Biden says US will set up Gaza aid port
NewsFeed US President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that the American military will set up a “temporary pier” on the Gaza coast to help aid deliveries. The US has been criticised for delivering aid to Gaza while funding and assisting Israel’s war. Published On 8 Mar 20248 Mar 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Pornhub and other adult sites sue EU over landmark digital content law
Lawsuits challenging legislation come after similar cases taken by online retailers Amazon and Zalando. Pornhub and two other adult sites are suing the European Union over a landmark digital content law that imposes age verification and other obligations on large platforms. The European Commission last year named Pornhub, Xvideos and Stripchat as belonging to the category of “very large online platform” under the Digital Services Act, which imposes certain obligations on sites with more than 45 million monthly visitors. Brussels has listed 22 platforms that are subject to the rules – which include the need to establish age verification measures to protect minors and create a library of adverts published on their sites – including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X. Companies that fall foul of the law can be fined up to six percent of their global turnover. Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, said the EU Commission had incorrectly designated the platform, as the site only attracts around 32 million users. “We believe the European Commission erred in its calculation of our user numbers. We also consider illegal the requirement … [that an] advertising repository must be made publicly accessible,” it said in a statement provided to multiple media outlets. Efforts to contact Xvideos and Stripchat for comment were unsuccessful. The lawsuits come on the heels of similar legal challenges by Amazon and German online fashion retailer Zalando, which have argued they do not meet the criteria for a very large online platform under the act. Adblock test (Why?)
AI meme wars hit India election campaign, testing social platforms
Bengaluru, India – On February 20, India’s chief opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), uploaded a video parodying Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Instagram that has amassed over 1.5 million views. It is a short clip from a new Hindi music album named “Chor” (thief), where Modi’s digital likeness is grafted onto the lead singer. The song’s lyrics were humorously reworked to describe a thief’s – in this case, a business tycoon’s – attempt to steal, and Modi handing over coal mines, ports, power lines and ultimately, the country. The video isn’t hyperrealistic, but a pithy AI meme that uses Modi’s voice and face clones, to drive home the nagging criticism of his close ties to Indian business moguls. That same day, the official Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) handle on Instagram, with over seven million followers, uploaded its own video. The one-minute clip is a supercut of Modi campaigning on the streets atop his car, spliced with real visuals of all the beneficiaries. What’s unique is the background score: an old patriotic Hindi song sung by legendary singer Mahendra Kapoor, who passed away in 2008, recreated in an AI voice. The lyrics were modified to highlight Modi’s achievements over the past nine years, including helping farmers and enabling Indian scientists to land a rover on the moon. Audio forensic experts, who tested the clip upon Al Jazeera’s request, confirmed that they are AI-generated. While AI-enabled meme wars have been taking place over the past year, this is the first time both BJP and the INC have created and shared AI-crafted political content on official party handles, without explicit disclosures. “This is at the inflexion point of an entirely new way of conducting visual politics and arguably one that will foundationally change the way we consume multimedia artefacts during political campaigns,” said Joyojeet Pal, an associate professor at the University of Michigan. An Al Jazeera review and subsequent forensic testing found at least three instances of AI-created or altered content published on the official Instagram handles of both the INC and the BJP since February 20. Political parties are pushing the limits of AI’s use to both ridicule opponents and boost their own popularity on official pages, and in doing so, testing the boundaries of platform policies on labelling deceptive political content. (Some clips were cross-posted on YouTube and Facebook, as well.) Meta’s current rules require advertisers to disclose when they use AI-edited political advertisements, but such provisions don’t apply to political pages and accounts. “On top of their own labelling, when they detect signals showing AI usage, there’s no reason for an exception for this disclosure requirement around content on political pages and accounts,” Sam Gregory, executive director of non-profit Witness, which studies the use of deepfakes to defend human rights, told Al Jazeera. “Even more so than elsewhere on the web, there should be transparency on AI usage in political contexts, given the gaps in ability to detect its use and the risks of deception.” Meta did not respond to Al Jazeera’s queries on AI-labelling policies. Earlier this year, the independent Oversight Board that weighs in on significant content moderation decisions at Meta criticised the company’s manipulated media policy and said it needs to be expanded to cover fake audio, and attach labels to misleading content. Meta subsequently in a blog post announced that it will label AI-generated images created using its own AI tools, and is working with industry partners on technical standards that will help identify and label AI audio and video created using other company’s tools. YouTube did not comment on the specific AI-enhanced videos in question. “We have started displaying labels for content created with YouTube generative AI features, like Dream Screen,” a YouTube spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Al Jazeera. “Creators will soon be required to disclose when they’ve created realistic altered or synthetic content,” the statement said, while linking to a November 2023 blog post. Covert AI meme communications In the Modi “Chor” video shared by the INC on its @INCIndia Instagram handle, one could observe obvious discrepancies of deepfakes, such as a mismatch in lip-syncing, and a mild glitch in AI-Modi’s face. The video, however, received a wave of laughter online, generating more than 1.6 million views. “Don’t know about 2024 but clearly you guys have won the meme Fest !!,” commented historian Eshan Sharma. Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, centre, is one of the opposition leaders in India’s upcoming elections [File: AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A] Vaibhav Walia, chairman of the INC communications war room for the 2024 election, told Al Jazeera that meme-based communication is more effective in terms of getting across the party’s message on social media. One of the reasons for the use of AI is the need to create “standout content that can catch the eyes” of the voters, and keeping up with current social media trends, he said. “When everything is communicated in terms of memes and sarcasm, you can’t be really formal,” Walia said. “In India, official political party channels are also moving in a direction wherein the blows are getting nastier by the day. The Congress [INC] party … has some young blood in the party, and they are pretty nasty in giving it back to the BJP.” Walia did not comment on the voluntary labelling of AI content. The two suspected AI clips, shared by the BJP’s official Instagram handle @BJP4India, were harder to discern as AI-created or not. Al Jazeera shared the two clips with two independent deepfake detection experts to test if they were AI-enhanced. The analysts were divided on the second video, where one judged the voice could be human “mimicry” of politicians. Both analysts unanimously agreed the singing voice in the first video was an AI voice. “We have run the two samples through several proprietary state-of-the-art research AI-voice detection algorithms [and found that] the voice sample is unanimously determined by these algorithms to be AI-generated with likelihood scores ranging from 60 percent to 99 percent,”
Hong Kong government releases draft new national security law
New bill includes lengthy prison terms for offences such as treason and longer sentences for acts deemed to be sedition. Hong Kong’s Legislative Council has begun debating the draft of a new national security law for the Chinese territory after Chief Executive John Lee said it should be passed at “full speed”. Discussions on the Safeguarding National Security Bill, as it is officially known, started at 11am (03:00 GMT) on Friday. The draft bill, some 212 pages long (PDF), was released in the morning and includes new laws on treason, espionage, external interference, state secrets and sedition. Those found guilty of treason could face sentences of up to life imprisonment, while those convicted of breaching state secrets or espionage could face 10 and 20 years respectively. Punishments relating to alleged collusion with foreign forces will also be increased, particularly if people are deemed to be working together rather than alone. For sedition, currently addressed under a colonial-era law, have also been increased – to seven years from two – and will also cover inciting hatred against the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s socialist system of governance. Police will also be allowed to detain suspects for two weeks before charging them, compared with 48 hours currently. In a statement, Lee urged the passage of the bill at “full speed” to enable the territory to move forward. Hong Kong “has to enact the Basic Law Article 23 legislation as soon as possible – the earlier the better. Completing the legislative work even one day earlier means we can more effectively safeguard national security one day earlier,” he said in a statement. “The Hong Kong SAR [Special Administrative Region] can then focus its efforts on developing the economy, improving people’s livelihood and maintaining the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong.” The draft is being put before legislators just over a week after a month-long public consultation process on the bill came to an end. The government said it received some 13,147 submissions and that 98.6 percent “indicated support for the legislation and made positive comments”. It also held consultations with select groups involving about 3,000 people. Hong Kong has a population of more than seven million people. The bill is unlikely to encounter significant opposition in the Legislative Council. Pro-Beijing candidates swept the last polls in December 2021 after changes to electoral rules cut the number of directly-elected seats and ensured only those deemed loyal to China could contest. The house has no opposition members. Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets the year before calling for more democracy in protests that sometimes turned violent. The broadly-worded Beijing law bypassed the local legislature, which then included a substantial number of pro-democracy legislators, and made acts deemed to be secession, subversion, “terrorism” and collusion with foreign forces punishable with sentences as long as life in prison. Human rights groups say the law has “decimated” the territory’s long-held freedoms, which Beijing had promised to respect for at least 50 years after regaining sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. Thousands have been arrested, media and civil society groups have closed, and many pro-democracy politicians have gone into exile. Media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who owned the Apple Daily tabloid, is currently on trial in one of the most high-profile national security cases. The Apple Daily was closed in 2021 after police raided its offices, Lai and other staff were arrested and its assets frozen. Hong Kong has said the new security law is necessary to “plug gaps” in the Chinese-imposed law. Adblock test (Why?)
US lawmakers advance bill to force TikTok to cut ties with Chinese owner
Critics say Beijing could force video-sharing app to share data on its US users and spread propaganda. Lawmakers in the United States are moving ahead with proposals to ban TikTok unless it cuts ties with its Chinese parent company amid claims the platform could be used to spy on Americans and manipulate public opinion. A US House of Representatives committee on Thursday voted 50-0 to advance the bill, setting it up for a likely full vote in the near future. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on X that he would bring the “critical national security bill” to the House floor for a vote next week. The bill, introduced by Republican Mike Gallagher, would give Beijing-headquartered ByteDance roughly six months to divest or face a ban. The latest push to restrict TikTok comes after former President Donald Trump’s efforts to ban the app in 2020 were blocked by the courts. 🚨 The @HouseCommerce Committee just voted 50-0 to force TikTok to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist Party. I will bring this critical national security bill to the House floor for a vote next week. — Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) March 7, 2024 TikTok’s critics have argued that Beijing could force the platform to share data on its US users and spread propaganda and misinformation. TikTok has denied sharing personal data with the Chinese government and insisted it would refuse any request if asked. “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression,” TikTok said in a statement accusing the legislation’s backers of seeking the predetermined outcome of a total ban. “This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.” Gallagher denied seeking to ban the platform outright, saying it could continue to operate in the US “provided there is that separation”. “It is not a ban – think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumour and thereby save the patient in the process,” he said. The prospects of the bill becoming law are unclear, although concern about TikTok extends to both sides of the aisle. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has backed the measures, and the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has broadly welcomed the proposals while indicating the legislation “still needs some work” to gain its support. In November, a judge blocked the state of Montana from implementing its first-of-its-kind ban on TikTok, saying it violated the free speech rights of users. Adblock test (Why?)
Ten years after MH370 disappeared, what do we know?
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – MH370 has now been missing for 10 years. The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 was on an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board when it disappeared. Its last transmission was from Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah as the twin-engined aircraft moved into Vietnamese airspace in the early hours of March 8, about 40 minutes after leaving Kuala Lumpur. “Good night Malaysian three seven zero,” he said, as he bade farewell to Malaysian air traffic control. Then all went quiet. But while the plane disappeared from radar, it apparently continued flying for hours. Early searches of the South China Sea were wrapped up as attention shifted to a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, where satellite pings suggested the plane came down after running out of fuel. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on scouring the seas without any sign of debris. A few small pieces of fuselage have been found – including a flaperon, which forms part of the wing – washed up on beaches on Indian Ocean islands and in eastern Africa, but the world knows little more than it did in 2014. The Boeing 777-200 is some 64 metres long [210ft] and many struggle to understand how such a huge plane could have gone missing [File: Tomasz Bartkowiak/Reuters] MH370 has evolved into one of the greatest mysteries of modern aviation. Here is all you need to know. Who and what was on board? There were nationals of more than a dozen countries on board the lost plane, although more than half were from China. The passengers included a group of prominent Chinese artists who had been showing their calligraphy in Kuala Lumpur, two Iranians travelling on fake European passports, an Indonesian heading to Beijing to start a new job, a Malaysian couple on their honeymoon, young families with children and a stunt double for Jet Li. In the cockpit, Zaharie, a 53-year-old father of three, had joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and was one of its top pilots. Beside him was Fariq Hamid Ahmad. The 27-year-old has just qualified to co-pilot the 777. In the cabin, the Malaysian crew was led by supervisor Patrick Gomes who had worked for the airline for 35 years. When the plane disappeared, investigators also scrutinised its cargo. In the hold, there were found to be shipments of electronics including lithium batteries, as well as walkie-talkies. There was also a large consignment of mangosteens, a sweet tropical fruit known for its purple skin. More than half the passengers on board were from China, and there were angry scenes amid growing frustration at the airline’s inability to tell relatives what had happened to their loved ones [File: Jason Lee/Reuters] What happened when MH370 went missing? When Malaysians woke up to the news that the plane had gone missing, they were shocked. Despite perennial problems with its finances, the national carrier had a good safety record and a place in many a Malaysian heart. As the hours passed and no one seemed to have much idea of what had happened, shock turned to disbelief. In Beijing, tearful relatives demanded to know what had happened to their loved ones. Amid the lack of answers, officials from Malaysia Airlines, civil aviation authorities and the Malaysian government came under unprecedented international scrutiny. Then it became clear that the aircraft had never entered Vietnamese airspace. Shortly after Zaharie signed off, MH370 went dark. Its transponders were turned off and its tracking system was somehow disabled. Military radar showed the plane left its flight path to fly back over northern Malaysia and Penang island, and then out into the Andaman Sea towards the tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The final sighting on military radar was on March 8 at 2:22am Malaysian time (18:22 GMT, March 7). From there, the aircraft turned south – out into the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. A flaperon from MH370 was recovered from the shore of Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean in 2015 [File: Raymond Wae Tion/EPA] What has been done to find it? In the immediate aftermath of the plane going missing, Malaysia coordinated a search that involved more than two dozen countries. While initial efforts focussed on the South China Sea and the Andaman Sea, attention turned to the southern Indian Ocean when the military radar findings emerged on March 12, and the British telecommunications firm Inmarsat shared automated connections between its satellite and the 777 that suggested the plane could be somewhere along an arc of coordinates in the southern Indian Ocean. An initial aerial search of the ocean began on March 18 and covered an area of 4.5 million square kilometres (1.7 million square miles). The multinational effort, led by Australia, failed to find any sign of the plane and ended after six weeks. Attention then turned to the inhospitable seabed, some 2,800km off the coast of Western Australia The search, covering some 120,000 square kilometres (46,332 square miles), involved ships, submarines and aircraft, and cost $147m. The notoriously poor weather of the southern Indian Ocean added to the challenges, and the effort was suspended in 2017. A P-3C Orion from the US Navy prepares for takeoff in the multinational search for MH370 [File: Eric A Pastor/US Navy via Reuters] While the team discovered shipwrecks dating from the 19th century, they found no sign of the plane. A US firm, Ocean Infinity, then took up the challenge, working on a “no find, no fee” basis. That search – covering more than 112,000 square kilometres (43,243 square kilometres) just north of the initial search area – also failed to turn up any trace of the plane. What might have happened to MH370? Malaysia’s official report into the disappearance, released in 2018, found that while foul play was probably involved, it was not possible to say who had turned off the transponders and turned the plane around. “The answer can only be conclusive if the
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 744
As the war enters its 744th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Friday, March 8, 2024. Fighting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a decree authorising the demobilisation of conscripts who joined the army before Russia’s invasion and whose service has come to an end. At least two people were killed in Russian rocket attacks on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and another man was killed further west in Chernihiv region, local officials said. Ihor Zhovkva, a top diplomatic adviser for Ukraine, told broadcaster CNN he could not exclude the possibility that a Russian missile had deliberately targeted the delegations of Zelenskyy and the visiting prime minister of Greece when they visited Odesa earlier this week. Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, denied the accusation. Politics and diplomacy Sweden became the 32nd member of NATO, abandoning its long-held neutrality in a process that started as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China sees itself as a “force for peace” in the world, but would continue to deepen its ties with Russia. “In the face of complex turmoil in the international environment, China will persist in being a force for peace, a force for stability, and a force for progress in the world,” Wang told reporters. Ukraine named Valerii Zaluzhnyi its new envoy to the United Kingdom a month after he was removed from his position as the country’s military commander-in-chief. Zelenskyy is scheduled to visit Turkey on Friday for a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two are likely to discuss the ongoing war, the Black Sea grain deal and bilateral relations. Speaking in Prague, French President Emmanuel Macron called on Ukraine’s allies not to be “cowards”, after being criticised for his proposal to send Western soldiers to fight on the ground in Ukraine. A new poll conducted by the Associated Press showed few Americans want the country to take a more active role in solving the world’s problems, including in Ukraine where the latest round of funding is tied up in Congress. The poll showed only about a quarter think the US should take a more active role. About one-third say its current role is about right. Weapons Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said it was critical to US credibility to provide US military aid to Ukraine, and if the US withdrew from its leadership role, it would take time to develop European capacity to fill the gap. The UK said it would provide 10,000 drones to arm Ukraine, the weaponry will include 1,000 one-way attack – or kamikaze – drones and models that target ships. Adblock test (Why?)
MH370 went missing 10 years ago. An Indonesian family hopes it can be found
Medan, Indonesia – Herlina Panjaitan has not changed her mobile phone number since her son, 25-year-old Firman Chandra Siregar, went missing 10 years ago. Siregar, an Indonesian, was a passenger on MH370, the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared 40 minutes into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the early hours of March 8, 2014 and was never heard from again. It is important to 69-year-old Panjaitan that her number remains the same, just in case her youngest son tries to call her. “That was the number I used at the time and that is the number Firman has for me. I still hope he will call and ask me to go and pick him up, wherever he is,” she told Al Jazeera. Panjaitan had travelled to Kuala Lumpur from her home in Medan, Indonesia with her daughter-in-law and grandson the night before Siregar departed for Beijing, so the family could spend some time together before he started his new job with an oil company in China. Before he left for the airport to catch the late-night flight, Panjaitan helped her son pack his belongings, including a bag filled with warm clothing for Beijing’s freezing winter. The family took photographs together, with Siregar beaming as he played with his nephew. Panjaitan proudly displays photos of Siregan in her home, including of his graduation from the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology [Aisyah Llewellyn/Al Jazeera] The pictures now hang on the wall of the family’s home in Medan, which lies on the other side of the Strait of Malacca facing Malaysia. “I told him to be careful and call me when he got to Beijing,” Panjaitan said. “There was no feeling that anything was about to go wrong.” The next morning, Panjaitan got a call from her daughter who worked at the Indonesian embassy in Mexico to ask her if she had heard the news about MH370. “She just said that she had heard that it had lost contact with air traffic control,” she recalled. “I didn’t know what to think.” Panjaitan and her family immediately rushed to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) where the families of the 239 passengers and crew on board were briefed on the plane’s mysterious disappearance. “That is when I started to believe that it had really gone missing,” she said. Ten years since it took off from KLIA, the plane’s fate has become one of aviation’s greatest mysteries. No one has been able to say with any certainty what happened to the Boeing 777 after Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah signed off from Malaysian air traffic control with the words “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero”, and prepared to enter Vietnamese airspace. According to satellite data, rather than continuing on to Beijing, the plane dramatically veered off course, flying back across northern Malaysia and skirting around Indonesia, before heading south towards the deep waters of the Indian Ocean. Panjaitan said that she called Siregar’s mobile phone after she heard the news and that it had rung several times but that no one had answered. A woman in Kuala Lumpur writes a message to mark the 10th anniversary of MH370’s disappearance [FL Wong/AP Photo] Two weeks later, then Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced the plane had “ended” its journey in the remote southern Indian Ocean. ‘The best child’ Siregar, a graduate of Indonesia’s prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology, was the youngest of five children – three boys and two girls – and Panjaitan says he was “the best”. “That doesn’t mean my other children aren’t amazing,” she explained. “One works as a prosecutor and another is a diplomat, but Firman was just the best child and my other children understand what I mean when I say that. He was so handsome, so well-behaved, so respectful and so kind. “He never gave me any trouble as a child, and he knew what to do and what not to do without me telling him.” Before he went to Beijing, Siregar had introduced his mother and family to his girlfriend and her parents, who had travelled from Bandung to meet Panjaitan and her husband Chrisman. “They said they wanted to get married and I was happy that he’d found his life partner,” she said. Six months after the plane went missing, Panjaitan and her husband went to Bandung to meet Siregar’s girlfriend and gave her their blessing to move forward with her life. “We said that if she wanted to get married in the future, she should do it,” Panjaitan told Al Jazeera. “She didn’t say anything, just cried. And we cried too, it was just so sad.” Many theories, few answers Endless speculation has filled the void left by the failure to find MH370. Some claim Captain Zaharie engineered a sophisticated murder-suicide plot to deliberately crash the plane into the ocean. Others suggest that the plane was hijacked, deliberately shot down, or suffered a technical malfunction that cut off its communication systems and incapacitated the pilots leading to its eventual crash. None of the claims has been proven. Searches have proved fruitless, including a significant underwater and air search across an area of 120,000sq km (46,332sq miles) that cost $147m and was led by an Australian team in conjunction with Malaysia and China. The Malaysian authorities have also launched several investigations that culminated in a 495-page report that was finally released in 2018. It found that while foul play was likely, it was not possible to say who was responsible. Last week, ahead of the 10th anniversary, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim reiterated that Malaysia was prepared to reopen an investigation if new evidence emerged. Malaysia’s transport minister, Anthony Loke, has also said that he has plans to meet US marine robotics company, Ocean Infinity, to discuss a new proposed underwater search. Panjaitan said that her family welcomes any renewed investigation. Some fragments from the plane have washed up on East African beaches, including a flaperon that forms part of the wing, but there has been nothing
North Korea’s COVID curbs still strangling economy, report says
Tightened border controls introduced to curb COVID-19 are still strangling North Korea’s economic activity and informal trade networks more than 18 months after leader Kim Jong Un declared victory over the pandemic, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. North Korea was one of the first countries to act on reports of COVID-19 circulating in early 2020, sealing itself off from the outside world and its economic lifeline in China. As Pyongyang suspended freight shipments from China for two years, authorities also beefed up border barriers to prevent any movement between the countries – going as far as issuing a shoot to kill order for people and animals to prevent them from spreading COVID-19. Satellite photos of six locations on the China-North Korea border show that fencing was expanded to cover 321 kilometres in 2023, up from 230 kilometres before the pandemic, HRW said in a report released on Thursday. Existing fences were also updated to include more watchtowers, guard posts, and secondary and tertiary layers of fencing, the rights group said. Since then, heightened border security has made it nearly impossible for North Koreans to leave, with the number of defectors dropping sharply from 1,047 in 2019 to a low of 63 in 2021, and then 196 last year, the report said. “The government’s persistent drive to control its population, overbroad and prolonged responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and expanded nuclear weapons capabilities, have combined with the intensifying external pressures of UN Security Council sanctions to turn North Korea – already effectively a country-wide prison – into an even more repressive and isolated state,” the report said. As authorities ramped up border patrols during the pandemic, officials also cracked down on bribery that since the late 1990s had allowed North Koreans to evade government restrictions on daily life to the extent they could enjoy some freedom of movement and buy goods at formal and informal markets, according to HRW. “Almost all” cross-border movement of people and formal and informal commercial trade has stopped since the pandemic began, the report said, citing interviews with 16 North Korean defectors who were in contact with family or informal brokers and smugglers still in the country. “Informal traders can only get small packages that they can carry easily in their hands or hide in their body,” Lee Kwang Baek, director of the Unification Media Group, a Seoul-based NGO that broadcasts news to North Korea, said in the report. The new security measures have made civilians afraid to even approach border regions for fear they could be shot, according to testimony from a former North Korean trader quoted in the report. “My [relative] said there were no words to describe how hard life was. There was no [informal] trade with China, not even to get some rice or a bag of wheat. If [authorities] heard of a soldier allowing that, that person would just disappear,” the trade said in the report. “Soldiers are very scared … My [relative] said people in [her area] said there is not even an ant crossing the border.” North Korean authorities have also started cracking down on jangmadang, or informal markets, which had been tolerated to supplement people’s daily needs following a catastrophic famine in the 1990s, the breakdown of the government rationing system, and continuing international sanctions, according to the report. Officials have imposed tougher punishments from forced labour to capital punishment for “distributing imported products that don’t have official trading certificates and conducting economic activity in streets or places without permits,” HRW said. The rights watchdog said it had received reports of authorities clamping down on “foreign culture, copying South Korean slang, hairstyles, and clothes”. Young people found to have watched or distributed the Netflix Series Squid Game and South Korean films have been sentenced to hard labour or even executed, according to defectors cited in the report. Before the pandemic, a study by the United States-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recorded 436 officially sanctioned markets spread across rural and urban North Korea that provided access to food, medical supplies, and contraband films and music. Often run by married women looking to supplement low wages earned by other family members, the markets earned the government an estimated $56.8m per year in taxes and fees, according to CSIS estimates. Peter Ward, a research fellow at the South Korea-based Sejong Institute who was not involved in the report, said that North Korea has yet to move on from COVID like other countries have. “When we talk about post-COVID in the West, South Korea, Japan, we’re talking about 2022 when things start to normalise. North Korea’s normalisation has been delayed a lot and arguably they haven’t really finished normalisation yet,” Ward told Al Jazeera. “The black market… is partially supplied by cross border smugglers and smuggling networks, and these networks are substantially damaged by COVID-era lockdowns and border controls,” Ward added. Adblock test (Why?)
Timeline: The Biden administration on Gaza, in its own words
Washington, DC – As Israel’s war in Gaza prompts mounting human rights concerns, the United States has slowly notched up criticism of the Israeli government while simultaneously continuing to arm and support its ally. On Sunday, US Vice President Kamala Harris delivered the sternest statement yet on the war’s toll, marking a shift in rhetoric within the administration of President Joe Biden. An estimated 30,800 Palestinians have been killed, with more at risk of malnutrition and starvation. “People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane, and our common humanity compels us to act,” Harris said. “The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid — no excuses.” However, critics were quick to point out that the Biden administration is pushing forward with its military and diplomatic support for Israel, despite acknowledging the crisis. Thursday marks five months since the Palestinian group Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel, starting the present-day war. Israel has led a deadly bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, in addition to a siege that limits Gaza’s access to key resources like food and water. As the conflict enters its sixth month, Al Jazeera looks at key statements from the Biden administration on the war and how Washington’s position evolved over time. October 7, 2023: Shortly after Hamas’s attack on Israel, Biden delivers a message of uncompromising support to the US ally while also warning other parties against entering the war. About 1,100 Israelis were killed in the attack, with more than 200 others taken captive. “My administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering,” Biden says. October 10, 2023: Biden sets the stage for a forceful Israeli response after speaking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I just got off the phone — the third call with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And I told him if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive and overwhelming,” he says. October 12, 2023: Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels to Israel to voice support for the country. “If you’ll permit me a personal aside, I come before you not only as the United States secretary of state but also as a Jew,” he tells Netanyahu. October 16, 2023: Biden warns Israel against establishing a permanent military presence in Gaza. “I think it’d be a big mistake,” he tells CBS News. October 18, 2023: After the US sends aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Biden again warns parties in the region to not enter the war. “My message to any state or any other hostile actor thinking about attacking Israel remains the same as it was a week ago: Don’t. Don’t. Don’t,” he says during a visit to Israel. October 18, 2023: The US vetoes a United Nations Security Council proposal that would have called for a humanitarian pause in the fighting. “We are on the ground doing the hard work of diplomacy. We believe we need to let that diplomacy play out,” US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield says after the vote. Palestinians gather to inspect a destroyed building following the Israeli attacks in Rafah on March 5 [Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu Agency] October 25, 2023: Biden questions the mounting Palestinian death toll. “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war,” he says. October 26, 2023: White House national security spokesperson John Kirby acknowledges that there have been a large number of civilian casualties and predicts that more innocent people will be hurt in the conflict. “That’s what war is. It’s brutal. It’s ugly. It’s messy,” Kirby tells reporters. November 3, 2023: Blinken calls for humanitarian pauses to allow more aid into Gaza and enable the release of Israeli captives. “We believe that each of these efforts would be facilitated by humanitarian pauses,” he says. November 8, 2023: Senior State Department official Barbara Leaf says the Palestinian Authority should rule post-war Gaza. “Whatever its shortcomings, it is the government for the Palestinians in the West Bank. We do believe that ultimately Palestinian voices and aspirations have to be at the centrepiece of post-conflict governance and security in Gaza,” she tells US lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. November 15, 2023: Washington abstains on a UN Security Council resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses”, with Thomas-Greenfield decrying the council’s failure to condemn Hamas. “What are they afraid of? Let’s be crystal clear: Hamas set this conflict in motion,” she said. November 21, 2023: Biden welcomes a deal for a four-day pause in the fighting. “I appreciate the commitment that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have made in supporting an extended pause to ensure this deal can be fully carried out and to ensure the provision of additional humanitarian assistance to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinian families in Gaza,” the US president says in a statement. December 8, 2023: The State Department bypasses Congress to deliver thousands of tank shells to Israel on an emergency basis. “We want to make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself against Hamas,” Blinken says. December 8, 2023: The US vetoes a UN Security Council measure that would have urged an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. “The resolution retains a call for an unconditional ceasefire. This is not only unrealistic but dangerous; it will simply leave Hamas in place,” US diplomat Robert Wood says. December 12, 2023: Biden accuses Israel of indiscriminate bombardment in Gaza, a war crime. “They’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” he says of Israel. December 13, 2023: The White House downplays Biden’s comments on the bombing of Gaza. “Israel will do exactly what they say they’re doing, which is to continue to go after the terrorist leaders and to do so in a way that minimises civilian harm,” Kirby says. December 22, 2023: The US abstains on a UN Security