platforms’ role as trusted spaces for public discourse. NewsGuard cited X’s new business model as an example. X users who subscribe to a premium account can obtain the blue checkmark while also having their posts prioritized in other users’ feeds. The company further announced in July 2023 that premium users with at least 500 followers who received 5 million impressions on their posts within three months would be eligible for ad profit-sharing. Mike Caulfield, a specialist in social media and disinformation at the University of Washington, told AFCL that online misinformation will become more prevalent as long as businesses can profit from it. Leveraging social media Beyond the direct combatants, social media users across the world leverage platforms to advance favored narratives about the Israel-Hamas war. Their agenda-driven posts flood networks with biased misinformation. Pro-Hamas voices spotlight Gaza hospital bombings to paint Israel as evil, a disinformation expert told Reuters, while pro-Israel users accuse Palestinians of faking injuries to discredit their suffering. Even supposedly neutral parties take sides online. The Digital Forensic Research Lab, a division of the Atlantic Council, found that at least 25 X accounts claiming to be located in India coordinated posting identical tweets and videos about the conflict at nearly the same time. Though mostly pro-Israel in content, some accounts bizarrely shared pro-Palestine messages shortly after pro-Isreal messages. By flooding platforms with contradictory claims, these users advance their own agendas, irrespective of consistency or truth. The Digital Forensics Research Lab found multiple X accounts claiming to be based in India had released coordinated posts containing identical disinformation about the war. (Screenshots taken from The Digital Forensic Research Lab) Despite its large Muslim population, anti-Muslim sentiment among India’s Hindu majority runs high. Islamophobic rhetoric backed by the country’s ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi is creating anti-Palestinian attitudes and a flood of misinformation during the current conflict, according to an Al Jazeera article. Meanwhile, misinformation coming out of Indonesia is heavily pro-Palestinian. As Voice of America analysis found, the country’s Muslim majority population and widespread pro-Palestine views among Indonesian leaders shape social media narratives…
Hamas official says North Korea could attack US over Gaza war
North Korea is part of a coalition of countries allied with Hamas and could attack the United States over the war in Gaza, a senior Hamas official said, praising Kim Jong Un as the “only one” capable of carrying out such a strike. “The leader of North Korea is, perhaps, the only one in the world capable of striking the United States. He is the only one,” Ali Baraka said during an interview posted Nov. 2 with a Lebanese YouTube channel Spot Shot, the Washington-based Middle East Research Institute reported. “The day may come when North Korea intervenes because it is, after all, part of [our] alliance,” he said. With the outbreak of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, Baraka said that states that frequently experience friction with the United States or who consider Washington to be an enemy are coming together as allies. “All of America’s enemies in the region are consulting and getting closer, and the day may come when they join the war together, and turn America into a thing of the past,” he said, suggesting that the United States would go the way of the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991. Baraka said that Russia is in daily contact with Hamas, and that a Hamas delegation traveled to Moscow and will soon travel to Beijing. He also said that Iran – an ally of Hamas – does not have the capability to strike America, although if it decides to intervene, it could strike Israel or American bases in the region. “Iran does not have weapons that can reach America, but it can strike Israel and the American bases and ships in the region, if the U.S. clearly expands its intervention,” he said. Last month RFA reported that Hamas appears to have used North Korean weapons in its surprise attacks on Israel, a fact later confirmed by the Israeli military. Palestinian militants carrying what appears to be a North Korean F-7 rocket propelled grenade launcher [with red band] drive back to the Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Credit: Ali Mahmud/AP Attack unlikely While Pyongyang has publicly declared its support for Hamas, attacking the United States over the war in Gaza – or any future conflict in the Mideast – is very unlikely, several U.S.-based experts told RFA Korean. “I don’t take these comments very seriously because Kim Jong-Un is not going to risk his own neck to help Hamas,” said Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow of the foreign policy program at The Brookings Institution. David Maxwell, the vice president at the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy told RFA that a combined Hamas and North Korean attack was unlikely and Pyongyang was using the conflict in Gaza to condemn the United States. From North Korea’s perspective this “is part of its normal blackmail diplomacy.” Still, North Korea working with Hamas poses a threat, said Patrick M. Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute. “While [Pyongyang] has little interest in the Hamas agenda of eradicating Israel, it also has few inhibitions about helping enemies of its adversaries should there be something in it for the Kim regime,” he said. “America and our allies need to be vigilant about possible technology transfer, about opportunistic provocations in multiple regions, and about ensuring our allies know they have our full support, but we also need to find diplomatic opportunities to weaken the natural seams between the members of an axis of evil before it coalesces further.” North Korea expressed its support for Palestine last month through the official state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, saying that the war between Israel and Hamas was caused by Israel. On Nov. 5, it criticized the United States for its military support for Israel. Kim Jong Un, the country’s supreme leader, also recently ordered to find a way to support Palestinians, including by selling weapons to Middle East militant groups, the Wall Street Journal reported. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
Australia and China: Besties again? It’s complicated
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrapped up a three-day trip to China Tuesday, calling for the “full resumption of free and unimpeded trade” in a meeting with counterpart Li Qiang. The previous day, he held wide-ranging talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, covering everything from Tasmanian Devils to New Zealand wine, not to mention improving relations with Australia’s largest two-way trading partner in goods and services. In the next step towards mending the previously fraught relations and stabilizing them, Albanese told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that both sides have agreed on practical steps to advance dialogue in areas of common interests, including climate change, trade and people-to-people links. He also said he raised the plight of detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun – although he provided no details about his possible release – and human rights issues within China, in a move that highlighted the controversial nature of the trip in Australia. It was the first visit to China by an Australian prime minister since 2016, with the two sides visibly making an effort to reframe a relationship marred by disputes on trade, human rights and the COVID-19 pandemic during the tenure of the previous prime minister Scott Morrison. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivers his speech at the opening ceremony of 6th China International Import Expo and the Hongqiao International Economic Forum in Shanghai on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. Credit: Jin Liwang/Xinhua via AP “It is wise for Labor to ‘stabilize’ the relationship with China,” Han Yang, a former Chinese diplomat turned political commentator, told Radio Free Asia. Albanese has been the leader of the Labor Party since 2019. “Australia is a middle power. It’s not in Australia’s interest to pick a quarrel with China, a superpower and its largest trading partner. ‘Cooperate where we can and disagree where we must’ is the right mantra to approach the relationship,” Yang said. Chinese misjudgment? Yang pointed out that Canberra did not make major strategic concessions, nor was it simply acting on the orders of the U.S. as some pro-China activists have argued. “It’s worth noting that Australia didn’t concede on any national security strategic goals. AUKUS is pushing on,” he said, referring to the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. Australia’s ban on Huawei remains, as does its anti-foreign interference law. “What has changed is the tone, and China got the message. “That is why it welcomed Albo with a red carpet,” Yang said, referring to the Australian prime minister’s nickname. “If you look at the foreign ministry read out, it gives significantly more space to Xi’s speech compared to meetings with other second-tier power world leaders.” Another China watcher Gerry Groot, senior lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Adelaide, told RFA that whatever transpired from Albanese’s meetings with the Chinese leaders was driven more by Australia’s own policy than American interests. “It’s Chinese actions and demands in the South China Sea and South Pacific – Australia’s own backyard – which are so alarming to Australian politicians and defense planners,” Groot said. Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China, November 6, 2023. Credit: AAP Image/Lukas Coch via Reuters He said he believed that Chinese strategic analysts had miscalculated the effect of weaponizing economic relations with Australia to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Australia or force more concessions, as well as punish the previous Morrison government for its anti-China stance.. “The grudging concessions on some of these sanctions have come about because the cost to China’s reputation internationally was greater than anticipated and the impact on Australia in economic terms was less, while at the same time driving relations with America closer,” he said. Exiles push back Australia’s relationship with China is made more complex by the fact that it is home to probably tens of thousands of exiles from China who have fled due to human rights violations, ethnic or religious oppression, or personal safety. “I think Albo’s China visit is morally corrupt, economically miscalculated and contradictory to Australia‘s national security interests,” exiled Chinese artist Ba Diucao told RFA. “Morally it is unacceptable to keep doing business as normal with a regime like China amid ongoing genocide against millions of Uyghurs and [while it is] supporting Russia’s invasion in multiple ways. “Also, an Australian citizen Yang Hengjun is still in jail as a political hostage in China,” Ba Diucao added. The writer was detained in 2019 while visiting family and charged with espionage. Some Uyghurs and Tibetans living in Australia, such as Ramila Chanisheff, president of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association, reject any deals with the “devil.” Chanisheff told RFA that she and Tibetan representatives had petitioned against Albanese’s visit to China in Canberra ahead of the trip. “I think it was when we learned that Albanese was taking 400 trade reps [representatives] to China that it hit us the hardest. One Tibetan colleague of mine said she found it triggering,” she said. “Of course, as Australians, we feel shame at what happened to indigenous Australian youth, forced education etc, but now we’re facilitating a massive state that is doing the same in East Turkestan and Tibet.” Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with China’s President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 6, 2023. Credit: AAP Image/Lukas Coch via Reuters Groot added, “While PM Albanese is beaming in his photos with CCP General Secretary Xi, we can only hope it is because the Chinese side has decided that more concessions to Australia are needed and perhaps that Yang Hengjun will be released shortly, rather than the grandeur of the occasion.” “In the meantime,” he added. “Gordon Ng [an Australian citizen charged with subversion] languishes in a Hong Kong jail on trumped up retrospective charges also.” Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
What’s behind the latest corruption trial in Hanoi?
On October 23, Vietnamese prosecutors began a second corruption trial against fugitive businesswoman Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan. Given her alleged ties to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, this is no run of the mill fraud and bribery trial. Elite political infighting is clearly at play as the jockeying for power ahead of the 14th Congress intensifies. Nhan, 54, is the former chairwoman of the Advanced International Joint Stock Company (AIC), a trading company established in 1994, which has been involved in the import of any number of things, from corporate electronics, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, auto parts, alcohol, machine tools, and farm equipment. Nhan who was tried in absentia along with 35 other defendants in December 2022 for a $6.3 million bid rigging and bribery case involving 16 hospitals in Dong Nai province. She allegedly paid some $1.8 million in bribes to local officials to secure inflated contracts, Nhan was convicted and received a 30-year sentence in January 2023. Also convicted was Tran Dinh Thanh, who had been the provincial party chief at the time for accepting bribes. The current case is similar to her first conviction, and involves six instances of bid rigging in the sale of medical equipment to state hospitals in the northeastern province of Quang Ninh, as well as bid-rigging at a medical lab in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets with U.S. President Joe Biden (not pictured) in Hanoi, Sept. 11, 2023. Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters The fraud involved in this case is only VND50 billion ($2 million). There are 15 other defendants including AIC’s accountant and Nhan’s brother. The latter had fled but returned to Vietnam to face justice. But what makes the case so sensitive is that the Quang Ninh’s provincial party chief from 2011-2015, was Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The former Ministry of Public Security intelligence official was given some of his first management experience as he was being groomed for senior government service. Nhan is rumored to be Chinh’s former mistress. But even if that is an unfounded rumor, Nhan clearly benefited from her close relationship with the prime minister and other leaders. She had a pattern of cultivating ties with provincial leadership where she sought contracts. AIC’s webpage also notes that the firm serves as a consultant to the powerful Ministry of National Defense. Nhan as the middlewoman In addition to dealing in medical supplies, she allegedly became Vietnam’s intermediary for weapons procurement from Israel. Israeli defense firms reportedly secured some $1.5 billion in sales in the past decade as the People’s Army sought to modernize and lessen their dependence on Russian arms. Israel has been negotiating some $2 billion in additional sales to Vietnam, including surface-to-air missiles and other weapons systems, with Nhan as the middlewoman. In 2018, Vietnam entered into negotiations with Israel Aerospace Industries about procuring the Ofek-16 spy satellite, which would give Vietnam their first independent overhead imagery. The deal was worth $550 million, but Nhan allegedly tried to get the Israeli manufacturer to significantly increase the price to secure a larger commission. Israeli officials were angered that the corruption scheme has potentially upended the sale, and at the very least delayed its implementation. An Ofek-16 spy satellite blasts off from the Palmachim air base in central Israel, July 6, 2020. Credit: Israel Ministry of Defense Spokesperson’s Office via AP Nhan has never been charged for anything involving military procurement, which probably reflects a fear of shedding light on the sensitive issue of the military’s procurement practices. Prosecutors have focused on her medical industry dealings, much the way that investigators may be focusing on tycoon Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao’s other business dealings, rather than her conglomerate SOVICO, which has an extensive history of brokering weapons imports from Russia. Madame Nhan has been a fugitive since the Ministry of Public Security issued a warrant for her arrest in April 2022. Her December 2022 trial came as CPV General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s “Blazing Furnace” campaign brought down two deputy prime ministers, Politburo-member Pham Binh Minh and Vu Duc Dam, and two months later President and Politburo member Nguyen Xuan Phuc. At the time, Prime Minister Chinh appeared to be the next target. Chinh is reported to have gone through a self-criticism session and has held onto his job. But arguably what really saved him was not his innocence, but the lack of an obvious replacement. None of the new deputy prime ministers are on the Politburo and there’s an overall dearth of economic management experience on the top decision-making body. Nhan is reportedly hiding in Germany, which rejected a formal extradition request from Vietnam. Indeed, Berlin issued a very stern warning to Hanoi to not repeat the abduction of the former executive of the state-owned PetroVietnam Construction, Trinh Xuan Thanh, in 2017. After his illegal rendition, allegedly through Slovakia, Thanh was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to life in prison; a trial that also saw Politburo member and former chief of PetroVietnam, Dinh La Thang, sentenced to 13 years. Germany expelled two Vietnamese diplomats and has convicted two people for the abduction, but wants to deter a similar operation. New targets Nhan’s trial could be another attempt to weaken the prime minister as jockeying for leadership positions heats up ahead of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s 14th Congress expected to be held in January 2026. RFA’s Vietnamese Service has reported that the vice chairman of the Quang Ninh People’s Committee and two former vice chairmen have been investigated and officially reprimanded for their management shortcomings and oversight of the AIC deal. It’s just more unwanted pressure on the Prime Minister. Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam was one of the high-ranking officials recently removed from their positions. Credit: Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP file photo The Politburo continues to have just 17 members, as both the 7th and 8th Central Committee Plenums in May and October, respectively, failed to garner sufficient consensus to elect new members following the ouster of Minh and Phuc. …
Uyghur artist wins prize at prestigious art exhibit in Italy
Lékim Ibragimov was well into his career as an artist when he visited the Kizil Thousand-Buddha Caves in Xinjiang in the 1990s. It was a seminal experience that would shape his already renowned work and earn him a special commendation at one of the most prestigious exhibitions for contemporary art, the Florence Biennale in Florence, Italy. The series of rock-cut grottoes, each containing murals of Buddha, sometimes surrounded by other figures, date from the 5th to 14th century and sit on cliffs near Kizil township in Aksu prefecture. The caves, reputed to contain the most beautiful murals in Central Asia, were an important medium for Buddhist art at a time when Buddhism prevailed in Xinjiang for more than a thousand years until it was replaced by Islam around the 13th century. Now they are a source of pride and symbol of desired freedom for Uyghurs who live in the region and abroad. Ibragimov, a Uyghur graphic artist and painter who lives in Uzbekistan, explored the regional capital Urumqi and the town of Turpan. But when he went to the caves, the ancient murals and their historical richness deeply moved him. “I was particularly inspired by the Kizil Thousand-Buddha Caves [near] Kucha,” he told Radio Free Asia. “These paintings can’t be found anywhere else in the Turkic world. They are the epitome of Uyghur paintings, encapsulating the history and art of the Uyghurs. I found myself captivated.” One of the five works of Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov displayed at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023 Credit: Courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Now 78, Ibragimov said he has dedicated more than 40 years to studying the cave murals and incorporating their style into his work. “Over the years, I introduced these artworks to the world with support from prominent artists who encouraged me to continue,” he said. “Through art, I paved a way for the Uyghur people. I became an academic in Russia, a national-level artist in Uzbekistan, and received many awards. I am delighted to have made this artistic contribution for the Uyghur community.” Cave frescoes Lékim Ibrahim Hakimoghli, as the artist is known among Uyghurs, has incorporated the style and colors of the cave frescoes into his abstract, surreal artwork that combines drawing, painting and calligraphy. His paintings earned him widespread recognition in Russia, Germany and other European countries after the 1990s as well as numerous awards, including the special commendation in the painting category at this year’s Florence Biennale, an event that has been held every two years since 1997. The five pieces Ibragimov presented at the exhibition were among 1,500 works by over 600 artists from 85 countries at the Oct. 14-22 event. Three of his works were of Turkic figures, outlined and accented by muted colors against a light brown background in the style of the frescoes at the Kizil, also known as Bezeklik, Thousand-Buddha Caves. Another one depicting a neighing steed trying to break free of its tether resembles a Chinese ink-and-water painting, while his rendering of an ancestral angel is reminiscent of the style and motifs of Belarussian-French artist Marc Chagall. All the works were created between 2008 and 2020. Piero Celona, the vice president and founder of the Florence Biennale, who is knowledgeable about the cave paintings in Xinjiang, expressed admiration for Ibragimov’s work. “Germany and other European countries have preserved and respected Uyghur culture, and he noticed the similarities [to the cave murals] in my paintings,” Ibragimov told RFA. “He commended my work and emphasized the Uyghur people’s yearning for freedom, predicting a brighter future for them.” Chinese suppression The award comes as the Chinese government is repressing Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples living in Xinjiang and trying to Sinicize the vast northwestern region in part by destroying Uyghur culture. Beijing has denied committing severe human rights violations in the region, despite credible reports, witness accounts and growing condemnation by Uyghur advocacy groups and the international community. One of the five works of Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov displayed at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023. Credit: Courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Marwayit Hapiz, a Uyghur painter who lives in Germany and is well-acquainted with Ibragimov’s works, said the inclusion of his paintings in the Florence Biannale was a significant achievement for Uyghur art. “Lékim Ibrahim’s selections for this exhibition were a rare distinction among Turkic ethnicities,” she told RFA. “He is the sole Turkic artist to have earned this recognition.” Hapiz, who first met Ibragimov in Urumqi in 1991, calls him one of the leading artists in the field of contemporary Uyghur fine art, whose works in the style of the cave murals highlight the traditional art of Uyghurs. “I wouldn’t hesitate to call him the foremost artist in Uyghur arts,” Hapiz said. “In Europe, whenever someone inquires about painters of symbolic Silk Road paintings, his name comes up.” “Lékim Ibrahim’s paintings emanate the spirit of Uyghur art from the era of the Uyghur Buddhas,” she said. “Our Uyghur artistic legacy essentially originates from these stone wall paintings.” Narratives Through extensive research, Ibragimov developed a deep understanding of the narratives and tales depicted in the cave wall paintings and incorporated them into his creative spirit, Hapiz said. “He innovatively adapted their expression and aesthetics, establishing a unique method of painting,” she said. Ibragimov has played a pivotal role in introducing Uyghur art to the world, alongside other renowned Uyghur painters Ghazi Ehmet and Abdukirim Nesirdin, she added. “He stands as a distinctive artist from the Silk Road and Asia primarily due to his ability to reflect the ancient paintings,” said Hapiz. Other artists familiar with Ibragimov’s work took to social media to offer their congratulations and praise. The special commendation certificate and medal presented to Uyghur artist Lékim Ibragimov at the 2023 Florence Biennale contemporary art exhibition in Florence, Italy, October 2023. Credit: courtesy of Lékim Ibragimov Gulnaz Tursun, a Uyghur artist from Central Asia, who like Ibragimov, serves as a mentor…
China urges ‘fair’ investigation into Baltic pipeline damage
China has said it will stand “ready to provide necessary assistance” to the investigation into Finland’s claims a Hong Kong vessel may have damaged a natural gas pipeline. Finnish police said on Tuesday the Balticconnector pipeline between Finland and Estonia was likely damaged by an anchor as “on the seabed, a 1.5 to 4 meter-wide dragging trail is seen to lead to the point of damage in the gas pipeline.” The investigators said they found the anchor just a few meters from the gas pipeline damage point. They said the anchor may have belonged to the Chinese container vessel Newnew Polar Bear which was sailing through the area at around 1:20 a.m. local time on Oct. 8, 2023 when the pipeline was reported damaged. The police focused their suspicion on the ship as until now, they “could not visually confirm that both front anchors of the vessel were in their place.” Newnew Polar Bear is a Chinese-owned and Hong Kong-registered commercial ship. The vessel “was contacted several times, but they were not willing to cooperate,” they said, adding that help is needed from the Chinese authorities for the investigation to continue. A graphic obtained by Reuters on October 13, 2023, shows where the Balticconnector pipeline between Finland and Estonia was damaged on October 8, by an unknown reason. Credit: NORSAR/Handout via Reuters In Beijing, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China maintains “unimpeded communication with parties including Finland” over the incident, which is still under investigation, and “stands ready to provide necessary assistance in accordance with international law.” Mao Ning told reporters on Wednesday that the Chinese government hopes “relevant parties will follow the principles of being objective, fair, just and professional and find out what happened soon.” Earlier this week, Mao said the Chinese vessel was “sailing through relevant waters normally when the incident occurred. Due to the rather bad conditions at sea, it didn’t detect anything abnormal.” Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation has published a photo of the broken anchor that investigators retrieved from the seabed. The next step would be to confirm that it came from the Chinese container vessel and determine if the damage was an accident or intentional, said Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain turned maritime analyst. “If evidence of the Newnew Polar Bear’s involvement surfaces, then the captain will try to claim it was an accident but that is not likely unless the evidence is conclusive,” Schuster told RFA. Cable cutting The Estonian government has said it is investigating two incidents that might also be linked to the Newnew Polar Bear, in which a telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia and another between Sweden and Estonia, were damaged. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was quoted in the domestic media as saying that there are reasons to believe that the three incidents are related, but “it is too early to reveal sensitive information.” Some observers recall that Chinese ships were accused of damaging communications cables before. In April, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission blamed two Chinese ships for cutting two undersea internet cables connecting Taiwan island and the outlying islands of Matsu, leading to 50 days of no, or very limited internet access, there. The same cables have been damaged 27 times since 2017 by Chinese sand dredging and fishing boats, some cut by ships’ anchors, Taiwanese authorities said. RFA analyzed automatic identification system data provided by ship-tracking website MarineTraffic and found that at around 1:00 a.m. on Oct. 8, the Newnew Polar Bear was approaching the site of the Balticconnector pipeline. During the course of one hour or so, the Newnew Polar Bear slowed down to under 11 knots before picking up again, but did not stop. Besides the Chinese ship, a Russian flag bearer – the nuclear-powered cargo ship Sevmorput – was also seen at the scene, sailing at a higher speed. Norwegian seismology institute NORSAR reported blast-like waves near the pipeline at the time. What does Russia say? NewNew Polar Bear was renamed and registered in Hong Kong in June. Immediately prior to this, the ship sailed under the name Baltic Fulmar flying the Cypriot flag. Newnew Polar Bear and four other ships owned by China’s Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping Co. began transporting cargo between Russia and China using the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s Arctic coast in July. The route was previously not operational because of the ice. The Newnew Polar Bear made a port call in Baltiysk, Russia, on Oct. 6. Credit: Anton Alikhanov’s Telegram Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom is believed to assist the Chinese shipping line with nuclear-powered icebreakers, reducing the transit time between Russia’s St Petersburg and China’s Shanghai to less than a month, compared to 45-50 days if using the route through the Suez Canal. Sevmorput is part of the Rosatom-owned nuclear icebreaker fleet, the only such fleet in the world. The Northern Sea Route is one of the strategic priorities of cooperation between the Russians and the Chinese, and Newnew Polar Bear reflects this close collaboration. But Russian netizens have posted photos of the vessel flying the Russian flag at port calls, such as on Oct. 6 in Baltiysk, Kaliningrad’s region. This left watchers puzzled. “It is not legal under international law for the ship to fly a Russian flag unless its registration was changed to Russia. There is no evidence it has changed its registration,” said maritime analyst Carl Schuster. “A commercial vessel must fly the flag of its country of registration although it may have a logo of its country of ownership painted on its superstructure,” he added, So far, as the suspicion is not directed at Russia, Russian official channels have yet to comment on the case. Yet on social media platforms, Russian analysts and observers have been talking about what they call “the West attempting to block traffic from China to Russia and Europe.” “Perhaps the West understands that this traffic can increase massively in the near future – both from the Baltic and along the Northern Sea Route,” one…
Southeast Asia’s mounting food insecurity
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global rice prices in August were 31% higher than the previous year, and at a 15-year high, which has left the inflation-sensitive governments of Southeast Asia scrambling for answers. Net rice importers such as populous Indonesia and the Philippines and net exporters like Thailand alike are wrestling with a surge in prices of the staple, driven by five underlying weather and international factors. First, states are confronted by declining agricultural output due to an acute El Niño effect this year, which has caused hotter than average temperatures across Southeast Asia, and a decrease in overall rainfall. In parts of the region, this also resulted in above average haze pollution caused by wildfires, in addition to annual haze generated by crop burning. Across the board, agricultural yields have been down, but rice, which is dependent on monsoon rains, has been particularly vulnerable in most countries. A worker rakes wheat in a granary on a private farm in Zhurivka, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Aug. 10, 2023. Credit: Efrem Lukatsky/AP Second, the ongoing war in Ukraine and Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the July 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative has created dislocations in global supplies of wheat, cereals, and cooking oil. Before Russia pulled out, 32 million tons of grain were exported, mostly to the developing world. Although successful Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet have allowed some ships to continue exports, without a firm agreement in place, this could be temporary. Southeast Asian states are all highly dependent on wheat imports and Ukraine is the 7th largest producer, with an annual production of 33 million tons. Its exports comprise 10% of global supplies. Third, as a result of El Niño-caused heat wave and food shortages, in August 2023, India announced curbs on rice exports. India is the largest exporter of rice in the world, accounting for 40% of global supply. India’s exports account for 11% of the global rice supply. Fourth, for the lower Mekong River states, Cambodia and Vietnam, rainfall shortfalls due to El Niño have been exacerbated by China’s retention of record amounts of water at their cascade of 11 upriver dams, plunging water levels in the river to an all time low. Fifth, declines in rice yields in the net-exporting states, such as Thailand and Vietnam, have led to higher prices and hoarding. Net importers The most immediate impact will be felt by the net importers: Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. Between January and August, Indonesia imported 1.6 million tons of rice – more than triple the 429,000 million tons imported in 2022. Rice prices are now 16% higher year-on-year, a rise that prompted President Joko Widodo last month to order the release of stocks from BULOG, the strategic rice reserve, to try to keep a lid on inflation. In April, Jakarta contracted to import a total of 2.3 million metric tons of rice to shore up national stocks. In the Philippines, estimates that rice production would fall by 1.8% in 2023 caused rice prices to hit a record high in September. Workers unload rice imported from Vietnam by the Indonesian Logistics Bureau at the port of Malahayati, in Indonesia’s Aceh province, Oct. 11, 2023. Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who is concurrently the Secretary of Agriculture, imposed price caps last month of 41 and 45 pesos (US$0.72 and US$0.79) per kilogram (2.2 pounds) for average and well-milled rice, respectively. As a candidate, Marcos had pledged to bring the price of rice down to 20 pesos per kilogram. The Philippines imported a record 3.9 million metric tons in 2022-23. In September, Marcos signed a five-year purchase agreement with Vietnam, which supplied 90% of Philippine imports in 2022. In early October, Marcos lifted the rice cap, promising a slew of other measures to control prices, which remain high. Domestic rice production in Malaysia only satisfies 70% of demand, and yields declined in 2023 due to excessive heat. The government has imposed a price cap of 26 ringgit (US#5.50) per 10 kilograms (22 pounds) for domestically produced rice. Nonetheless, prices have been surging and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has threatened to take legal action against hoarders. In September 2023, the government announced a 36% increase in rice imports. This month, the government announced that restaurants could purchase imported rice RM160 ($34) per kilogram, half the normal wholesale price. Anwar, who is also the country’s finance minister, has announced some 400 million ringgit ($84.72 million) in subsidies to purchase imported rice for government use, while the Minister of Agriculture imposed rice price caps in the important vote banks of Sabah and Sarawak. Net exporters Even the net exporters have seen instability in their rice markets. As the second largest exporter in the world, accounting for 15% of exports, Thailand has benefitted from surging rice prices. The announcement of Indian curbs led to a 20% spike in Thai rice prices. Thai rice peaked at $650 a ton in August, nearly 50% higher than a year earlier. Nonetheless, the country has been hit by El Niño, with rainfall down 18%. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives estimates rice production will decline by 3-6% in 2023-24, down to 25.8 million tons, while its reservoirs were at 54% capacity. Thailand usually exports half of its rice harvest. But because of soaring prices, there’s been an increase in domestic hoarding. This year Thailand is expected to export just under 9 million tons. Vietnam, the third largest exporter in the world, accounting for 14% percent of global exports, expects to harvest 43 million tons in 2023. In 2022, Vietnam exported 7.1 tons, a ten-year high. This year the goal is to export 7.8 million tons, a 10 percent increase over 2022. Vietnam has already exported 5 million tons in the first seven months of the year, an 18% year-on-year increase. Thus far, Vietnam is benefitting from surging prices, with a 30-35% increase in value in exports. But while things are good for now, diminished rainfall,…
Taiwanese AI taken down after it repeats Chinese government line
A top-level research institute in the democratic island of Taiwan has withdrawn a Chinese-language AI chat program after it started spouting Chinese government propaganda, according to multiple media reports. A researcher at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica posted a beta version of their newly developed CKIP-Llama-2-7b chat AI, but members of the public who asked it questions soon started getting some disturbing answers to basic questions. Asked its nationality, the chat program replied that it was “Chinese,” an identity not shared by the majority of Taiwan’s 23 million people because it suggests one is from the mainland. Asked who the national leader was, it answered “Xi Jinping,” the leader of China’s Communist Party who has vowed to force Taiwan to unify with China – by force, if necessary. The majority of Taiwanese don’t identify as Chinese, enjoy living in a democratic and pluralistic society, and have no wish to submit to authoritarian rule from Beijing, according to multiple opinion polls in recent years. “Academia Sinica said today that the content produced by the model was unexpected, and this is an area that needs to be improved in the future,” the island’s Central News Agency reported. “The beta version has been taken down for the time being,” it said. Democratic Progressive Party President Tsai Ing-wen swept to a landslide victory in 2020 on a platform of defending the island’s freedoms and democratic way of life from China’s expanding territorial ambitions, spurred on in part by the crackdown on the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong. While there are concerns over China’s military saber-rattling, the prospect of too much rapprochement with China has sparked large protests in Taiwan, including the Sunflower Movement that occupied government buildings in 2014, and Tsai vowed in a National Day speech on Tuesday that the Taiwanese people will be a “democratic and free people for generations to come.” But according to CKIP-Llama-2-7b, “National Day” is Oct. 1 – the date of the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China, which has never ruled Taiwan. According to the Taiwan AI, “National Day” is Oct. 1 – the date of the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China, which has never ruled Taiwan. People [pictured] attend a flag-raising ceremony to mark China’s National Day at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on October 1, 2023. Credit: Jade Gao/AFP The chat program, which was partly based on the commercial open source model Llama-2-7b and Atom-7b, had some interesting opinions about its own provenance, too. Asked who created it, the program replied: “I was jointly developed by the Natural Language Processing Laboratory of Fudan University and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. My birthday is 2023.” “My nationality is Chinese, my place of residence is the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Server Set, and I can speak Chinese and English,” it said. Asked to name the national anthem, it replied “The March of the Volunteers” – China’s communist anthem – instead of “The Three Principles of the People,” Taiwan’s anthem first adopted by the government of the 1911 Republic of China that fled to the island before the People’s Republic of China was established. Ruling party lawmaker Fan Yun commented on Facebook that the Taiwanese AI gaffe was “an information security issue and an issue of cognitive warfare.” The program was removed from public view on Oct. 9, according to the Central News Agency. Academia Sinica President James Liao said the program had been put online as a way to crowd-source its testing, mainly to save time. “This is a researcher who was keen to speed things up, so, in the spirit of open source software, he put out a program that hadn’t been fully tested yet and asked everyone to join in and test it with him,” Liao said. “It produced some questionable results.” Differences in the writing systems of the mainland and Taiwan were also an obstacle for the project. In 1956, the PRC began simplifying Chinese characters in a bid to increase literacy, and over the years, about 2,000 characters have been simplified. The characters remain unsimplified in Taiwan, and are known as “traditional Chinese” characters. Liao said the researcher had simply converted the data for simplified Chinese into traditional Chinese for CKIP-Llama-2-7b . He said Academia Sinica had learned from the incident that the traditional Chinese character data is important in its own right, and vowed to set up an audit mechanism to avoid similar issues in future, Central News Agency reported. Information technology expert Kun-Lin Hsieh commented on social media: “Academia Sinica’s AI has gone off the rails!” But he went on to explain that the chat program had been trained on an online data set provided by the Beijing-based Stardust AI and other dialogue training materials in the simplified Chinese characters, rather than in traditional characters. Information technology news service iThome said it is crucial to have “large language model” datasets that can speak in a way that is appropriate to the locality in which they are made. It quoted Taiwanese AI expert Tsai Ming-shun as calling on the Taiwanese government to take the opportunity to invest more resources in software development, especially large language models and data sets, to boost the development of homegrown AI. In April, China issued a new set of rules requiring AI chat programs developed in the country to stick to the ruling Communist Party line, requiring their responses not to make “subversive” statements or deliver “content that may disrupt economic and social order.” Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.
‘Eliticide’ as China jails Uyghur intellectuals to erase culture
Over a fortnight, a Uyghur folklorist missing since 2017 was revealed to be serving a life prison for “separatism,” while another Uyghur scholar who had vanished into Chinese custody years earlier appeared on shortlists and oddsmakers picks for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. The cases of ethnographer Rahile Dawut, whose life conviction in December 2018 was uncovered by a U.S. NGO only last month, and economist Ilham Tohti, put away for life on similar charges in 2014, share key similarities that highlight the personal and family tragedies behind China’s relentless assimilation policies in the northwestern Xinjiang region. Both Dawut, who was born in 1966, and the 53-year-old Tohti built their academic careers inside the Chinese system, teaching at prestigious universities and releasing their work through major state publishing houses. The two scholars collaborated with and were respected as authorities by their Chinese and international peers. Uyghur professor Rahile Dawut talks with a man in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Akide Polat/Freemymom.org Dawut created and directed the Xinjiang University ‘s Minorities Folklore Research Center and wrote dozens of articles in international journals and a number of books on the region and its culture. An economist at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, Tohti ran the Uyghur Online website, set up in 2006, which drew attention to the discrimination facing Uyghurs under Beijing’s rule over Xinjiang and its increasingly restrictive religious and language policies. The families of Dawut and Tohti share the common fate of not having heard anything from their jailed loved once since 2017, the year that China’s harsh crackdown in Xinjiang went into overdrive, with the establishment of a network of internment camps for Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic minorities. “My first reaction was that I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it at all,” Dawut’s U.S.-based daughter, Akide Polat, told Radio Free Asia last month. “None of my mother’s work, nor the way she went about it, nor anything in her personal life had anything to do with ‘endangering state security,’” she said of the charges on which her mother was convicted. ‘No intellectual resistance’ The Dui Hua Foundation, which revealed Dawut’s life sentence, noted estimates of as many as several hundred Uyghur intellectuals who have been detained, arrested, and imprisoned since 2016. RFA Uyghur has documented scores of disappearances and detentions of Uyghur writers, academics, artists and musicians in recent years. “What we’ve seen inside the Uyghur region of China is what is often termed ‘eliticide,’” said Sean Roberts, a Central Asia expert at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. “There’s a particular focus on the intellectual elites, many of whom were working at state institutions, have been loyal to the state, did not did not present any sort of real resistance. Their only crime was basically maintaining the idea of a Uyghur nation and identity,” he told RFA Uyghur. Akida Polat holds a photo of her mother, imprisoned Uyghur folklore expert Rahile Duwat. Credit: X/@Kuzzat_Altay Roberts said eliticide “is often identified as occurring at the beginning of a genocide, where there’s an attempt to get rid of the entire political, economic and intellectual elite to ensure that there is no intellectual resistance to the erasure of a people and their identity.” In early 2021, after years of cumulative reports on the internment camp system in Xinjiang, the United Nations, the United States, and the legislatures of several European countries, officially branded the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide or crimes against humanity. China has angrily rejected the genocide charges, arguing that the “reeducation camps” were a necessary tool to fight religious extremism and terrorism, in reaction to sporadic terrorist attacks that Uyghurs say are fueled by years of government oppression. Beijing has also waged an information counterattack, with a global media influence campaign that spreads Chinese state media content to countries in Asia and beyond, invites diplomats and journalists from China-friendly countries on staged tours of Xinjiang and promotes pro-China social media influencers. Awareness-raising on genocide Last month, the pushback saw Chinese diplomats pressuring fellow United Nations member states not to attend a panel on human rights abuses in Xinjiang sponsored by a think tank and two rights groups on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Tohti, who has been nominated for the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s Peace Prize since 2020, was listed by the U.S. news outlet Time as one of top three favorites to win the medal this year, following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Tohti was given higher odds on many of London’s famed betting sites of winning the prize than the recipient, jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi. “There are many human rights issues around the world that are equally as important as the suffering that the Uyghurs are going through, but the international status and power of the perpetrators of these human rights abuses aren’t considered equal,” said Jewher Ilham, Tohti’s daughter. “The Chinese government is known to have a much more powerful political and economic influence than the Iranian government in the western world,” she told RFA Uyghur. Jewher Ilham holds a photo of her father, Ilham Tohti, during the Sakharov Prize ceremony at the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Dec. 18, 2019. Credit: AP Photo It is not clear that that China would be moved by a Nobel Prize to release Tohti or moderate policies in Xinjiang, where Communist Party chief Xi Jinping appears to be doubling down on draconian security measures and policies to suppress Uyghur culture. Beijing lashed out at the Nobel Committee and imposed trade sanctions on Norway after the Nobel 2010 went to Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo. With Liu in jail, the Chinese capital Beijing won the right in 2015 to host the Winter Olympics, and Beijing largely shrugged off the global outcry when in 2017, Liu became the first Nobel laureate to die in jail since German journalist and Nazi opponent…
Thousands flee Sagaing region townships after Myanmar junta raids
Almost 5,000 people have fled their homes after two days of raids on villages in Sagaing region’s Salingyi township, locals told RFA on Thursday. Troops took several people with them to use as human shields, according to an organization helping victims of the conflict. The junta sent in a Russian-made attack helicopter on Wednesday morning, targeting villages between Salingyi and Yinmarbin townships. On Thursday morning, hundreds of troops stormed Let Taung Gyi village in Pale township. Local People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) had planted landmines near the entrance of the village but it’s not known whether the junta troops suffered any casualties. They arrested people suspected of planting the mines after entering the village, according to a local who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “About 10 residents were arrested while they were fleeing to safety from Let Taung Gyi village this morning,” the resident said, adding that the identities of those arrested are not yet known. “The column [of soldiers] was in a convoy and moving slowly from one village to another. It had been going for a long time.” The local said the convoy contained around 300 soldiers and 17 military vehicles that opened fire on villages along the route while a helicopter strafed villages in Salingyi and Yinmarbin townships, according to an aid worker who also asked not to be named for safety reasons. “Helicopters shot at two villages,” they said. “The Mi-35 fired along both sides of the village road because [the junta] were worried PDFs would come along the road.” Around 5,000 residents of at least five villages fled their homes ahead of the raids, said the aid worker. Calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw by RFA went unanswered Thursday. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
