Friday, March 29, 2019

Mueller’s Most Lasting Legacy May Be on K Street

The special counsel’s investigation has upended Washington’s influence industry.

Special counsel Robert Mueller and his wife, Ann Mueller, walk in Washington on March 24. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

BY ELIAS GROLL

| MARCH 28, 2019, 10:41 AM
Robert Mueller’s most enduring legacy may not be on Pennsylvania Avenue but on K Street, where the special counsel’s successful prosecution of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and other lobbyists has sent a frisson of fear through Washington’s influence industry.

Despite his failure to find evidence that U.S. President Donald Trump colluded with the Russians during his 2016 campaign, Mueller’s investigation and indictment of some of Washington’s most infamous lobbyists has sparked a flurry of foreign agent filings by the city’s well-heeled power brokers. It has also prompted a stepped-up effort at the Justice Department to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a law first passed in 1938 and aimed at bringing a measure of transparency into foreign governments’ efforts to influence U.S. politics.

Prior to the Mueller investigation, Justice Department lawyers had rarely issued an indictment under FARA, but that changed with the prosecution of Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates on charges related to the pair’s failure to register as foreign agents.

“To the extent that there are prominent Washington lobbyists who think their prominence somehow insulates them from the reach of law enforcement, the Manafort and Gates case stands for the proposition that no one is above the law,” said David Laufman, who first initiated the increased enforcement of FARA in 2015 while serving as head of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section at the Justice Department.

With the Mueller probe wrapping up, one of his key deputies, Brandon Van Grack, is now running the FARA enforcement unit as part of stepped-up effort to enforce the law. In remarks at a conference of white-collar lawyers earlier this month, John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said his prosecutors are transitioning “from treating FARA as an administrative obligation and regulatory obligation to one that is increasingly an enforcement priority.”

First passed in 1938 in a bid to counter Nazi propaganda in the United States, FARA is aimed at injecting a measure of transparency in the propaganda consumed by U.S. citizens and documenting foreign governments’ lobbying activity. The act targets mostly political activity but also includes tourism and trade promotion.

But in the decades since World War II, the law was rarely enforced. Between 1966 and 2015, federal prosecutors brought only seven cases under FARA. Instead of prosecuting violators of the act, the department would typically bring them into compliance with the law by compelling lobbyists and trade groups to file the detailed disclosure documents mandated by the law, according to a 2016 Justice Department Office of the Inspector General report on the issue.

“Prosecution under FARA was never common, because it was seen as a registration requirement more than a criminal statute, so authorities would focus on encouraging voluntary compliance over prosecution,” said Scott Anderson, a former State Department lawyer who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The Justice Department’s increased use of FARA began in 2015, when the officials in Washington began more aggressively pushing companies to register under the law. Mueller’s investigation has demonstrated the full potential of the law to bring legal action against political consultants raking in huge sums of money from foreign political groups, all while attempting to evade transparency requirements.

So far, stepped-up FARA enforcement has mostly focused on state-backed media outlets. In the last year, Justice Department prosecutors have pressured the Russian outlets RT and Sputnik and the Chinese broadcaster CGTN to register.

In their assessment of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, U.S. intelligence officials found that RT and Sputnik amplified the Kremlin’s messaging. Intelligence officials have warned that Chinese state media outlets may serve a similar function for Beijing, though press freedom advocates argue that targeting media outlets may also chill legitimate journalistic activity.

In his investigation of foreign influence in U.S. politics, Mueller has demonstrated that FARA can be a powerful tool in the hands of an aggressive prosecutor. According to the 2016 Inspector General report, FBI agents investigating FARA cases repeatedly encountered a reluctance in the National Security Division to approve prosecutions under the law.

The cases investigated by Mueller fall squarely within the intent of the law: exposing attempts to covertly influence U.S. politics. And in investigating the political operatives around Trump’s campaign, he appears to have simply ripped up the cautious approach that had previously controlled Justice Department thinking in prosecuting such cases.

In addition to Manafort and Gates, Mueller and other U.S. attorneys offices to whom he referred cases prosecuted a series of fringe figures on charges of violating FARA or statutes related to it.

These individuals include Bijan Kian and Kamil Ekim Alptekin, business associates of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor, who were charged with conspiring to violate FARA and carry out lobbying on behalf of Turkey. The political operative Sam Patten pleaded guilty to violating FARA for his lobbying activity on behalf of Ukrainian figures.

Although Mueller’s probe has wrapped up, federal prosecutors are still examining cases related to foreign lobbying that his investigation uncovered. The most prominent of these is the possible prosecution of former White House counsel Greg Craig, who worked with Manafort in his attempt to curry favor in Washington for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

In January, the Justice Department announced that it had reached a settlement with Craig’s former law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom for its role in the Yanukovych lobbying campaign. The firm agreed to register as a foreign agent and pay the U.S. government its billings for the Ukraine work, which amounted to more than $4.6 million.

The Ukrainian government contracted with Skadden to produce a report whitewashing its prosecution of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, and according to the settlement agreement, the firm—relying on the lead partner—made false statements about its contacts with the media regarding the report it authored.

Ahead of the report’s release, Craig reached out to a reporter for the New York Times, David Sanger, and set up a call with him and a lobbyist for Ukraine. Craig later delivered the report to Sanger and provided the reporter with a quote for his article on the report. (Another Skadden lawyer, Alex van der Zwaan, pleaded guilty in 2018 on charges of lying to Mueller’s investigators probing Skadden’s Ukraine work)

Whether Craig will face charges for his role in the Manafort scheme represents one of the early tests of the Justice Department’s intensified enforcement of FARA. Craig, who served as White House counsel to President Barack Obama, represents the pinnacle of the Washington legal establishment. He would be the first Obama official to be implicated in a prosecution tied to Mueller’s probe.

But whether Craig will face charges is very much an open question. Critics of the foreign agent law argue that it endows prosecutors with enormous discretion and that it remains poorly interpreted by the courts.

“It’s hard to think of any other federal criminal statute that is still enforced but that has as little interpretive law associated with it as does FARA,” said Robert Kelner, an attorney at Covington and Burling who specializes in political law compliance.

Kelner represented Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor, who pleaded guilty to lying on his FARA filings in connection with lobbying work done on behalf of Turkey.

“As we speak there are undoubtedly hundreds, if not thousands, of American organizations that are technically in violation of FARA. I’m confident in that statement,” Kelner said. “How many cases are being investigated and brought?”

If recent history is any guide, K Street is about to see more.

Staff writer Robbie Gramer contributed reporting to this article.

Attorney general expected to miss deadline for giving Mueller report to Congress, will not commit to releasing it in full

Protesters rally outside the White House on Monday. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

By Karoun Demirjia-March 27 at 7:11 PM

Attorney General William P. Barr is expected to miss House Democrats’ deadline to provide Congress the full report documenting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, increasing the likelihood lawmakers will subpoena the Justice Department.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that during a Wednesday phone call with Barr, the attorney general said it would be “weeks, not months” before lawmakers can see the report, making it “apparent that the department will not meet the April 2 deadline that we set” earlier this week.

[Mueller’s report is more than 300 pages, attorney general tells top Democrat]

Barr would not promise that “an unredacted full report with the underlying documents, evidence, would be provided to Congress and to the American people,” Nadler said. “We’re not happy about that, to put it mildly.”

Though Nadler would not say whether lawmakers will issue a subpoena, he told reporters that April 2 was “a hard deadline that we set and we mean it.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Barr informed Congress on Sunday of Mueller’s main findings, writing in a four-page letter to the heads of the House and Senate Judiciary committees that the special counsel did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to sway the election and offered no conclusion on whether the president sought to obstruct justice during the investigation.

[‘Undoubtedly there is collusion’: Trump antagonist Adam Schiff doubles down after Mueller finds no conspiracy]

The report is several hundred pages — but less than 1,000, Nadler said — and Democrats say it is vital to see its details before they can determine whether they agree with Barr’s assessment, believing there may evidence of collusion Mueller did not consider as part of his findings.

On the question of obstruction, Barr wrote in his summary for lawmakers that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein had decided the evidence was “not sufficient” to conclude Trump had “committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” Nadler said he did not discuss with Barr why he made that determination, but Democrats have vowed to look further into the evidence.

Barr pledged he would make himself available for an interview with the Judiciary Committee, Nadler told reporters, which would happen “reasonably soon.” Barr is expected on Capitol Hill for a budget hearing with the House Appropriations Committee on April 9.

“We may very well want Mueller after Barr,” Nadler added.

After drought and floods, Afghanistan confronts critical harvest

FILE PHOTO - An Afghan man who was internally displaced due to drought digs soil to set up a tent at a refugee camp in Herat province, Afghanistan October 14, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail/File Photo

Rod Nickel, Abdul Matin Sahak-MARCH 28, 2019

KABUL/MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan’s summer harvest will be one of the most critical in years, especially of wheat, its biggest cereal crop, as the country recovers from floods and the worst drought in decades, government and aid organization officials say.

Ample snow and rain during winter partly replenished soil moisture and raised hopes for a better wheat crop, which is a food source for rural families who turn their harvested grain into bread. Last year, however, drought displaced hundreds of thousands of people and also forced farmers who stayed in their homes to sell livestock and tools to survive, making recovery a multi-year challenge.

Many farmers were unable to plant crops last year because of parched conditions. [nL4N1U03AW]
Jabbar, 44, a farmer in Balkh province in northern Afghanistan, sold sheep, cows and one camel at discounted prices to buy food for his family of 12. Recent floods washed away some of his land that had been planted with peas and wheat.

“I have a big family so it’s my responsibility to feed them. If it rains or not, it is harmful to us,” he said, referring to the double damage inflicted by drought and flood.
“I hope I can get good results this year.”

Floods in March complicated the recovery. Heavy rains killed at least 63 people and destroyed or damaged more than 12,000 homes, affecting 119,600 people, according to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Some 243,000 people remain displaced from last year’s drought in the western provinces of Herat, Badghis and Ghor, according to OCHA. Many have moved to urban areas where they live in tents on public and private lands, creating tensions with landowners.

“If the harvest is OK, that will help communities come out of a terribly bleak period. If it’s not OK, we’ll need a massive injection of food quickly,” said Toby Lanzer, the U.N.’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan.

The winter wheat harvested in June and July will need to help feed displaced people and some 10.6 million people who are struggling to find enough food where they live, Lanzer said.

Farming accounts for one-third of the country’s economy, although only 12 percent of its land is arable.

The wheat crop’s outlook remains uncertain, said Agriculture Minister Nasir Ahmad Durrani, in an interview on March 20. If the temperature warms too rapidly, melting snow could create floods that wipe out ripe crops, he said.

It is also unclear how much wheat farmers were able to plant last autumn, said Rajendra Aryal, the representative in Afghanistan for the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Many farmers used wheat seed to make bread to survive, rather than save it for planting, Aryal said.
“The people were already poor,” he said. “It will be very difficult if the harvest fails, so I don’t even want to think that way.”

The floods also damaged critical farm infrastructure, such as irrigation canals, reservoirs and wells. The Afghan government is working to repair damaged infrastructure, especially in the provinces of Kandahar and Farah, Durrani said.

Afghanistan produced 3.6 million tonnes of wheat last year, down 25 percent from the five-year average, according to the FAO.

The country dipped into its grain reserve last year for 190,000 tonnes of wheat, leaving just 50,000 tonnes left, Durrani said.

The expected shortfall between supply and demand this year will be made up through wheat imports from countries including Pakistan and Kazakhstan, he said.

FILE PHOTO - An Afghan man removes snow next to his handcart after the first snow in winter on the snow-covered ground in Kabul, Afghanistan, January 5, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani/File Photo

Abdul Majid Khan, who coordinates aid related to food security and agriculture for the U.N., said a plan is in place to assist families who return home as the drought abates. It includes food assistance, cash for work and farm supplies, but the plan still requires approval from international donors.

“My biggest concern is delays in funding,” he said. “We can lose the trust of the people.”

A significant number of families should be able to return, as long as it is safe, said Zlatan Milisic, country director for the World Food Programme.

“There are no more resilient people on Earth,” U.N. Representative Lanzer said about Afghans. “But goodness me, it is being tested.”

Reporting by Rod Nickel in KABUL; additional reporting by Abdul Matin Sahak in MAZAR-I-SHARIF; editing by Christian Schmollinger

Social Media Weaponized By Power-Crazed Politicians

Today the rise of the Internet has spurred the development of a new dimension for social and political participation.

by Zulkifli Nazim-March 26 at 3:07 PM

When you distort truth it is harder for people to figure out what is real and what is spin.

“The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.” G.C. Lichtenberg.

Unfortunately the current political world we live in today is full of what this quote describes.

No one has ever doubted that truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other, and no one, has ever counted truthfulness among the political virtues. Lies have always been regarded as necessary and justifiable tools not only of the politician's or the demagogue's but also of the statesman's trade.

Politics is an essential human activity – essential in building societies and communities based on rules, laws and a balance of conflicting interests. Politics is complex and difficult. It requires a high level of responsibility and commitment from citizens, political parties, parliamentarians, government executives, the judiciary, the media, businesses, non-governmental organisations as well as religious and educational institutions.

Good government depends on an ability to exercise power, and to make good decisions over time, across a spectrum of economic, social, environmental and other areas. This is linked with the government’s capacity for knowledge, mediation, resource allocation, implementation and maintenance of key relationships.

However, a study on the confidence of people in institutions, show that people do not place much trust in politics and politicians. Politicians are often seen as selfish and corrupt, power-hungry and unethical.

Today the rise of the Internet has spurred the development of a new dimension for social and political participation.

In today’s age of timeliness and demand for information, social media has continued to play a crucial role in informing the public about politics, campaigns and elections. But while the public demands information from the media, there is also an underlying cynicism in the world culture against the media and politicians for negative campaign coverage and a perceived media bias.

There is no doubt that social media has brought change to politics.

Facebook and twitter played a vital role in influencing different political ideologies. This trend of using social media to share information, mobilize and even have an impact to the society is not just for Sri Lanka alone, but the impact is felt worldwide.

Ordinary insignificant and contemptible situations have been ignited and catalysed by social media among all people, arousing inflammatory debates using the social media as their main tool of political mobilization for destabilizing an otherwise normal peaceful country. This shows that anyone with any opinion can highlight it on this platform, whether right or wrong.

Social media now provides the structure for political conversation. And the problem is that these technologies permit and allow too many fake news stories from untrustworthy sources to spread like wildfire over networks of family and friends.

Apart from being used for good causes, social media have also been exploited for ethnic hatred; a usage that has heightened ethnic tensions, and sometimes has threatened to create ethnic tension and plunge the country into ethnic unrest.

What they post online, could include inappropriate postings such as discriminatory remarks, harassment, and threats of violence or similar inappropriate or unlawful conduct and political bots to manipulate public opinion by amplifying or repressing political content, disinformation, hate speech, and junk news.

An ideal fertile ground for politicians who shamelessly, wantonly and openly use both the main stream media as well as the social media, as a weapon to serve their agenda, as they seek to consolidate the nation against an imaginary enemy.

The impact of Social Media in our lives is all pervasive, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles and fall prey to fake news that further reinforce their views.

It is very unfortunate that there is no clear laws in our legal system to regulate misinformation and disinformation on what can be done to offenders who misuse these avenues that promote hate speech and violence.

Hate speech covers many forms of expressions which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred, violence and discrimination against a person or group of persons for a variety of reasons.

It poses grave dangers for the cohesion of a democratic society, the protection of human rights and the rule of law. If left unaddressed, it can lead to acts of violence and conflict on a wider scale. In this sense hate speech is an extreme form of intolerance which contributes to hate crime and civil disorder resulting in lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property and people; where theft, vandalism, and destruction of property, public or private are rampant, unrestrained and unchecked.

Our government should be cognizant and alert of the dangerous link between hate speech and violence. Proper and effective legislation must be enacted and implemented and those in power must understand that criminal prohibition is necessary when hate speech publicly incites violence against individuals or groups of people. At the same time ensure criminal sanctions are used as a measure to eradicate such destructive behaviour all along.

It is also important that a balance must be kept between fighting hate speech on the one hand, and safeguarding freedom of speech on the other. Any restrictions on hate speech should not be misused to silence minorities and to suppress criticism of official policies, political opposition or religious beliefs.

Underreporting of hate speech and hate-motivated violence is another unfortunate feature. Victims rarely report incidents to the authorities for fear of retaliation or of not being taken seriously, or because they have no confidence in the justice system. This contributes to lack of data which makes it difficult to quantify the extent of the problem and take effective measures to address it.

The states has a duty to provide practical support to those targeted by hate speech and violence and enforce proper law and order, to prevent any recurrence.

The influence of Social media cannot be just dismissed. If the social media and technology platforms were not both valuable and powerful, there would not be an issue to address. There is social good and commercial value that we should recognise and celebrate. Connecting people, providing an open exchange of information, these are worthy goals, and our world would be diminished without people working to meet them.

As Thomas Ambrose puts it, “While social media is not as essential for survival as traditional public utilities such as electricity, water, and natural gas, many people believe it has become vital for living in an interconnected world and without it, living a successful life would be difficult”.

Why the next terror manifesto could be even harder to track

March 26, 2019 6.38am EDT

Just before his shooting spree at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques, the alleged mass murderer posted a hate-filled manifesto on several file-sharing sites, and emailed the document to at least 30 people, including New Zealand’s prime minister. He also posted on several social media sites links to the manifesto and instructions on how to find his Facebook profile to watch an upcoming video. The video turned out to be a 17-minute Facebook livestream of preparing for and carrying out the first attack on March 15. In his posts, the accused killer urged people to make copies of the manifesto and the video, and share them around the internet.

On March 23, the New Zealand government banned possession and sharing of the manifesto, and shortly thereafter arrested at least two people for having shared the video. By then, the original manifesto document and video file had long since been removed from the platforms where they were first posted. Yet plenty of people appear to have taken the shooter’s advice, making copies and spreading them widely.

As part of my ongoing research into extremism on social media – particularly anti-Muslim sentiment – I was interested in how other right-wing extremists would use the manifesto. Would they know that companies would seek to identify it on their sites and delete it? How would they try to evade that detection, and how would they share the files around the web? I wanted to see if computer science techniques could help me track the documents as they spread. What I learned suggests it may become even harder to fight hate online in the future.

To catch a file

To find as many different versions of the manifesto as possible, I chose an unusual keyphrase, called a “hapax legomenon” in computational linguistics: a set of words that would only be found in the manifesto and nowhere else. For example, Google-searching the phrase “Schtitt uses an unamplified bullhorn” reveals that this phrase is used only in David Foster Wallace’s novel “Infinite Jest” and nowhere else online (until now).

A few minutes of Google-searching for a hapax from the manifesto (which I’m intentionally not revealing) found copies of the document in Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF formats on dozens of file-sharing services, including DocDroid, DocumentCloud, Scribd, Mega and Dropbox. The file had been uploaded to blogs hosted on Wordpress and attached to message boards like Kiwi Farms. I also found numerous broken links to files that had been uploaded and quickly deleted, like the original versions that the author had uploaded to Mediafire and Zippyshare.

To determine whether all the files were the same, I used a common file-identification technique, generating a checksum, or cryptographic hash, for each manifesto document. A hash is a mathematical description of a file. If two files are identical, their hashes will match. If they are different, they will produce different hashes. After reviewing the file hashes, it became clear that there were only a few main versions of the manifesto, and most of the rest of the files circulating around were copies of them.

A hash can only reveal that the files are different, not how or why they are different. Within the different versions of the manifesto files, I found very few instances where entirely new content was added. I did find a few versions that had color graphics and new cover art added, but the text content itself was left largely unchanged. Most of the differences between the originals could be chalked up to the different fonts and paper sizes set as defaults on the computer of whoever created the copies. Some of the versions also had slightly different line spacing, perhaps introduced as the file was converted from Word to PDF.

The video file was another story. At least one person who watched the Facebook video made a copy of it, and that original video was subsequently compressed, edited, restreamed and reformatted until at least 800 different versions were circulating.

Any change to a file – even a small one like adding a single letter to the manifesto or one extra second of video – will result in an entirely different file hash. All those changes made my analysis of the spread of these artifacts difficult – and also complicated social media companies’ efforts to rid the internet of them.

Facebook and YouTube used some form of hash-matching to block most of the video upload attempts. But with all those changes – and the resulting entirely new hashes – 300,000 copies of the video escaped hash-based detection at Facebook. Google also lamented the difficulty of detecting tiny text changes in such a lengthy manifesto.

More tech, more problems

Despite the internet companies’ claims that these problems will disappear as artificial intelligence matures, a collection of “alt-tech” companies are working to ensure that hate-fueled artifacts like the manifesto and video can spread unbidden.

For example, Rob Monster, CEO of a company called Epik, has created a suite of software services that support a broad collection of hate sites. Epik provides domain services for Gab, an online platform favored by violent extremists like the accused Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, and the company recently acquired BitMitigate, which offers protection against online attacks to neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer.

An introduction to IPFS.

Just 24 hours after the mosque attacks, Monster explained on Gab that he shared the manifesto and video file onto IPFS, or the “Interplanetary File System,” a decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing network. Files on IPFS are split into many pieces, each distributed among many participants on the network, making the removal of a file nearly impossible. IPFS had previously been a niche technology, relatively unknown even among extremists. Now, calling IPFS a “crazy clever technology” that makes files “effectively uncensorable,” Monster reassured Gab users that he was also developing software to make IPFS “easy for anyone … with no technical skills required.”

A shift in tactics

As in-person hate groups were sued into obscurity in the 1980s, extremism went underground. But with the advent of the commercial internet, hate groups quickly moved online, and eventually onto social media. The New Zealand attacker was part of a far-right social media “meme” culture, where angry men (and some women) justify their grievances with violent, hateful rhetoric.

Widespread adoption of artificial intelligence on platforms and decentralized tools like IPFS will mean that the online hate landscape will change once again. Combating online extremism in the future may be less about “meme wars” and user-banning, or “de-platforming,” and could instead look like the attack-and-defend, cat-and-mouse technical one-upsmanship that has defined the cybersecurity industry since the 1980s.

No matter what technical challenges come up, one fact never changes: The world will always need more good, smart people working to counter hate than there are promoting it.

Venezuela: Maduro blames blackout on sniper and tells people to pray

Venezuelan leader claimed in a broadcast the latest outage was caused by mercenaries ‘sent by the coup-mongering right’

A general view of Altamira neighborhood partially illuminated during a power outage in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday. Photograph: Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images

Tom Phillips in Caracas and Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá-Thu 28 Mar 2019

Nicolás Maduro has asked Venezuelans to pray for the country’s recovery from another crippling nationwide blackout, in a crackly and foreboding telephone interview that reinforced the mounting sense of crisis.

In a late-night broadcast, Maduro claimed the latest powercut had been caused by a sniper attack on a key part of Venezuela’s energy infrastructure carried out by mercenaries “sent by the coup-mongering right”.

“They knew what they were attacking … Only the North American empire has enough hatred, enough wickedness in its brain, enough perversity – has a diabolical enough mind – to order an attack like this,” Maduro said, claiming the supposed long-range rifle attack had caused a devastating fire.

“This is a total war,” Venezuela’s authoritarian leader added. “Since they can’t invade the country … they have decided to damage, damage, damage.”

Experts believe the crippling power failures – which have continued to blight Venezuela this week after a historic six-day outage early this month – are a consequence of years of under investment and corruption.

“There is an electrical war being waged against Venezuela, but it is by the Maduro government,” said José Aguilar, a Venezuelan energy consultant.

Maduro alleged the “brutal terrorist attack” had been masterminded by Donald Trump and his “diabolical puppet”, Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader who most western governments now recognize as Venezuela’s interim president.

“It was an enemy bombardment – and you can be certain Donald Trump had a hand in this … Donald Trump is obsessed with Venezuela.”

On Thursday, Maduro’s comptroller general announced that Guaidó would be banned from holding public office for 15 years – the maximum period allowed under Venezuelan law.

Elvis Amoroso, a key Maduro ally, accused Guaidó of “usurping public functions and committing actions with foreign governments that have harmed the Venezuelan people and national patrimony”.
Last week, Guaidó’s chief of staff, Roberto Marrero, was detained, sparking fears of a severe political crackdown designed to snuff out opposition to Maduro.

Maduro’s telephone interview with state television – which many Venezuelans were unable to watch because they had no electricity – was intended to reassure the population his administration was in control.

“I am neither a coward nor a weakling – and I will not shirk my responsibility,” Maduro insisted, adding that he had not slept since the blackout began.

Maduro also called on Venezuelans to respond to the crisis by showing “maximum union and maximum Christian spirituality and resistance”.

But Maduro’s comments – and the fact that he failed to appear in the flesh – reinforced the sense that tough days lie ahead for a country already struggling with hyperinflation and chronic shortages of food, water and medicine.

Only on Thursday morning - 12 hours after the phone interview took place – was video footage published on Maduro’s Twitter account.

El pueblo venezolano y el mundo entero debe saber la verdad; la derecha en su locura, pretende hacerse del poder político a través de métodos violentos y terroristas que solo le hacen daño al pueblo, no lo lograrán. pic.twitter.com/VxMuVtqSnm
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) 28 March 2019

Maduro admitted “tremendous damage” had been done to the national grid and asked Venezuelans to pray.

“Everyone should know that the damage that has been done is more severe than any Venezuelan can imagine,” he said, announcing that electricity “administration” would be necessary in the coming days.

Aguilar, the energy specialist, rejected Maduro’s claims that the “evil empire” was to blame and warned nationwide blackouts might become Venezuela’s new normal.

“This will happen again and again, because with every blackout the grid is more strained and more substations go up in flames,” Aguilar said, adding that rationing could alleviate some of the burden while repairs were made.

Venezuela’s second-largest city, Maracaibo – which was plunged into chaosby the first blackout – remained in the dark on Wednesday night, two days after the latest blackout began.

At a rally in Caracas, Guaidó mocked the government’s claims that foreign saboteurs had caused the blackouts and told supporters to prepare for a final nationwide push against Maduro dubbed “Operation Freedom”.

“What we are asking for, and what we are fighting for every single day, is to live normally,” Guaidó said.

Thursday, March 28, 2019

May tells Tory MPs: ‘Back my deal and I’ll quit’

Gary Gibbon-27 Mar 2019Political Editor

Theresa May has always insisted she’ll put duty before ambition, and tonight she made the ultimate sacrifice in a statement to her MPs just a short while ago in committee room 14.

She was, she said, prepared to leave her job earlier than she’d intended in the national and party interest.

It is a high-stakes gamble. And with the DUP keeping their counsel tonight, it’s uncertain if it will pay off.

In the meantime, MPs are as we speak voting on a plan B to the Prime minister’s plan – from staying in the customs union to cancelling Brexit altogether.

Can Zuzana Caputova Save Slovakia?

A political newcomer is poised to become president by standing up for liberal democratic values—and seeking to halt the spread of right-wing populism across Central and Eastern Europe.

Presidential candidate Zuzana Caputova (C) waits for the first exit polls at her election headquarters during the first round of the presidential elections in Bratislava, Slovakia, on March 16, 2019. (JOE KLAMAR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

BY DARIUSZ KALAN

| MARCH 28, 2019, 1:17 PM
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia—Two months ago, Zuzana Caputova, with a young and highly inexperienced team, low name recognition, and polls pegging her backing at only 9 percent, was a long shot in Slovakia’s presidential election.

Now, after winning by a landslide in first round (taking 40.6 percent of the vote compared with 18.7 percent for the second-place finisher), Caputova, once called an “unknown girl” by the speaker of the National Council, Slovakia’s parliament, has become the front-runner in the final round scheduled for March 30. Many observers also see her as a rising star of Central European politics, one who is willing and able to confront right-wing alpha males such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban.

Caputova, a 45-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption activist with limited political experience, plays down such expectations, arguing that Slovakia’s president doesn’t have the influence enjoyed by, for instance, France’s leader. But, she told Foreign Policy at her office in Bratislava on March 21, “I won’t be afraid to discuss my values.”

A talented orator, Caputova comes across as reserved but confident, the qualities she first showed to the public in televised presidential debates in February and March. She speaks openly about truth, justice, and equality, which, according to her supporters, embodies a positive message reminiscent of Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright turned president of Czechoslovakia, who has remained a political and moral icon in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic since they split apart.

The crucial factor, though, that helped her to pull ahead is her “ethos of a civil rights leader, who successfully fought against powerful political and economic interest groups,” said Olga Gyarfasova, a sociologist at Comenius University in Bratislava.

Caputova’s greatest triumph as a lawyer—and her ticket to the national political stage—was a victory against an illegal dumpsite in her hometown of Pezinok in western Slovakia. The 14-year battle against a wealthy developer with ties to local authorities—which involved filing lawsuits, organizing protests, and petitions to European Union institutions—won her the 2016 Goldman Prize, a leading award honoring environmental activists often called the Green Nobel.

But Caputova’s sudden rise is also rooted in the country’s current turbulence. Slovakia is still riding a wave of anger and activism inspired by the massive protests that erupted after the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova in February 2018. As Milan Bubak, a Roman Catholic priest, declared at last month’s rally on the anniversary of their deaths, this tragic event’s impact on Slovakia is comparable to the shock of the 9/11 attacks in the United States: It was a historic turning point, the effects of which will be felt for years to come.

Two days before the first round of the election, police charged the millionaire Marian Kocner, who was already in jail on separate charges, with ordering the murder. Kuciak had covered Kocner’s alleged tax fraud in his last story published before he was killed. The yearlong investigation shed light on Kocner’s powers. He hired spies and recorded conversations to collect a dossier of compromising materials, worked closely with two police officers in the city of Banska Bystrica who investigated cases involving him but never brought charges, and, according to local media, might have bribed a former prosecutor who was Kocner’s old friend from the army.

The charges against Kocner cemented the image of a government influenced from behind the scenes by shady businessmen who operated with impunity. This was a blow to the ruling Direction-Social Democracy (Smer-SD) party, which has been in power for 11 of the past 13 years. Kocner has been friends with several members of Smer-SD for decades and was even a neighbor in the luxurious Bonaparte apartment complex of former Prime Minister Robert Fico, who stepped down after the murder in 2018 but is still a leader of the party.

Given the ruling party’s close ties with an indicted tycoon, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Caputova, who was a frequent participant at anti-government demonstrations after the murders, has cast her campaign as a struggle between good and evil. With the catchy Star Wars-like election slogan “Postavme sa zlu, spolu to dokazeme” (“Let’s face the evil together”), she offered herself as a new breed of politician: exciting, different, and untainted by scandals.

She denies, however, that Fico is the face of this evil. He’s not Darth Vader, Caputova conceded. “The evil we’ve been talking about and want to fight against is more deep-rooted,” she argued. “For the last 30 years, we haven’t been able to curb the abuse of power, shadowy business-government relationships, and corruption. This is what makes people disillusioned with politicians and keeps them away from politics.”

To regain that trust, she’s promoting herself as a face of a new generation of Slovak leaders, called mockingly by journalists “hipsters in power.” These are modern professionals—human-rights lawyers, think tankers, architects, and nonprofit activists in their mid-30s or early 40s—grouped around two nonparliamentary parties: Progressive Slovakia and Together-Civic Democracy. Both have backed Caputova, who until recently was a Progressive Slovakia deputy chairwoman. She still is a practitioner of Zen Buddhist yoga, which is likely the only thing that links her to what might be called hipster subculture.

There has been “high demand for change” in the past year, Irena Bihariova, a lawyer and herself a Progressive Slovakia deputy chairwoman, told me. “It can either turn into [the] rise of right-wing anti-elite movements, or, as in our case, a positive, constructive alternative to those who defend the status quo.”

The most recent presidential polls show Caputova hovering around 60 percent of the vote, well ahead of second-place Maros Sefcovic, a current EU commissioner. A 52-year-old Soviet-educated career diplomat who has gained a reputation for being genuinely pro-European, he was accused by opponents of pandering when, in order to attract right-wing voters, he appealed to “traditional, Christian values” in contrast to what he called Caputova’s “ultraliberal agenda.”

Potentially more damaging for Sefcovic is his political affiliation. Officially independent, he’s in fact backed by the ruling party. “Experience, optimism, linguistic skills, high name recognition in Europe,” said Monika Smolkova, a member of the European Parliament from Smer-SD, listing Sefcovic’s qualities in a phone interview. “But nothing will overshadow the main problem: that he runs with the Smer-SD’s support.”

Caputova speculated that, in a perfect world, she and Sefcovic would be on the same side. “We both are pro-European, and I’m glad I will face him, not any of the right-wing or radical candidates.” But he has not been able to escape the taint of the party backing him. Caputova has capitalized on that.

The endorsements of another prominent first-round candidate, liberal academic Robert Mistrik, and the majority of prominent media personalities have also boosted Caputova’s profile. She appeared three times in a row on the cover of .tyzden, the country’s most prominent weekly, once with the headline “Hope,” in an echo of former U.S. President Barack Obama’s campaign slogan. In contrast, earlier this year the weekly showed Fico in a prison jumpsuit and, in another issue, a smiling Sefcovic above the headline “The Opportunist.”

“I don’t think Ms. Caputova would be a bad president, but the media weren’t playing fair. They didn’t even pretend to be neutral,” said Smer-SD’s Smolkova, insisting that her party, unlike ruling parties in Hungary or Poland, didn’t establish government mouthpieces.

This cuts to the heart of the system Fico created: Slovakia, despite all of the misdeeds and crimes committed on his watch, including the murder of a journalist, didn’t head down the same path as its illiberal neighbors did by tightening the ruling elite’s grip on all state institutions. Nor was Slovakia’s independent judiciary the target of government crusades as it was in Hungary and Poland.

Fico had a long history of verbally attacking journalists and proposed a revision to the press code, which would give politicians and public officials a right to reply to criticism, rousing charges that the government sought to muzzle a free press. Even so, most of the country’s private media is demonstratively anti-Smer, while the public broadcaster, which has recently become more supportive of the government, is still far from being a fount of government propaganda, unlike state broadcasters in Hungary and Poland. And when the public has had enough, protesters have proved that they can successfully push for change.

Smer-SD, a party dependent on older voters from small towns and with a limited ability to attract young supporters, is focused on maintaining its friendly ties with business interest groups, and that makes corruption, not authoritarianism, the country’s biggest scourge.

Caputova has impeccable anti-corruption credentials, and she is unwavering in her liberal views.She was born to working-class parents in what she calls an “open-minded house.” According to her, same-sex unions should be legally recognized, LGBT adoption is better than leaving children in orphanages, and, although she personally declares herself against abortion, she believes in a “woman’s right to make a decision.”

This platform made her an easy target for right-wing groups and some members of the influential Roman Catholic Church, who claimed that voting for Caputova is a sin. “I know I could have lost a lot. But from the beginning I decided I won’t pretend to be someone else,” she said. “Among my voters are conservatives and Catholics. At present, what’s more important for a politician is personal honesty and integrity.”

Now, Caputova, a divorced mother of two daughters who has been living in an informal relationship with a photographer, is about to make history as the first female president elected in Slovakia. But the path was set down for her some 20 years ago.

In the 1999 election, the actress and diplomat Magda Vasaryova emerged as the front-runner, but after a nasty presidential campaign, she eventually finished third, gaining the support of some 200,000 Slovaks. A decade later, in 2009, Iveta Radicova, a former popular labor minister, came even closer, making it to the second round, where she was backed by almost 1 million Slovaks.

“We probably made it easier for other women to run for office,” Radicova, who later served as Slovakia’s first female prime minister from 2010 to 2012, told FP. “Women’s engagement in politics is still problematic for many voters, but, generally, Ms. Caputova’s success helps highlight how attitudes in Slovakia have changed over the last 20 years.”

Carried by youth and enthusiasm, Caputova clearly looks to French President Emmanuel Macron as one of her inspirations—along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mohandas Gandhi, and Obama. Asked if she isn’t afraid that, like Macron, she’ll soon lose her charm by making unpopular decisions, she replied with refreshing honesty for a presidential candidate: “I know people have high hopes and it’s very likely that support for me will drop sooner or later.”

“I won’t be able to meet all the expectations,” Caputova readily admitted. “But at least I’m honest about it. This is what makes me different from the ruling politicians.”

Dariusz Kalan is a Central Europe correspondent for international media and an analyst based in Bratislava. Follow him on Twitter: @Dariusz_Kalan.

Saudi law professor arrested for criticising kingdom's human rights record: Report

Professor denounces Saudi Arabia’s detention of rights activists, before he himself is arrested

Entrance to King Saud University in Riyadh (Wikipedia)

By MEE staff-Published date: 28 March 2019

Saudi Arabian authorities arrested a law professor who teaches at King Saud University in the capital Riyadh, hours after he critised the kingdom’s human rights record, media outlet Arabi21 reported.

Speaking at the Riyadh International Book Fair on Thursday, Anas al-Mazrouee denounced Saudi Arabia’s arrest and detention of women’s rights and other human rights activists.

He critcised the kingdom’s crackdown on dissent, calling out the government for claiming it champions women’s rights while it was arresting women activists.

Abdullah al-Ouda - son of detained Saudi cleric Salman al-Ouda, who has been held since 2017 - said that the professor was arrested shortly after giving his talk at the fair.

News of Mazrouee’s arrest soon circulated on social media, as videos of his speech prior to his arrest went viral.

Saudi law professor, Anas Almazrouh, was arrested a few hours after making brave remarks about need to reframe human rights narrative in the kingdom..he called for release of political prisoners and encouraged attendees to question status quo on governance pic.twitter.com/sWYRabKwaC
— Asma (@LibyanBentBladi) 28 March 2019

On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia released three women activists from jail following a court hearing.

Rokaya al-Muhareb, Aziza al-Yousef and Eman al-Nafjan were arrested and detained last year as part of a crackdown on dissent.

Relatives and a human rights organisation said the women had been released, and that others currently held would be freed on Sunday. The conditions of their release remained unclear.

The activists, including blogger Nafjan and university professor Hatoon al-Fassi, have led years-long campaigns against the kingdom's ban on women driving, only to be arrested last summer just before the landmark decision to lift restrictions on female motorists.

Their detentions came as part of a sweeping crackdown that has seen vocal figures, including clerics and scholars, locked up in a bid to crush any potential opposition.

The women, initially accused of harbouring links to foreign intelligence agencies and dubbed by state media as traitors and "agents of embassies", were first expected to appear before a court set up to handle terrorism-related cases.

A last-minute shift saw their referral to a criminal court, without any explanation, after months of Western criticism.

Saudi Arabia has been subjected to global criticism over its violations of human rights and clampdown on critics notably since the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul last October.