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Monday, December 31, 2018
DRC election: opposition cries foul over long queues at polling stations
Election passes off mostly peacefully, but many Congolese still queuing at poll-closing time
Supporters
of Felix Tshisekedi celebrate after he cast his ballot at a polling
station in Kinshasa. Photograph: Olivia Acland/Reuters
Jason Burke-Opposition leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo have accused electoral authorities of deliberately blocking people from casting their ballots in an election on Sunday marred by widespread logistical problems.
Observers hope that the election, which passed off mostly peacefully, will bring about the vast central African country’s first ostensibly democratic transition of power in its troubled history and chart a road to a better future. Others fear renewed instability if the opposition rejects the results and calls for protests.
The presidential election is the DRC’s third since the end of a civil war in 2002 that killed about 5 million people.
The election, already delayed by two years, was postponed from last Sundayto allow further time to overcome logistic challenges in a country of 80 million inhabitants spread over an area the size of western Europe with almost no metalled roads.
'Nothing works': floods and broken voting machines mar Congolese elections – video
After voting at 8am in the wealthy neighbourhood of Gombe, close to the presidential residence, a relaxed Joseph Kabila, the president since 2001, described the election as “free and credible”.
Kabila’s second electoral mandate expired in 2016 and the 47-year-old only reluctantly called new elections under pressure from regional powers. He was barred from standing again himself by the constitution and, critics claim, hopes now to rule through the handpicked government candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.
Shadary, a hardline interior minister under EU sanctions for his role in a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists last year, called for peace after casting his ballot and said he expected to be president “from [Sunday] evening”.
Martin Fayulu, the leading opposition candidate, said: “Today, we are writing the end of Kabila, the end of misery for Congolese people.” Respected for his courage and principles, Fayulu had a limited profile and a small support base before the campaign.
“I will vote for Martin Fayulu,” said Mama Wivine, 40 and unemployed, as she waited for the machine to arrive at her polling place in Kinshasa’s Camp Luka neighbourhood. “We hope he can bring jobs and better conditions for us Congolese. We are fed up with the regime of Kabila.”
Félix Tshisekedi, another opposition candidate, said that some polling stations in Kinshasa had not even opened six hours after voting began. He accused the government of deliberately creating an election day mess to block voters and spark a court challenge that will allow Kabila to extend his time in power. “I deplore all the disorder that we hear about,” said Tshisekedi, who said Kabila’s government is “responsible for this mess”.
Tshisekedi’s supporters went further, claiming the delays were a deliberate attempt to diminish the opposition vote.
The DRC has refused international offers of help to conduct the elections, stating that this would “compromise its sovereignty”. An untold number of Congolese remained in queues at poll-closing time, and by law would be able to vote.
The church, an influential institution in a devout nation, deployed more than 40,000 observers, who found that the vote had not started on time at 830 polling stations, about a fifth of the stations across the country. It also said 846 stations were installed in “prohibited places” such as military camps, police posts or private residences. By noon, observers had reported more than 500 problems with voting machines.
There were widespread reports that controversial electronic voting machines – never used before for an election on this scale – were either breaking down, running low on power, or causing significant delays as voters struggled to follow instructions.
Huge queues formed outside polling stations in Limete, an opposition stronghold in Kinshasa, where voting had not started by mid-afternoon. There were also reports that Fayulu’s name was not on the ballot in some locations.
Activists in the southern city of Mbuji-Mayi told the Guardian the day had been calm apart from an incident of suspected rigging in favour of government candidates.
In Lubumbashi, an opposition stronghold in the southeast, and the eastern border city of Goma, activists said many voters spent the day searching for their names on voter lists without success. Elsewhere, observers were blocked from polling stations.
There were no votes cast at all in three opposition strongholds in the east of the country after the authorities cancelled the vote there, citing health risks from an Ebola outbreak and ethnic violence. The postponement prompted violent protests last week.
Residents in Beni said they should have the right to have their votes counted. “We do not have Ebola. Kabila is worse than Ebola,” Jacob Salamu, 24, said.
The DRC’s fragmented opposition has been unable to field one unified candidate, effectively splitting the vote of those who want to see significant change in the DRC.
Voting was mostly peaceful across the country, but there were a few violent incidents. A police officer and civilian were killed the east in a dispute over alleged voting fraud, a local politician who witnessed the incident told Reuters.
In the central city of Kananga, the head of a polling station was beaten up by voters who suspected him of trying to cheat when he moved a broken-down voting machine from the room, two local activists said. In Masisi territory, militia fighters were also reported around polling sites, pressuring people to vote for their preferred candidates.
It’s not that complicated: Facebook says communication key to business growth
Customers like being able to communicate directly with businesses. Source: Shutterstock
THROUGH a decade or more of change, the one constant is that consumers often adopt new technology before businesses do.
In fact, they have a profound influence on how people discover,
evaluate, and converse with businesses and ultimately, how and where
they make purchases.
“At Facebook, we saw three significant consumer communications trends
this year which we expect will only intensify in 2019: Video,
Stories, and Messaging,” Facebook Malaysia Country Head Nicole Tan told Tech Wire Asia.
Earlier this year – in August – Facebook rolled out Watch globally and found strong adoption in the Asia Pacific, especially in India, Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
The social media giant also found that the Asia Pacific leads the way in people accessing video content on mobile.
This can be credited to the shift to mobile across the region, with
smartphone penetration in countries like Thailand, Malaysia and
Indonesia continuing on its upward trend.
In Malaysia, for example, 97.7 percent of those accessing the internet last year did so on their smartphones. According to Nielsen, Malaysian internet users spent 15.8 hours on average per week accessing the web on their mobile devices.
“While we have beaten the drum about the rate at which people were
bypassing desktop for mobile in previous years, 2018 marked the
cementing of the multiscreen consumer.”
The simultaneous use of second-screen devices —smartphones, tablets and
desktops/laptops alongside TV-viewing has increased year-on-year and is
predicted to continue through next year.
Malaysians, like their Asian neighbours, have developed a love affair with their smartphones. Source: Shutterstock
Facebook has found that mobiles are winning the screen battle with PC-only use trending downwards.
This complex ecosystem means that businesses that want to stay ahead of
the curve will also need to think about multi-touch, cross-media
approaches to engage with customers in 2019.
This year, in order to ensure that Malaysian businesses and
entrepreneurs stay ahead in this digital age, Facebook Malaysia
introduced its “Made by Malaysia, Loved by the World” program to train
up to 2,000 local businesses, together with partners MATRADE and AVANA.
Another interesting development is the consumer adoption of the ephemerality of the Stories format.
Official figures reveal that people now share more than 1 billion stories every day across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The Asia Pacific region accounts for the highest number of story
producers with over 40 percent of Stories being created in this region.
A recent eMarketer report which examined the popularity of Stories, said
it plays into several broad consumer communication trends – a
preference for sharing photographs or video over typing out a text
update, the comfort of knowing what you post isn’t going to stick around
forever and the need to share everyday moments with smaller audiences.
“This preference is also driving the rise of messaging.”
Radha Stirling Statement on Saudi Arabia Cabinet Shuffle
Mohammad bin Salman al Saud, Radha Stirling
Dec 28, 2018
Radha Stirling, Middle Eastern Criminal and Civil Justice Expert, Expert
Witness and founder of Detained in Dubai issued the following statement
in relation to Saudi Arabia’s cabinet shuffle:
“Saudi Arabia announced a cabinet shuffle today that saw Foreign
Minister Adel Al Jubeir ‘demoted’, though not altogether removed, and
replaced by former Finance Minister Ibrahim Al Assaf. Many have
commented that this change is little more than a damage-control PR
maneuver by Mohammad bin Salman to distance himself from the murder of
Jamal Khashoggi; but that may be a superficial analysis of the move.
There is no doubt that the Khashoggi killing, as well as a few other
controversies have tarnished the image of MBS and Saudi Arabia recently.
There has been greater scrutiny of Saudi’s war in Yemen, for instance,
and Al Jubeir took a controversial stance towards Canada over their
criticism of Saudi human rights. He has been very visible as a defender
of Saudi policy, and his removal will imply a change in policy. It is
certainly a move by MBS to consolidate his position and his future by
deflecting criticism through Jubeir’s demotion. A successful shifting of
blame for the Khashoggi murder, and the other controversies, along with
the removal of the proverbial scapegoat, could help inoculate MBS from
the continuing fallout connected to these scandals.
But that is a fairly obvious reading of the cabinet shuffle. There are
other factors at play here as well. Jubeir has been keen to support a
strong US presence in the Middle East and to highlight the regional
threat of Iran. This stance has helped to bring Saudi Arabia and Israel
closer together in a kind of strategic alliance; and it has served as
the rationale for the Kingdom’s vicious military campaign in Yemen.
However, US President Donald Trump has announced that the US will
withdraw from Syria, and has signaled that the US will decrease its
level of intervention in the region on all fronts; even indicating that
he believes Israel is not facing any threats it can’t handle (“they’ve
been doing a very good job for themselves,” Trump said).
This is a policy change which will require a different style of foreign
policy from Saudi Arabia; possibly less aggressive, less outspoken, and
less confrontational. Jubeir’s replacement will be Ibrahim Al Assaf who
served as Finance Minister for twenty years, he is from the old guard,
and has a deep knowledge of Saudi Arabia’s relationships and economic
interests. I would expect his approach to be more low key and pragmatic,
reflecting the changes in the strategic landscape in the wake of a
diminished American presence.
Russia has expressed concerns that the United States might try to
interfere with the decision to remove Jubeir, because his demotion may
open a door for the development of a more collaborative relationship
between Riyadh and Moscow, particularly with regard to reconstruction in
Syria. But, aside from Trump’s announced withdrawal of US troops, there
have been indications that the Americans are not comfortable with Saudi
Arabia’s recent assertiveness in the region. Reportedly, the US
intervened to prevent a Saudi invasion of Qatar, and serious concerns
have been raised about the brutality of the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The
US had been viewing Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy as an increasingly
destabilizing force in the region even before the Khashoggi killing.
Seeing the Saudis adopt a more conventional diplomatic relationship with
their neighbours is unlikely to upset American interests; even if that
means the Kingdom may become more cooperative with Russia.
It seems wise for Saudi Arabia at this stage to draw down their enmity
towards Iran, as they take on a role in the reconstruction of Syria. The
UAE is opening an embassy again in Damascus, and the Saudis are going
to have to normalize relations with the Syrian government to some degree
for purely economic reasons, and this inevitably means decreasing the
tension between Riyadh and Tehran, as Iran is a major player in Syria.
It remains to be seen how this potential policy shift will impact Saudi
Arabia’s relationship with Israel, particularly given the recent
airstrikes by the IDF against targets in Damascus. But overall, the
removal of Adel Al Jubeir seems to be a welcome return to form for Saudi
foreign policy and will hopefully see their provocative role in
regional volatility subside.”
Copyright © Radha Stirling Limited 2014-2018 . Radha Stirling Limited,
is registered in England and Wales under company number 11247852 with
its registered office at 180 City Road, London EC1 2NX United Kingdom
Finally,elections in the Congo?
2018-12-29
The general election has been postponed yet again. Will this country,
the largest and potentially the richest in Africa, ever escape from its
continuous dictatorship, and its propensity to civil war? It’s not so
long ago that Susan Rice, the then US Ambassador to the United Nations,
was talking about the Congo as the site of “Africa’s First World War”.
Has the UN at long last really pacified this country that has been
continuously in a state of unrest since the Belgian colonisers, after
effectively looting the country, fled in 1960, turning the country over
to a hastily improvised African government?
Today we can say that the fighting that has consumed the Congo is within sight of being over, apart from some localized violence in Kivus and Kasai provinces. But, given the history of the most turbulent of all African countries, we should say, let’s wait and see. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to know that the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation ever has met with this degree of success.
The results of this UN activism are impressive. Most of the country is quiet. The mining and agricultural sectors are recovering well. Hyperinflation has been tamed and the exchange rate remains stable. Mobile phone masts have been installed even where the roads have all but disappeared. Foreign investment is returning
This second UN intervention in the Congo appeared to be more successful
than the first, back in 1960 when, fearful of the US and the Soviet
Union competing to gain a foothold in Africa, Secretary-General Dag
Hammarskjold, pushed for UN intervention, as the country’s
post-independence civil war appeared to spin out of control. The UN did
pacify the country to some degree -- at the cost of claiming
Hammarskjold’s life in a supposed accident of his plane- but it left
with its tail between its legs, handing the country over to 32 years of
decadent and cruel rule by the masterful dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.
For once in recent times the UN presence has been funded reasonably well, with the US the major contributor. Not least, unlike the first time, it had a unanimous Security Council mandate behind it, involving Chapter 7 of the Charter, which bestows the right to use military force.
The results of this UN activism are impressive. Most of the country is quiet. The mining and agricultural sectors are recovering well. Hyperinflation has been tamed and the exchange rate remains stable. Mobile phone masts have been installed even where the roads have all but disappeared. Foreign investment is returning.
All in all this has not been an easy nor an inexpensive UN operation nor one that has always run smoothly, as the serious allegations of rape made against some UN contingents attest. The UN operation has cost $1 billion a year to run. The general election in 2006 cost the international community half a billion dollars. Seeing the good work of past years coming undone, the Security Council authorized a peacekeeping brigade consisting of Malawians, South Africans and Tanzanians and were given an aggressive mandate to defeat M23 in Kivu.
Today we can say that the fighting that has consumed the Congo is within sight of being over, apart from some localized violence in Kivus and Kasai provinces. But, given the history of the most turbulent of all African countries, we should say, let’s wait and see. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to know that the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation ever has met with this degree of success
Yes, the financial cost is high but it is much less than what has been
spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and the results more favourable. Indeed,
one can plausibly argue that before the Western intervention in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the Congo was the country of the three in the greater
mess, with the most violence. Now it is the one with the least.
After the 2006 election it looked as if peace had finally arrived. But it didn’t. One of the main belligerents, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, Rwanda’s ally, did badly in the election and went from controlling one third of the country to securing only 3% representation in parliament. Not surprisingly, a number of its leaders went back to war. Fighting in the eastern Kivu province flared up. Now it is rather less.
Unfortunately, in the ensuing years the UN’s most active backers, the US and EU, took their eyes off the ball. Once the 2006 election was over interest in the Congo among top Western leaders dissipated.
Now they are being forced by events to focus again. Congo’s young ruler, Joseph Kabila, while stabilizing most of the country, has allowed massive corruption and manoeuvered to stay in power indefinitely. The constitution doesn’t allow it. There has been serious unrest especially in the capital. The Catholic bishops intervened as arbitrators, and that helped. At last there is going to be an election.
Of course, as the saying goes, “It is never over until the fat lady sings”. That’s for sure in the Congo
2018 – The Year of Insecurity
The
statesman’s task is to hear God’s footsteps marching through history,
and to try and catch on to his coattails as he marches past. ~ Otto von Bismarck
We have gone through a year of many facets and bounced from one to the
other: from threats of fire and fury, to filial handshakes; from asylum
seekers drowning at sea, to leaders who grappled with clashing
conflicts of populism and morality; from fear stricken communities and
societies sacked by armies and terrorists to leaders who looked the
other way with feckless insouciance; from populist marches to rising
authoritarianism; from innocent women whose privacy was abused and
eroded by oppressive technology, to their vain attempts at protecting
their “secret places” from marauding thugs; from mendacious big wigs
who were impugned, to government shut downs; from parliaments in
aggressive discord, to parliamentary decorum being violently abused by
peoples’ representatives, resulting in bloodshed.
The insecurity spawned by these events has threatened democracy and
encouraged populism, inequality and the deleterious aspects of the
information revolution. The ensuing chaos renders lessons from history –
from the vicious hatred that followed the introduction of the printing
machine causing witch hunts of innocent women, to fake news of the
modern age catalysed by social media. This cocktail of trends is
further aggravated by economic decline and the sense of social
insecurity faced by many around the world. Ronald Inglehart, Professor
at the University of Michigan writes in Foreign Affairs that:
“The immediate cause of rising support for authoritarianism is
immigration (and in the United States, rising racial equality). That
reaction has been intensified by the rapid cultural change and declining
job security…” This trendline is dangerously close to the rise of
fascism in the 1930s caused by similar circumstances of social
insecurity and racial hatred. Professor Inglehart suggests that
political coalitions should emerge representing the 99 per cent of the
people affected by the phenomenon of their own insecurity of sustenance,
which, in a manner similar to post World War II when the axis powers
were defeated, infused new hope in the people of the world and brought
to bear a strengthened world democracy.
Liberal democracies are the result of modernization brought about
initially by industrialization. This brought a certain sense of equality
and security to society, which has been eroded over the past few
decades where the rich have become richer and the poor, poorer.
Rosenbluth and Shapiro, in their book Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself quote history when they say:
“A new gilded age has brought unprecedented wealth to the ultra rich and
decades of wage stagnation for the great majority. The 2008 financial
crisis caused millions their homes and savings, yet their governments
bailed out big banks and paid multimillion-dollar bonuses to the
executives who caused the mess”. As a panacea, some of the wealthiest
Americans advocate higher taxes for the rich and increased inheritance
taxes that would help alleviate the exponential rise of inequality.
Thomas Piketty in his book Capital in The Twenty First Century says that
“the importance of wealth in modern economies is approaching levels
last seen before the first world war” where fascism raised its head.
Piketty goes on: “inequality began to rise sharply in the 1970s and
1980s, which brings us to the present where half of the population of
the world owns nothing; the poorest 50 % own less than 10 % of national
wealth and generally less than 5 %. The richest 10 % of the world
command 62 % of the total wealth while the poorest 50 % own only 4 %.
The basis for this trend is the equation r>g (where r represents the
rate of return on one’s capital and g represents the growth of the
economy).
In December of 2016, in my essay “What did 2016 Bring”?
I said: “Populism grew because of rising inequality which has been
identified as the defining feature of our times. This exponential rise
in inequality has in turn been attributed to two decades of failed
liberal governance where western governments have been boosting the
markets instead of developing and pumping money into economies”. This
seems true today as well.
Niall Ferguson, in his book The Great Degeneration – How Institutions Decay and Economies Die speaks
of Western civilization and institutions in the context of four “black
boxes” which he “opens” in his book. They are: democracy; capitalism;
the rule of law; and civil society. These four boxes”, in my view, form
the bulwark of successful government and governance, which should drive
the implementation of a political agenda of a government which was
touted before the people before being elected. They also should apply to
any democratic or purported democratic government, be it in the west or
east. Ferguson goes on to quote Francis Fukuyama who says that the
three components of a modern political order are a strong and capable
State; the State’s subordination to a rule of law and government
accountability to all citizens.
Social insecurity is prodded on by the lack of accountability of
governments and the erosion of the social contract. The social contract
is between the State and the individual where, in exchange of
empowerment at democratic elections by the people, a government promises
to protect its people and future generations from injustice and
inequality. An erosion of this theory or breach of the contract would
annul the legal legitimacy of a State.
As we approach 2019, I would like to end on an optimistic note. True,
we must be aware of history and learn from it. At the same time, we
must not forget that we have come a long way. Steven Pinker, writing to
the Economist’s The World in 2019 says:
“ …the 1970s and 1980s saw double digit inflation and unemployment,
gasoline lines, a nuclear standoff between America and the Soviet Union,
communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, fascist ones in Spain and
Portugal, military ones in Latin America and East Asia, Marxist and
secessionist terrorist brigades in Europe, civil wars throughout Africa
and an Iran-Iraq war that killed more than half a million people”.
Pinker refers to the gradual rise in literacy and life expectancy and
the decline in global poverty in modern times with the share of people
living in democracies rising from 1% to 33%.
Wars are rarer now than before, but as long as inequality and social
insecurity dominate the world, we are still under threat. Those in
power should recognize that nations should be known for their compassion
rather than their achievements and the measure of our humanity to one
another.
Egypt court rejects activist Fathy's appeal, sends her back to jail
Activist was arrested in May over video she posted online criticising sexual harassment in Egypt
Fathy had been conditionally released on Thursday (Amnesty International)
Sunday 30 December 2018
An Egyptian appeals court on Sunday sent a rights activist to prison for
two years over charges including "spreading false news", her lawyer and
a court official said.
The court also fined Amal Fathy, who was released three days previously
in another case, 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($560), AFP said. Fathy was
handed the sentence in September but she appealed.
Her lawyer Ramadan Mohamed said on Sunday her appeal had been rejected
and that she would now serve jail time. Fathy is also accused of
publishing offensive content, Mohamed said.
Amal Fathy was arrested in Egypt for posting a video on Facebook condemning inaction around sexual harassment.
We agree with her husband, @mlotfy81.
She should be applauded for her courage - not put on trial. amn.st/6013Daz9L
136 people are talking about this
The Egyptian authorities have been criticised for launching a crackdown
on opposition voices in the country and jailing scores of human rights
activists, journalists, NGO workers and others.
The 34-year-old was arrested in May over a video she posted online,
criticising sexual harassment in Egypt and alleging that guards at a
bank had sexually harassed her.
She had been conditionally released on Thursday after being detained in
another case with charges including "membership of a terrorist group".
The allegations of "belonging to a banned group" are related to Fathy’s
membership of the April 6 Youth Movement, which played a significant
role in organising the 2011 uprisings against then-Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak. The movement was banned by Egypt's court of urgent
matters in April 2014.
READ MORE ►
After the court ordered Fathy's release on probation earlier this month,
Najia Bounaim, the deputy regional director for the Middle East and
North Africa at Amnesty International, called on the Egyptian
authorities to drop all the charges against her.
A United Nations report in 2013 said that 99.3 percent of women in Egypt have experienced some form of sexual harassment.
Despite several anti-harassment movements, a report by Human Rights
Watch five years later still found that “sexual harassment and violence
against women remained endemic” in the country.
A poll conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation also reported in 2017
that Cairo was one of the most dangerous cities in the world for women.
The Welfare State Is Committing Suicide by Artificial Intelligence
Denmark is using algorithms to deliver benefits to citizens—and undermining its own democracy in the process.
An equation written at a secondary school on Dec. 1, 2014 in London. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
BY JACOB MCHANGAMA, HIN-YAN LIU |
Everyone likes to talk about the ways that liberalism might be killed
off, whether by populism at home or adversaries abroad. Fewer talk about
the growing indications in places like Denmark that liberal democracy
might accidentally commit suicide.
As a philosophy of government, liberalism is premised on the belief that the coercive powers of public authorities should be used in service of individual freedom and flourishing, and that they should therefore be constrained by laws controlling their scope, limits, and discretion. That is the basis for historic liberal achievements such as human rights and the rule of law, which are built into the infrastructure of the Scandinavian welfare state.
Yet the idea of legal constraint is increasingly difficult to reconcile with the revolution promised by artificial intelligence and machine learning—specifically, those technologies’ promises of vast social benefits in exchange for unconstrained access to data and lack of adequate regulation on what can be done with it. Algorithms hold the allure of providing wider-ranging benefits to welfare states, and of delivering these benefits more efficiently.
Such improvements in governance are undeniably enticing. What should concern us, however, is that the means of achieving them are not liberal. There are now growing indications that the West is slouching toward rule by algorithm—a brave new world in which vast fields of human life will be governed by digital code both invisible and unintelligible to human beings, with significant political power placed beyond individual resistance and legal challenge. Liberal democracies are already initiating this quiet, technologically enabled revolution, even as it undermines their own social foundation.
Consider the case of Denmark. The country currently leads the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law ranking, not least because of its well-administered welfare state. But the country does not appear to fully understand the risks involved in enhancing that welfare state through artificial intelligence applications. The municipality of Gladsaxe in Copenhagen, for example, has quietly been experimenting with a system that would use algorithms to identify children at risk of abuse, allowing authorities to target the flagged families for early intervention that could ultimately result in forced removals.
The children would be targeted based on specially designed algorithms tasked with crunching the information already gathered by the Danish government and linked to the personal identification number that is assigned to all Danes at birth. This information includes health records, employment information, and much more.
From the Danish government’s perspective, the child-welfare algorithm proposal is merely an extension of the systems it already has in place to detect social fraud and abuse. Benefits and entitlements covering millions of Danes have long been handled by a centralized agency (Udbetaling Danmark), and based on the vast amounts of personal data gathered and processed by this agency, algorithms create so-called puzzlement lists identifying suspicious patterns that may suggest fraud or abuse. These lists can then be acted on by the “control units” operated by many municipalities to investigate those suspected of receiving benefits to which they are not entitled. The data may include information on spouses and children, as well as information from financial institutions.
These practices might seem both well intended and largely benign. After all, a universal welfare state cannot function if the trust of those who contribute to it breaks down due to systematic freeriding and abuse. And in the prototype being developed in Gladsaxe, the application of big data and algorithmic processing seems to be perfectly virtuous, aimed as it is at upholding the core human rights of vulnerable children.
But the potential for mission creep is abundantly clear. Udbetaling Danmark is a case in point: The agency’s powers and its access to data have been steadily expanded over the years. A recent proposal even aimed at providing this program leviathan access to the electricity use of Danish households to better identify people who have registered a false address to qualify for extra benefits. The Danish government has also used a loophole in Europe’s new digital data rules to allow public authorities to use data gathered under one pretext for entirely different purposes.
And yet the perils of such programs are less understood and discussed than the benefits. Part of the reason may be that the West’s embrace of public-service algorithms are byproducts of lofty and genuinely beneficial initiatives aimed at better governance. But these externalities are also beneficial for those in power in creating a parallel form of governing alongside more familiar tools of legislation and policy-setting. And the opacity of the algorithms’ power means that it isn’t easy to determine when algorithmic governance stops serving the common good and instead becomes the servant of the powers that be. This will inevitably take a toll on privacy, family life, and free speech, as individuals will be unsure when their personal actions may come under the radar of the government.
Such government algorithms also weaken public accountability over the government. Danish citizens have not been asked to give specific consent to the massive data processing already underway. They are not informed if they are placed on “puzzlement lists,” nor whether it is possible to legally challenge one’s designation. And nobody outside the municipal government of Gladsaxe knows exactly how its algorithm would even identify children at risk.
Gladsaxe’s proposal has produced a major public backlash, which has forced the town to delay the program’s planned rollout. Nevertheless, the Danish government has expressed interest in widening the use of public-service algorithms across the country to bolster its welfare services—even at the expense of the freedom of the people they are intended to serve.
It may be tempting to dismiss algorithmic governance, or algocracy, as a mere continuation of authoritarianism, as represented by China’s notorious social credit systems, which have often been described as the 21st-century manifestation of Orwellian dystopia. And one-party states do indeed find obvious comfort in using new technologies like AI to consolidatethe power of the party and its interests. This conforms to historical examples of dictatorships using newspapers, radio, television, and other media for propaganda purposes while suppressing critical journalism and political pluralism.
But algocracy is not a matter of ideology, but rather technology and its inherently attractive potential. As Denmark makes clear, there are strong temptations for liberal democracies to govern with algorithmic tools that promise huge rewards in terms of efficiency, consistency and precision. Algocracies are likely to emerge as by-products of governments seeking to better deliver benefits to citizens. And despite the fundamental differences between China’s one-party state and Danish liberal democracy, the very democratic infrastructure that distinguishes the latter from the former might not be able to fulfil that role into the future.
There are good reasons to think judicial procedures would not be able to serve as a check on the growth of public-service algorithms. Consider the Danish case: the civil servants working to detect child abuse and social fraud will be largely unable to understand and explain why the algorithm identified a family for early intervention or individual for control. As deep learning progresses, algorithmic processes will only become more incomprehensible to human beings, who will be relegated to merely relying on the outcomes of these processes, without having meaningful access to the data or its processing that these algorithmic systems rely upon to produce specific outcomes. But in the absence of government actors making clear and reasoned decisions, it will be impossible for courts to hold them accountable for their actions.
Thus, algorithms designed with the sole purpose of eliminating social welfare free-riding will almost inevitably lead to increasingly draconian measures to police individual behavior. To prevent AI from serving as a tool toward this dystopian end, the West must focus more on algorithmic governance—regulations to ensure meaningful democratic participation and legitimacy in the production of the algorithms themselves. There is little doubt that this would reduce the efficiency of algorithmic processes. But such a compromise would be worthwhile, given the way that algocracy will otherwise involve the sacrifice of democracy.
As a philosophy of government, liberalism is premised on the belief that the coercive powers of public authorities should be used in service of individual freedom and flourishing, and that they should therefore be constrained by laws controlling their scope, limits, and discretion. That is the basis for historic liberal achievements such as human rights and the rule of law, which are built into the infrastructure of the Scandinavian welfare state.
Yet the idea of legal constraint is increasingly difficult to reconcile with the revolution promised by artificial intelligence and machine learning—specifically, those technologies’ promises of vast social benefits in exchange for unconstrained access to data and lack of adequate regulation on what can be done with it. Algorithms hold the allure of providing wider-ranging benefits to welfare states, and of delivering these benefits more efficiently.
Such improvements in governance are undeniably enticing. What should concern us, however, is that the means of achieving them are not liberal. There are now growing indications that the West is slouching toward rule by algorithm—a brave new world in which vast fields of human life will be governed by digital code both invisible and unintelligible to human beings, with significant political power placed beyond individual resistance and legal challenge. Liberal democracies are already initiating this quiet, technologically enabled revolution, even as it undermines their own social foundation.
Consider the case of Denmark. The country currently leads the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law ranking, not least because of its well-administered welfare state. But the country does not appear to fully understand the risks involved in enhancing that welfare state through artificial intelligence applications. The municipality of Gladsaxe in Copenhagen, for example, has quietly been experimenting with a system that would use algorithms to identify children at risk of abuse, allowing authorities to target the flagged families for early intervention that could ultimately result in forced removals.
The children would be targeted based on specially designed algorithms tasked with crunching the information already gathered by the Danish government and linked to the personal identification number that is assigned to all Danes at birth. This information includes health records, employment information, and much more.
From the Danish government’s perspective, the child-welfare algorithm proposal is merely an extension of the systems it already has in place to detect social fraud and abuse. Benefits and entitlements covering millions of Danes have long been handled by a centralized agency (Udbetaling Danmark), and based on the vast amounts of personal data gathered and processed by this agency, algorithms create so-called puzzlement lists identifying suspicious patterns that may suggest fraud or abuse. These lists can then be acted on by the “control units” operated by many municipalities to investigate those suspected of receiving benefits to which they are not entitled. The data may include information on spouses and children, as well as information from financial institutions.
These practices might seem both well intended and largely benign. After all, a universal welfare state cannot function if the trust of those who contribute to it breaks down due to systematic freeriding and abuse. And in the prototype being developed in Gladsaxe, the application of big data and algorithmic processing seems to be perfectly virtuous, aimed as it is at upholding the core human rights of vulnerable children.
But the potential for mission creep is abundantly clear. Udbetaling Danmark is a case in point: The agency’s powers and its access to data have been steadily expanded over the years. A recent proposal even aimed at providing this program leviathan access to the electricity use of Danish households to better identify people who have registered a false address to qualify for extra benefits. The Danish government has also used a loophole in Europe’s new digital data rules to allow public authorities to use data gathered under one pretext for entirely different purposes.
And yet the perils of such programs are less understood and discussed than the benefits. Part of the reason may be that the West’s embrace of public-service algorithms are byproducts of lofty and genuinely beneficial initiatives aimed at better governance. But these externalities are also beneficial for those in power in creating a parallel form of governing alongside more familiar tools of legislation and policy-setting. And the opacity of the algorithms’ power means that it isn’t easy to determine when algorithmic governance stops serving the common good and instead becomes the servant of the powers that be. This will inevitably take a toll on privacy, family life, and free speech, as individuals will be unsure when their personal actions may come under the radar of the government.
Such government algorithms also weaken public accountability over the government. Danish citizens have not been asked to give specific consent to the massive data processing already underway. They are not informed if they are placed on “puzzlement lists,” nor whether it is possible to legally challenge one’s designation. And nobody outside the municipal government of Gladsaxe knows exactly how its algorithm would even identify children at risk.
Gladsaxe’s proposal has produced a major public backlash, which has forced the town to delay the program’s planned rollout. Nevertheless, the Danish government has expressed interest in widening the use of public-service algorithms across the country to bolster its welfare services—even at the expense of the freedom of the people they are intended to serve.
It may be tempting to dismiss algorithmic governance, or algocracy, as a mere continuation of authoritarianism, as represented by China’s notorious social credit systems, which have often been described as the 21st-century manifestation of Orwellian dystopia. And one-party states do indeed find obvious comfort in using new technologies like AI to consolidatethe power of the party and its interests. This conforms to historical examples of dictatorships using newspapers, radio, television, and other media for propaganda purposes while suppressing critical journalism and political pluralism.
But algocracy is not a matter of ideology, but rather technology and its inherently attractive potential. As Denmark makes clear, there are strong temptations for liberal democracies to govern with algorithmic tools that promise huge rewards in terms of efficiency, consistency and precision. Algocracies are likely to emerge as by-products of governments seeking to better deliver benefits to citizens. And despite the fundamental differences between China’s one-party state and Danish liberal democracy, the very democratic infrastructure that distinguishes the latter from the former might not be able to fulfil that role into the future.
There are good reasons to think judicial procedures would not be able to serve as a check on the growth of public-service algorithms. Consider the Danish case: the civil servants working to detect child abuse and social fraud will be largely unable to understand and explain why the algorithm identified a family for early intervention or individual for control. As deep learning progresses, algorithmic processes will only become more incomprehensible to human beings, who will be relegated to merely relying on the outcomes of these processes, without having meaningful access to the data or its processing that these algorithmic systems rely upon to produce specific outcomes. But in the absence of government actors making clear and reasoned decisions, it will be impossible for courts to hold them accountable for their actions.
Thus, algorithms designed with the sole purpose of eliminating social welfare free-riding will almost inevitably lead to increasingly draconian measures to police individual behavior. To prevent AI from serving as a tool toward this dystopian end, the West must focus more on algorithmic governance—regulations to ensure meaningful democratic participation and legitimacy in the production of the algorithms themselves. There is little doubt that this would reduce the efficiency of algorithmic processes. But such a compromise would be worthwhile, given the way that algocracy will otherwise involve the sacrifice of democracy.
Taliban dismiss Afghanistan's peace talks offer
Jibran Ahmad-DECEMBER 30, 2018KABUL/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The Taliban have rejected Kabul’s offer of talks next month in Saudi Arabia where the militants, fighting to restore strict Islamic law in Afghanistan, will meet U.S. officials to further peace efforts, a Taliban leader said on Sunday.
Representatives from the Taliban, the United States and regional countries met this month in the United Arab Emirates for talks to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan.
But the Taliban have refused to hold formal talks with the Western-backed Afghan government.
“We will meet the U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia in January next year and we will start our talks that remained incomplete in Abu Dhabi,” a member of the Taliban’s decision-making Leadership Council told Reuters. “However, we have made it clear to all the stakeholders that we will not talk to the Afghan government.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also said the leaders of the group would not talk to the Afghan government.
The militants have insisted on first reaching an agreement with the United States, which the group sees as the main force in Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have intensified after Taliban representatives started meeting U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad this year. Officials from the warring sides have met at least three times to discuss the withdrawal of international forces and a ceasefire in 2019.
But the United States has insisted that any final settlement must be led by the Afghans.
According to data from the NATO-led Resolute Support mission published in November, the government of President Ashraf Ghani has control or influence over 65 percent of the population but only 55.5 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, less than at any time since 2001. The Taliban say they control 70 percent of the country.
A close aide to Ghani said the government would keep trying to establish a direct line of diplomatic communication with the Taliban.
“Talks should be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned,” the aide said on condition of anonymity. “It is important that the Taliban acknowledge this fact.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a pullout of American troops from Syria, a decision that prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, and there have been reports that he is considering a partial pullout from Afghanistan.
Additional reporting by Rupam Jain in Kabul, Editing by Nick Macfie
Sudan protests continue against Bashir
29 Dec 2018The Sudanese opposition leader is under arrest – amid a crackdown on anti-government protests held across the country.
Security forces fired shots into the air last night to disperse crowds
in the capital, Khartoum – as demonstrations against President al-Bashir
continued for a tenth day in a row.
Amnesty International said at least 37 people have been killed and hundreds injured.
From Khartoum, Yousra Elbagir reports – and we should warn you there are some images of violence.
UK and France pledge drive to tackle people smuggling in Channel
Labour accuse government of whipping up migration issue ahead of Brexit vote
French authorities intercept a small boat carrying migrants near Dunkirk. Photograph: AP
Heather Stewart-The home secretary, Sajid Javid, and his French counterpart have pledged to step up joint efforts to tackle cross-Channel people smuggling, as Labour accused the Tories of whipping up concern about the issue.
Six Iranian men were found on a beach near Deal in Kent on Sunday morning with a small boat, the Home Office confirmed, bringing the number who have made the perilous crossing since Christmas Day to almost 100.
They were handed over to be processed by immigration officers after receiving a medical assessment, the Home Office said.
Javid flew back early from a family holiday in South Africa to take direct control of the situation, which the government declared a major incident on Friday, although Home Office sources said there was no clear evidence of a sudden sharp increase in the number of arrivals via the Channel.
Javid and the French interior minister, Christophe Castaner, are expected to launch a joint action plan later this week. It will include more patrols in the area, enhanced intelligence-sharing aimed at breaking up the gangs involved, and an information campaign to raise awareness about the risks of the crossing.
The pair had what the Home Office said was a significant and productive phone call on Sunday, after which Castaner said they had agreed to “strengthen our actions to combat Channel crossings undertaken by certain irregular migrants on small boats, at peril of their lives”.
He told Javid that French authorities had dismantled a people-smuggling gang operating in the area on 19 December.
Javid will chair a meeting on Monday that will bring together senior officials from the Border Force, the National Crime Agency and other authorities.
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