Softwar, Cyberwar, Education, Propaganda, S&T
2020
Return to Asian Geopolitics indexpage
Return to S&T indexpage This page includes:

• Softwar, Propaganda, Information Operations (IO) and false flag operations
• Panama Papers
• ICT, Internet, websites, computerisation, social media
• ICT outsourcing/offshoring
• Cinema (because of link with computer animation); propaganda
• Cyberwar, Cyberespionage, Cyberactivism, cybercrime and hacking
• Surveillance, Snowden, NSA, WikiLeaks, whistleblowers, censorship
• Mobile phones
• Education and educational institutions such as Pyongyang University of Science and Technology

---

• May
• April
• March
• February
• January

---

Return to top of page
MAY 2020

• Threatened, maligned, jailed: Journalism in the coronavirus pandemic
  Populism, political power grabs and financial trouble: Christian Mihr of Reporters Without Borders tells DW that journalists around the world face growing threats in the age of COVID-19. DW: What affect has the global coronavirus pandemic had on press freedom? Christian Mihr: What we are currently seeing is not the arrival of new authoritarian regimes or attacks on freedom of the press, but rather an increase in tendencies that already existed before the pandemic hit. One could say the crisis has hardened the approach many authoritarian or dictatorial governments have taken against journalists. Read more: Norway tops Press Freedom Index, Iran and Iraq drop over coronavirus Do you have concrete numbers to illustrate the growing problem? We will not be able to say with certainty just how many journalists have disappeared or been jailed since the coronavirus pandemic began until the end of the year. However, we can report that as of today at least 231 professional journalists and 115 so-called citizen journalists and bloggers ? that is people disseminating information on authoritarian governments via YouTube or Facebook ? are currently behind bars. Another 14 media professionals (photographers, camera operators, editors, etc.) are in jail as well. Christian Mihr is director of Reporters Without Borders Germany What governments are making the most use of the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse for cracking down on freedom of the press? The situation in China is certainly the most extreme. [Media] [Reporters without borders] [China confrontation] [Coronavirus] [Front]

---

Return to top of page
APRIL 2020

• COVID-19: In NYT, US Intelligence Portray Veteran DC Columnist?s Report as Chinese Disinformation Meant to Sow Panic
  April 23, 2020 UPDATED: A sentence from a supposed ?fake? Chinese-promoted social media message also appeared word-for-word in a veteran DC reporter?s column, Joe Lauria reports. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News A supposedly ?fake? social media message promoted by Chinese ?agents? to sow panic in the U.S. about a ?fake? national lockdown over the coronavirus that was cited in The New York Times on Wednesday also appears word-for-word in a March column by a veteran Washington columnist. Quoting ?officials,? the Times reported as plain fact in a front-page story that: ?Chinese agents helped spread messages to millions of Americans about a fake lockdown last month, sowing virus panic in the U.S.? One of the ?fake? messages, which the Times said China did not create, but only amplified, said Trump would lock down the entire nation. According to the Times, the message said: ?They will announce this as soon as they have troops in place to help prevent looters and rioters.? This sentence also appears verbatim in a March 20 column in The Washington Examiner by veteran DC columnist Paul Bedard about U.S. officials considering such a national lockdown. Bedard wrote: ?President Trump, moving with haste to slow the spread of the coronavirus, is preparing a plan to mobilize the National Guard to help enforce a two-week quarantine of the public if his tough-love efforts so far fail. The unprecedented action would require everyone to ?stay at home,? according to a source knowledgeable of the evolving plan.? [?] Senior officials have said that dozens of radical ideas are being considered and that the president and his virus task force are moving quickly to protect the nation.? Bedard ended his story by reporting: ?They will announce this as soon as they have troops in place to help prevent looters and rioters ?? A search of Twitter and Facebook indicates that several people posted this line on March 20 and the days afterward, with some linking to Bedard?s story. [Coronavirus] [China confrontation] [Propaganda]

---

Return to top of page
MARCH 2020

• Assange Extradition: CN Editor speaks to George Galloway
  February 29, 2020 Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria sat down with former British MP George Galloway in London to discuss the first week of Julian Assange?s extradition hearing at Woolwich Crown Court. Lauria also appeared Friday on Cross Talk, hosted by Peter Lavelle, with Duran editor and CN contributor Alexander Mercouris and Taylor Hudak, host of Unity4J vigils. [Assange] [Injustice] [WikiLeaks] [whistleblower]
• Jeremy Corbyn?s criminal silence during Julian Assange?s extradition hearing
  By Chris Marsden 2 March 2020 Last week, Julian Assange was subjected to an extradition hearing brought by the Trump administration to bring the WikiLeaks founder to the United States to face Espionage Act charges carrying a 175-year prison sentence. Throughout the four-day proceedings in London, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his closest allies, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, along with every single Labour MP, kept their mouths firmly shut. Their silence was tantamount to collusion in a monstrous political show trial, aimed at silencing a publisher and journalist who has exposed US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. [Corbyn] [Assange]

---

Return to top of page
FEBRUARY 2020

• Nobody Sets Out To Become A War Propagandist. It Just Sort Of Happens
  January 31, 2020 Caitlin Johnstone confronts a UK editor?s concerted effort to de-platform a group of academics and independent journalists. Huffington Post UK?s Senior Editor Chris York has published what is by my count his 12th smear piece against a small group of academics and independent journalists who?ve expressed skepticism of Establishment Syria narratives. York?s obsessive deluge of hit pieces revolve around British academics Tim Hayward and Piers Robinson, as well as independent journalist Vanessa Beeley. Every word in this sentence hyperlinks to a different article smearing them. York?s 12th such hit piece is much like the preceding 11: it omits fundamentally crucial facts, it hides the shady nature of its sourcing, it makes outright false claims, and will only be believed by individuals who either don?t research this subject very deeply or whose paychecks depend on their not thinking about it too hard. But, more importantly, it?s his 12th such hit piece. A dozen smear articles. A dozen. Not against politicians. Not against powerful government leaders or massive celebrities. York?s smears focus on two professors with some 22,000 Twitter followers between them both, and Beeley, whom York himself refers to as an ?obscure blogger? while authoring smear piece after smear piece after smear piece about her. The 'useful idiots': How these British academics helped Russia deny war crimes at the UN https://t.co/UGvquum1nm ? Chris York (@ChrisDYork) January 29, 2020 Now Beeley, Hayward and Robinson all do great work asking the important questions that no one else is asking about the many, many glaring plot holes in the narratives we?re being fed about what?s happening in Syria by the Western political/media class. I am a fan. [Media] [Censorship] [Propaganda]

---

Return to top of page
JANUARY 2020

• Thousands of UK academics 'treated as second-class citizens'
  Report claims higher education institutions have created pool of low-paid staff for teaching and research Thousands of academic staff at British universities are being treated as second-class citizens on precarious contracts, says a report highlighting the ?alarming rise of mass casualised labour? in higher education. The report by the University and College Union claims institutions have created a pool of low-paid staff to teach undergraduates, conduct research and work in libraries, despite having advanced postgraduate or other academic qualifications. It calls on the Office for Students, the higher education regulator in England, to require each university to publish figures showing their use of casual teaching staff, and and for research councils to insist their grant-holders employ staff on improved contracts. link thumbnail image Third of Cambridge University staff 'have experienced bullying' Read more Chi Onwurah, the Labour MP for Newcastle Central, who is supporting the report, said it showed that precarious employment was not just an issue for ?gig economy? workers. ?Reliance on precarious, low-paid staff has become a business model and therefore universities across the UK are in the midst of industrial action over this issue,? Onwurah said. [Universities] [Precariat]
• Dominic Cummings thinktank called for 'end of BBC in current form'
  New Frontiers Foundation said in 2004 the BBC was ?mortal enemy? of Tory party What Cummings thinktank said about ?propagandist? BBC Rowena Mason Deputy political editor Tue 21 Jan 2020 19.46 GMT Last modified on Wed 22 Jan 2020 01.00 GMT New Frontiers Foundation said in 2004 the BBC was ?mortal enemy? of Tory party New Frontiers Foundation said in 2004 the BBC was ?mortal enemy? of Tory party Photograph: James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock Dominic Cummings?s thinktank called for the ?end of the BBC in its current form? and suggested rightwingers should work to undermine the credibility of the broadcaster, branding it the ?mortal enemy? of the Conservative party. Cummings, who is Boris Johnson?s most powerful adviser, was the director of the New Frontiers Foundation when it called in 2004 for a campaign to target the BBC and the creation of a Fox News equivalent that would not be constrained by impartiality rules. Opposition MPs said on Tuesday that the views of Cummings?s thinktank would fuel suspicions that Johnson?s administration is gearing up to overhaul the BBC. Bake Off poacher tipped as frontrunner for BBC top job Read more The disclosure comes at a sensitive time for the corporation, whose director general. Tony Hall, announced on Monday he was standing down. Several Tories have since called for an end to the licence fee, while Labour figures have warned that the BBC is facing a dangerous moment as it approaches its 100th anniversary. [Dominic Cummings] [BBC] [Propaganda]
• N.Korean Hackers Launch Phishing Attacks
  January 15, 2020 10:31 North Korea is launching phishing attacks against individuals and companies disguised as messages from the presidential office here, cybersecurity firm ESTsecurity said Tuesday. The attacks have been traced to a North Korean hacker group, dubbed Kimsuky. They take the form of a virus-ridden file with a caustic reference to special presidential adviser Moon Chung-in's remarks at the Center for the National Interest in Washington on Jan. 6. If users open the file, a security alert pops up and an English message prompts the user to click on a button to read the document. If they do, malware is implanted in their computer that can pilfer information and the PC stands by for further orders from the attacker. Moon Jong-hyun at ESTsecurity said the attack resembles earlier hacking campaigns by Kimsuky. The group also attempted to launch phishing attacks in October last year with a malware program disguised as a request to help North Korean refugees. [Hacking] [Canard]
• Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories.
  By Dana Goldstein Design by Adriana Ramic Jan. 12, 2020 We analyzed some of the most popular social studies textbooks used in California and Texas. Here?s how political divides shape what students learn about the nation?s history. The textbooks cover the same sweeping story, from the brutality of slavery to the struggle for civil rights. The self-evident truths of the founding documents to the waves of immigration that reshaped the nation. The books have the same publisher. They credit the same authors. But they are customized for students in different states, and their contents sometimes diverge in ways that reflect the nation?s deepest partisan divides. Hundreds of differences ? some subtle, others extensive ? emerged in a New York Times analysis of eight commonly used American history textbooks in California and Texas, two of the nation?s largest markets. In a country that cannot come to a consensus on fundamental questions ? how restricted capitalism should be, whether immigrants are a burden or a boon, to what extent the legacy of slavery continues to shape American life ? textbook publishers are caught in the middle. On these questions and others, classroom materials are not only shaded by politics, but are also helping to shape a generation of future voters. [US] [Education]
• What Statistics Can and Can?t Tell Us About Ourselves
  In the era of Big Data, we?ve come to believe that, with enough information, human behavior is predictable. But number crunching can lead us perilously wrong. By Hannah Fry September 2, 2019 Making individual predictions from collective characteristics is a risky business. Illustration by Ben Wiseman Harold Eddleston, a seventy-seven-year-old from Greater Manchester, was still reeling from a cancer diagnosis he had been given that week when, on a Saturday morning in February, 1998, he received the worst possible news. He would have to face the future alone: his beloved wife had died unexpectedly, from a heart attack. Eddleston?s daughter, concerned for his health, called their family doctor, a well-respected local man named Harold Shipman. He came to the house, sat with her father, held his hand, and spoke to him tenderly. Pushed for a prognosis as he left, Shipman replied portentously, ?I wouldn?t buy him any Easter eggs.? By Wednesday, Eddleston was dead; Dr. Shipman had murdered him. Harold Shipman was one of the most prolific serial killers in history. In a twenty-three-year career as a mild-mannered and well-liked family doctor, he injected at least two hundred and fifteen of his patients with lethal doses of opiates. He was finally arrested in September, 1998, six months after Eddleston?s death. David Spiegelhalter, the author of an important and comprehensive new book, ?The Art of Statistics? (Basic), was one of the statisticians tasked by the ensuing public inquiry to establish whether the mortality rate of Shipman?s patients should have aroused suspicion earlier. Then a biostatistician at Cambridge, Spiegelhalter found that Shipman?s excess mortality?the number of his older patients who had died in the course of his career over the number that would be expected of an average doctor?s?was a hundred and seventy-four women and forty-nine men at the time of his arrest. The total closely matched the number of victims confirmed by the inquiry. [Statistics]

---

Return to top of page[.....] Return to Asian Geopolitics indexpage[.....] Return to S&T indexpage