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Monday, July 31, 2023
POLITICO Nightly: Those stubborn recession fears
RSN: Michael Tomasky | Trump Is an Extremely Dumb Fascist
31 July 23
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The latest criminal indictment highlights his idiocy—but also the threat he still poses to American democracy.
Anyway. Fascism is a sensibility far more than it is a political program. The word comes to us from ancient Rome, where the fasces was a bound bundle of wooden rods with an ax (or sometimes two) that symbolized political power. It wasn’t always bad; next time you visit the Lincoln Memorial, look below Abe’s hands—those are fasces. They were literal back in Rome, and Cincinnatus, who served as dictator for just 16 days, is famous for having spurned them. He remains one of the few leaders in history who refused absolute power and returned to private life, the other prominent one being our own George Washington, who easily could have made himself dictator in the mid-1780s but refused to do so. The day in 1783 when he stopped off in Annapolis, where the Continental Congress was meeting, and resigned his military commission is the day the United States became a republic.
Fascism developed its modern meaning in Italy in the 1920s, under Benito Mussolini. He coined the term in 1919. He ascribed to it certain attributes—absolute state power over private enterprise, racial superiority of the majority group—but it really revolved around the power of the dictator, the dictator’s emotional connection to his followers, and their complete obeisance to him. It’s mystical and hard to describe. It can’t be defined in any constitution. It’s just something you can see and feel. I once saw a clip of Adolf Hitler giving a speech. After he was introduced and the applause quieted, he stood silent at the podium for almost a minute before he started speaking, quietly. That minute was fascism.
That is what Donald Trump wants. He already has it, in the sense that his rallies are fascist rallies. His backers surrender themselves to him in a way that small-d democratic admirers of Barack Obama and George W. Bush did not. This is why his poll numbers among Republicans go up and up. He has cemented the mystical bond. What he lacks, for now, is the power. We’re in a race now between republicanism, rule by citizens for the common good, and fascism, rule by a dictator for the good of his followers.
In a democratic society, the law is the most efficient means by which to arrest fascism. This is why Trump faces indictments. It’s the surest way to stop him. Smart fascists know this, and they either stay within the law or, perhaps paradoxically, violate it so flagrantly that they end up redefining what “the law” even is. Fortunately for us, Trump is a dumb fascist, and his ignorance may prove to be his Achilles’ heel. We also—again fortunately—have a system and set of laws and traditions that are stronger than those of, say, Weimar Germany, so Trump hasn’t yet been able to pollute them, although if he is reelected, he certainly will.
The new felony charges announced Thursday evening by the office of special counsel Jack Smith are simultaneously shocking and unsurprising. It stands to reason that Trump wanted the computer server that hosted Mar-a-Lago security video deleted. Yes, it’s especially ironic, given the way he carried on about Hillary Clinton’s server in 2016, but this too is a key attribute of fascism: Fascists do precisely the thing they accuse their opponents of doing. In August 1939, Goebbels accused the Poles of violence against Germans in the Danzig Corridor. It’s the only way fascism can work; to get the people to believe the opposite of the truth. Even Trump, dumb as he is, instinctively knows this.
Look at his recent statements. “This is prosecutorial misconduct used at a level never seen before. If I weren’t leading Biden by a lot in numerous polls, and wasn’t going to be the Republican nominee, it wouldn’t be happening. It wouldn’t be happening.… But I am way up as a Republican and way up in the general election, and this is what you get.”
He’s not ahead of Joe Biden. It’s a close race—disturbingly so—but, according to RealClearPolitics, Biden is narrowly ahead. And of course it’s not prosecutorial misconduct. Grand juries—American citizens—indicted Trump, not prosecutors. The only prosecutorial misconduct in Trump’s life was the laxity of the New York prosecutors who failed to nab him over the past 40 years. If they’d been doing their job, the nation might have been spared this turmoil.
With these next two indictments, assuming they happen, the mystical bond will grow deeper. Trump’s lies will intensify; his movement will become more openly fascistic. The law is the surest way to stop all this. But even convictions won’t end it. They’ll keep him out of the White House, most likely, but the Republican Party has probably been permanently transformed. The next Trump can’t wait to grab the fasces.
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Smoke and fires from Thantlang, in Chin State, where more than 160 buildings were destroyed by shelling from junta military troops on Oct. 29, 2021. (photo: AFP)
On the morning of April 11, in a rural village in central Myanmar, a crowd gathered to celebrate the opening of a new administration building, built by the armed resistance to the military junta ruling the country. Suddenly, a military jet dropped two 500-pound bombs, one of them directly onto the villagers. When rescuers came to help the wounded, a combat helicopter sprayed the area with gunfire. In the evening, a military jet fighter conducted another airstrike. More than 175 civilians were killed, including more than 40 children, in the massacre at Pazi Gyi, the bloodiest day in the war between the military junta that seized power more than two years ago and the resistance.
Word of the massacre spread rapidly on social media. On the same day, a young man, Willi Phyo, who lived in Mandalay and was a supporter of the resistance, changed his Facebook photo to black in sympathy for the victims. His protest was noticed by a channel on the social media platform Telegram. The channel is run by Han Nyein Oo, a pro-military social media figure, who acts as a spotter of dissent. It posted photos of Mr. Phyo, and pointed out to the authorities how to find him: “He lives on the ground floor of an apartment in front of elementary school, No. 17, 14th Street, 86th Street,” the Telegram channel reported.
The Telegram channel also called out a television actress, Myat Thu Thu, who announced on Facebook that she would no longer live stream, out of grief for the villagers. Similarly, it called out a pop singer, May La Thanzin, who goes by “May Melody” and had posted a message of sorrow on a black background after the bombing.
The next day, Ko Phyo was arrested. Then the actress and the pop singer were arrested. The pattern was repeated and again, all over the country, according to Radio Free Asia, which has compiled cases and provided details to The Post. The Telegram channel was a snitch line, tattling to the military junta about people who speak their minds online.
The crackdown in Myanmar, or Burma, shows once again how authoritarian regimes are turning the digital revolution to their own ends. Once there was hope the internet would become a global force for freedom and openness. In some ways, it has. But it also has shown a dark underside as a tool of dictatorship.
The Burmese generals seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, from a democratic government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party had won a resounding victory in parliamentary elections the previous November. After months of peaceful protests, democratic forces coalesced into armed resistance. The ragtag resistance has been fighting an intense war with the military ever since, shoulder to shoulder with ethnic militias also fighting the army. The junta has responded with unremitting force to put down protest and resistance, attacking civilians from the air, burning down villages and killing thousands of innocent people. Some 24,005 people have been arrested for opposition to the junta, and 19,618 are still detained. The military has turned Myanmar back into a dictatorship, cutting short a brief and incomplete flowering of democracy.
In a previous editorial in this series, we detailed how young people around the world were imprisoned by authoritarian regimes for merely posting freely on social media. This editorial adds a grim case study from Myanmar, where a digital war is being fought on top of a shooting war.
The young pop singer, Ms. Thanzin, on July 7 posted a new profile picture, a real photo, her first post since April, to the relief of her fans.
“Missing you,” she wrote to her 7.5 million followers.
Telegram is widely used around the world to avoid snooping by authoritarian regimes. The founder, Pavel Durov, a reclusive Russian entrepreneur, had first created Vkontakte, a hugely popular Russian social media platform that looked like Facebook. It was subsequently taken over by oligarchs close to the Kremlin when Mr. Durov resisted taking down pages of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Mr. Durov and his brother Nikolai then created Telegram in 2013 to be a secure, ad-free messaging app, and its popularity soared. Mr. Durov fled Russia in 2014. He now lives in Dubai.
In 2018, the Russian authorities demanded that Mr. Durov turn over encryption keys to Telegram, seeking information about Ukrainian users. He refused. Russia’s internet censor, Roskomnadzor, launched a two-year effort to block the platform online, but failed. Mr. Durov’s defiance enhanced the platform’s reputation as a haven against dictatorship. Telegram now has more than 800 million active users and is second in popularity only to WhatsApp in online messenger apps.
Mr. Durov wrote in a blog post in 2021, “Telegram is the first app to stand up to and, if necessary, pick a fight with a government.” He added in April, “Telegram’s mission is to preserve privacy and freedom of speech around the world.” The company says Telegram “played a prominent role in pro-democracy movements around the world, including in Iran, Russia, Belarus, Myanmar and Hong Kong.”
Telegram says communications between users are completely private, but channels — such as the one in Myanmar — are public. In these channels, Telegram says it will take down content that is deemed illegal, such as pornography or advocacy of violence and terrorism. However, it will not remove material that reflects free speech. Telegram declares on its website: “For example, if criticizing the government is illegal in some country, Telegram won’t be a part of such politically motivated censorship. This goes against our founders’ principles. While we do block terrorist (e.g. ISIS-related) bots and channels, we will not block anybody who peacefully expresses alternative opinions.” Mr. Durov posted about Telegram’s mission on his channel, “In the past, countries like China, Iran and Russia have banned Telegram due to our principled stance on the matter of human rights. Such events, while unfortunate, are still preferable to the betrayal of our users and the beliefs we were founded on.”
In Myanmar, though, the snitch channel is using Telegram to suppress free speech — by alerting the authorities to criticism. We asked Telegram whether this is consistent with Mr. Durov’s lofty principles. They replied that Telegram would remove “doxing” content when notified by users.
Telegram is a magnet for users — Mr. Durov says more than 2.5 million users sign up every day — because it combines private messaging to individuals and groups, including a popular “secret chats” function, with public channels that can reach huge numbers of users all at once. It is also fast. This makes it appealing not only to those fighting for democracy but also to authoritarian regimes and their allies. Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, use Telegram, the app they once tried to shut down. When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Telegram became the main channel for pro-Kremlin military bloggers to support the war. When the mercenary chieftain Yevgeniy Prigozhin began to complain in public about shortcomings of the Russian military, he broadcast his tirades in audio messages posted to Telegram and heard by millions. He also broadcast about his short-lived mutiny in June on the platform.
Dictators constantly fear they will be overthrown. The digital age has brought them plenty of tools to cling to power. They can use online means to propagandize, to flood the zone of information, and they can pressure or change ownership of platforms to control the message. Dictators can also use force to coerce and block objectionable platforms or sites, or to erect barriers, such as China’s Great Firewall. They have the power to muster cyberwarriors to infiltrate the devices of their opponents, spy on them and to attack or destroy them. They can erect elaborate surveillance mechanisms to track people’s movements at the grocery store — or at a protest. They can reach beyond their own borders.
But one of the most valuable tools an autocrat can have is the ability to zoom down to a granular level to locate individuals at odds with the regime.
That is what the Myanmar Telegram channel is doing — picking out opponents one by one.
Facebook has some 20 million users in Myanmar, a country of 53.8 million people. For many, Facebook is the whole internet, a source of news and information as well as social posting. The material gathered by Radio Free Asia shows that many of those who spoke out against the government did so on Facebook accounts. It is an enduring risk in dictatorships; those who are brave enough to speak out on social media also expose themselves — they put a target on their own back.
The Telegram snitch line in Myanmar today has 54,500 subscribers. Informers are instructed where to send their report, and to “please make sure the address is accurate.”
In war-torn Myanmar, details about arrests are sparse. But according to Radio Free Asia, in most high-profile cases, the charge leveled is based on Section 505-A of the penal code, alleging state defamation, sedition, incitement of public unrest and aiding “terrorism” by supporting pro-democracy groups, which were outlawed by the military junta as “terrorist organizations.” Some of the high-profile arrests are made public by the regime to instill fear in the population.
After the massacre at Pazi Gyi, on April 19 a Burmese woman, Nilar Win, wrote in a Facebook post that she felt sorry for the victims of the massacre. The Han Nyein Oo Telegram channel soon posted screenshots of her lament — and asked the police for her arrest.
She was arrested that day.
The next day, Moe Htet, who owns a photography studio in Yangon, shared pictures of the airstrike victims online. She also changed her Facebook profile to black in mourning. The Han Hyein Oo Telegram channel urged the police to arrest her, providing screenshots of her post and providing her address.
She was arrested.
Also in Yangon, Cho Wint Mar Zaw spoke out in a Facebook post, expressing sympathy to families of the survivors of the massacre. The Telegram channel spotted her — and put her photo on the channel and asked authorities to detain her. She was arrested the next day, April 23.
In May, the hunt snared a popular hip-hop singer, Byu Har, the son of a prominent musician, Naing Myanmar, who is best known for his pro-democracy anthem “Kabar Ma Kyay Bu,” written during a 1988 uprising against military rule. Based on the melody of “Dust in the Wind,” by American rock band Kansas, it was widely sung at anti-coup protests in recent years. According to Radio Free Asia, on May 23, Byu Har posted a video on Facebook, complaining about electricity shortages. Yangon has been stricken by power outages, lasting about five hours in the morning, and five hours in the afternoon or evening.
“I want to tell the minister of electricity who is wearing that elegant uniform, and the employees under the ministry of electricity that you guys are all stupid fools,” the artist said in the video. Under the government of the deposed Aung San Suu Kyi, he added, “not only did we have enough electricity without any power outage, her government even lowered the rate of electricity bills.” He also lashed out at the junta leader, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.
“The guy who is governing the country is also a stupid incompetent fool himself,” he said. “You guys have no … skill at all. Even if a fool like me were to govern this country, I promise that we would have enough electricity with no power outages. … I am cursing at you because I don’t have the electricity. Got it? If you want to arrest me, just come.”
The day after the video was posted, the Telegram channel urged the police to arrest the singer, calling him a “low class dog.”
He was arrested the same day.
Even mentioning the birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi is reason for being called out — and arrested. She is sentenced to 33 years after a trial on specious charges of corruption.
On June 19, Kaung Khant Lwin, who lives in Yangon and works in a drugstore, posted a message on Facebook to celebrate Aung San Suu Kyi’s 78th birthday. He called her “our leader” and tucked a flower behind one ear, joining a “flower strike” that day to show solidarity with the jailed democracy icon. Flowers tucked into a bun have long been her signature look; on the protest day, many shops sold all their flowers. On Facebook, he included quotes from her famous 1990 “Freedom from Fear” speech, and he wrote his own testament:
“Not being scared is not bravery.
Doing the right thing despite being scared is bravery.
I am also scared (as a human). But keeping in my mind that
I have to do the right thing and then face it.”
He was singled out the same day by the Telegram channel. It referred to him as a dog, and pointed to the address of the drugstore.
About 130 people who participated in the “flower strike” were arrested that day, including Mr. Khant Lwin, and the Telegram channel cheered his detention. “A dog who supported the thieves by celebrating ‘The Dog Strike’ is now seized within an hour and had no time to run. [The police] were fast and reliable, we respect and salute.”
Just before the birthday and protest, actress Poe Kyar Phyu Khin posted a video entitled “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Our True Leader)” to TikTok. She was arrested at her home in Yangon on the night of Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday.
Radio Free Asia reported that Telegram — Mr. Durov’s dream of defending free speech — has become a “form of military intelligence,” in the words of Yangon-based protest leader Nang Lin. “It may look like ordinary citizens are reporting people who oppose the military, but that’s not true,” he said. “It’s the work of their informers. It’s one of the junta’s intelligence mechanisms. In other words, it’s just one of many attempts designed to instill fear in the people.”
In open societies, there are methods to counter the double-edged sword of social media. Disinformation and misinformation can be rebutted by rapidly leveraging openness and free expression. It is hard enough when the enemies of free expression use the right to free expression to spread their own misbegotten dictatorial message.
But in Myanmar, once a nascent democracy now ruled by a ruthless military junta, the options are doubly hard. A lively independent digital news media is struggling and deserves support. Although Facebook has been criticized for allowing hate speech to be posted against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar, its continued presence also empowers people who want to resist the generals. The internet can be a force for democracy.
The Telegram snitch channel is doing the junta’s work, and Telegram is complicit. Mr. Durov, a multibillionaire, has said that he stands for free expression and backs Telegram users against the state “no matter what.” It’s time for him to step up and defend these principles.
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Prescription drugs. (photo: Mike Mergen/Bloomberg)
Once the initial batch of drugs chosen for negotiations are announced, the years-long negotiation process — currently being challenged in courts — will kick off. The manufacturers of the Medicare Part D-covered drugs picked by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will have one month to send in their agreements saying they will engage in the negotiation process.
Drugmakers who don’t agree to negotiate, and the spate of lawsuits makes it clear that many disagree with the process as it stands now, will have to risk ending their lucrative relationships with Medicare or facing heavy excise taxes.
Steve Knievel, access to medicines advocate at the progressive nonprofit Public Citizen, was skeptical of companies not agreeing to the negotiations, despite their public and legal objections.
“The penalties in the law are substantial if they’re allowed to stand,” Knievel said. “I think it would behoove [the plaintiffs] to continue to move forward and act as if, you know, the law is not going to be struck down.”
While they may enter negotiations kicking and screaming, Knievel argued that drug companies have likely been able to enjoy enormous profits from the first 10 drugs chosen for negotiations, regardless of what they end up being.
“It’s obscene. These drug corporations have made — across the board for the first set of drugs that are going to be negotiated — they’ve made tens of billions of dollars already,” said Knievel. “In most cases, the bulk of that has come from United States consumers, and you know oftentimes the bulk has come from Medicare.”
Many drugs covered by Medicare are also still exempted from negotiations, including those that have generic or biosimilar versions available; drugs less than seven-years-old; biological products less than 11-years-old; and orphan drugs, which are used to treat rare diseases and are not expected to generate profit.
CMS has given no indication as to what drugs will make the first round, but some have already speculated which will make the list. A study published in March identified 10 potential candidates based on gross Medicare Part B and Part D spending in 2020.
The selection process for the drugs is guided financially, with federal law directing that they come from medicines covered by Medicare Part B and D that account for the highest total spending.
Several of the medications projected to make the cut come from plaintiffs suing to stop the negotiation process. These included Eliquis from Bristol Myers Squibb, Xarelto from Johnson … Johnson and Januvia from Merck … Co.
These three drugs alone accounted for $18.5 billion in gross Medicare Part D spending in 2020.
In a projection from physicians released in September 2020, shortly after the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law, these three medications also made the list of those likely to be in CMS’s sights. Other drugs anticipated to show up on the list include the diabetes medication Jardiance, the breast cancer treatment Ibrance and Symbicort, which is used to treat asthma and COPD.
As KFF noted in an analysis released earlier this year, the 10 top-selling prescription drugs covered under Medicare Part D in 2021 did not account for even one percent of all covered medications but represented more than a fifth of gross spending.
“A lot of the likely drugs include blood thinners, diabetes medication, cancer drugs. So many of these drugs are for chronic conditions and cost Medicare’s several thousands of dollars per beneficiary that’s taking it” Bailey Reavis, federal relations associate at Families USA, told The Hill.
While the lowered prices generated by the negotiation program won’t go into effect until 2026, the Sep. 1 date marks the beginning of negotiations, officially making the process “real and tangible,” as Reavis noted.
“People on these medications are going to know that the price that they’re paying is likely to go down and Medicare is going to be saving, you know, millions of dollars,” she said.
Tricia Neuman, executive Director for KFF’s program on Medicare policy, said that while the impact of negotiations will not be felt by consumers for a few more years, the start of the price control program “sends a signal that Medicare is doing more to address concerns about high drug costs, both to help people on Medicare and also to address concerns about Medicare spending.”
Neuman also added that the start of negotiations will mark Medicare’s entry into new territory as it had been disallowed from negotiating prices before the passage of the IRA.
“Medicare uses fee schedules for a number of different providers without having a process that is similar in terms of engaging…with drug companies,” she noted. “So, the process, as it’s been described, looks quite different from the process that Medicare has used in the past.”
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Mark Zuckerberg. (photo: Dianna 'Mick' McDougall/Insider/Gerard Julien/Justin Sullivan/Alex Wong)
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg says its new social media platform, Threads, has lost more than half its users.
But Mr Zuckerberg has acknowledged those numbers have now tumbled.
"If you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet," he said.
Mr Zuckerberg - who made the comments in a call to employees, heard by the Reuters news agency - described the situation as "normal" and said he anticipated retention to improve as new features were added to the app.
Threads was criticised for the limited functionality it had when it launched.
Meta has since added new features, such as separate "following" and "for you"' feeds, and increased scope to translate posts into different languages.
The company's chief product officer, Chris Cox, told staff it was now focused on adding more "retention-driving hooks" to draw people back to the platform.
He gave the example of "making sure people who are on the Instagram app can see important Threads". The two platforms are closely tied - in order to sign up for Threads, users must have an Instagram account.
Mr Zuckerberg also updated employees on the company's enormous bet on a yet-to-be-created virtual reality world, called the Metaverse.
He said work on the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology that would power it was "not massively ahead of schedule, but on track", adding that he didn't anticipate it going mainstream until the next decade.
That prediction may intensify concerns that Meta has dedicated too much time and money to the Metaverse - its Reality Labs division, which produces VR headsets and other products, has racked up multi-billion dollar losses.
The company as a whole though continues to perform well financially - announcing this week it made a profit of $7.79bn in the last quarter.
Mr Zuckerberg also addressed one other headline-making issue - his proposed cage fight with fellow tech titan Elon Musk.
From the safety of their keyboards, the two men indicated in June that they were both keen on a bout - even going as far as suggesting a venue in Las Vegas.
However, when pressed about it on the call, Mr Zuckerberg said he was "not sure if it's going to come together".
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A view from inside the residential building hit by a Russian strike in Kryvyi Rih. (photo: Ukrainian State Emergency Service/AFP)
The strikes came after Zelensky said Sunday that attacks inside Russia are “inevitable.” Kremlin officials accused Kyiv of drone strikes in Moscow and Russian-annexed Crimea. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed whether Kyiv played a role in those attacks.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
Children were among the injured in the strikes on Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian officials said Monday, adding that the missiles hit a residential building and a university building and that several people remain trapped under the rubble. A 10-year-old girl and her mother were among the fatalities, officials said.
On Sunday, Zelensky did not directly address Russia’s accusation that Ukraine was behind weekend drone attacks in Moscow and Crimea, all of which Kremlin officials said were thwarted. In his nightly address, Zelensky said “war is returning to the territory of Russia,” a process he said was “natural” as Ukraine becomes stronger
“This is how the week begins in a Ukrainian city that just wants a quiet, normal life,” Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said on social media following the attacks on Kryvyi Rih. “Russia wants to take peace and life away.”
Battleground updates
The Russian Defense Ministry said it thwarted a drone attack Sunday on Moscow and blamed Ukraine for the strike. A drone was intercepted southwest of Moscow, and two other drones crashed in the capital. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said two office towers were “slightly damaged,” but there were no reports of casualties. Russian forces also claimed Sunday to have intercepted and downed 25 Ukrainian drones in Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014, adding that there were no casualties or damage.
Russian forces might resume attacking Ukraine’s energy facilities as the country seeks to prevent a repeat of last winter, Zelensky said, when Russian attacks crippled Ukraine’s power grid. In a televised interview, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said Ukraine is using new ways to boost its grid ahead of winter, but he did not specify how, Reuters reported.
Russia’s navy is set to commission 30 ships into service this year, President Vladimir Putin said Sunday in St. Petersburg at the country’s annual Navy Day parade. “The Russian Federation is consistently building up the power of its fleet,” Putin said. Russia has depended on its navy to support its war in Ukraine, frequently using its Black Sea fleet to launch cruise missiles at land targets.
Global impact
Kyiv is set to begin discussing long-term security measures with Washington this week, Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said, referring to a recent agreement with the Group of Seven nations. The plan will be discussed in three phases that culminate in a meeting of heads of state, he said. Yermak reiterated Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, though he acknowledged that the country would not be accepted into the defense alliance until the war ends.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected to attend a Ukrainian-backed peace summit in Saudi Arabia, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive planning. Russia is not attending the summit, which is reportedly intended to give Ukraine’s backers and other countries a chance to align positions on how to end the war.
Pope Francis called on Russia to restore the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which collapsed this month after Moscow withdrew from the deal and refused to guarantee the safety of agricultural cargo in the Black Sea. “I appeal to my brothers, the authorities of the Russian Federation, so that the Black Sea initiative may be resumed and grain may be transported safely,” Francis said Sunday during his Angelus prayer, Reuters reported.
From our correspondents
Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan reinstated after handshake refusal: Two days after Olga Kharlan was disqualified from the world championships following her refusal to shake hands with Russian opponent Anna Smirnova, the International Fencing Federation reinstated Kharlan, allowing her to participate in team competition that began Saturday, Glynn A. Hill reports. Kharlan’s reinstatement came a day after the International Olympic Committee opened a path for the Ukrainian fencer to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Kharlan, a former world champion, won her individual saber bout against Smirnova on Thursday in Milan, after which she rejected Smirnova’s handshake and offered her saber to tap blades instead. Shaking an opponent’s hand is mandatory in fencing, and failure to do so triggers a “black card.” Kharlan was disqualified, prompting outrage from top Ukrainian sports officials.
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A branch of the hacking firm NSO in Sapir, Israel. The Biden administration put the company on a Commerce Department blacklist in 2021. (photo: Amit Elkayam/NYT)
After a Times report, the bureau canceled its contract with a government contractor that used the tool on its behalf. But questions remain.
After an investigation, the F.B.I. uncovered at least part of the answer: It was the F.B.I.
The deal for the surveillance tool between the contractor, Riva Networks, and NSO was completed in November 2021. Only days before, the Biden administration had put NSO on a Commerce Department blacklist, which effectively banned U.S. firms from doing business with the company. For years, NSO’s spyware had been abused by governments around the world.
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Relatives and mourners gather around the caskets of victims who were killed in Sunday's suicide bomber attack in the Bajur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, Monday, July 31, 2023. (photo: Mohammad Sajjad/AP)
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's bombing, which also wounded nearly 200 people. Police said their initial investigation suggested that the Islamic State group's regional affiliate could be behind the attack.
The victims were attending a rally organized by the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, headed by hard-line cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman. He did not attend the rally, held under a large tent close to a market in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.
Rehman, who has long supported Afghanistan's Taliban government, escaped at least two known bomb attacks in 2011 and 2014, when bombings damaged his car at rallies.
Victims of the bombing were buried in Bajur on Monday.
As condolences continued to pour in from across the country, dozens of people who received minor injuries were discharged from hospital while the critically wounded were taken to the provincial capital of Peshawar by army helicopters. The death toll rose to 46 on Monday as two critically wounded people died in hospital, physician Gul Naseeb said.
On Monday, police recorded statements from some of the wounded at a hospital in Khar, Bajur's largest town. Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister, said police were "investigating this attack in all aspects."
At least 1,000 people were gathered under a large tent Sunday as their party prepared for parliamentary elections, expected in October or November.
"People were chanting God is Great on the arrival of senior leaders, when I heard the deafening sound of the bomb," said Khan Mohammad, a local resident who said he was standing outside the tent.
Mohammad said he heard people crying for help, and minutes later ambulances started arriving and taking the wounded away.
Abdul Rasheed, a senior leader in Rehman's party said the bombing was aimed at weakening the party but that "such attacks cannot deter our resolve."
Islamist groups have long had a presence in Bajur. The district was formerly a base for Al Qaida and a stronghold of the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The army declared the district clear of the group in 2016 following a series of offensives.
The IS regional affiliate, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, is based in neighboring Afghanistan's Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaida.
Pakistani security analyst Mahmood Shah told The Associated Press that breakaway factions of the TTP could also be behind the attack. He said some TTP members have been known to disobey their top leadership to carry out attacks, as have breakaway factions of the group.
Shah said such factions could have perpetrated the attack to cause "confusion, instability and unrest ahead of the elections."
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to dissolve Pakistan's parliament in August.
Rehman's party is part of Sharif's coalition government, which came to power in April 2022 by ousting former Prime Minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote in the legislature.
Sharif called Rehman to express his condolences and assure the cleric that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished. The bombing has also drawn nationwide condemnation, with ruling and opposition parties offering condolences to the families of the victims. The U.S. and Russian embassies in Islamabad also condemned the attack.
Khan condemned the bombing Sunday.
The Pakistani Taliban also distanced themselves from the attack, saying that the attack aimed to set Islamists against each other. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, wrote in a tweet that "such crimes cannot be justified in any way."
The bombing came hours before the arrival of Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Islamabad, where on Monday he was to participate in an event to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a sprawling package under which Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Pakistan.
In recent months, China has helped Pakistan avoid a default on sovereign payments. Some Chinese nationals have also been targeted by militants in northwestern Pakistan and elsewhere.
Sunday's bombing was one of the four worst attacks in northwestern Pakistan since 2014, when 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar.
In January, 74 people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. And in February, more than 100 people, mostly policemen, died in a bombing at a mosque inside a high-security compound housing Peshawar police headquarters.
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