Videos of Taliban violence against women, civilians go viral
Taliban who have captured several regions in Afghanistan, have started violating human rights by torturing civilians in the country.
A video issued by War Crimes in Afghanistan showed Taliban cutting the hand of a citizen for a 'small robbery'.
The incident reportedly occurred in a newly captured district by Taliban. Meanwhile, in another video, the Taliban could be seen beating up a Afghanistani woman. The reason behind the incident is not known.
Afghanistan, which has been witnessing wars for several years now, is witnessing a resurgence of violence ever since foreign forces started leaving the country.
Source: Just Earth News
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US Coast Guard boards Chinese fishing boats near Kiribati, official says
The US Coast Guard and Kiribati police boarded two Chinese fishing boats during a patrol against illegal fishing in the Pacific Island nation’s vast exclusive economic zone in February but found no issues aboard, a coast guard official said.
The United States is seeking a bigger role for its coast guard in helping remote Pacific Island nations monitor millions of kilometres of ocean – a rich tuna fishing ground – in a move that also boosts surveillance as a rivalry with China over security ties in the region intensifies.
Reuters reported on Feb 23 that Chinese police are working in Kiribati, with uniformed officers involved in community policing and a crime database programme.
Kiribati, a nation of 115,000 residents, is considered strategic despite being small, as it is relatively close to Hawaii and controls a 3.5 million sq km exclusive economic zone. It is also host to a Japanese satellite tracking station.
Washington has flagged plans to build an embassy in Kiribati to compete with China, but has not yet done so.
Kiribati police officers were on patrol with the US Coast Guard as “ship riders” for the first time in almost a decade, between Feb 11 and 16, a US Coast Guard Guam spokeswoman said.
“The two People’s Republic of China-flagged fishing vessels were boarded as part of routine maritime law enforcement activities to ensure compliance with regulations within the Kiribati exclusive economic zone,” the spokeswoman said in e-mailed comments.
No concerns were reported during the boardings, she said.
“Both Kiribati officers from the Kiribati Police Maritime Unit and US Coast Guard officers were involved in the boarding operations. This collaboration underscores the partnership between the two nations in upholding maritime law and good governance,” she added.
The Kiribati President’s Office and Chinese embassy did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Kiribati’s Acting Police Commissioner Eeri Aritiera told Reuters last week that Chinese police on the island work with local police.
China built a large embassy on the main island, Tarawa, after Kiribati switched ties from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019.
Source: REUTERS
Apple pulls the plug on its self-driving e-car project
Apple has ended its decadelong autonomous vehicle effort, known as Project Titan. The stock market breathed a sigh of relief in response, with insiders pointing to areas where Apple should redouble its efforts instead.
Traditional car manufacturers in Europe, Asia and the US face a number of problems, some of them of their own making. To make matters worse, the creeping concern that tech companies could crowd legacy firms out of the personal mobility market looms over manufacturers like the figurative sword of Damocles. This threat materialized when Google parent Alphabet and Apple announced their self-driving car endeavors, Waymo and Project Titan.
Traditional car manufacturers worried they would be reduced to hardware delivery services, providing motorized base frames for "smartphones on wheels." As of this week, however, these fears might be a thing of the past, with Apple announcing that it was canceling its Titan electric vehicle project.
Instead, New York-based business daily The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the 2,000 car-developing staff members would shift to working on artificial intelligence (AI). That move could affect several hundred hardware developers, according to the US media group Bloomberg.
The AI field, specifically using programs such as ChatGPT to create new content from ever-growing mounds of data, is considered far more promising. Despite this, layoffs are to be expected.
E-cars a difficult market for Apple
Many insiders had been generally reserved about Apple's efforts to enter the auto industry, arguing that its business model was entirely different than that of the tech industry.
They pointed out that electronic components for car manufacturing could not simply be sent by mail, or digitally uploaded to customers' computers. Instead, the business required shipping large and heavy parts across the globe, and maintaining them regularly.
Insiders also contended that, not least due to the many regulations in the industry, the development cycles for automotive products lasts much longer — not weeks and months, but years.
Finally, the profit margins in the automotive sector are much lower than in Apple's tech business. From the very beginning, car manufacturers had cautioned that building and selling a car was not easy.
In the past few years, there was speculation that Apple might wind down its own development efforts simply by buying up a large component supplier or car manufacturer. The potential involvement of British luxury car builder McLaren was the subject of much debate.
Elon Musk, the founder of the US-based automotive and clean energy company Tesla, said he once offered to sell his car manufacturing business to Apple amid production challenges hounding Tesla's Model 3 line. But, as Musk recounted, Apple CEO Tim Cook wasn't even interesting in talking.
Billions down the drain?
Project Titan cost Apple over $10 billion (€9.3 billion), according to a report this week in The New York Times. Bloomberg estimated that the car development costs broke down to $1 billion each year.
Other market observers, such as analysts at the US consulting firm Guidehouse, believe Apple invested between $15 billion and $20 billion in development. That's money that will now be freed up for other projects, including in the car sector.
In a report on Apple's exit from the autonomous vehicle race, Wall Street analyst Erik Woodring wrote that "Apple is exhibiting some welcome cost discipline on longer-tailed future projects." He suggested that AI might be one of these endeavors.
Speaking to Apple's work on electric vehicles (EV) and autonomous vehicles (AV), he added that "Apple's EV/AV efforts were too far behind well-funded competitors to represent a viable path towards commercialization and product differentiation."
The stock market responded to the announcement with a fair bit of relief, even if the cancellation did not lead to a jump in the share price. But a small uptick in the company's stocks after the decision was announced indicated that investors were glad to see Apple put its expensive car project in the rearview mirror.
'A good decision' to stop Project Titan
Most investors agree that Apple's cancellation of Project Titan was the next logical step. Jonathan Curtis, chief investment officer of the US-based Franklin Equity Group, told the German business newspaper Handelsblatt he believed it was the right choice for Apple to get involved in the automotive industry.
Citing the well-worn adage that cars are essentially "computers on wheels" nowadays, he added that his trust had invested billions in Apple. Curtis also told the German paper that he thought Apple's cancellation of its Project Titan was also "a good decision."
Now, Curtis argued, Apple would have to focus on ensuring that the AI on its phones ran smoothly. He pointed to one of Apple's uncharacteristic failures, asking: "What is one of the worst products that Apple's released in the last 10 years?"
The answer, he said, was Siri, Apple's virtual voice assistant. "If Apple can fix Siri," he argued, "they could launched a massive new iPhone cycle." Then the tech giant could sell new services that offered real added value in association with Siri software, Curtis said.
At a digital shareholder's meeting last week, Apple executive Cook announced that his company had new AI features in store. Traditionally, such promises to "break new ground" are saved for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Crew-8 launch to ISS delayed again by bad weather
The departure of a new four-member crew to the International Space Station has been postponed by for a second time. High winds halted the latest launch attempt, for a trip initially scheduled for February 22.
The planned launch of a new crew to the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday has been postponed by a day due to poor weather, US space agency NASA said.
Originally scheduled for February 22, the launch has now been postponed for a second time.
SpaceX said on social media that "elevated winds" forced Saturday's delay.
NASA said it was now targeting Sunday at 10:53 p.m. (0353 Monday GMT/UTC) for liftoff.
Crew-8 — which includes three American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut — was set to launch towards the ISS from Florida's Cape Canaveral space center.
Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX began operating astronaut launch services for NASA since 2020 under NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, and Jeanette Epps and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebyonkin are to spend around six months on the space outpost carrying out research.
This will be the first space flight for Epps, Dominick and Grebyonkin and the third stint on the ISS for Barratt.
Space has remained a rare area of cooperation between the United States and Russia amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Scientist fed classified information to China, says Canada intelligence
Report says Xiangguo Qiu secretly worked with Wuhan Institute for Virology and posed a ‘threat to Canada’s economic security’
A leading research scientist at Canada’s highest-security laboratory provided confidential scientific information to Chinese institutions, met secretly with officials and posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” according to newly released intelligence reports.
The dismissal of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, has been shrouded in mystery ever since the couple were escorted from Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in 2019 and formally fired two years later.
Intelligence assessments released late on Wednesday afternoon alleged that Qiu’s “close and clandestine relationships” with Chinese institutions which showed a “reckless judgment” could have harmed Canada’s national security. The assessments were among more than 600 documents released after a long fight with opposition legislators who had demanded information behind the sackings.
CSIS, Canada’s intelligence agency, concluded that in security-screening interviews, Qiu repeatedly lied about about her relationship with research institutions linked to the Chinese government. Even when confronted with contradictory evidence, “Ms Qiu continued to make blanket denials, feign ignorance or tell outright lies.”
In one instance, Qiu told investigators a 2018 trip to China was a personal vacation. But she eventually admitted the trip was paid for by Wuhan Institute for Virology and that she met the a senior member of the organization during the trip. Investigators also found evidence of application from Qiu agreeing to work for the Wuhan Virology Institute for at least two months each year, with the aim of augmenting China’s “biosecurity platform for new and potent infectious disease research”, according to the CSIS report.
Qiu admitted she sent an Ebola sample to China’s national institute for food and drug control, which was attempting to develop an inhibitor to the virus. But she did so without a material transfer agreement or collaboration agreement.
Qiu also allowed two employees of a Chinese institution, “whose work is not aligned with Canadian interests” access to the lab.
Both Qiu and Cheng filed grievances for their dismissal but have not commented on the allegations in the documents. Their current whereabouts are unknown.
In a letter to Cheng, the public health agency said there were “serious concerns” over his “close personal and professional relationship with Xiangguo Qiu” and his “awareness and lack of candour regarding your own activities and those of Xiangguo Qiu with individuals and entities of a foreign government”.
Qiu was told by the health agency that “during the entire [investigative] process, you did not express remorse or regret” and at times tried to deflect blame onto the public health agency.
“You cannot be relied upon not to abuse the trust accorded to you and to perform your assigned duties in a manner that will reflect positively on PHAC and not pose a security risk to the government of Canada and PHAC,” the agency said.
Canada’s Liberal government has fought the release of the documents for years. The government initially released heavily redacted documents, which left opposition parties frustrated with what they felt was a lack of candour by Justin Trudeau’s government. A recent unified motion by opposition parties finally compelled the release of the investigation.
The Health minister, Mark Holland, acknowledged “a lax adherence to the securities and protocols” at the lab, which is overseen by the public health agency of Canada.
But Holland said “at no time” were there breaches of national secrets or information from the lab.
The Conservative party, which is currently polling far ahead of the Liberals, accused the Trudeau’s government of permitting the Chinese government to infiltrate Canada’s highest-security lab.
“This is a massive national security failure by Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government, which he fought tooth and nail to cover up,” said the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre.
Source: The Guardian
The price of Africa’s digital dependence on China
Chinese tech has been critical in bridging Africa’s digital divide but the support often comes with high and hidden costs.
Digital technologies have many potential benefits for people in African countries. They can support the delivery of healthcare services, promote access to education and lifelong learning, and enhance financial inclusion.
But there are obstacles to realizing these benefits. The backbone infrastructure needed to connect communities is missing in places. Technology and finance are lacking, too.
In 2023, only 83% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa was covered by at least a 3G mobile network. In all other regions, the coverage was more than 95%. In the same year, less than half of Africa’s population had an active mobile broadband subscription, lagging behind Arab states (75%) and the Asia-Pacific region (88%). Therefore, Africans made up a substantial share of the estimated 2.6 billion people globally who remained offline in 2023.
A key partner in Africa in unclogging this bottleneck is China. Several African countries depend on China as their main technology provider and sponsor of large digital infrastructural projects.
This relationship is the subject of a study I published recently. The study showed that at least 38 countries worked closely with Chinese companies to advance their domestic fiber-optic network and data center infrastructure or their technological know-how.
China’s involvement was critical as African countries made great strides in digital development. Despite the persisting digital divide between Africa and other regions, 3G network coverage increased from 22% to 83% between 2010 and 2023. Active mobile broadband subscriptions increased from less than 2% in 2010 to 48% in 2023.
For governments, however, there is a risk that foreign-driven digital development will keep existing dependence structures in place.
The global market for information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure is controlled by a handful of producers. For instance, the main suppliers of fiber-optic cables, a network component that enables high-speed internet, are China-based Huawei and ZTE and the Swedish company Ericsson.
Many African countries, with limited internal revenues, can’t afford these network components. Infrastructure investments depend on foreign finance, including concessional loans, commercial credits, or public-private partnerships. These may also influence a state’s choice of infrastructure provider.
The African continent’s terrain adds to the technological and financial difficulties. Vast lands and challenging topographies make the roll-out of infrastructure very expensive. Private investors avoid sparsely populated areas because it doesn’t pay them to deliver a service there.
Landlocked states depend on the infrastructure and goodwill of coastal countries to connect to international fiber-optic landing stations.
It is sometimes assumed that African leaders choose Chinese providers because they offer the cheapest technology. Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. Chinese contractors are attractive partners because they can offer full-package solutions that include finance.
Under the so-called “EPC+F” (Engineer, Procure, Construct + Fund/Finance) scheme, Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE oversee the engineering, procurement and construction while Chinese banks provide state-backed finance. Angola, Uganda and Zambia are just some of the countries which seem to have benefited from this type of deal.
All-round solutions like this appeal to African countries.
What’s in it for China?
As part of its “go-global” strategy, the Chinese government encourages Chinese companies to invest and operate overseas. The government offers financial backing and expects companies to raise the global competitiveness of Chinese products and the national economy.
In the long term, Beijing seeks to establish and promote Chinese digital standards and norms. Research partnerships and training opportunities expose a growing number of students to Chinese technology.
The Chinese government’s expectation is that mobile applications and startups in Africa will increasingly reflect Beijing’s technological and ideological principles. That includes China’s interpretation of human rights, data privacy and freedom of speech.
This aligns with the vision of China’s “Digital Silk Road”, which complements its Belt and Road Initiative, creating new trade routes.
In the digital realm, the goal is technological primacy and greater autonomy from Western suppliers. The government is striving for a more Sino-centric global digital order. Infrastructure investments and training partnerships in African countries offer a starting point.
From a technological perspective, over-reliance on a single infrastructure supplier makes the client state more vulnerable. When a customer depends heavily on a particular supplier, it’s difficult and costly to switch to a different provider. African countries could become locked into the Chinese digital ecosystem.
Researchers like Arthur Gwagwa from the Ethics Institute at Utrecht University (Netherlands) believe that China’s export of critical infrastructure components will enable military and industrial espionage. These claims assert that Chinese-made equipment is designed in a way that could facilitate cyber attacks.
Human Rights Watch, an international NGO that conducts research and advocacy on human rights, has raised concerns that Chinese infrastructure increases the risk of technology-enabled authoritarianism. In particular, Huawei has been accused of colluding with governments to spy on political opponents in Uganda and Zambia. Huawei has denied the allegations.
The way forward
Chinese involvement provides a rapid path to digital progress for African nations. It also exposes African states to the risk of long-term dependence. The remedy is to diversify infrastructure supply, training opportunities and partnerships.
There is also a need to call for interoperability in international forums such as the International Telecommunications Union, a UN agency responsible for issues related to information and communication technologies.
Interoperability allows a product or system to interact with other products and systems. It means clients can buy technological components from different providers and switch to other technological solutions. It favors market competition and higher-quality solutions by preventing users from being locked into one vendor.
Finally, in the long term African countries should produce their own infrastructure and become less dependent.
Source: Asia Times
Xi (Foolishly) Plans Communist Answers For China’s Property Crisis.
If the leaks and rumors are true, Beijing stands ready to launch a new and radical solution to the economy’s property crisis – a government takeover.
What the authorities refer to as “a new model” would replace the old emphasis on ownership with more rentals and use government funds to buy up bankrupt properties so that in time the government’s role in real estate would rise from 5% of the market at present to 30%. Such an act would surely take the nation back to its communist roots if not quite the days of Mao Zedong. If it would veil the property crisis for a time, it would in the long run do tremendous damage to China’s economic prospects.
It is not yet entirely clear what Xi Jinping and the CCP have planned. Indeed, Beijing has admitted that it has not yet worked out all the details. These, the authorities assure all, will be ironed out in time. From what material is presently available, Beijing will commit the equivalent of $280 billion a year for five years to buy up distressed private residential real estate developments and repurpose them as rental units. The plans also mention building still more units, some subsidized rentals, for a total of six million new units in 35 cities over the next five years. Beijing would impose severe restrictions on who could buy these apartments and would forbid purchasers from trading their units on the open market.
Vice Premier He Lifeng, Xi’s chief economic policy aid, claims that the resulting enlarged government role in the area would help in two ways. It would allow Beijing to control excess supply, he claims, and put a floor under residential real estate prices. There is much room for doubts here. For one, it is far from apparent that Beijing has the financial resources to execute such plans or even the will to do so if it could find the resources. For another, China already has some seven million empty housing units, and the population is shrinking, leaving open the question of how six million additional units – rentals or otherwise – would control supply or put a floor under prices.
Beijing’s ability to manage real estate also comes into question after considering how poorly the authorities have managed things to date. Prior to 2020, Beijing actively encouraged residential real estate development, pushing local authorities to get involved and ensuring easy credit terms for both developers and homebuyers. Private builders and speculators responded actively, taking on debt and pursuing increasingly dubious projects so that even as China was meeting its housing needs, such development reached the astronomical level of some 30% of China’s economy. Then in 2020, Beijing abruptly removed all this support. Not surprisingly, the highly leveraged and extended developers began failing almost immediately.
Had Beijing known its business, it would have removed the support gradually so that developers, homebuyers, and local governments could adjust. It also would have provided liquidity to financial markets immediately after the first of these failures, which was the giant developer Evergrande. That could have blunted the ill effects of so much questionable debt on the books of bond holders and financial institutions. By providing special credits to developers, not to bail them out but to enable them to complete apartments for which they had contracted and already received payment, Beijing could have saved the investments of literally millions of Chinese households who had pre-bought apartments. Such a move would have bolstered the confidence of both Chines homeowners and homebuyers.
Beijing’s ability to manage real estate also comes into question after considering how poorly the authorities have managed things to date. Prior to 2020, Beijing actively encouraged residential real estate development, pushing local authorities to get involved and ensuring easy credit terms for both developers and homebuyers. Private builders and speculators responded actively, taking on debt and pursuing increasingly dubious projects so that even as China was meeting its housing needs, such development reached the astronomical level of some 30% of China’s economy. Then in 2020, Beijing abruptly removed all this support. Not surprisingly, the highly leveraged and extended developers began failing almost immediately.
Had Beijing known its business, it would have removed the support gradually so that developers, homebuyers, and local governments could adjust. It also would have provided liquidity to financial markets immediately after the first of these failures, which was the giant developer Evergrande. That could have blunted the ill effects of so much questionable debt on the books of bond holders and financial institutions. By providing special credits to developers, not to bail them out but to enable them to complete apartments for which they had contracted and already received payment, Beijing could have saved the investments of literally millions of Chinese households who had pre-bought apartments. Such a move would have bolstered the confidence of both Chines homeowners and homebuyers.
After two years of zero effort, Beijing, late in 2023, offered tentative and inadequate palliatives, and now in the opening months of 2024 seems to have settled on a truly communist solution. Beijing’s gross mismanagement of the situation so far leaves little to no confidence in its plan to control a large portion of China’s housing stock. No doubt the huge amounts of cash involved, if Beijing can put it to work, will cloak the immediate effects of the property crisis, but otherwise, these plans will hamstring China’s growth model fundamentally and perhaps permanently.
Wealth is the key consideration. In many ways homeownership provided the basis of China’s boom after Deng Xiaoping first opened the economy some 50 years ago. In Chinese culture but also globally, real estate constitutes the bulwark of household wealth. The dream of amassing it in China provided great motivation after the opening, and once that wealth began to grow, it encouraged spending and the use of credit, both of which spurred what turned out to be a truly outstanding record of economic growth. The importance of homeownership and the impetus it has provided is evident in the fact that more than 80% of Chinese households own their own home, a far higher percentage than in most developed economies, including the United States, where the figure is about 66%.
The CCP’s seeming plan to emphasize rentals threatens this engine of growth and wealth creation. Even when permitting purchases, Beijing’s plan detracts from the wealth creation by forbidding trading the new units on the open market. Practically speaking, this policy makes those units less like home ownership and family wealth and more like a rental with a very long lease. If these plans go into effect and still worse if Beijing builds on them, China will face much worse economic problems in the future than it does today. Xi and his cronies in the Forbidden City will have shut down a critical engine of economic motivation and growth.
ASEAN, Australia call for peace in South China Sea
Leaders of the ASEAN bloc and Australia made a joint statement calling for peace and stability in the region. China claims the entire South China sea and has been aggressive towards ships from other nations.
Leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Australia issued a collective statement on Wednesday against actions that could jeopardize peace in the South China Sea, following recent tensions between Beijing and the Philippines in disputed waters.
"We recognize the benefits of having the South China Sea as a sea of peace, stability, and prosperity. We encourage all countries to avoid any unilateral actions that endanger peace, security and stability in the region," the nations said in a joint statement while calling for a "rules-based" order in the Indo-Pacific region.
In response, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said, "We will properly manage differences with the countries concerned and fully and effectively implement them with ASEAN countries."
Tensions in the South China Sea
Tensions in the trade corridor escalated earlier this week when Chinese vessels in the Spratly Islands were accused of pursuing Philippine ships.
On Monday when the summit began, Philippine Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo asked Beijing to "stop harassing us."
The following day, the Philippines summoned China's deputy chief of mission in Manila for "aggressive actions" against a resupply mission for their troops.
The Philippine coast guard said Chinese ships were involved in two separate collisions, including one where a resupply boat was hit with a water cannon.
China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, disregarding legal precedents and competing claims from various Southeast Asian nations.
The dispute remains a significant security challenge in the region, casting a shadow over a three-day summit between Australia and the 10-nation ASEAN bloc.
China calls Philippines a US 'pawn'
Tensions between China and the Philippines also threaten relations between China and the US, already precarious due to Beijing's aggression toward Taiwan.
Manila and Washington are subject to a mutual defense treaty, going back to 1951, which binds them to defend each other if one comes under attack.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Wednesday that the collisions in the South China Sea were not enough of a reason to invoke the treaty. But Marcos did express his "great alarm" over the incidents.
Meanwhile, China accused the US of using the Philippines as a "pawn"
"China urges the United States not to use the Philippines as a pawn to stir up trouble in the South China Sea," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters.
"The Philippines should not let itself be at the mercy of the United States," she added.
Australia seeks to 'alleviate tensions'
China's increasing aggression in the sea has been a priority on the ASEAN summit's agenda, which ends Wednesday.
The summit is being held in Melbourne to mark 50 years of Australia becoming the bloc's first external partner.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,
speaking to reporters at the summit said, "I am very concerned and Australia is concerned about any unsafe and destabilizing behavior in the South China Sea. We need to make sure that activity in the South China Sea alleviates any tensions and doesn't add to it."