thelucky8

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Of course, ordinary, non-LGBTQ+ victims of Putin’s regime are treated harshly too, but LGBTQ+ people are likely to face more brutality. What is truly horrifying is the deep-seated hatred and disgust toward LGBTQ+ people in Russian prisons, where individuals accused of “LGBTQ+ extremism” will eventually end up.

It is common knowledge that in Russian prisons, those even suspected of being gay are subjected to dehumanization, humiliation and sexual violence, both from fellow inmates and prison authorities. Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian-born human rights activist, claims that, according to his sources, Kotov, while in detention, was raped and had already been relegated to the ranks of prisoners with “low social status.”

Sexualized violence undoubtedly exists and has existed in penitentiary systems worldwide throughout history. Even before the Soviet Union, in tsarist prisons, sexualized violence among males was quite common: older inmates inflicted sexual violence on younger inmates.

Age, physical strength, prison status and one’s perceived masculine or feminine behavior, as well as resources, dictated who would be sexual prey and who would be sexual predator. If a youthful newcomer was raped by fellow prisoners, he would be rapidly incorporated into the prison’s social system as a “pederast,” at its lowest caste. After this status was set, he would become a prostitute, not to mention an object of attacks and abuse from other prisoners.

These practices continued in the Stalinist Gulag. Sexual violence among males was so widespread, and its role in establishing unofficial prison hierarchies so evident, that Gulag officials, after Stalin’s death, took measures to crack down on prison homosexual activity and homosexual violence.

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In contrast to the late-Soviet and post-Soviet periods, in today’s Russia, sexual violence in prisons does not seem to bother officials much. In fact, not only are they not concerned about it, but they are willing to weaponize and harness it as a means of controlling prisoners and instilling fear in them.

The issue of widespread torture of prisoners, as well as prison authorities’ encouraging and condoning of sexual violence among male prisoners, gained prominence in Russia after Osechkin started to attract public attention to the issue. In 2012, the businessman-turned-human-rights-activist set up Gulagu.net, which has become a unique social networking site, where the relatives of abused prisoners can register their complaints, share information and seek assistance.

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While the Supreme Court continues to consider the constitutionality of the TikTok ban, it is clear that TikTok presents serious and unique national security and human rights concerns. The platform’s parent company, ByteDance, is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has a record of coercing the private sector into conducting censorship and surveillance at home and abroad. The risks of TikTok being exploited by the CCP for malign purposes—for instance, to access personal data to track journalists or shape the information environment in the United States in the event of a national crisis—are very real and need to be taken seriously.

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A better approach to protecting rights and security would be to adopt legislation that strengthens data privacy, platform transparency, and cybersecurity. This would force TikTok to operate more responsibly and better protect Americans’ data, while shedding light on the influence that ByteDance and the CCP have over the platform. This approach would also help address challenges raised by other social media platforms, including those with similar ties to authoritarian states.

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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18055357

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***This is an opinionated piece by Nick Trickett, commodities analyst with Fitch Solutions. All views expressed are his own and do not represent those of his employer. ***

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The Ukrainian Association of Geologists estimates that the country has as much as 5% of the world’s critical minerals resources, including titanium, uranium, lithium, gallium, manganese, beryllium, rare earth elements, bulk ores like iron and scores of other minerals. It is hardly a stretch to imagine that Kyiv and Moscow are aware of their strategic value.

Resource wars typically bring oil to mind. However, cleantech is changing how nations conceive of energy security. Where fossil fuel crises are immediate – these fuels are produced or imported, used only once and sometimes have storage constraints – the clean energy crises of the future come from disruptions to the supplies of metals required to build essential technology. In turn, these metals are processed from ores that, in their raw form, can be stacked in warehouses indefinitely.

Proponents of the financial windfall from these minerals might rethink the scale of the markets involved. In tonnage equivalent, the world consumes over 5 billion tons of crude oil and its derived products every year. Financial markets trade oil product futures equivalent to 2.5 trillion tons, the combined markets of which generate trillions of dollars of trading activity.

Among critical minerals, copper is king with a physical trade of about 30 million tons a year, worth closer to $270 billion with a comparatively small futures market footprint. Lithium – a hot topic for Ukraine’s mineral riches – is closer to 1.5 million tons and lacks a liquid futures market for now, generating more like $30 billion a year. Critical minerals are indeed critical but do not generate the same financial muscle as oil to finance recovery or provide tax revenues.

If Russia’s war aims concern Ukraine’s mineral wealth, the obvious question is what comes next? Sanctions are unlikely to go anywhere and Europe will not turn to buying resources from Russia. China controls half or more of the processing and refining of virtually every critical mineral, often through vertically integrated companies that are profitable at lower prices than their Western peers. Either Russia intends to build a green economy – terrible for its existing growth and fiscal model – or it will sell to Chinese buyers who can drive a hard bargain on price.

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For Ukraine, on the other hand, these reserves are strategically valuable because they could grant Kyiv a competitive advantage for cleantech and nuclear tech manufacturing. A post-war Ukraine could benefit from reshoring supply chains out of Germany, as Poland and other eastern European members of the EU. If Kyiv were to ensure rapid investment and development, it would likely look at primarily taxing miners’ profits rather than extraction, significantly reducing the tax base from the sector in exchange for export earnings to bolster the hryvnia.

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Ukraine also has gallium, a rare metal used in semiconductors, solar PVs, LED lights, circuitry, and power converters. China recently imposed export controls on gallium in response to U.S. policy, exploiting its near-total control of refined gallium production. This could provide an opportunity for Ukraine to become indispensable to global supply chains, but the market is quite small in financial terms.

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Europe has the most to gain from unlocking a new supply of minerals. Squeezed between the mercurial bellicosity of Trump and the mounting pressure of China’s cleantech prowess and economic slowdown makes Beijing even more reliant on exports, the continent’s reliance on trade for a large share of its GDP makes it an ideal partner for Kyiv. Building mines in the EU is even harder than in the U.S. Onshoring mineral value chains provides opportunities for cost-savings and vertical integration. For all its tough talk and acknowledging the growing gap between Europe’s financial support for Ukraine and that of the United States, there is not yet reason to believe European governments are willing to make even larger sacrifices to ensure Ukraine wins a fair peace.

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Ukraine may seek to use its mineral wealth as a diplomatic object of negotiations for a just peace. That would be completely understandable in a war for national survival. Whoever controls these deposits faces the whims and disorder of rapidly changing markets that confound expectations and pose challenges.

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Beijing's Salt Typhoon cyberspies had been seen in US government networks before telcos discovered the same foreign intruders in their own systems, according to CISA boss Jen Easterly.

Speaking at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) event on Wednesday, the agency director said her threat hunters detected the Chinese government goons in federal networks before the far-reaching espionage campaign against people's telecommunications providers had been found and attributed to Salt Typhoon.

"We saw it as a separate campaign, called it another goofy cyber name, and we were able to, based on the visibility that we had within the federal networks, connect some dots," and tie the first set of snoops to the same crew that burrowed into AT&T, Verizon, and other telecoms firms' infrastructure, Easterly noted.

By compromising those telcos – specifically, the systems that allow the Feds to lawfully monitor criminal suspects [the U.S. Wiretap system} – Salt Typhoon had the capability to geolocate millions of subscribers, access people's internet traffic, and record phone calls at will.

This visibility into federal government networks, combined with private-industry tips coming into CISA, led to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies obtaining court-approved access to Salt-Typhoon-leased virtual private servers.

"That then led to cracking open the larger Salt Typhoon piece," Easterly said.

Still, she cautioned, "what we have found is likely just the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to Chinese intrusions into American critical infrastructure.

"China is the most persistent and serious cyber threat to the nation and to our national critical infrastructure," Easterly warned, adding that Salt Typhoon isn't her biggest worry when it comes to Middle Kingdom cyberthreats.

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The public later learned that the same PRC-backed crew had compromised at least one large US city's emergency services network, been conducting reconnaissance on "multiple" American electric companies, and was still lurking inside power, water, and comms systems, preparing to "wreak havoc" on American infrastructure and "cause societal chaos" in the US.

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18047893

Austrian digital rights organization noyb led by Max Schrems has filed GDPR complaints against TikTok, AliExpress, SHEIN, Temu, WeChat and Xiaomi for unlawful data transfers to China. While four of them openly admit to sending Europeans’ personal data to China, the other two say that they transfer data to undisclosed “third countries”.

As none of the companies responded adequately to the complainants’ access requests, we have to assume that this includes China. But EU law is clear: data transfers outside the EU are only allowed if the destination country doesn’t undermine the protection of data. Given that China is an authoritarian surveillance state, companies can’t realistically shield EU users’ data from access by the Chinese government. After issues around US government access, the rise of Chinese apps opens a new front for EU data protection law.

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• Chinese commercial banks have flocked to buying government bonds as Beijing's stimulus push has failed to spur consumers loan demand.
• Total new yuan loans in the 11 months through to November 2024 fell over 20% to 17.1 trillion yuan ($2.33 trillion) from a year ago, according to data released by the People's Bank of China.
• Chinese sovereign bonds have seen a strong rally since December, with yields plunging to all-time lows this month.

With consumers and businesses gloomy about the prospects of the world's second-largest economy, loan growth has stalled. Beijing's stimulus push has so far not been able to spur consumer credit demand, and is yet to spark any meaningful rebound in the faltering economy.

So what do banks do with their cash? Buy government bonds.

Chinese sovereign bonds have seen a strong rally since December, with 10-year yields plunging to all-time lows this month, dropping by about 34 basis points, according to LSEG data.

"The lack of strong consumer and business loan demand has led the capital flows into the sovereign bonds market," said Edmund Goh, investment director of fixed income at abrdn in Singapore.

That said, "the biggest problem onshore is a lack of assets to invest," he added, as "there are no signs that China can get out of deflation at the moment."

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"There is still a lack of quality borrowing demand as private enterprises remain cautious with approving new investments and households are also tightening purse strings," said Lynn Song, chief economist at ING.

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The slowdown in loans comes as mortgages, which used to fuel credit demand, are still in the stage of bottoming, said Andy Maynard, managing director and head of equities at China Renaissance.

Chinese onshore investors have to contend with a lack of "investable asset to put money in, both in financial market and in physical market," he added.

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Zong Ke [portfolio manager at Shanghai-based asset manager Wequant] said the current policy interventions are merely "efforts to prevent economic collapse and cushion against external shocks" and "simply to avoid a freefall."

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A woman in her seventies served two months hard time after being found guilty for rioting on Jan. 6, but she is promising to refuse any pardon from "felon" Donald Trump.

Pam Hemphill, from Boise, Idaho, was once all in on Trump, but she condemned the former and incoming President in an appearance on CNN earlier this year, going as far as to say he is "totally responsible" for what happened that day.

She ultimately admitted she was in a "cult," and backed Vice President Kamala Harris

On Sunday, Hemphill claimed that members of the MAGA movement had called her probation officer to try to get her in trouble. That attempt, she said, "backfired."

"I’m not going to be bullied by MAGA anymore, as those who went as far as calling my Probation Officer trying to get me in trouble backfired on them, thinking I would stop speaking out, just give me more confidence to continue!" she said. "I will refuse a pardon from felon Trump!"

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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18015158

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Chinese game 'Marvel' has been accused of censorship after players of its new video game were unable to chat about topics that are banned in China.

Marvel Rivals is a new release featuring battles between heroic characters such as Captain America and Iron Man and the villains Loki and Venom. The plot revolves around Doctor Doom and his future counterpart Doom 2099.

The game was developed by Marvel in conjunction with the Chinese developer NetEase and released in December. However, players have been blocked from typing in words such as “Tiananmen Square” and “Wuhan virus” in the chat function. They are met with the warning: “text contains inappropriate content”.

Marvel Rivals game artwork featuring Iron Man, Spider-Man, and other characters.

Other restricted phrases include “free Taiwan”, “free Hong Kong”, “free Tibet”, “Taiwan is a country”, “Taiwan No 1” and even “1989”, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Chatting about Mao Zedong or the Dalai Lama is also banned.

Winnie-the-Pooh, a name associated with President Xi, is blocked. Xi was compared to the character after appearing in a photograph with Barack Obama in 2017.

Popular gamers have posted videos of themselves trying to type in the words. Asmongold, the YouTuber, is allowed to type in the words “Taiwan sucks” and “Taiwan is bad” only to be blocked when trying “free Taiwan”. At the end of the video he added sarcastically: “Marvel Rivals is a very interesting game that has no censorship at all and lets people think whatever they want and that’s just the way it is guys.”

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China has a long history of censoring the content of video games and films for the domestic market. The Second World War strategy game Hearts of Iron was banned for depicting Tibet, Manchuria and Xinjiang as independent nations. Command & Conquer: Generals, a game depicting a hypothetical Third World War, was said to “smear the image of China and the Chinese army”.

Marvel has also been accused of altering films so they would be accepted in the Chinese market. In the 2016 film Doctor Strange the main character is trained by a Celtic woman played by Tilda Swinton rather than a Tibetan monk who appeared in the original comics. A screenwriter claimed it was to appease the Chinese authorities and Marvel later admitted the move was a mistake.

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Here is the report (pdf)

Advancements in AI and biometrics by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) pose significant risks to global security, particularly to the United States and Western nations, according to an unclassified report from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

The nearly 200-page DOD report to Congress, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, details how the PRC’s strategic integration of AI and biometric technologies into national security, military modernization, and global influence operations threatens U.S. and Western security.

The report warns that “PRC leaders … power to shape world events continues to grow, presenting ‘new strategic opportunities’ to create an environment favorable for PRC interests and national rejuvenation.” The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defines “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” as a state in which the PRC is “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful.”

National rejuvenation, however, DOD emphases, “requires the PRC to ‘take an active part in leading the reform of the global governance system’ since many rules and norms were established, in the PRC’s view, during a time of PRC weakness and without the PRC’s consultation and input.”

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The PRC views AI as being pivotal to its future warfare capabilities and global influence. According to DOD, “The PRC aims to overtake the West in AI R&D by 2025 to become the world leader in AI by 2030. The PRC has designated AI as a priority, national-level S&T development area and assesses that advances in AI and autonomy are central to ‘intelligentized warfare,’ the PRC’s concept of future warfare.”

This strategy includes leveraging AI to enhance cyber operations, such as reconnaissance, deepfake generation, misinformation campaigns, and state-sponsored hacking to acquire a waterfront of sensitive information, including personal data that it can use to blackmail and coerce targeted individuals. DOD says, “the PRC presents a significant, persistent cyber-enabled espionage and attack threat.” Conversely, DOD says the CCP Party Congress has “stressed the CCP’s need to prevent digital penetration, sabotage, subversion, and separatism activities from external actors.”

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Under its Military-Civil Fusion initiative, the PRC seeks to integrate civilian and military innovation ecosystems to develop cutting-edge AI-enabled military capabilities. DOD says, “Beijing views the integration of military and civilian institutions as central for developing AI-enabled military capabilities and has established military-civilian R&D centers and procured commercially developed AI … to ensure PLA access to cutting-edge AI technologies.”

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Chinese game 'Marvel' has been accused of censorship after players of its new video game were unable to chat about topics that are banned in China.

Marvel Rivals is a new release featuring battles between heroic characters such as Captain America and Iron Man and the villains Loki and Venom. The plot revolves around Doctor Doom and his future counterpart Doom 2099.

The game was developed by Marvel in conjunction with the Chinese developer NetEase and released in December. However, players have been blocked from typing in words such as “Tiananmen Square” and “Wuhan virus” in the chat function. They are met with the warning: “text contains inappropriate content”.

Marvel Rivals game artwork featuring Iron Man, Spider-Man, and other characters.

Other restricted phrases include “free Taiwan”, “free Hong Kong”, “free Tibet”, “Taiwan is a country”, “Taiwan No 1” and even “1989”, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Chatting about Mao Zedong or the Dalai Lama is also banned.

Winnie-the-Pooh, a name associated with President Xi, is blocked. Xi was compared to the character after appearing in a photograph with Barack Obama in 2017.

Popular gamers have posted videos of themselves trying to type in the words. Asmongold, the YouTuber, is allowed to type in the words “Taiwan sucks” and “Taiwan is bad” only to be blocked when trying “free Taiwan”. At the end of the video he added sarcastically: “Marvel Rivals is a very interesting game that has no censorship at all and lets people think whatever they want and that’s just the way it is guys.”

[...]

China has a long history of censoring the content of video games and films for the domestic market. The Second World War strategy game Hearts of Iron was banned for depicting Tibet, Manchuria and Xinjiang as independent nations. Command & Conquer: Generals, a game depicting a hypothetical Third World War, was said to “smear the image of China and the Chinese army”.

Marvel has also been accused of altering films so they would be accepted in the Chinese market. In the 2016 film Doctor Strange the main character is trained by a Celtic woman played by Tilda Swinton rather than a Tibetan monk who appeared in the original comics. A screenwriter claimed it was to appease the Chinese authorities and Marvel later admitted the move was a mistake.

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Sunac China shares and bonds plunged on Friday after a liquidation petition was filed against the developer, reigniting investor concerns about the debt crisis in the property sector despite Beijing's revival measures.

The petition, filed by a unit of state-owned asset manager China Cinda Asset Management, also deepened worries over Sunac's business recovery and repayment ability despite an offshore debt restructuring it completed in 2023.

A hearing is scheduled for March 19, the Hong Kong judiciary's website showed late on Thursday.

Many mainland developers, including China Evergrande and Country Garden, have faced or are currently facing liquidation cases in Hong Kong since the property sector was hit by a liquidity crunch in 2021.

But petitions have rarely been filed by state-owned companies and China Cinda's was made despite Beijing's pledges to stabilise the struggling property sector and the stock market. Calls to the petitioner, China Cinda (HK) Asset Management, went unanswered on Friday.

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"I'm not surprised by the petition," said Alvin Cheung, associate director of Prudential Brokerage Ltd in Hong Kong. "Chinese developers are not making much money, while they have to keep repaying a lot of debt."

Sunac, which reported total borrowings of 277.4 billion yuan ($37.83 billion) as of the end of June in its interim financial results, is also working to restructure $2.1 billion of yuan-denominated bonds.

Chinese property stocks were down on Friday, with Cheung pointing to growing concerns about further defaults.

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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18000578

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Ed Miliband is facing demands to introduce new measures to stop Britain using solar panels made by the Uighurs, an oppressed Muslim minority in western China, as part of his race towards net zero.

A cross-party group of peers has called for the energy secretary to introduce safeguards that prevent UK renewable energy companies from importing Chinese components made by slave labour.

It comes as the House of Lords debates Labour’s flagship legislation to establish Great British Energy, a publicly-owned company that will help deliver the government’s green transition.

Senior parliamentarians are concerned about the supply chains of renewable energy companies, many of which rely on products from China. In particular, there are questions around solar panels, which often contain polysilicon. Nearly half of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon is produced in the Xinjiang region of China where more than 2.6 million people, mostly from the Uighur ethnic group, have been subjected to forced labour in detention camps.

Academics, politicians and human rights groups have long warned that forced labour is rife there, including in the sourcing of polysilicon, with 11 companies in the region identified as being engaged in forced labour transfers.

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To prevent UK energy supply chains being tainted by forced labour, a group of peers has now tabled an amendment to the bill, which, if approved, would prevent any public funds being given to companies involved with GB Energy where there is “credible evidence of modern slavery in the supply chain”.

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Luke de Pulford, the executive director of Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: “Labour has gone from an admirably strong position on the persecution of Uighurs to energy policies which facilitate it. It’s an absolute 180 in policy terms. Now the chancellor is in Beijing meeting with China’s génocidaires.

“Whatever the economic imperative, the consciences of politicians across both Houses should not permit the rush to net zero to be achieved on the back of Uighur slavery.”

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