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Brand, Some of the problems with the United Nations

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UNGA
Getting ready for a UN General Assembly UN photo by Kin Haughton.

UN pact to protect future generations will be undermined by Security Council veto and its use in cases of mass atrocity

by Mike Brand, University of Connecticut
World leaders will gather at the United Nations on Sept. 22-23, 2024, where they are set to adopt the Pact for the Future – an ambitious plan for how to best reform the UN, and other institutions, to address the current problems of the world and protect future generations. It couldn’t come at a more pressing time. As presidents, prime ministers and top diplomats prepare to meet in New York, mass atrocities – genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing – are taking place or alleged in several countries around the world. The pact and an accompanying Summit of the Future serve as an opportunity for the UN to make structural changes that will better empower the international body to prevent and respond to such crimes and protect populations under threat. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted, the summit is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvigorate global action, recommit to fundamental principles, and further develop the frameworks of multilateralism so they are fit for the future.” As a scholar-practitioner of mass atrocities prevention and human rights, I share Guterres’ hope that the summit and pact can lead to a change. The existing frameworks have failed time and time again to prevent or end mass atrocities. But to have a real chance of success, I believe the summit will have to look at reforming the UN’s principal body on peace and security: the Security Council. The council is not only unrepresentative, but its five permanent members – France, the United Kingdom, United States, Russia and China – all stand accused of being directly or indirectly complicit in some of the worst mass atrocities currently taking place.

A forgotten responsibility

The Summit for the Future comes nearly 20 years after the last major push for UN reform at the 2005 World Summit. Staged in the aftermath of genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica, the summit saw 170 governments adopt the Responsibility to Protect, or R2P, pledging to take on individual responsibility to protect their own populations from mass atrocities. States also accepted collective responsibility to protect people in other countries. In cases when a nation fails to prevent mass atrocities, or commits them directly, world leaders agreed to “take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council.” Such actions could include everything from sanctions and arms embargoes to coercive military action. Two decades on, it is clear that UN member states and the Security Council have failed to live up to their commitment to R2P. In the intervening years, the world has seen mass atrocities in Sudan, South Sudan, China, Ethiopia, Yemen, Myanmar and Syria – with limited effective interventions by the UN.

Perpetrators or protectors?

Part of the problem, I believe, is with the Security Council itself. Not only has this crucial body not ensured populations were protected, but that task is undermined by the fact that all five permanent members of the Security Council are either accused of directly committing or assisting mass atrocities. China has been accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity against its Uyghur ethnic minority. Russia has been accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine. Both China and Russia supply arms to regimes in Syria and Myanmar – both accused of committing mass atrocities. The United States, United Kingdom and France – the three permanent Western members on the council – have armed, and continue to arm, Israel, which has been accused of committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank. Such complicity undermines the authority of the Security Council as the UN body charged with taking action to prevent and respond to mass atrocities. Additionally, the five permanent members have veto power, unlike the 10 rotating nonpermanent members of the council. This means whenever one of the permanent members votes no on a Security Council resolution, it does not pass.
A group of men and woman stand with their fists aloft. A banner saying 'never again' is in the middle.Rohingya refugees gather on Aug. 25, 2023, to mark the sixth anniversary of Genocide Day. Tanbir Miraj/AFP via Getty Images
Since the Responsibility to Protect was adopted, the veto has been used to block action on mass atrocities several times. Russia and China have used their veto to block action in cases related to the crisis in Syria. Meanwhile, the United State has repeatedly vetoed action over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. The power to veto also acts as a deterrent, preventing issues from being brought before the Security Council. If member states believe a permanent member will block a resolution, they may decide not to bring the issue before the council for a vote.

Vetoing the veto

The idea of reforming the council so that the five permanent members do not have veto powers on resolutions related to mass atrocities is not new. It gained traction in 2013 after France’s then-President François Hollande addressed the UN General Assembly and stated that “whenever [the United Nations] proves to be powerless, it’s peace that pays the price.” Hollande called for a “code of good conduct” whereby the permanent members could decide to “collectively renounce their veto powers” regarding mass atrocities. In 2015, Mexico joined France in formally calling for the suspension of veto powers in such cases. As of 2023, 106 states have expressed support for this effort. Separately in 2015, the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency Group – 27 states that work to enhance the Security Council’s effectiveness – proposed a “Code of Conduct on Genocide, Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes.” It called on states to “voluntarily commit themselves not to vote against a draft resolution of the Security Council in which the Council takes measures to end these crimes.” The key difference between the two proposals is that the ACT Group’s code of conduct would apply to both permanent and nonpermanent members of the Security Council. As of 2023, 129 U.N. members and observers have signed. The issue of the Security Council veto has come up during the drafting of the Pact for the Future. An earlier version of the draft pact held that member states “encourage a collective and voluntary agreement among the permanent members of the Security Council to refrain from the use of the veto when the Security Council intends to take action to prevent or halt genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.” But this paragraph was removed in a subsequent revision. The latest version due to be discussed at the summit references the need to address veto reform and “intensify efforts to reach an agreement on the future of the veto, including discussions on limiting its scope and use.” But achieving true veto reform has proven difficult in the past, as permanent members have been reluctant to relinquish this extraordinary power.

Less representative, but no less power

The veto debate forms part of a larger discussion that many states, especially in the Global South, want to have over the shape of the UN’s highest body. Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. In the conferences that preceded the creation of the UN, the allied victors of World War II negotiated to give themselves permanent membership on the Security Council and veto power. But the world looks very different today than it did in 1945. The five permanent members are no longer all allies, and membership of the UN has grown significantly from 51 original members to 193 members today. As the UN has grown, it has added more members to the Security Council, expanding from 11 to 15 members in 1963. But the number of permanent members has not changed. And while in 1945 they represented close to half the world’s population and 10% of member states, that has dwindled to about a quarter and 2.5%, respectively. Despite becoming less representative, this five-member club still has the power – should it find the willingness to use it – to exert pressure to end many mass atrocities that are causing incredible suffering and death and driving the highest level of global displacement in history, with more than 120 million people forcibly displaced in 2024. But it has failed to do so. And while there are several challenges that need to be addressed in the Pact for the Future, any efforts to safeguard the safety of peoples now and in the future will be undermined without reform of the Security Council and its veto powers.The Conversation
Mike Brand, Adjunct Professor of Genocide Studies and Human Rights, University of Connecticut This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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¿Wappin? Mid-September on the distaff side

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Linda
Linda Ronstadt, her performing career cut short by Parkinson’s Disease, lives with one of the adopted children she raised – now an adult – and counts among her quotidian concerns the messes that the cat with whom she also lives sometimes makes. Although she won’t be playing any benefit concerts for candidates she DOES plan to vote in Tucson, Arizona this year.

Voces femeninas a mediados de septiembre

The Chiffons – One Fine Day
https://youtu.be/KvyOqKhKWQ4?si=YXzmIV9RkGWxEfHx

Billie Eilish – Your Power
https://youtu.be/g86vDRQBfzM?si=_RN-qGg02HR6NkiR

Erika Ender – Despacito
https://youtu.be/HnYf6mSx7xo?si=wMAUvIFTXfoIA3T8

Karol G. – Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido
https://youtu.be/QCZZwZQ4qNs?si=GZoovYxe-RFjA2HU

Aretha Franklin – Respect
https://youtu.be/A134hShx_gw?si=epONf1ryKumDBqQy

Kany García – En Concierto Acústico
https://youtu.be/94CcirUoTFI?si=QUZrjJ-YoxfA8FVO

Joan Osborne – What Becomes of the Broken Hearted
https://youtu.be/gA0GcXV2njY?si=E7FIZ3baeyRj45V3

Mon Lafterte – Viña del Mar 2017
https://youtu.be/OSoCF1lud0E?si=5rV9XKbg1gN3o-Ho

Sheila E. – Playa Tequila
https://youtu.be/sOwiuJ985wQ?si=-LYc-ui93gwv7qda

Linda Ronstadt – Canciones de mi Padre
https://youtu.be/dHTmCrGdNzM?si=E5nOFRm3dAo5d_NE

Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit
https://youtu.be/-DGY9HvChXk?si=5D8nNWNchyoOinVL

Mary Weiss – Remember
https://youtu.be/ZMjDkSKX-lw?si=OCmEQjKYsc0yZEGw

Nina Simone – To Love Somebody
https://youtu.be/LymNICNvaH8?si=N7oTqdOG93xC-191

Natalie Merchant – Kind and Generous
https://youtu.be/uAwyIad93-c?si=jPV35AAABwRMOi1t

Taylor Swift – I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
https://youtu.be/Sl6en1NPTYM?si=NsAIt2PDY40tco3I

 

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El Festival Icaro Panamá de Cine Centroamericano

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at the U

EL miércoles abre El Festival Icaro Panamá
de Cine Centroamericano con 7 espacios

por Roberto Enrique King

EL miércoles 25 de septiembre será la inauguración del 17º FESTIVAL ICARO PANAMÁ DE CINE, CENTROAMERICANO, que hasta el viernes 4 de octubre llevará gratuitamente a las provincias de Panamá, Colón, Chiriquí y Bocas del Toro, las más recientes películas de la región y a los cineastas del patio le ofrecerá actividades formativas con destacados maestros, bajo la organización del GECU de la Universidad de Panamá en conjunto con la Fundación FAE, en colaboración con la Fundación Montilla de David y la Alcaldía de Colón, y con los auspicios del Banco Nacional de Panamá.

La sede en nuestra capital será el CINE UNIVERSITARIO, y abrirá el evento ese día a las 7:30pm, la película de ficción de Costa Rica, LA HIJA DE LÁZARO, de Gustavo Fallas, sobre una periodista que investiga un atentado en el que murió su padre 40 años atrás, junto con el corto de animación de Guatemala, RECORTE, de Beatríz Castañón, sobre la importancia de asumirse cómo uno realmente es; y continuará en dicha sala hasta el sábado 28, en horario de 3, 5 y 7 pm, con películas de corto y largometraje, de géneros de ficción, documental, animación y experimental.

Del lunes 30 al viernes 4 de octubre esta edición 17 del festival contará en las otras tres sedes provinciales mencionadas con los siguientes seis espacios de exhibición: en Colón el Centro Regional Universitario; en David la Biblioteca de la UNACHI y la Escuela Municipal de Bellas Artes; en Puerto Armuelles el Centro Superior de Bellas Artes y Folklore; en Changuinola el Centro Superior de Bellas Artes y en Almirante el Parque Cincuentenario, para lograr así descentralizar el disfrute del arte cinematográfico fuera de la capital, en fechas que cubrirán.

Toda la información de las películas, actividades formativas, eventos especiales y demás información sobre el festival tanto en la capital como en provincias está en su web: www.festivalicaropanama.com o escribir a cine.universitario@up.ac.pa o icaropanama@gmail.com y en Facebook, X, Instagram a @IcaroPanama.

schedule

 

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Editorials: Who, ME? and Free expression and free elections

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girders
You don’t just pick up one of these and put it in your pocket. Steel girders, each about 22 feet long and worth about $5,000 apiece, on the premises of the Junta Comunal in the Panama City corregimiento of Las Cumbres. These are just a few of hundreds of missing pieces. Various cover stories have been, are being and no doubt will be concocted, but these criminal investigators from the Public Ministry are treating it as part of a massive theft from the Ministry of Public Works. Public Ministry photo.

The circular finger-point

Might the decisive evidence come from document examiners looking for post-dated public records? Perhaps. If the investigation gets that detailed.

Might a pattern emerge from the known destinations of the steel girders that have been recovered? It probably already has, but prosecutors don’t want to tip their hands in an ongoing investigation.

Whether or not we believe the versions given by former Minister of Public Works Rafael Sabonge, at first hearing they sound like swan songs at the end of a disgraceful on-and-off career in government service.

Will the case proceed from the confession of some knowing truck driver, machine operator, supply depot guard or minor functionary threatened with doing time that really ought to be served by somebody else? Could be.

It looks like one of the final looting sprees of the Cortizo administration, but we shall probably see the who, what, when and where of it in more detail, perhaps in a criminal trial.

 

fearless leader's stooge
Right-wing podcaster Tim Pool. The US federal indictment of the company through which he worked alleges that the Russian government funded him to the tune of $100,000 per show. Wikimedia photo by Gage Skidmore.

Free expression and the online US election rumble

You wouldn’t expect RT, Radio Havana, Iranian television or Somali pirate radio to have nice things to say about US foreign policy. Maria Butina, convicted and imprisoned in the USA for acting as an unregistered foreign agent – not a spy, but a saleswoman for Russian gun manufacturers – now works as a legislator in Russia’s Duma and might have interesting things to say about the United States. A free nation and thoughtful individuals ought to be able to hear such stuff, so long as we know who’s speaking.

A string of Republican podcasters covertly financed by Vladimir Putin’s government? American media influencers surreptitiously paid by the Ayatollah’s government to sway US public opinion? Front people for governments allied to the United States seeking to affect US foreign policy without disclosing who and what they are? A Democratic lawmaker bribed to secretly promote Egyptian interests from inside Washington power circles?

Been there, seen those sorts of things over many years.

It’s election campaign season in the United States and the country is particularly vulnerable to the covert manipulation of the most gullible voters. Putin ran this game in 2016 with some success, but by 2020 the accusation that some commentator was or is a “Russian bot” worked against such tactics, at the cost of dumbing down US political discourse.

Let’s allow foreign powers to have their say, so long as they are identified as such. That’s one of the ways in which free people defend their democratic institutions. And if Americans who see or hear those message are rude in their scorn, that’s free speech too.

  

Ann Richards
The late Texas Governor Ann Richards.
Wikimedia portrait by Clarkwrichards.

      In politics your enemies can’t hurt you, but your friends will kill you.

Ann Richards      

Bear in mind…

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

James Thurber

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

Margaret Atwood

The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.

Norman Thomas

 

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Reich, A winning economic platform for Kamala and Tim

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Kamala in germany
US Vice President Harris meets German Chancellor Scholz before the 2023 Munich Security Conference. As VP she was given important missions, including economic ones, and from those she knows the leaders of the most important US trade partners.

Harris and Walz should run on ensuring economic freedom by reversing and remedying the brutal imbalance between the people and the powerful

A winning economic agenda
for Kamala Harris

by Robert Reich

Today I want to talk with you about what US Vice President Kamala Harris could do to win over more Americans on the issue that remains her biggest challenge: the economy.

Harris’s family-centered policies—$6,000 for newborns, a tax credit that will help people with children decide for themselves whether to work or stay at home, and universal affordable childcare—are useful and important.

But here’s the rub: Many young men and women simply can’t afford to form families in the first place. As Harold Meyerson notes in The American Prospect, Harris’s family policies won’t have much impact on many young working-class men and women employed in the private sector, where the rate of unionization is barely 6%, where gig employment is often a necessity just to get by (as is a second or even third job), and where the absence of job stability or an adequate income or both deters marriage.

Freedom—including reproductive freedom—means the chance to raise a family without soul-crushing economic stress.

The disappearance of good jobs for those without a college degree has led to declining marriage rates across all of the American working class, according to studies by MIT economist David Autor and his colleagues—a far steeper rate of decline than in the middle and upper classes.

The issue boils down to how to get good jobs to people without four-year college degrees.

On Friday, Harris made the important promise to dispense with unnecessary college degree requirements for federal jobs. She could go further and tell private employers to use skills-based hiring instead of requiring college degrees.

Harris might also call for the construction of 10 million new homes over the next four years. This would help funnel non-college workers into building trades and community college apprenticeship programs, leading to high-wage jobs that don’t require college degrees.

She could build on the impetus of the CHIPs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to get good new jobs to places around the country that have been abandoned by most industry. The most important family policy for young people growing up in rural Georgia or North Carolina is to be able to find good jobs where they are, rather than have to leave their communities to find adequate-paying work.

She should also build on the significant work of Biden’s FTC and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department in attacking monopolies and mergers, and promise that as president she’ll fight for competitive markets where big corporations can’t keep prices high (she’s already said she’ll attack corporate price gouging).

Monopolies don’t just hurt consumers. They also hurt workers, and make it harder for them to have families. When there’s only one game in town, you don’t dare push back against arbitrary schedules and hours that keep you from your family.

Harris should attack housing developers that collude to drive up prices. She should fight against mandatory arbitration, which locks workers and consumers into private courts funded by the same companies they want to challenge. And she should commit to strengthening unions by preventing big corporations from firing workers who want them and pushing for sector-by-sector bargaining.

Former US President Donald Trump has proposed exempting overtime earnings from federal tax. But remember: It was Trump whose labor department made about 8 million workers ineligiblefor overtime. Harris should pledge to reverse that ruling.

She should package all of this, as Jedediah Britton-Purdy suggests, as part of a push for economic freedom.

Many Americans feel powerless, ripped off by monopolies in everything from phone service to concert tickets, locked into dead-end jobs because there are no alternatives, unable even to contemplate raising a family because they can’t possibly afford the costs.

Freedom—including reproductive freedom—means the chance to raise a family without soul-crushing economic stress.

I’ve already discussed how Trump’s economic agenda (to the extent he’s provided one) is just another variant on trickle-down economics, where wealth and power go to the top and nothing trickles down. Trump’s version would result in an even more brutal imbalance between the people and the powerful.

But that’s not how many Americans see it. As Purdy says:

Although Democrats see Trump as a chaotic bad boss in chief, many supporters see him as the real defender of economic security, decent jobs, and a safe and orderly world. His call for tariffs on all imported goods and his promise to beat up on companies until they lower prices may be unrealistic, but they are concrete promises to shake up the system on behalf of ordinary people. That’s the kind of dramatic change so many people seem to want.

Fundamentally, economic freedom requires reversing and remedying the brutal imbalance between the people and the powerful. It necessitates taking power back from the ruling economic class—from the ultra-wealthy who have been bribing politicians to lower their taxes, allow them monopolize markets, and crush labor unions.

This must be at the heart of the Harris-Walz economic agenda.

 

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STRI, ¿Como podemos reducir las emisiones de dióxido de carbono?

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STRI 1
Los bosques tropicales en regeneración emiten mucho menos dióxido de carbono en el suelo que los pastizales. Los bosques tropicales crecen muy deprisa, absorbiendo dióxido de carbono de la atmósfera y almacenándolo en forma de madera. Este nuevo estudio demuestra que el suelo, incluso en los bosques jóvenes, puede liberar mucho menos carbono que los suelos de los pastizales abiertos, otra razón más para optar por la reforestación. Foto por Jorge Aleman — STRI.

¿Podemos reducir las emisiones de dióxido de carbono simplemente dejando que los bosques se recuperen?

por STRI

Al igual que nosotros, las raíces y los microbios del suelo exhalan dióxido de carbono, una de las principales causas del calentamiento global. Los suelos tropicales emiten 10 veces más dióxido de carbono a la atmósfera al año, más que todo lo que quemamos en combustibles fósiles. En los suelos tropicales cálidos y húmedos, las tasas de emisión de dióxido de carbono son de las más altas de la Tierra. Investigadores del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales y de la Universidad de California en Berkeley se preguntaron cómo cambiaba la cantidad de carbono liberado por los suelos al repoblar bosques tropicales en pastizales. La magnitud de la reducción de las emisiones de carbono del suelo, publicada en la revista Forest Ecology and Management, fue inesperada.

“Nos sorprendió que la cantidad de dióxido de carbono liberado por el suelo se multiplicara casi por dos en los bosques jóvenes en comparación con los pastizales”, afirma Claire Beckstoffer, autora principal y exalumna del laboratorio de Whendee Silver en la Universidad de California en Berkeley.

Claire Beckstoffer y su equipo midieron el dióxido de carbono liberado por los suelos en lugares que iban desde pastizales activos a bosques de 7 años, pasando por bosques de 24 a 32 años y repoblaciones forestales de más de 80 años. También midieron factores que podrían explicar las diferencias en las emisiones de dióxido de carbono, como la temperatura del suelo, la humedad, el contenido de carbono orgánico y la masa del suelo.

Los suelos en pastizales liberaron las mayores cantidades de dióxido de carbono, y la diferencia entre los suelos en pastizales y los forestales fue mucho más notable que las diferencias entre bosques de distintas edades.

“De todas las mediciones que realizamos, las diferencias de temperatura fueron más extremas entre los pastizales activos y los bosques de distintas edades”, afirma Whendee Silver, coautora del estudio y profesora de Ecología de Ecosistemas y Biogeoquímica de la UC Berkeley. “Por eso creemos que las temperaturas más cálidas que experimentan los suelos de los pastizales pueden ser las que expliquen las mayores emisiones de dióxido de carbono”.

“Pocos estudios han analizado las emisiones de carbono en suelos forestales tropicales secundarios, y la mayoría ignoran la transición de pastizal a bosque”, afirma Claire Beckstoffer.

Jefferson Hall, coautor y director del Proyecto Agua Salud, el mayor experimento de reforestación de este tipo en los trópicos, una zona de 700 hectáreas que desemboca en el Canal de Panamá donde los investigadores comparan el flujo de agua, el almacenamiento de carbono y la biodiversidad en diferentes opciones de uso del suelo, añadió: “Claire descubrió una disminución del doble de las emisiones de carbono, de 10 micromoles por metro cuadrado por segundo de los pastizales a 5 micromoles por metro cuadrado por segundo de las tierras boscosas. ¡Esto es enorme! Es cierto que realizó su investigación en la estación húmeda, por lo que no pudo captar las diferencias estacionales. Pero pensemos en las implicaciones a escala del ciclo del carbono y el equilibrio de CO2: Simplemente dejando que el bosque vuelva a crecer, se obtiene una ganancia rápida a medida que los pastizales se transforman en bosques a través de la restauración forestal natural y pasiva”.

Referencia: Claire Beckstoffer, Jefferson Hall, Whendee L. Silver. 2024. Rapid recovery of soil respiration during tropical forest secondary succession on former pastures. Forest Ecology and Management

 

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Lazarus & Button: Not just the old Nigeria Scam anymore

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uh huh
Uh huh. Photo by Adikos, from a mixed-media comic by Andrew Toskin.

Hustle academies: west Africa’s online scammers are training others in fraud and sextortion

by Suleman Lazarus & Suleman Lazarus

As the world becomes increasingly connected, digital fraud has evolved from a local problem into a global one. West Africa, particularly Ghana and Nigeria, is witnessing the rise of “hustle kingdoms” – informal academies that train individuals to carry out digital scams.

The term “hustle kingdoms” originated from online scammers themselves, used to describe their training centers. These environments are glorified in certain pockets of popular culture. The hustle kingdoms operate both online and offline, blending virtual training with in-person sessions.

Real-life scams linked to “graduates” of these academies include various scams such as online romance fraud and business email compromise scams.

Similar setups existed in the 1980s and 1990s under the name “business centers.” Back then, a “chairman”, typically a university graduate or dropout, would rent an office, hire a secretary, and recruit junior scammers, or “boys.” Their task was to target victims worldwide via postal letters, telephone calls, and faxes. The “chairman” provided funding and logistics while trainees honed their scamming skills.

These academies, once local training hubs, have evolved into global threats. They now export their skills worldwide, fueling more persistent and widespread fraud. The United States alone lost about US$50 billion in 2023 to online scams, many of which are linked to west African fraudsters. This figure only represents reported losses – many more crimes go unreported.

Similar to the “Sakawa Boys” (Ghanaian online scammers) and the “Yahoo Boys” (Nigerian online scammers), “hustle kingdom” fraudsters sometimes justify their actions as seeking restitution for past injustices, viewing themselves as descendants of victims of the slave trade, economic exploitation and colonialism, while westerners are seen as descendants of colonialists. This framing suggests that their online scams are, in part, a response to historical wrongs.

They also use supernatural strategies – “juju magic” – to manipulate and defraud victims.

Nigerian scam enterprises are often linked to confraternities, secret or semi-secret organisations such as the “Black Axe,” an organized crime group originally formed in Nigerian universities. In contrast, Ghanaian cyber criminals are less often associated with organized criminal groups.

As these fraudsters expand their operations, online romance scams and sextortion cases have surged in the United States and Europe, raising alarm.

Online romance scams involve fraudsters creating fake online personas to establish emotional relationships with victims, deceiving them into sending money or personal information. Sextortion occurs when perpetrators coerce victims into providing sexually explicit content and then threaten to release it unless the victims meet financial or other demands.

As scholars who have researched and written about cybercrime issues in west Africa, we want to provide readers with a nuanced perspective on a complex phenomenon. Thus, we combine on-the-ground insights with global analysis, highlighting the need for coordinated action to combat these crimes.

Hustle kingdoms

The term “hustle kingdom” or “HK” holds meaning within these cybercriminal training networks. “HK” also stands for “headquarters” or “high kingdom.” It represents a central command center with a hierarchical structure for training new members, functioning like an online fraud academy. This structure is important during the training phase but tends to dissolve after members graduate.

“HK” is more than a physical location; it acts as a conceptual space within the network. Here, novices learn various fraud techniques and job-seeking strategies from globally contributed insights. Thus, “HK” serves as a knowledge hub, spreading tactics across the network.

The concept has gained traction in street-level parlance, indicating its acceptance and use beyond organized cyber fraud. HK emphasizes educational and strategic aspects over territorial concerns, underscoring such organizations’ decentralized and adaptable nature. Factors such as socio-economic pressures and the allure of quick wealth drive individuals to join these institutions.

Sextortion and romance scams

The graduates of these academies are contributing to the alarming rise in online romance scams and sextortion cases, particularly in the United States and Europe. There are no clearly defined crime statistics to illustrate this rise but one organization which receives reports related to children reported 26,718 cases of sextortion in 2023, a jump from 10,731 reports in 2022 and up from 139 reports in 2021.

These scams are not isolated incidents but part of a larger, organized effort originating from west Africa and involving participants from multiple nations, including criminal actors in western countries. Studies, such as interviews with an alleged leader of a cybercriminal group affiliated with Black Axe, demonstrate the international scope of these operations.

Stopping online fraud

Tackling this issue requires urgent attention at both local and global levels. There are no quick and simple solutions, but broadly, there are three main areas of action required.

First, there needs to be much more cooperation between law enforcement from countries that are the main targets of these scammers and west African law enforcement agencies. The aim should be not just to apprehend the main criminal actors, but to disrupt the activity.

Second, the social and economic factors driving young people into this “industry” need to be addressed.

Finally, much more needs to be done to protect potential victims from these online scams through more effective and targeted fraud prevention measures.The Conversation

Suleman Lazarus, PhD, Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science and Mark Button, Professor of Security and Fraud, University of Portsmouth

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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¿Wappin? Seriously, in September / En serio, en septiembre

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Haitian schoolgirls
Girls making their way to school through the garbage and sewage in Haiti’s Cite Soleile about a decade and a half ago. Might some of them have fled to Ohio? Could you blame them? Photo by Mark Edwards.

Not Culture Lite
No es cultura ligera

Desmond Dekker – 007 (Shanty Town)
https://youtu.be/kpVxwWQjIy0?si=XYP282ZQSuW6CIeZ

Milgros Blades & Mecanik Informal – Solo de Percusión Folklórica
https://youtu.be/PhW1fpjU2Cg?si=P8unDHQcWvKH91Xt

Chucho Valdés – Tiny Desk Concert 2024
https://youtu.be/wlsmFJx5vH0?si=uCmXwYcv0igBBlSd

WAR — Slippin’ Into Darkness
https://youtu.be/1sfKBwltAjg?si=ibXbE_KFHp-aolO3

Nina Simone – Live in London 1977
https://youtu.be/JPo4ulDveTc?si=6TzvV8OSRkbT_2nX

Rhiannon Giddens, Joan Baez & Taj Mahal – We Shall Not Be Moved
https://youtu.be/0MhuVar3EA4?si=45juUSCyDdmPqKXB

Laurie Anderson – Home of the Brave
https://youtu.be/mua8Pr6uRso?si=yrcUuRLucWSE7RKu

Musiana – Gente
https://youtu.be/E3nT0UhoRec?si=0HlfX4v7kHxIUEPG

¡Viva Panamá!
https://youtu.be/GaFOOykGHjc?si=jVG5-W0GnlZoESgF

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Jackson: Mulino warns, makes a few notable moves, punts

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Mulino’s address to the nation

by Eric Jackson

In 20 minutes President José Raúl Mulino addressed an explosive topic without blowing up the fragile social peace. His explanations and assurances, however, may have set a few timers ticking.

The president explained that the Social Security Fund has been looted for many years, under several administrations. He said that other departments of government have been worse.

To the extent that he vowed to turn some of this over to the legal system for investigation, though, much of it will be timed out by the statutes of limitation. More immediately, at a time when the economy is slow he intends to shrink the government by eliminating a lot of unnecessary jobs that have gone to party workers, relatives of politicians, mistresses and so on at the national government level, and pulling funding for such in local governments.

The political patronage rotation is a hallmark of post-invasion Panamanian government, but Mulino mostly hints that many of the posts will not be filled.

There was much hinting in the speech. Will there be criminal charges against local politicians who deducted Seguro Social from government workers’ paychecks but did not pay that money into the fund? Will alcaldias and corregimientos whose mayors and representantes did that have their government allocations slashed? But consider, then, what that does to an attempted governability pact in a divided legislature. It’s a threat aimed at the PRD, but also, in a number of places, at independents who ousted the PRD in last May’s elections, frequently after campaigns where the abuses were issues raised against the incumbents. In the National Assembly itself all of the old abuses are all the rage. Can a double standard save the legislators while condemning local officials? So the application of criminal law, and enhanced budget squeezes affecting down-ballot politicians, is a set of confrontations left hanging out there that could complicate the executive branch’s attempts to get along with the legislative branch.

The president said that the main issue is about money and set up some round tables to talk about proposals. That is, he did not want to talk about financial specifics at the moment.

Plus, he implicitly recognized that the issues of greed and fraud are at large in society, in both public and private sectors, by taking privatization off of the table. Had he declared that privatization was the solution to Seguro Social’s problems, the roadblocks would already be forming for a general strike.

But round tables? Do the business reps get a veto, as the practice has been? Nobody will be fooled by that game.

As to “hard and fast” economic decisions, Mulino announced some of those, very pragmatic ones.

He’s merging the Seguo Social and Ministry of Health medicine purchasing operations. Do I hear a wail of protest somewhere off in the distance? Something like ‘I’m a Galindo – you can’t do that to me!’? Will the deputy underassistants who have been armed with stamps take him to court?

He’s moving the nation’s cancer hospital, from the old Gorgas Hospital complex to the Ciudad de Salud project, out near the eastern entrance to the Centennial Bridge. As in, building on what came before instead of abandoning a project of previous administrations.

One sensible promise, if kept, is going to set off some storms. He said that there will be a computerized database from which anybody will be able to learn his or her own social security status. As in, find out if some bank appropriated contributions in the wake of the 2005 partial privatization of retirement accounts. As in, find out which employers or former employers stole from them.

For 20 minutes the president told us truths that we would rather not hear, announced a few common-sense moves, made some gestures that given past experiences we might expect to be corny old tricks but may not be, punted the issue to a later date but first lit the fuses on some political time bombs.

God help Panama.

 

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Mulino to address the nation about Social Security

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CSS in Clayton
The Social Security Fund (CSS) headquarters at Clayton’s Building 219.

It’s bound to be controversial

Tomorrow night — Thursday, September 19 — at 6 p.m. President Mulino will address the nation on all television broadcast networks and streaming online at several places to talk about the Social Security Fund.

Panama has a unique accounting system in any case, but within that there are big disagreements over whether and to what extent there is a financial crisis in the Caja de Seguro Social. (Social Security Fund.) This institution more or less runs the nation’s public pension fund, with a 2005 partial privatization putting much of its savings into private banks in individual account in beneficiaries’ names. The fund also runs a major part — alongside the separate Ministry of Health — of Panama socialized health care system. (Private medical services, clinics and hospitals also exist alongside the dual public system.)

One major issue with any sort of public safety net in Panama is that about half of the working population is in the informal economy, which tends to be low-paid and contributing to neither taxes to the government’s general fund nor contributions to the CSS. Those who make than just over $1000 per month or less, in any case, have not been required to keep records or pay taxes.

Mulino met with business leaders, first of all the National Private Enterprise Council (CoNEP), and later with many but not all of the interested parties. His appointee to head the fund, veteran private insurance executive Dino Mon, was barely ratified by the National Assembly with the large Vamos independent bloc voting against him and many deputies from various parties arranging to be absent during the vote. In years past Mon has advocated “parametric measures,” that is, some combination of raising the retirement age or increasing the number of payments into the system over the years for someone to qualify for a pension.

Various forms of theft have dogged the system for many years. These, most commonly, are employers deducting CSS payments from workers’ paychecks and just pocketing the money. Mon has characterized such accounts as “uncollectable debts,” but they would accrue to some members of the wealthiest families in Panama and companies or their successors with substantial assets. Panamanian corporate and banking secrecy laws make it easier to launder or conceal such assets.

The major labor unions and politicians of various parties have declared their opposition to “parametric measures.” HOWEVER, given the post-invasion history of Panamanian politics, a semantics shell game about what parametric measures include and crude deceptions about “consultations” or “agreements” would not be big surprises.

Organized labor and working Panamanians in general have been less tolerant of the usual games in recent years, which puts José Raúl Mulino in a position to inflame the situation with what he says, or to cool passions about Social Security with the content of his speech.

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