The head of Slovakia’s central bank, and one of the most outspoken hawks on the ECB governing council, was convicted Thursday of bribery and fined 100,000 euros ($110,000).

The country’s Special Criminal Court handed National Bank of Slovakia Gov. Peter Kazimir a two-year suspended sentence, said Katarina Kudjakova, a spokesperson for the court. Not paying the fine would mean jail time according to AP.

However, as is typical with every chaotic decision in Europe, the verdict was issued without a trial, and the state prosecution service appealed it shortly afterward, sending the case back to court. Kazimir also could appeal.

Kazimir is accused of handing a bribe of 48,000 euros ($53,000) to the head of the country’s tax office related to a tax investigation of private companies, but few details were available because there was no trial. Or, rather, there was no trial because Europe’s technocrats want to keep the matter as secret as possible.

President Zuzana Caputova said Kazimir should consider resigning, while Prime Minister Eduard Heger called it “unacceptable” for him to head the central bank.

The case dates to when Kazimir served as finance minister from 2012 to 2019 in the leftist government of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico and was a member of Fico’s Smer-Social Democracy party before taking over his central bank job. Smer lost the 2020 general election and was replaced by a coalition government whose parties campaigned on an anti-corruption ticket. The new government made fighting corruption a key policy issue. Since it took power, a number of senior officials, police officers, judges, prosecutors, politicians and businesspeople have been charged with corruption and other crimes.

Slovakia faces an early election in September after the government lost a parliamentary no-confidence vote in December. Fico, who unlike the current government opposes military help for Ukraine against Russia, stands a chance to win the snap vote, recent polls suggested.

Kazimir reiterated that he rejects bribery charges brought against him by the country’s prosecutors, and in a statement said that he hasn’t committed any crime and has no doubts that he’ll prove his innocence in a trial or at appeal courts in Slovakia or Europe.

Authored by Alex Newman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The United Nations is seeking vast new powers and stronger “global governance” tools to deal with international emergencies such as pandemics and economic crises, a new U.N. policy brief has revealed, and the Biden administration appears to support the proposal.

The plan to create an “Emergency Platform,” which would involve a set of protocols activated during crises that could affect billions of people, has already drawn strong concern and criticism from U.S. policymakers and analysts.

Among those expressing concern is House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), whose committee oversees U.S. foreign policy and involvement in international organizations.

“We must be sure that any global protocol or platform operated by the U.N. respects U.S. national sovereignty and U.S. taxpayer dollars,” McCaul told The Epoch Times.

He also noted his concern that the proposed platform expands the authority and funding of the U.S. and the definitions of “emergency” and “crisis” to include, for instance, climate change.

U.N. documents and statements released in March by key leaders of the global organization make clear that climate change is a major piece of the U.N. emergencies agenda.

Other critics who spoke with The Epoch Times expressed concern about the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within the U.N., the global organization’s well-documented corruption problems, and its track record of dealing with previous emergencies.

“Allowing the U.N. to deal with this is the equivalent of putting the CCP in charge of global emergencies,” former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Kevin Moley told The Epoch Times.

UN Vision for Global Crises Response

In a policy brief dubbed “Our Common Agenda” headlined “Strengthening the International Response to Complex Shocks – An Emergency Platform,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres laid out his vision for empowering the global organization to deal with global crises.

“The challenges we face can only be addressed through stronger international cooperation,” Guterres declared, calling for “strengthening global governance” for current and future generations.

The policy brief builds on an earlier “Common Agenda” document and comes as U.N. leaders outline the plans for a “Summit of the Future” set to be held during the General Assembly’s annual high-level meeting in September.

If it gets a green light from member states, the global emergency protocols would be “triggered automatically” in case of a global crisis, “regardless of the type or nature of the crisis involved,” the U.N. chief said.

The protocols would bring all sorts of institutions together, including national governments, international institutions, and the private sector. Ultimately, all would have to recognize the “primary role of intergovernmental organs [such as U.N. agencies] in decision-making,” the document states.

“The Emergency Platform, once convened, would be a tool for the United Nations system to implement decisions taken by relevant organs,” according to the policy brief.

State Department Supportive

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department suggested that the Biden administration backs the plan.

“The administration has made clear its firm belief that U.S. national security is best served by engaging actively and comprehensively with the UN and other international organizations,” the spokesman told The Epoch Times in an e-mailed statement about the proposal.

“The U.N. is only as effective, transparent, and accountable as its membership demands, and the U.S. works tirelessly to ensure the U.N. meets those demands.”

The U.N. proposal was unveiled as multibillionaire Bill Gates, one of the most prominent voices during the COVID-19 crisis and a major financier of the World Health Organization (WHO) and vaccines, called for a global “fire department” to address international health emergencies.

Writing in The New York Times last month, Gates said a “Global Health Emergency Corps” could “spring into action at a moment’s notice when danger emerges.”

“The Global Health Emergency Corps will represent massive progress toward a pandemic-free future,” Gates wrote in the op-ed. “The ‌question ‌‌is whether we have the foresight to invest in that future now before it’s too late.”

UN Emergencies Protocol

Guterres, who is asking governments to approve his plan later this year, said risks are growing and becoming more complex.

“Enhanced international cooperation is the only way we can adequately respond to these shocks, and the United Nations is the only organization with the reach and legitimacy to convene at the highest level and galvanize global action,” he said. “We must keep strengthening the multilateral system so that it is fit to face the challenges of tomorrow.”

Exactly what would constitute an emergency that would trigger the U.N. emergency response wasn’t made clear.

However, the document states that crises without “global consequences” would “not necessarily” be categorized as an emergency requiring U.N. intervention. In other words, some crises that don’t have global consequences might trigger a U.N. response.

Read more here…

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

NOTE: This is the English original of a column specially commissioned by leading Russian business daily Vedemosti.

We were waiting for the end of the world
Waiting for the end of the world, waiting for the end of the world
Dear Lord, I sincerely hope You’re coming
‘Cause You really started something

Elvis Costello, Waiting for the End of the World, 1977

We cannot even begin to fathom the non-stop ripple effects deriving from the 2023 geopolitical earthquake that shook the world: Putin and Xi, in Moscow, de facto signaling the beginning of the end of Pax Americana.

This has been the ultimate anathema for rarified Anglo-American hegemonic elites for over a century: a signed, sealed, comprehensive strategic partnership of two peer competitors, intertwining a massive manufacturing base and pre-eminence in supply of natural resources – with value-added Russian state of the art weaponry and diplomatic nous.

From the point of view of these elites, whose Plan A was always a debased version of the Roman Empire’s Divide and Rule, this was never supposed to happen. In fact, blinded by hubris, they never saw it coming. Historically, this does not even qualify as a remix of the Tournament of Shadows; it’s more like Tawdry Empire Left in the Shade, “foaming at the mouth” (copyright Maria Zakharova).

Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism. No wonder the Global South was riveted by what developed in Moscow.

Adding insult to injury, we have China, the world’s largest economy by far when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), as well as the largest exporter. And we have Russia, an economy that by PPP is equivalent or even larger than Germany’s – with the added advantages of being the world’s largest energy exporter and not forced to de-industrialize.

Together, in synch, they are focused on creating the necessary conditions to bypass the US dollar.

Cue to one of President Putin’s crucial one-liners: “We are in favor of using the Chinese yuan for settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.”

A key consequence of this geopolitical and geoeconomic alliance, carefully designed throughout the past few years, is already in play: the emergence of a possible triad in terms of global trade relations and, in many aspects, a Global Trade War.

Eurasia is being led – and largely organized – by the Russia-China partnership. China will also play a key role across the Global South, but India may also become quite influential, agglutinating what would be a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on steroids. And then there is the former “indispensable nation” ruling over the EU vassals and the Anglosphere rounded up in the Five Eyes.

What the Chinese really want

The Hegemon, under its self-concocted “rules-based international order”, essentially never did diplomacy. Divide and Rule, by definition, precludes diplomacy. Now their version of “diplomacy” has degenerated even further into crude insults by an array of US, EU and UK’s intellectually challenged and frankly moronic functionaries.

It’s no wonder that a true gentleman, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has been forced to admit, “Russia is no longer a partner of the EU… The European Union ‘lost’ Russia. But the Union itself is to blame. After all, EU member states… openly declare that Russia should be dealt a strategic defeat. That is why we consider the EU to be an enemy organization.”

And yet the new Russian foreign policy concept, announced by Putin on March 31st, makes it quite clear: Russia does not consider itself an “enemy of the West” and does not seek isolation.

The problem is there’s virtually no adult to talk to on the other side, rather a bunch of hyenas. That has led Lavrov to once again stress that “symmetrical and asymmetrical” measures may be used against those involved in “hostile” actions against Moscow.

When it comes to Exceptionalistan, that’s self-evident: the US is designated by Moscow as the prime anti-Russia instigator, and the collective West’s overall policy is described as “a new type of Hybrid War.”

Yet what really matters for Moscow are the positives further on down the road: non-stop Eurasia integration; closer ties with “friendly global centers” China and India; increased help to Africa; more strategic cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean, the lands of Islam – Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt – and ASEAN.

And that brings us to something essential that was – predictably – ignored en masse by Western media: the Boao Forum for Asia, which took place nearly simultaneously with the announcement of Russia’s new foreign policy concept.

The Boao Forum, started in early 2001, still in the pre-9/11 era, has been modeled on Davos, but it’s Top China through and through, with the secretariat based in Beijing. Boao is in Hainan province, one of the islands of the Gulf of Tonkin and today a tourist paradise.

One of the key sessions of this year’s forum was on development and security, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is currently Boao’s president.

There were quite a few references to Xi’s Global Development Initiative as well as the Global Security Initiative – which by the way was launched at Boao in 2022.

The problem is these two initiatives are directly linked to the UN’s concept of peace and security and the extremely dodgy Agenda 2030 on “sustainable development” – which is not exactly about development and much less “sustainable”: it’s a Davos uber-corporate concoction. The UN for its part is basically a hostage of Washington’s whims. Beijing, for the moment, plays along.

Premier Li Qiang was more specific. Stressing the trademark concept of “community of shared future for mankind” as the basis for peace and development, he linked peaceful coexistence with the “Spirit of Bandung” – in direct continuity with the emergence of NAM in 1955: that should be the “Asian Way” of mutual respect and building consensus – in opposition to “the indiscriminate use of unilateral sanctions and long-reaching jurisdiction”, and the refusal of “a new Cold War”.

And that led Li Qiang to the emphasis on the Chinese drive to deepen the RCEP East Asian trade deal, and also advance the negotiations on the free trade agreement between China and ASEAN. And all that integrated with the new expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in contrast to trade protectionism.

So for the Chinese what matters, intertwined with business, is cultural interactions; inclusivity; mutual trust; and a stern refusal of “clash of civilizations” and ideological confrontation.

As much as Moscow easily subscribes to all of the above – and in fact practices it via diplomatic finesse – Washington is terrified by how compelling is this Chinese narrative for the whole Global South. After all, Exceptionalistan’s only offer in the market of ideas is unilateral domination; Divide an Rule; and “you’re with us or against us”. And in the latter case you will be sanctioned, harassed, bombed and/or regime-changed.

Is it 1848 all over again?

Meanwhile, in vassal territories, a possibility arises of a revival of 1848, when a big revolutionary wave hit all over Europe.

In 1848 these were liberal revolutions; today we have essentially popular anti-liberal (and anti-war) revolutions – from farmers in the Netherlands and Belgium to unreconstructed populists in Italy and Left and Right populists combined in France.

It may be too early to consider this a European Spring. Yet what’s certain in several latitudes is that average European citizens feel increasingly inclined to shed the yoke of Neoliberal Technocracy and its dictatorship of Capital and Surveillance. Not to mention NATO warmongering.

As virtually all European media is technocrat-controlled people won’t see this discussion in the MSM. Yet there’s a feeling in the air this may be heralding a Chinese-style end of a dynasty.

In the Chinese calendar this is how it always goes: their historical-societal clock always runs with periods of between 200 and 400 years per dynasty.

There are indeed intimations that Europe may be witnessing a rebirth.

The period of upheaval will be long and arduous – due to the hordes of anarco-liberals who are such useful idiots for the Western oligarchy – or it could all come to a head in a single day. The target is quite clear: the death of Neoliberal Technocracy.

That’s how the Xi-Putin view could make inroads across the collective West: show that this ersatz “modernity” (which incorporates rabid cancel culture) is essentially void compared to traditional, deeply rooted cultural values – be it Confucianism, Taoism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Chinese and Russian concepts of civilization-state are much more appealing than they appear.

Well, the (cultural) revolution won’t be televised; but it may work its charms via countless Telegram channels. France, infatuated with rebellion throughout its history, may well be jump to the vanguard – again.

Yet nothing will change if the global financial casino is not subverted. Russia taught the world a lesson: it was preparing itself, in silence, for a long-term Total War. So much so that its calibrated counterpunch turned the Financial War upside down – completely destabilizing the casino. China, meanwhile, is re-balancing, and is on the way to be also prepared for Total War, hybrid and otherwise.

The inestimable Michael Hudson, fresh from his latest book, The Collapse of Antiquity, where he deftly analyzes the role of debt in Greece And Rome, the roots of Western civilization, succinctly explains our current state of play:

“America has pulled a color revolution at the top, in Germany, Holland, England, and France, essentially, where the foreign policy of Europe is not representing their own economic interests (…) America simply said, – We are committed to support a war of (what they call) democracy (by which they mean oligarchy, including the Nazism of Ukraine) against autocracy (…) Autocracy is any country strong enough to prevent the emergence of a creditor oligarchy, like China has prevented the creditor oligarchy.”

So “creditor oligarchy”, in fact, can be explained as the toxic intersection between globalist wet dreams of total control and militarized Full Spectrum Dominance.

The difference now is that Russia and China are showing to the Global South that what American strategists had in store for them – you’re going to “freeze in the dark” if you deviate from what we say – is no longer applicable. Most of the Global South is now in open geoeconomic revolt.

Globalist neoliberal totalitarianism of course won’t disappear under a sand storm. At least not yet. There’s still a maelstrom of toxicity ahead: suspension of constitutional rights; Orwellian propaganda; goon squads; censorship; cancel culture; ideological conformity; irrational curbs of freedom of movement; hatred and even persecution of – Slav – Untermenschen; segregation; criminalization of dissent; book burnings, show trials; fake arrest mandates by the kangaroo ICC; ISIS-style terror.

But the most important vector is that both China and Russia, each exhibiting their own complex particularities – and both dismissed by the West as unassimilable Others – are heavily invested in building workable economic models that are not connected, in several degrees, to the Western financial casino and/or supply chain networks. And that’s what’s driving the Exceptionalists berserk – even more berserk than they already are.

*  *  *

Pepe Escobar is a Eurasia-wide independent geopolitical analyst and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties (Nimble Books, 2021). Follow him on Telegram at @rocknrollgeopolitics

Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An April 7 decision issued by the D.C. Court of Appeals may jeopardize a key legal backing used by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute participants of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, according to attorney Albert Watkins.

“What this opinion did do was, it practically begged for other [Jan. 6] cases to be brought up to the Court of Appeals that would permit a more balanced opinion,” Watkins, who has represented four Jan. 6 defendants, including released prisoner Jacob Chansley, told The Epoch Times in an interview on April 11.

Watkins’ comment came after a three-judge panel at the D.C. Court of Appeals, on April 7, struck down a lower court’s ruling in a 2–1 vote, dismissing a federal charge against three Jan. 6 defendants, and rejected the lower court’s reasoning about the scope of the obstruction charge.

While the higher court’s ruling (pdf) allowed the DOJ’s prosecution of these three specific defendants—Joseph Fischer, Edward Lang, and Garret Miller—to continue, the impact of the higher court’s opinion extends beyond these cases, the attorney said.

According to Watkins, this extended impact has to do with the interpretation of a term about “corrupt” intention in the wording of obstruction charges, considering that the DOJ has been using the obstruction charge as an “attractive” legal tool to prosecute Jan. 6 cases and score plea agreements.

According to a provision in the statute for obstruction charge (18 U.S. Code § 1512 2(c)), “Whoever corruptly … otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

A narrowed definition of this provision could hinder the DOJ’s ability to use the charge further and introduce uncertainties in the ongoing trials, the attorney indicated. The DOJ had charged more than 200 Jan. 6 defendants with obstruction-related charges.

“It should cause a certain degree of trepidation on the part of the Department of Justice about utilizing—in a very footloose and fancy-free fashion—the obstruction of an official proceeding charge as the count of choice for pleas,” Watkins said. “I will say it was, in many respects, an extraordinary opinion—more time was spent addressing potential issues not before the court than the issues actually before the court.”

‘Corrupt Intent’

The key issue here is the interpretation of a necessary component of the obstruction charge (18 U.S. Code § 1512 (c)(2))—namely, the definition of “corrupt intent.”

The appeals court ruling indicates that the DOJ prosecutors set forth an interpretation of “corrupt” criminal obstructive conduct as having “a broad meaning that encompasses all forms of obstructive conduct, including appellees’ allegedly violent efforts to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.”

But all three judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals expressed some level of concern in their April 7 ruling about whether the government’s current interpretation of “corrupt” intent is appropriate.

Biden appointee Florence Pan, who wrote the majority opinion, indicated that the definition of “corrupt” intent should be determined in a later case.

“At least one pending case on this court’s docket squarely raises the definition of ‘corruptly’ under § 1512(c),” Pan wrote. “It is more prudent to delay addressing the meaning of ‘corrupt’ intent until that issue is properly presented to the court.”

‘Implausibly Broad’

Trump appointee Justin Walker, in his opinion partially concurring with the ruling, diverged from Pan’s view that “corrupt intent” should be interpreted later and wrote in his opinion that the term should be precisely defined to avoid criminalizing legal civil discourse.

Establishing a corrupt intent requires proving that a defendant intended to “obtain a benefit that he knows is unlawful,” Walker wrote, adding that this interpretation is narrower than the one offered by the government.

Without a narrowed definition, Walker wrote, the obstruction charge could become “implausibly broad” and thus “criminalize many lawful attempts to ‘influence’ congressional proceedings—protests or lobbying, for example.”

A narrowed definition could be applied to a “hypothetical” Jan. 6 protestor, Walker noted.

“This rioter joined the throng outside Congress because he was angry at the nation’s elites. He saw the riot as an opportunity to display his bravado. Though likely guilty of other crimes, he did not act ‘corruptly’ under [the statute] because he did not intend to procure a benefit by obstructing the Electoral College vote count,” Walker wrote.

It is yet to be seen if Walker’s opinion will become a binding precedent on the lower courts. Walker contends that it should be: He cited the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Marks v. United States (1977), which says the “narrowest” concurring opinion should be the binding opinion. Pan, objecting to this point in a footnote, says that the D.C. Court of Appeals “has never applied Marks to its own cases” and that “only one federal appellate court has done so.”

Under pressure from colleagues as her absence from the Senate impairs the Biden administration’s quest to cram the federal judiciary full of diversity-hire leftist fanatics, Sen. Diane Feinstein late Wednesday announced she will “temporarily” step down from her post on the Judiciary Committee.   

Last month, Feinstein announced she wouldn’t run for re-election in 2024. The 89-year-old hasn’t cast a Senate vote of any kind in two months, as she’s been in her native San Francisco battling a persistent shingles infection. Three people who’ve recently visited her tell Politico that it’s taken a heavy toll on the oldest member of Congress. 

Along with the 8-week absence of Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman — while he received inpatient treatment for severe depression — Feinstein’s disappearance from duty has caused headaches for Democrats who only have a 51-49 Senate majority. Vice President Kamala Harris has been called in to cast tiebreaker votes, but some measures lacking unanimous Democratic support have stalled. 

Interesting that they call for Feinstein to resign while pretending Biden and Fetterman know what they had for lunch today.

— Anna James Zeigler (@ajzeigler) April 12, 2023

Feinstein’s empty seat has an even more pronounced impact on the Judiciary Committee, forcing Democrats to forego committee votes on nominees, delaying their progress toward votes of the full Senate. 

“I understand that my absence could delay the important work of the Judiciary Committee,” said Feinstein in a statement, “so I’ve asked Leader Schumer to ask the Senate to allow another Democratic senator to temporarily serve until I’m able to resume my committee work.”

By “important work,” she means advancing underwhelming nominees like Kato Crews, who last month demonstrated an alarming lack of fundamental legal knowledge during a confirmation hearing. 

Earlier on Wednesday, House Democrats Ro Khanna (CA) and Dean Phillips (MN) publicly called for Feinstein to retire altogether. 

“We have a crisis in the judiciary with extremist judges stripping away women’s rights,” Khanna told NBC News. “You can’t preach on television about the danger of these judges and then sit silently as Senator Feinstein misses vote after vote to confirm pro-choice judges.”

I agree with @RoKhanna. Senator Feinstein is a remarkable American whose contributions to our country are immeasurable. But I believe it’s now a dereliction of duty to remain in the Senate and a dereliction of duty for those who agree to remain quiet. https://t.co/lvaHhLJYsi

— Rep. Dean Phillips 🇺🇸 (@RepDeanPhillips) April 12, 2023

Long before she came down with shingles, Feinstein had already demonstrated a mental incapacity to continue serving — but she did so anyway. Last year, Democrat-catering media outlets — including her hometown San Francisco Chronicle — began publishing articles with troubling accounts from Capitol Hill legislators and staffers.  

In May, The New York Times ran an extensive article titled “As Feinstein Declines, Democrats Struggle to Maintain an Open Secret.” Two pointed takeaways: 

• Ms. Feinstein sometimes struggles to recall the names of colleagues, frequently has little recollection of meetings or telephone conversations, and at times walks around in a state of befuddlement. 
• One Democratic lawmaker who had an extended encounter with Ms. Feinstein in February said…the experience was akin to acting as a caregiver for a person in need of constant assistance. The lawmaker recalled having to reintroduce themself to the senator multiple times, helping her locate her purse repeatedly and answering the same set of basic, small-talk questions over and over again.

Almost fittingly, even the announcement of her retirement seemed to validate accounts of her severe cognitive decline. Just a few hours after her office announced her retirement, reporters asked her about the news. “I haven’t made that decision. I haven’t released anything,” she said.    

If Feinstein were to step down before finishing her term through 2024, California Gov. Gavin Newsom would install an interim replacement. Representatives Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have already announced their candidacy for the Democratic nomination, which would make a Newsom choice very impactful. 

Via The Cradle,

The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia, China, and Pakistan held four-way talks on 13 April in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, on the sidelines of the fourth regional meeting of Afghanistan’s neighbors – where various issues and concerns regarding Afghanistan were discussed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein-Amir Abdollahian, and Pakistani Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Rabbani Khar were photographed together before proceeding with the closed-door meeting, Russian news agency TASS reported.

Following the meeting, Amir-Abdollahian said that he and the other diplomats discussed a wide range of issues regarding Afghanistan – including a recent surge in extremist activity, problems caused by US sanctions, the poor living conditions of the Afghan people, and the flow of Afghan refugees into Iran and other countries.

The Iranian foreign minister stressed the importance of countering drug trafficking originating in the country, and the Taliban government’s responsibility in that area.

He also strongly criticized the continued ban on female education in the country – which Iran has repeatedly listed as a condition for its recognition of the interim government.

In this regard, the diplomats discussed steps to bring about a political settlement that includes an inclusive government, something Beijing has also consistently called on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to implement.

They also discussed ways to stabilize humanitarian and socio-economic conditions in the country – particularly through “the development of regional economic integration and the implementation of transport and energy projects with Kabul’s participation,” TASS said.

The White House signaled that it should have sounded the alarm earlier about the risks that Afghanistan’s government could collapse as the war came to a close, and partially blamed the chaotic U.S. withdrawal on a lack of preparation by President Trump https://t.co/aMrZ4G8jaN

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 6, 2023

In the joint statement released after the meeting, the ministers expressed support for the principle of “Afghan leadership, Afghan ownership” regarding Afghanistan’s political determination and development path, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said.

Afghanistan is currently facing a severe economic and humanitarian situation as a result of Washington’s decision to freeze billions of dollars in the country’s foreign reserves in 2021. This pushed the country into an acute crisis, given that the central bank lacks the resources to combat high inflation and food insecurity – which has become rampant. The country has also been facing an increased extremist threat through attacks from groups such as ISIS-K. Moscow has accused the US of encouraging ISIS-K activity in Afghanistan.

Belgian newspaper Dernière Heure alleges that the ride-hailing app Uber is modifying prices according to customers’ smartphone battery levels. A small study investigating this claim found discrepancies for similar trips: 

Dernière Heure conducted a test using two smartphones, one with 84% battery and the other with 12%, to request a ride from their office in Brussels to Tour & Taxis in the centre.

The result showed a significant price difference, with the phone at 12% battery being charged €17.56 and the phone at 84% battery being charged €16.6 for the same service.

Uber rejected the small study by the Belgian newspaper. When contacted about the results, a spokesperson said:

“Uber does not take into account the phone’s battery level to calculate the price of a trip. The dynamic pricing applied to trips booked via Uber is determined by the existing demand for rides and the supply of drivers who can respond to it. During peak hours, when there are many ride requests and few available drivers in a certain geographical area, this may impact the price of the trip.”

“Uber’s explanation does not clarify why two users requesting the same ride at the same time would pay different fares. In any case, the price discrepancy may encourage users to compare offers on their respective phones when booking rides together,” The Brussels Times

… and this isn’t the first time Uber has been accused of taking advantage of its users’ battery life.

A broader study might be needed. 

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. military could not achieve victory in a war with China using its current, all-volunteer force, according to one expert.

The United States will thus need to radically transform its force structure to better contend with the emerging threat environment, up to and including by reinstating conscription, said Jonathan Askonas, an assistant professor of Politics at Catholic University of America.

“This is a five-alarm fire,” Askonas said during an April 11 discussion with the Hudson Institute think tank. “We’re facing global threats and we have a force structure which we know will not work against those threats.

“We basically can’t fight a war larger than Iraq with the all-volunteer force.”

The all-volunteer force has been a staple of U.S. military organization since 1973, when the draft was terminated along with the United States’ direct involvement in the Vietnam War.

Unfortunately, Askonas said, the all-volunteer force was proving incapable of generating the number of service members required for a war between great powers, and its burdensome logistical processes were likely to be ineffective in either a conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific theater or supporting European powers against Russia.

“We have a Goldilocks problem,” Askonas said. “Our army is too small as constituted to actually prosecute a war with these countries, but it’s large enough that it’s sucking a lot of resources away.”

“We have to be ruthless. We need to adapt our force structure not to hypothetical threats or in some universal Swiss army knife approach, but to the actual threats that we face.”

To that end, Askonas suggested that the military should re-adopt a “cadre” system for deploying the military, not dissimilar to that used in World War II.

Under such a system, the number of resource-heavy full time service members would be decreased in peacetime in favor of investing in expensive, slow-to-build items like warships.

Read more here…

In the latest example of what happens when demand for racism exceeds supply, a black criminology professor has suddenly resigned from his $190,000-a-year post at Florida State University in the wake of accusations he distorted data with the purpose of “finding” racial prejudice where none existed.

Eric Stewart, who’d spent 16 years at FSU and is a fellow of the American Society of Criminology, has for years been the subject of allegations of academic fraud. That’s led to six of his research studies being retracted, and now the Florida Standard reports he’s abandoned his exceedingly lucrative post in mid-semester. 

Accusations of his fraud originated in 2019, and they came from a credible witness: University of Albany professor Justin Picket, who co-authored a 2011 study with Stewart.

The study concluded that, as black and Hispanic populations grew, the public sought more discriminatory criminal sentences. Picket, however, says the data found no such relationship. Indeed, at least where Hispanics are concerned, the data point to the opposite effect. 

“Pickett found that their sample size somehow had increased from 500 to over 1,000 respondents, the counties polled had decreased from 326 to 91, and the data was altered to the point of mathematical impossibility,” reports the Standard. 

Pickett says when he asked for access to the original data, Stewart refused, with the support of the other co-authors, FSU’s Marc Gertz and Maryland’s Brian Johnson, who are white. 

As FSU assembled a three-member inquiry committee to study allegations of academic fraud in five of his racism studies, Stewart told school officials that Picket’s accusation “essentially lynched me and my academic character.” 

He also told the Washington Times that “data thugs are after me. It seems very personal. All of the blame is being directed at me.” 

The university was accused of pursuing a flimsy and tainted 2020 inquiry. In a seeming conflict of interest, two of the three people charged with the investigation had co-authored research with the accused Stewart.

Perhaps brushed back from the plate by Stewart’s accusations of racist motives behind the inquiry, the panel concluded there was no need for a full investigation because “the professor had already been working with the journal’s editors to address any questions they had about the work,” said Gary K. Ostrander, FSU’s then-vice president for research.  

Just when Stewart seemed to have dodged five bullets, a sixth study came under fire from Pickett, later in 2020. That apparently lit the fuse for Stewart’s sudden exit from US News & World Report‘s 7th-ranked criminology department, which ironically seems to care very little about imposing consequences for wrongdoing.  

Some of Stewart’s number-bending exploration for racism has been funded with federal tax dollars, via grant money awarded by the National Science Foundation, a US government agency. 

“There’s a huge monetary incentive to falsify data and there’s no accountability,” Pickett tells the Standard. “If you do this, the probability you’ll get caught is so, so low.”