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Hungary
Sunday, 02/01/2022 The government is ploughing 800 billion forints (€ 2.2 billion) into wage hikes for public servants, and tax cuts worth 750 billion forints will help the private sector in raising the minimum wage at the beginning of 2022, in line with regulations, the government spokesperson said today. Szentkirályi said in a video post that financial stability and a good economic performance were at the root of the raises. Nurses’ wages will grow by a further 21 percent from January, doctors’ wage hike will also continue, in line with the scheme launched in 2020 to raise doctors’ salaries two-and-a-half-fold on average, and employees working in the social and cultural sectors, as well as in creches, will see a 20 percent raise, she said. Teachers’ wages will grow by 10 percent, and law enforcement employees will get a one-off salary supplement of six months’ salary in February, she added. The minimum wage and the minimum wage for skilled workers will grow by 20 percent, she said. (Source: dailynewshungary)
France
01.01.2022 The Eiffel Tower was lit in the EU flag as France assumed the rotating EU presidency on January 1. The EU's presidency rotates every six months among the member states of the 27-nation bloc. This will be France's 13th time at the helm of the rotating presidency. The motto ofthe tenure of France's EU presidency is "recovery, strength, belonging." French President Macron said Europe's new model for growth must include innovation, job creation and job security for the continent to remain competitive globally and be in line with climate harm reduction initiatives on the other side of the pandemic. "This agenda for a sovereign Europe will be accelerated with the French Presidency. Europe must rise to the major economic, educational, migration and military challenges," Macron said in a statement. France seeks to place the continent's digitization and climate protection at the forefront of its time at the helm of the EU. Concretely, France hopes to promote a carbon tax and greater regulation of big tech. "Strategic autonomy" and strengthening an EU-wide minimum wage are also top agenda items. "The French presidency must be a moment of truth for the regulation and accountability of digital platforms, the carbon pricing at European borders on imported products, minimum wages and our relationship with Africa," Macron said in a statement. Germany's ruling coalition also sees validity in Macron's vision for "strategic autonomy" in Europe. Berlin and Paris agree that great power competition, notably between the United States on the one hand and China and Russia on the other, has the potential to negatively impact the EU. Macron faces an election challenge in April, with polls scheduled for April 10 and 24. France's EU presidency comes at a beneficial time for him politically, as it is a chance for him to showcase France as a European power. Although he has not yet said whether he will run again, Macron is expected to formally announce his reelection bid in February. "The EU presidency gives him a welcome platform to put his European record to the forefront and differentiate himself from his rivals, and bring new proposals, new ideas to the table," Demesmay at the Berlin think tank Marc-Bloch told. Come summer, the Czech Republic will have its turn once the French EU presidency concludes on June 1. (Source: DW)
European Union
January 1, 2021, Saturday The European Commission published a draft proposal today labeling gas and nuclear energy as climate friendly. The EU Commission says that nuclear and gas energy can help the bloc achieve sustainability, the plan would "accelerate the phaseout of more harmful sources, such as coal, and in moving us towards a more low-carbon greener energy mix." The guidelines set out in the draft document would limit the green label to only those nuclear power plants that used the most up-to-date technological standards with strict plans for waste disposal. Likewise for gas plants, only those using the highest standards could be considered for the classification - with a limit of 100 grams of carbon dioxide released per kilowatt-hour of energy produced. The proposal was sent to European Union member states late yesterday night, as 2021 was coming to a close. Member states have until January 12 to react to the draft. If the majority supports the proposal, then it would come into effect from 2023. The plan, which aims at directing investment towards energy production within the bloc, is set to play out amid an already existing rift within the bloc. Supporters of the proposal have argued that gas is "cleaner" than alternatives such as coal and that nuclear energy produces zero carbon emissions. Opponents reject these options in the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Germany is one of a handful of EU member states opposing nuclear power as a 'sustainable' alternative to fossil fuels. Germany's Vice-Chancellor Habeck who is also Germany's economy and climate minister from the environmentalist Green Party has accused the Commission using policies that appear climate friendly to cover environmentally destructive practices and said the plan would "water down" current efforts. He called the labeling of nuclear energy as sustainable "wrong," pointing to the long-term effects of nuclear waste. "It's questionable anyway if this greenwashing will find any kind of acceptance on the financial market," Habeck said. His sentiments were mirrored by the Green party German Environment Minister Lemke. While Germany has seen increasing opposition to nuclear energy since the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant in 2011 - resulting most recently in the closure of three out of the country's six remaining plants on December 31 - France has led the charge in favor of nuclear power as a clean alternative. France is heavily reliant on nuclear energy. Member states in the east and south of the bloc that are more reliant on fossil fuels have also defended gas as a possible transitional energy source. The prospects of the draft being shot down are slim since only a handful of EU countries besides Germany have spoken out against nuclear power. (Source: DW)
Russia
2 Jan, 2022 The Kremlin appears to be planning for an age where America matters less. After the Cold War, the West initially signed up for several pan-European security agreements. The Charter of Paris for a New Europe in 1990, the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 and the Istanbul Document in 1999 all committed to the principle of “indivisible security,” which meant “They will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States.” Maintaining its hegemony has demanded that Washington divide the world into marginalised adversaries and dependent allies. NATO’s supremacy in Europe was seen by many of the West’s leading lights as having created a lasting peace on the continent. At the same time though, it has also been the main source of conflict as the bloc expanded towards Russian borders. Living in an age when that American dominance is coming to an end, and its security guarantees are losing their credibility will stalemates and ceasefires be longer lasting as nations previously emboldened by US backing are forced to find lasting solutions with their adversaries, rather than languishing behind Washington’s protection? American power would decline, due to a diminishing ability to exert influence over its dependent allies, and to marginalise its adversaries. If Ukraine and Taiwan did not have full faith that the US would offer them protection, then their positions as Washington’s frontlines against Russia and China would not be tenable and they would have to seek peace with their adversaries. Without steadfast US support, Ukraine would have to abide by the Minsk Peace Agreement, and Taiwan would need to halt its push for secession from China. The failed US pursuit of regime change in Syria has resulted in both the Arabs and Turkey moving gradually towards reconciliation and a workable peace with Damascus. American efforts to reach an agreement with Iran, and the failure to decide the outcome of the conflict in Yemen, has similarly incentivised Saudi Arabia to re-establish diplomatic ties with Tehran, and paved the way for negotiations on improving bilateral relations and ending the war in Yemen. The EU is also coming to terms with the consequences of US decline. In May 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel argued that “I can only say: We Europeans really have to take our fates in our own hands.” The EU’s principal approach is now one of “strategic autonomy,” which could be expressed more honestly as “autonomy from the US.” Without the support of Washington, Brussels is not able to construct a Europe without, and thus inevitably against, Russia. There is growing pressure to do a deal and reach a much-delayed post-Cold War settlement with Moscow that lays the foundation for pan-European security. The US began to dismantle other pan-European security agreements such as the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987, and other agreements that could constrain the Americans. Europe is now in a precarious situation as the pan-European security agreements have been dismantled and there is no hegemony to ensure stability and order. Russia is deploying increasingly advanced weaponry and rapidly reducing its economic, technological, and financial reliance on the West by enhancing its economic connectivity with the East. The efforts by the US, Ukraine, and Poland to sabotage Nord Stream 2 will similarly result in European industries becoming less competitive, as cheap Russian gas goes to Asia instead. Russia faces an existential threat with NATO expansion into Ukraine, and Russia has the economic and military means to balance Western unilateralism. Moscow has now demanded an end to the era of NATO hegemony and a return to the principle of indivisible security. (Source: RT / Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal).
2 Jan Headlines: Russian missile approach warning system detects over 170 launches in 2021. According to the Defense Ministry, the Voronezh new generation radars make up the bulk of the country’s land-based missile approach warning system. Russia is ready to work with US on Ukraine issue in any format, senior diplomat Rudenko said. Attempts to attach obligations to Russia under the Minsk Agreements are stymying efforts to resolve the situation in Donbass, he said. Union State Treaty virtually recognizes Russia’s ownership of Crimea. It clearly states that the territory of the Union State is the territory of Russia and Belarus in the form in which it is enshrined in their constitutions, Rudenko said. Putin, Erdogan reaffirm determination to boost partnership in phone call - Kremlin. The parties also touched upon global issues, including the recent proposals on developing legally binding agreements that will guarantee Russia’s security. COVID-19 pandemic may be over by May, expert says. According to Onishchenko, there are no grounds now for panic or the introduction of non-working days. (Source: TASS)
31 Dec US President Biden agreed when Putin said Russia was seeking results in the talks on security, Kremlin aide Ushakov said today. Putin told Biden about the principles that underlie Russia’s security proposals, the aide said. The president said talks were important but the key goal for Russia was its security and the country will seek to achieve that goal, Ushakov said. "The US president has generally agreed with that point of view and his reaction made sense and was quite serious," the aide said. Putin also said Russia is concerned about deployment of offensive weapons near its borders and it will act just like the US would act if it had to confront a deployment of such weapons near its own borders, Ushakov said. Putin elaborated on the subject to drive the point home, Ushakov said. (Source: TASS)
China
December 31, 2021 China harvests masses of data on Western targets, documents show. China’s systems for analyzing domestic public opinion online are a powerful but largely unseen pillar of President Xi's program to modernize China’s propaganda apparatus and maintain control over the Internet. China maintains a countrywide network of government data surveillance services - called publicopinion analysis software - that are used domestically to warn officials of politically sensitive information online. The “public opinion guidance work” first came to prominence in policymaking after the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations. It has since become integral to the underlying architecture of China’s Internet, where users are linked by real name ID, and Internet services are required by law to maintain an internal censorship apparatus. In 2014, the state-backed newspaper China Daily said more than 2 million people were working as public opinion analysts. In 2018, the People’s Daily, another official organ, said the government’s online opinion analysis industry was worth “tens of billions of yuan,” equivalent to billions of dollars, and was growing at a rate of 50 percent a year. Most systems include alarm functions designed to alert officials and police to negative content in real time. The vast data collection and monitoring efforts give officials insight into public opinion, a challenge in a country that does not hold public elections or permit independent media. The services also provide increasingly technical surveillance for China’s censorship apparatus. That surveillance network system is expanding to include foreign social media at a time when global perceptions of Beijing are at their lowest in recent history in the aftermath of the U.S. trade war, the Xinjiang human rights crisis, Hong Kong and the coronavirus pandemic. In May this year, Xi called on senior officials to portray a more “trustworthy, lovable and reliable” image of China abroad, calling for the “effective development of international public opinion guidance.” To control China’s image abroad is turning a major part of its internal Internet-data surveillance network outward, mining Western social media, to equip its government agencies, military and police with information on foreign targets, according to review of hundreds of Chinese bidding documents and company filings publicly accessible through domestic government bidding platforms, contracts for over 300 Chinese government projects since the beginning of 2020. These include orders for separate software systems designed to automatically collect data in real time on domestic Chinese servers for analysis on foreign targets from sources such as Twitter, Facebook and other Western social media. (Twitter and Facebook both ban automated collection of data on their services without prior authorization. Facebook did not respond to requests for comment about whether several companies, universities and state media firms listed as supplying the software were authorized to collect data on its platform). The documents also show that agencies including state media, propaganda departments, police, military and cyber regulators are purchasing new or more sophisticated systems to gather data. These include a $320,000 Chinese state media software program that mines Twitter and Facebook to create a database of foreign journalists and academics; a $216,000 Beijing police intelligence program that analyzes Western chatter on Hong Kong and Taiwan; and a cybercenter in Xinjiang, home to most of China’s Uyghur population, that catalogues the mainly Muslim minority group’s language content abroad. The surveillance dragnets are part of a wider drive by Beijing to refine its foreign propaganda efforts through big data and artificial intelligence. They also form a network of warning systems designed to sound real-time alarms for trends that undermine Beijing’s interests. Some of the Chinese government’s budgeting includes buying and maintaining foreign social media accounts on behalf of police and propaganda departments. The purchases range in size from small, automated programs to projects costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that are staffed 24 hours a day by teams including English speakers and foreign policy specialists. "The public opinion news war is arduous and necessary,” China Daily said in a July 2020 bidding document for a $300,000 “foreign personnel analysis platform.” The invitation to tender lays out specifications for a program that mines Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for data on “well known Western media journalists” and other “key personnel from political, business and media circles.” The software should run 24 hours a day, and map the relationships between target personnel and uncover “factions” between personnel, measuring their “China tendencies” and building an alarm system that automatically flags “false statements and reports on China.” Warning systems like the one outlined in the China Daily document are described in over 90 percent of tenders that list technical specifications. The China Daily awarded its contract to Beijing’s Communications University, one of a half dozen Chinese universities that have launched specialized departments to develop public opinion analysis technology. People who work as analysts in public opinion analysis units contracted by government agencies in Beijing receive automated alarms via SMS, email and on dedicated computer monitors when “sensitive” content was detected. Foreign social media had been included in the units’ monitoring since the middle of 2019. Highly sensitive viral trends online are reported to a 24-hour hotline maintained by the Cybersecurity Administration of China (CAC), the body that oversees the country’s censorship apparatus. “In case of major public opinion, directly contact the staff on duty of the CAC to ensure that notifications are in place through various communication tools,” said one December 2020 tender for a $236,000 system purchased by the municipal propaganda department in eastern China’s Fuzhou city for monitoring Facebook and Twitter alongside domestic social media. Just under a third of the public opinion analysis systems reviewed were procured by Chinese police. In 14 instances, the analysis systems included a feature requested by the police that would automatically flag “sensitive” content related to Uyghurs and other Chinese ethnic minorities. It could worsen the targeted harassment of Beijing’s critics. A $43,000 system purchased by police in central China’s Shangnan county included a “foreign sensitive information” collection system that requested Uyghur and Tibetan staff translators, according to the contracts. An additional 12 analysis systems included the police-requested capability of monitoring individual content authors over time. The documents provide insight into the scope of foreign social media data collection done by China’s major state media outlets, which maintain offices and servers abroad, and their key role in providing Beijing with publicity guidance based on increasingly sophisticated data mining analysis. Six police contracts awarded since 2020 stated that the People’s Daily was chosen as "only one in the industry" to conduct monitoring on the basis of its technical ability to gather data abroad deploying overseas servers and monitoring and collecting more than 8,000 overseas media without ‘overturning China’s Great Firewall - a name for the vast legal and technical infrastructure that blocks access to most foreign news outlets and social media within China - said the Guangdong Police Department in a $26,200 contract offer posted in July 2020. The State Department reclassified the U.S.-based operations of China’s top state media outlets as foreign missions, in 2020, increasing reporting requirements and restricting their visa allocations, angering Beijing. The People’s Daily Online, a unit of the state newspaper which provides one of the country’s largest contract public opinion analysis services, won dozens of projects that include overseas social media data collection services for police, judicial authorities, Communist Party organizations and other clients. The unit recorded $330 million in operating income in 2020, up 50 percent from 2018. It says it serves over 200 government agencies. In one tender won by the unit, the Beijing Police Intelligence Command Unit purchased a $30,570 service to trawl foreign social media and produce reports on unspecified “key personnel and organizations,” gathering information on their “basic circumstances, background and relationships.” It also calls for weekly data reports on Hong Kong, Taiwan and U.S. relations. “Through the collection of public Internet information we can keep a close eye on the international community, analyze sensitivities and hot spots, and maintain the stability of Chinese society,” said the request for tenders. "Public data from social network users can be used to analyze the characteristics and preferences of users, and then guide them in a targeted manner.” the chief analyst at the People’s Daily Online Public Opinion Data Center, Liao, laid out the goal of public opinion analysis in an April 2020 article. “The ultimate purpose of analysis and prediction is to guide and intervene in public opinion,” Liao wrote. People’s Daily subsidiary Global Times, also has a unit gathering foreign social media data for China’s Foreign Ministry, Beijing’s Foreign Affairs Office and other government agencies. In late 2019, the Global Times Online won a three-year contract worth $531,000 to provide a “China-related foreign media and journalist opinion monitoring system” that monitors overseas social media on behalf of China’s Foreign Ministry and produces comprehensive regular reports, as well as special briefings in “urgent circumstances.” Documentation accompanying the project says that close to 40 percent of the Global Times monitoring unit’s staffers are senior Global Times reporters and that the publication maintains large overseas social media monitoring platforms. A description on the website of the Global Times’s public opinion research center says the group conducts “overseas monitoring and overseas investigation services” and provides “comprehensive response plans” to government and private clients. Both the People’s Daily and the Global Times were among the outlets designated as foreign missions in the United States. In June 2020, Twitter suspended 23,000 accounts that it said were linked to the Chinese Communist Party and covertly spreading propaganda to undermine pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. This month, Twitter said it removed a further 2,048 accounts linked to Beijing and producing coordinated content undermining accusations of rights abuses in Xinjiang. Experts say those accounts represent a small fraction of China’s efforts to boost pro-Beijing influence on Twitter and other U.S. social media platforms. Xi’s crackdown on everything is remaking Chinese society. Military procurement documents - less detailed than other types - did not offer much detail on the purpose of the foreign data collection. One redacted June 2020 contract issued by the People’s Liberation Army described a system that would trawl foreign sites and categorize data on the basis of affiliation, geography and country. Source Data Technology, the Shanghai-based company that won the contract, says on its website that it uses “advanced big data mining and artificial intelligence analysis technology” to cover more than 90 percent of social media in the United States, Europe and China’s neighboring countries. (Source: msn)
Canada
Sun 2 Jan 2022 In the Canadian province of New Brunswick a whistleblower - an employee with Vitalité Health Network, one of the province’s two health authorities - has warned that a progressive neurological illness that has baffled experts for more than two years appears to be affecting a growing number of young people and causing swift cognitive decline among some of the afflicted. Young adults with no prior health triggers are developing troubling symptoms, including rapid weight loss, insomnia, hallucinations, difficulty thinking and limited mobility. The official number of cases under investigation, 48, remains unchanged since it was first announced in early spring 2021. But multiple sources say the cluster could now be as many as 150 people. Several new cases involve caretakers of those afflicted. At least nine cases have been recorded in which two people in close contact – but without genetic links – have developed symptoms. One suspected case involved a man who was developing symptoms of dementia and ataxia. His wife, who was his caregiver, suddenly began losing sleep and experiencing muscle wasting, dementia and hallucinations. Now her condition is worse than his. A woman in her 30s was described as non-verbal, is feeding with a tube and drools excessively. Her caregiver, a nursing student in her 20s, also recently started showing symptoms of neurological decline. In another case, a young mother quickly lost nearly 60 pounds, developed insomnia and began hallucinating. Brain imaging showed advanced signs of atrophy. Despite the striking details surrounding the newer cases, the province has worked to tamp down fears. In October, officials suggested that the eight fatal cases were the result of misdiagnosis, arguing that instead of suffering from a shared neurological illness, the victims had died of known and unrelated pathologies. In October the province also said an epidemiological report suggested there was no significant evidence of any known food, behaviour or environmental exposure that could explain the illness. But experts familiar with the cluster are alarmed, largely because of the age of the patients. Neurological illnesses are rare in young people. Some have suggested neurotoxins, including β-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), could be the culprit behind the illness. In one study, high concentrations of BMAA were found in lobster, an industry that drives the economies of many of New Brunswick’s coastal communities. The scientist said teams are ready to begin the research, but “New Brunswick has specifically told us not to go forward with that work”. The Special Neurodegenerative Disorder Clinic, also called the Mind Clinic, in the city of Moncton is the clearing house for cases referred from within the region as well as neighbouring provinces. Amid mounting tension between specialists and the provincial government, a source familiar with the Mind Clinic say the clinic would be converted into a Alzheimer’s and geriatric clinic. Health minister Shephard told reporters on 1 December that speculation the clinic would be shut down was untrue. (Source: TheGuardian)
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