People often misinterpret their own perceptions of people and situations as objective fact, rather than solely their own interpretation.
UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman explains why people might see things differently.
Why are we so certain that the way we view people, circumstances, and politics is correct and that the way others see them is erroneous?
According to a recent study by the University of California, Los Angeles psychology professor Matthew Lieberman, the answer resides in a part of the brain he calls the “gestalt cortex,” which helps humans make sense of ambiguous or incomplete information — and dismiss alternative interpretations.
The study, which was based on an analysis of over 400 prior studies, was published in the journal Psychological Review.
People often mistake their own perceptions of other individuals and events for an objective fact as opposed to only being their own interpretation. People who experience this “naive realism” phenomenon think they should have the final word on the world around them.
“We tend to have irrational confidence in our own experiences of the world, and to see others as misinformed, lazy, unreasonable or biased when they fail to see the world the way we do,” Lieberman said. “The evidence from neural data is clear that the gestalt cortex is central to how we construct our version of reality.”
The gestalt cortex is located behind the ear, between the parts of the brain responsible for processing vision, sound and touch. Credit: Matthew Lieberman/UCLA Psychology
He believes that the most overlooked cause of conflict and mistrust between people and organizations is naive realism.
“When others see the world differently than we do, it can serve as an existential threat to our own contact with reality and often leads to anger and suspicion about the others,” Lieberman said. “If we know how a person is seeing the world, their subsequent reactions are much more predictable.”
While the question of how people make sense of the world has been an enduring topic in social psychology, the underlying brain mechanisms have never been fully explained, Lieberman said.
Mental acts that are coherent, effortless, and based on our experiences tend to occur in the gestalt cortex. For example, a person might see someone else smiling and without giving it any apparent thought, perceive that the other person is happy. Because those inferences are immediate and effortless, they typically feel more like “seeing reality” — even though happiness is an internal psychological state — than they do like “thinking,” Lieberman said.
“We believe we have merely witnessed things as they are, which makes it more difficult to appreciate, or even consider, other perspectives,” he said. “The mind accentuates its best answer and discards the rival solutions. The mind may initially process the world like a democracy where every alternative interpretation gets a vote, but it quickly ends up like an authoritarian regime where one interpretation rules with an iron fist and dissent is crushed. In selecting one interpretation, the gestalt cortex literally inhibits others.”
Previous research by Lieberman has shown that when people disagree face to face — for example on a political issue — activity in their gestalt cortices is less similar than it is for people who agree with one another. (That conclusion was supported by a 2018 study in the journal
The gestalt cortex is located behind the ear, and it is situated between the parts of the brain responsible for processing vision, sound and touch; those parts are connected by a structure called the temporoparietal junction, which is part of the gestalt cortex. In the new study, Lieberman proposes that the temporoparietal junction is central to conscious experience and that it helps organize and integrate psychological features of situations that people see so they can make sense of them effortlessly.
The gestalt cortex isn’t the only area of the brain that enables people to quickly process and interpret what they see, he said, but it is an especially important one.
Using neurosurgical recordings to understand the “social brain”
In a separate study, published in April in the journal Nature Communications, Lieberman and colleagues addressed how, given our complex social worlds, we are able to socialize with relative ease.
Using the first mass-scale neurosurgical recordings of the “social brain,” Lieberman, UCLA psychology graduate student Kevin Tan and colleagues at Stanford University showed that humans have a specialized neural pathway for social thinking.
Lieberman, author of the bestselling book “Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect,” said humans are social by nature and have an exceptional capacity for assessing the mental states of others. That ability requires the brain to process a large number of inferences from a vast array of idiosyncratic cues. So why does that process often feel so effortless compared to simple tasks like basic arithmetic?
Clear answers have been elusive for those who study social neuroscience. One culprit could be scientists’ reliance on functional magnetic resonance imaging, which is effective at scanning where brain activity occurs, but less effective at capturing the timing of that activity.
Researchers employed a technique called electrocorticography to record brain activity at millisecond and millimeter scales using thousands of neurosurgical electrodes. They found that a neurocognitive pathway that extends from the back to the front of the brain is especially active in areas closer to the front when people think about the mental states of others.
Their findings suggest that the temporoparietal junction may create a fast, effortless understanding of other people’s mental states, and that another region, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, may be more involved in thinking things through more slowly and carefully.
References: “Seeing minds, matter, and meaning: The CEEing model of pre-reflective subjective construal” by Matthew D. Lieberman, July 2022, Psychological Review. DOI: 10.1037/rev0000362
“Similar neural responses predict friendship” by Carolyn Parkinson, Adam M. Kleinbaum and Thalia Wheatley, 30 January 2018, Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02722-7
“Electrocorticographic evidence of a common neurocognitive sequence for mentalizing about the self and others” by Kevin M. Tan, Amy L. Daitch, Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas, Kieran C. R. Fox, Josef Parvizi and Matthew D. Lieberman, 8 April 2022, Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29510-2
It didn’t involve any killer clowns, haunted hotels, or avenging, telekinetic high schoolers, but this summer, author Stephen King began telling a new scary story: the precarious state of the US book industry in 2022.
The author, who has written numerous horror bestsellers since the 1970s like The Shining and Carrie, testfied this month on behalf of the Biden administration in the Department of Justice’s effort to stop the proposed $2.2bn merger of Penguin Random House, America’s largest publisher, and Simon & Schuster, another of the “Big Five” companies that dominate the US book industry.
In November of last year, the federal government sued to stop the deal, arguing the tie-up would give the companies “unprecedented control” over who gets their voices heard in American cultural life, a development that “would result in substantial harm to authors”.
Over the course of three weeks of arguments this August, the trial dug down into the opaque world of big-money author advances and industry consolidation, exposing deep disagreements about how the deal would impact the book business, and by consequence, what the future of America’s literary culture looked like for writers and readers alike. The unprecedented case has been dubbed the publishing trial of the century.
For his part, Mr King, one of the most successful and well-paid writers of his generation, was willing to testify against his own regular publisher, Scribner, part of Simon & Schuster, to argue against more consolidation in the book industry.
“My name is Stephen King. I’m a freelance writer,” he began cheekily, before railing against market conditions that have pushed many writers “below the poverty line”.
“I came because I think that consolidation is bad for competition,” he testified. “It becomes tougher and tougher for writers to find money to live on.”
“It’s a tough world out there now. That’s why I came,” he added. “There comes a point where, if you are fortunate, you can stop following your bank account and start following your heart.”
The clash with Mr King is one of many twists in the trial, which wrapped closing arguments on Friday (19 August).
Though the case hinges on technical issues like the dynamics of author contracts, the definition of monopoly power, and the merits of various supply chain arrangements, everyone in the book world is watching for when a decision comes down this fall.
Readers might want to pay attention, too. The case not only impacts how people consume books, and at what price. Like any good story, this one also has plenty of drama and gossip to go around.
“This is a huge deal,” Michael Cader, founder of the Publishers Lunch newsletter, told The Independent. “The trial was probably attended by a few dozen people, but was riveting to the entire industry. Both the potential consequences of the deal itself as well as simply the theatre of having peers and people in your industry on the stand discussing business details in granular fashion for three weeks was pretty compelling for a lot of people.”
The main argument in the case revolved around the big whales of the publishing industry, books where authors earned more than $250,000 on their advances for titles expected to top bestseller lists.
The DOJ claimed that a potential Penguin Random House – Simon & Schuster juggernaut would control half the market of such blockbuster books in the US.
“They are the only firms with the capital, reputations, editorial capacity, marketing, publicity, sales, and distribution resources to regularly acquire anticipated top-selling books,” DOJ lawyers said in a court filing.
The merger hopefuls, meanwhile, told the court in Washington, DC, that readers and writers had nothing to fear if the government allowed the Big Five to become the Big Four.
“It’s a good deal for all involved, including authors,” Stephen Fishbein, an attorney for Simon & Schuster, said in his closing statement.
Top leaders at Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster said the book market was far more expansive and competitive than the slice the government was choosing to focus on, which covers about 1,200 books a year, or two per cent of the US commercial market, the companies argued in a pretrial brief.
Overall, in 2021, about half of the books sold in the US came from publishers outside the Big Five, Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle testified. The company also noted it had actually lost market share since the 2013 merger between Penguin and Random House.
More than that, the companies argued the process of acquiring books was a mix of expertise and gambling, where even publishing giants can’t guarantee a big-money purchase will translate to big sales and massive cultural reach, or predict when an upstart author’s book will become a breakout hit.
“These are not widgets we’re producing,” Madeline McIntosh, chief executive of Penguin Random House, said in testimony. “The evaluation is a highly subjective process.”
Claiming to predict a book’s bestselling future was like “taking credit for the weather,” added Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp.
This unpredictable process would remain de-centralised even after the merger, the companies went on, because Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House editors would still be allowed to bid against each other for future titles.
Even to a fantasy author, however, this premise struck Stephen King as a bit out-there.
“You might as well say you are going to have a husband and wife bidding against each other for a house,” the writer testified. “It’s a little bit ridiculous.”
Amy Thomas, owner of Pegasus Books, which has stores in Solano, Berkeley, and Oakland, California, said the consolidation might also cancel out who gets published in the first place, leading to a potential diminishment in which new and important voices get heard.
The most important books aren’t necessarily ones that start out as instant profit-makers, but mergers often invite searches for quick places to cut costs. What’s more, she said, salespeople representing the massive combined catalogues of a merged Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House might not have the time to champion all of their titles the way a smaller publishing house would.
“Things will get dropped. Lines will get dropped. There’s just too much,” she told The Independent. “There’s a lot of books. Not all of them work. And a lot of them are worth it anyway.”
Bigger companies may also have less incentive or ability to offer booksellers good terms, given the gargantuan scale of the proposed company’s operations.
Beyond the more technical questions about how a Simon & Schuster – Penguin Random House deal would affect author payouts and bookstores, there was also the slightly dishier matter of which authors got paid the big bucks and why.
On this question, the trial became a kind of literary Page Six, with mentions of Big Five publisher Hachette’s list of “the ones that got away”, and reported seven-figure paychecks for figures like actor Jamie Foxx and New Yorker magazine writer Jiayang Fan.
The publisher of Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery even testified that they paid “millions” for a book by comedian Amy Schumer, even though sales estimates suggested the book might not merit such a whopping payout.
The case also described how the collective $65m advance Barack and Michelle Obama got for their books neared a $75m threshold where Penguin Random House editors would’ve needed permission from their corporate parent, Germany’s Bertelsmann, to move ahead.
But the focus on these marquee names was more than just publishing industry gossip. The trial shined a spotlight on just how much a tiny proportion of hit books prop up the rest of the publishing industry.
Penguin Random House executives said that just over a third of their books turn a profit, with just four per cent of books in that category accounting for 60 per cent of the earnings. In 2021, according to data from BookScan, fewer than one per cent of the 3.2 million titles it tracked sold over 5,000 copies.
Given this state of affairs, the big publishers argued their merger would create corporate efficiencies, allowing them to pass these savings on so more authors got a bigger piece of the pie.
However, Judge Florence Y Pan seemed to strike down this line of thinking, refusing to admit Penguin Random House’s evidence to support this claim, arguing it wasn’t independently verified.
“The judge thoroughly and completely rejected the defence’s argument for accepting that evidence,” Mr Cader, of Publishers Lunch, said.
So did Stephen King.
“There were literally hundreds of imprints and some of them were run by people who had extremely idiosyncratic tastes,” he said. “Those businesses, one by one, were either subsumed by other publishers or they went out of business.”
His own publishing history tells the story of an industry increasingly controlled by a few companies. Carrie was published by Doubleday, which eventually merged with Knopf, which is now part of Penguin Random House. Viking Press, which put out other King titles, was a part of Penguin, which became Penguin Random House in 2013.
David Enyeart, the manager of St Paul, Minnesota’s independent Next Chapter Booksellers, says the industry’s long march towards consolidation makes it harder for new voices to emerge and reach readers in stores because smaller publishers simply can’t compete.
“They’re able to make more independent decisions about who they’re going to publish, but they aren’t as able to spread the word as powerfully as a deep-pocketed company. That really affects what consumers are able to read,” he said. “That’s a real impact that everybody sees.”
Others say the story is a bit more complicated than corporate consolidation stomping out all variation and diversity in the business. It’s the best of times and the worst of times in the book industry. It just depends on your perspective, according to Mike Shatzkin, CEO of publishing consultancy The Idea Logical Company.
”The book business as measured in titles has been exploding for 20 years,” he told The Independent. “The book business as measured in dollars has been growing for 20 years.”
He estimates that about 40 times more titles are available than the half a million or so books in print in 1990. It’s just that publishers and bookstores now face competition from self-publishers using services like Amazon’s Kindle Direct, as well as upstarts who, thanks to the internet, now have cheaper access to the same printing and storage supply chains that used to only be affordable to major publishing houses.
Someone looking to sell books doesn’t even need much physical infrastructure at all. They can accept payment for a book, then pass along the printing and shipping order to distributors like Ingram, without ever touching a book themselves.
Even a pandemic couldn’t tank sales, according to Penguin Random House’s Mr Dohle. Print book sales grew by more than 20 per cent between 2012 and 2019—then another 20 per cent between 2019 and 2021.
To make a profit in a world where, Mr Shatzkin estimates, about 80 per cent of books are sold online, in an essentially limitless variety, with nearly instantaneous printing and shipping, big publishers can only survive, he argues, by consolidating and monetising reliable books already in print from their back catalogues. These books don’t need publishers to shell out lots of money scoring a promising new author and promoting their work.
“The world that we’re in, which we have been in for 20 years, is that the state of the business that belongs to commercial publishers is shrinking, and the ability of publishers to establish a new book as profitable is shrinking, drastically,” he said. “What has grown is the ability to monetise deep backlists that might have never been monetizable in the old days.”
Looming in the background of the merger trial is Amazon, which controls, by some counts, an estimated two-thirds of the market for new and used books in the US, and Ingram, the distributor, a company which controls the majority of independent book distribution between publishers and readers.
By law, mergers present the opportunity for the government to weigh in on whether a proposed company risks becoming anti-competitive, but Amazon has been able to use its numerous different business lines to fund a roaring books business built on titles offered at low prices.
“This particular suit is like chasing something that has escaped a long time ago,” Paul Yamazaki, the book buyer at San Francisco institution City Lights Bookstore, told The Independent, sitting on a sunny porch covered in stacks of books. “If the Justice Department was going to really look at this, and look on behalf of the readers and writers, then they should look at Amazon.”
Barring exceptions like the breakup of Standard Oil and the Bell System companies, the government rarely elects to break up monopolies outside of mergers.
Even with advances in self-publishing, e-commerce, and a flourishing of indie bookstores in recent years, many owned by an increasingly diverse group of industry newcomers and people of colour, the e-commercification of publishing has made it hard for small presses to have their books reach readers in stores, Mr Yamazaki said.
“So many of the presses—City Lights, New Direction, Copper Canyon, Coffeehouse—all started out as these kind of homegrown projects with somebody that had a wonderful idea and just only had sweat equity and a typewriter,” he said. “We need the whole ecology to prosper.”
In the present ecology, however, according to Next Chapter’s David Enyeart, the big fish seem to be getting bigger, with few benefits to everyone else down the food chain over the long term. He couldn’t think of a single positive about the merger.
“What we’ll see in the long run is less diversity in offerings, less reason for them to offer better discounts and to generally make room for independent bookstores and the sort of books that we want to promote. That’s really sort of the issue. It’s a long-term sort of thing. It won’t change anything day-to-day,” he said.
Recommended
“It’s the sort of thing where we’ll wake up in several years, and there’s only two publishers left, and they’re squeezing us hard.”
This article was amended on 23 August 2022. It previously stated that the ex-publisher of Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books testified during the merger trial. However, the testimony came from Gallery’s current publisher, Jennifer Bergstrom.
Recent weeks have seen an escalation in shelling in and around Europe’s largest nuclear facility.
The Council meeting was requested by Russia, whose forces have occupied the plant since March, or shortly after the start of the war, while Ukrainian personnel continue to carry out their on-site operations.
Ms. DiCarlo reiterated the UN’s ongoing grave concern over the dangerous situation, recalling the Secretary-General’s appeals for common sense, reason and restraint, as well as dialogue.
“At this moment, it is imperative that we receive the expressed commitment of the parties to stop any military activities around the plant and to enable its continued safe and secure operations. To paraphrase the Secretary-General’s blunt warning, any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia is suicidal,” she said.
All military personnel and equipment must be withdrawn from the plant, and there should be no further deployment of forces or equipment to the site.
“The facility must not be used as part of any military operation, and an agreement on a safe perimeter of demilitarization to ensure the safety of the area should be reached,” she said.
The UN has again called for the parties to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with immediate, secure, and unfettered access to the nuclear plant.
Preparations for IAEA mission
IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi on Tuesday renewed his request to send a mission to carry out essential safety, security and safeguard activities at the site.
Ms. DiCarlo reported that preparations are proceeding, and the agency is in active consultation with all sides so the mission can be dispatched as soon as possible.
“We welcome Ukraine and Russia’s recent statements indicating support for the IAEA’s aim to send a mission to the plant, which would be IAEA’s first to that site since the start of the war,” she said.
The UN has also assessed that it has the logistics and security capacity in Ukraine to support any IAEA mission from Kyiv, provided Ukraine and Russia agree.
“We must be clear that any potential damage to the plant, or any other nuclear facilities in Ukraine, leading to a possible nuclear incident would have catastrophic consequences, not only for the immediate vicinity, but for the region and beyond,” said Ms. DiCarlo.
“Similarly, any damage leading to the plant being cut from the Ukrainian power grid would have catastrophic humanitarian implications, particularly with winter approaching. As the Secretary-General has made clear, the electricity produced at the Zaporizhzhia plant belongs to Ukraine.”
Russia: ‘Healthy’ atmosphere at plant
In his deliberation, Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya listed incidents of alleged Ukrainian shelling at the plant this month, accusing the country of “nuclear blackmail”.
“The fact that the Kyiv regime continues with attacks on this station is a direct consequence of criminal acquiescence on the part of its western patrons,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.
Furthermore, any potential disaster at the nuclear plant has so far been avoided “only because there’s smooth joint work between the workers of the station, fire squads, emergency people and the Russian military who are helping them every way they can,” he added. “And this shows that there is a healthy working atmosphere at the station, and no one is oppressing anyone there.”
Support for IAEA mission
Regarding the IAEA, Mr. Nebenzya said Russia has supported efforts towards a mission to the plant “from day one” and had already agreed for a mission to take place in June.
“We expect that the IAEA trip mission will take place in the very near future and the agency experts will confirm the real situation at the station,” he said.
The Ambassador concluded his remarks by addressing the car bombing in Moscow on Saturday which killed Darya Dugina, a political commentator and the daughter of a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.
Russian authorities are investigating the incident, he said, “and preliminary conclusions are that this monstrous crime was organized by the Ukrainian special services.”
He urged the Council and the UN leadership, in his words, “to condemn yet another crime by the Kyiv regime.”
Ukraine refutes shelling claims
Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsy dismissed Russia’s claims that his country is shelling its own nuclear facility.
“Nobody who is at least conscious can imagine that Ukraine would target a nuclear power plant at tremendous risk of nuclear catastrophe and on its own territory,” he said.
Mr. Kyslytsy informed the Council that Ukraine’s Foreign Minister has responded to the IAEA regarding the mission.
The proposal for the itinerary is in compliance with national legislation “and in general might be accepted”, he said. However, further arrangements have to be made based on security conditions, communication of detailed route plans, and other logistical aspects.
Permanent IAEA presence
“We continue to believe that the mission’s effectiveness can be bolstered by incorporating military and political components backed by UN expertise,” he said.
“Considering the scale of the current challenges and threats, we also urged the IAEA to consider a permanent presence of its experts at the ZNPP until the competent Ukrainian authorities regain full control over this nuclear facility.”
The Ambassador underlined the importance of the mission taking place at the request of Ukraine.
“The occupiers have trained some of the hostages in what they should say and what they shouldn’t show to the IAEA. That is why it is really important to conduct the mission in a way that would allow the international community to see the real situation and not a Russian theatrical show.”
The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) expressed concern on Tuesday after photos and videos released on social media appeared to show metal cages being built in the philharmonic hall in the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol, apparently to house prisoners of war (POWs) during an upcoming “show trial”.
OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said the trials by the Russian-backed authorities could begin in the occupied city, possibly within days – and warned that such a process could amount to a war crime.
“We are very concerned about the manner in which this is being done. There are pictures in the media of cages being built in Mariupol’s philharmonic hall, really massive cages and apparently, the idea is to restrain the prisoners”, Ms. Shamdasani told a briefing in Geneva. “This is not acceptable, this is humiliating,” she said.
Ms. Shamdasani pointed out how “under international law, individuals entitled to prisoner of war status have combatant immunity and cannot be prosecuted for having participated in hostilities, or for lawful acts of war committed in the course of the armed conflict, even if such acts would otherwise constitute an offence under domestic law.”
The spokesperson added that OHCHR was concerned that prisoners of war have generally been held without access to independent monitors, exposing them to the risk of being tortured to extract a confession.
“There have also been worrying public statements by Russian officials and members of affiliated armed groups labelling Ukrainian prisoners of war as ‘war criminals, ‘Nazis’, and ‘terrorists’, thereby undermining the presumption of innocence.”
‘Unprecedented’ attacks on healthcare
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that it has seen “an unprecedented number of attacks on healthcare” since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began nearly six months ago.
“As of 23rd of August, over 460 attacks on health care have been verified by WHO, leading to almost 100 deaths and over 100 injuries,” Dr. Jarno Habicht, WHO Representative and Head of the WHO Country Office said.
Dr. Habicht stressed that while the attacks not only violate international law, “they are also a barrier for many who need to care.”
“It is not only the supplies and others we need to support – we need to ensure also that the services are available,” he added.
Over 350 children killed
According to the UN Children’s Fund, (UNICEF), the official death toll for children during the conflict is 356 children, but that is “a low estimate”, according to UNICEF spokesperson in Geneva, James Elder.
He said the expectation was that it would be “many more based on the thoroughness of how verification is done”.
On Monday, UNICEF reported that nearly 1,000 children had been killed or injured in Ukraine – an average of five a day – but stressed that the real number is likely higher.
Reiterating the urgent need for peace, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell pointed out that “once again, as in all wars, the reckless decisions of adults are putting children at extreme risk. There are no armed operations of this kind that do not result in children being harmed.”
Lifesaving grain bound for Horn of Africa
According to the World Food Programme (WFP) the first vessel transporting Ukrainian wheat grain bound for the Horn of Africa is now due to berth in Djibouti on 30 August.
The MV Brave Commander departed from the Black Sea port of Yuzhny on 16 August, as part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative signed by Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye and the UN in July. But Michael Dunford, WFP Regional Director for East Africa, warned that while this was “a very positive development,” it was “not the answer”.
“That one ship, 23,000 metric tons of wheat, is the equivalent of feeding 1.5 million people for just one month. And yet we currently estimate that there could be upwards of 22 million people requiring assistance,” he said.
Gregory Grieve, who heads the religious studies department at University of North Carolina, Greensboro, holds that the authenticity of digital Buddhist meditation is not the determining factor as to whether it is a valid practice of the religion.
In a recent article published on The Conversation website, he wrote “authenticity is not determined by its strict adherence to older forms. Rather, an authentic practice furthers a happiness founded on deeper meanings, whereas an inauthentic practice may only provide fleeting pleasure or temporary relief.”
Some believe “online Buddhism differs from earlier forms – if not in message then at least in the way it is transmitted.”
Others “dismiss digital Buddhism as mere popular consumerism that takes historically rich and complex traditions and selectively repackages them for monetary gain.”
Most scholars who find fault with the practice see it as a form of “Western popular culture’s appropriation of Asian traditions,” citing University of the West professor of religious studies Jane Iwamura and her book “Virtual Orientalism,” in which she says the practice obscures the voices of actual Buddhists of Asian descent.
But Grieve disagrees.
“In the end, these all may be legitimate concerns,” he writes. “Nevertheless, these scholars do not address many Western Buddhists’ deep desire for an intense spiritual experience. In my research, many Western Buddhists have often described their religious practice as a ‘search for authenticity.’”
“Current popular culture centers on hedonic happiness, which values an outgoing, social, joyous view of life. As a result, much of the Buddhist-inspired media currently found on meditation apps peddle moments of personal bliss, calm and relaxation.”
Grieve refers to the concept of “eudaimonia,” which means “the condition of “good spirit,” which is commonly translated as ‘human flourishing.’” And he points out that according to Aristotle, “eudaimonia is the highest end, and all subordinate goals – health, wealth and other such resources – are sought because they promote living well. Aristotle insists that there are virtuous pleasures besides those of the senses and that the best pleasures are experienced by virtuous people who find happiness in deeper meanings.”
And even in Buddhist texts such as the Samaññaphala Sutta, “one can find eudaimonic descriptions of Buddhist practice.”
Moreover, Grieve indicates, “Buddhism has been modified and translated into new cultures wherever it has spread. Also, no doubt, online Western Buddhism shows that it has been translated to fit into our consumer society.”
In the final analysis, however, Grieve states, “If digital Buddhist practice approaches the good life as eudaimonic – as leading to human flourishing based on the pursuit of a deeper meaning – it can be judged to be authentic. An inauthentic practice is one that just furthers hedonism by merely peddling bliss and relaxation.”
Iran, 24 August 2022 – With an estimated 2.8 million people suffering from a drug use problem, Iran also has one of the world’s highest prevalence of opiate use among its population. Women are among the affected – one household survey estimated that the lifetime prevalence of drug use among women aged 15-64 years was 1.5%.
Women in Iran who use drugs often face social stigma. Frequently equipped with fewer resources – like a job, independent income, or an educational background – women are often also responsible for dependent children or family members, making their struggles with substance use even more difficult. Cultural norms, meanwhile, make many women fearful of even acknowledging their problems.
Targeted and dedicated resources for women struggling with substance abuse are therefore crucial, which is why the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has supported the Kerman Women’s Empowerment Center. The Center provides treatment to women substance users, as well as job creation and social reintegration services, and to date have helped over 260 women to recover from drug addiction.
UNODC delivered bakery and confectionary items to the Center, who plans on using the equipment to create an ongoing, apprentice-like workshop teaching women how to bake. The aim is to provide recovered women drug users with a skill that can help them to obtain a job and income.
The venture is related to a similar initiative by UNODC Iran, whereby sewing machines will also be delivered to both the Kerman Center and Noor-e Sepid-e Hedayat, a civil society organization in Tehran. By teaching recovering women drug users to sew, just as with baking, UNODC Iran hopes to assist the organizations to help women find new livelihoods.
Further information
UNODC delivered these bakery/confectionary equipment items thanks to the generous funding received from the Kingdom of Norway, in collaboration with the Iranian Drug Control Headquarters (DCHQ). To learn more about UNODC Iran’s work, click here.
Today, ambassadors of member states to the EU agreed the Council’s position on the 2023 EU draft budget. In total, the Council’s position for next year’s budget amounts to € 183.95 billion in commitments and € 165.74 billion in payments. Compared to the budget agreed by the Council and the European Parliament for 2022, this is an increase of +8.29% in commitments and a decrease of -3.02% in payments.
The Council decided to pursue a prudent approach to the annual budgetary process. We will make sure that EU financial resources are focused on our current priorities. This means that we have adjusted several of the figures proposed by the Commission. I am pleased that we now have a solid basis for our negotiations with the European Parliament.
Zbyněk Stanjura, Minister for Finance of Czechia
Overall, the Council takes a prudent approach given the volatile context in which the EU is operating. Keeping margins in the budget as room for manoeuvre has proved very useful in the past. Member states stress the importance of ensuring that there will be sufficient margin in the budget to face uncertainties related to the Ukrainian crisis and inflation.
A summary of the Council’s position is set out in the table below*:
*in €; c/a: commitments, p/a: payments
Description
2023 – Draft Budget
2023 – Council position
2023 – Council position
c/a
p/a
c/a
p/a
c/a
p/a
Single Market, Innovation and Digital
21 451 979 500,00
20 793 258 735,00
– 1 437 400 000,00
– 522 950 000,00
20 014 579 500,00
20 270 308 735,00
Cohesion, Resilience and Values
70 083 017 022,00
55 836 822 774,00
– 237 600 000,00
– 31 800 000,00
69 845 417 022,00
55 805 022 774,00
Natural Resources and Environment
57 172 506 225,00
57 415 817 586,00
– 45 000 000,00
– 6 000 000,00
57 127 506 225,00
57 409 817 586,00
Migration and Border Management
3 725 881 518,00
3 065 950 252,00
– 50 000 000,00
– 50 000 000,00
3 675 881 518,00
3 015 950 252,00
Security and Defence
1 871 109 130,00
1 081 374 612,00
– 11 700 000,00
– 1 500 000,00
1 859 409 130,00
1 079 874 612,00
Neighbourhood and the World
16 781 879 478,00
13 773 937 845,00
0
0
16 781 879 478,00
13 773 937 845,00
European Public Administration
11 448 802 167,00
11 448 802 167,00
– 62 500 000,00
– 62 500 000,00
11 386 302 167,00
11 386 302 167,00
Thematic special instruments
2 855 153 029,00
2 679 794 000,00
0
0
2 855 153 029,00
2 679 794 000,00
MFF Headings
185 390 328 069,00
166 095 757 971,00
– 1 844 200 000,00
– 674 750 000,00
183 546 128 069,00
165 421 007 971,00
Flexibility Instrument
515 352 065,00
527 128 781,00
452 879 478,00
527 128 781,00
ceiling
182 667 000 000,00
168 575 000 000,00
182 667 000 000,00
168 575 000 000,00
margin
961 793 731,00
6 040 808 232,00
2 478 248 557,00
6 570 758 232,00
Appropriations as % of GNI
1,13%
1,02%
1,12%
1,01%
Commitments are legal promises to spend money on activities whose implementation extends over several financial years.
Payments cover expenditure arising from commitments entered into the EU budget during current and preceding financial years.
In addition, the Council also issues four statements: one on payment appropriations, one on the uncertainties when establishing the Council position, one on Article 241 of TFEU, and one on the European Parliament’s own section of the EU budget.
Statement on the European Parliament’s own section of the EU budget
In this statement, the Council underlines that the ceiling for heading 7 of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 is founded on the premise that all EU institutions adopt a comprehensive and targeted approach for stabilizing the number of staff and reducing administrative expenditure.
The Council recalls that the European Parliament already in the annual budget for 2022 requested and obtained additional 142 posts to its establishment plan as well as 180 external staff and recalls in this regard the Council statement of 7 December 2021. This year, the Parliament’s statement of expenditure and establishment plan for 2023 includes a request for 52 additional establishment plan posts and 116 additional accredited parliamentary assistants.
This request comes within the context of high inflation rates, where the respect for the ceiling of heading 7 in 2023 is in jeopardy, thus necessitating that all institutions exercise self-restraint, in line with the obligation to comply with the annual expenditure ceilings. In this context, the Parliament’s request further increases the pressure on heading 7, while leaving to the other institutions the effort to bear the burden of containing their administrative expenditure. It is therefore not compatible with the Parliament’s obligations under Article 2 of the MFF regulation and it runs counter to points 129 and 130 of the European Council conclusions of 17 to 21 July 2020 on a stable level of staffing in the institutions.
Respecting the Gentlemen’s Agreement rationale, including the institutional balance between the Parliament and the Council and the respect of the MFF ceilings, the Council calls on the Parliament to follow the approach adopted by the Council and ensure respect for the heading 7 ceiling. It recalls that the Council intends to respect a stable level of staffing and applies a higher abatement (vacancy) rate on its own administrative expenditure.
In light of the above, the Council expresses its strong reserves on the EP´s statement of expenditure and the establishment plan for 2023. The Council will focus further on these elements during the negotiations on the Union’s annual budget for 2023.
Next steps
The Council aims to formally adopt its position on the draft general budget for 2023 via a written procedure ending on 6 September 2022. This will then serve as a mandate for the Czech presidency to negotiate the 2023 EU budget with the European Parliament.
Background
This is the third annual budget under the long-term EU budget for 2021-2027, the multiannual financial framework (MFF). The 2023 budget is complemented by actions to support the COVID-19 recovery under Next Generation EU, the EU’s pandemic recovery plan.
Civil society groups have accused Uganda and Tanzania of rushing to sign East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) deals with TotalEnergies and China’s CNOOC before locals were properly briefed on its environmental and health risks.
The groups claim citizens, who have lost ancestral land and other public properties to the project, were not adequately briefed on the project dangers or how any risks would be “avoided, minimised or mitigated”.
The activists, including Diana Nabiruma of Africa Institute for Energy Governance, a Ugandan public policy research and advocacy group, warn that Uganda is yet to enjoy benefits of oil bonanza that seemed near when crude oil deposits were discovered in 2006.
“Total and CNOOC still need to secure insurance and raise $2.5bn in debt financing for the EACOP to move forward and they are going to struggle mightily to find enough banks and insurance providers willing to associate themselves with such a project,” she claimed.
Total have repeatedly said it had undertaken “rigorous” environmental and social risk assessment and mitigation strategies in relation to the projects.
Since Uganda discovered commercial petroleum deposits in 2006 in the Albertine Graben region near the border with DR Congo, Kampala has embarked on establishing effective management procedures to promote growth and development.
The discovery was done by British giant Tullow Oil.
In April 2020, the company sold its interest in the project to TotalEnergies but the company has not yet secured investors for the extraction.
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is the proposed 1,443-kilometer pipeline that will transport oil from Hoima, Uganda to port city of Tanga in Tanzania.
EACOP project starts at Hoima, close to Lake Albert, and cross Uganda – Tanzania border between Masaka and Bukoba, past Lake Victoria, following its western border, traversing Tanzania, passing close to Kahama, Singida, Kondoa, into Tanga.
Tilenga project comprises oil exploration, a crude oil processing plant, underground pipelines, and infrastructure in the Buliisa and Nwoya districts of Uganda.
The refinery will be built on a 29 square kilometre piece of land at Kabaale Township, Buseruka Sub-county, Hoima district, western region, near the international border with DR Congo, along eastern shores of Lake Albert
This will be close to Uganda’s largest oil fields at Kaiso-Tonya area, about 60 km by road, west of Hoima.
Kaiso is approximately 260 km by road, north-west of Kampala, Uganda’s capital and largest city.
Uganda has proven crude oil reserves of 6.5 billion barrels, about 2.2 billion of which are recoverable.
IMF was quoted in 2013 as saying the reserves are fourth-largest in sub Sahara Africa behind Nigeria, Angola and South Sudan.
Approximately 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil were discovered in 2006. Drilling will take place at two oil fields of Kingfisher field, operated by China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd (CNOOC Ltd), and Tilenga field operated by French multinational Total Energies.
Ownership of oil discovery includes TotalEnergies 56.67 per cent, China’s CNOOC Group 28.33 pc and Uganda government taking the remaining 15 per cent stake.
Extracted oil deposits will be partly refined in Uganda for local market supply but the lion share exported to international market through the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline.
Once completed, the facility will be the world’s longest heated pipeline.
But international and local environmental groups are still warning over dangers posed by extraction sites and EACOP to environment and social risks to protected wildlife areas, water sources and communities throughout Uganda, Tanzania and DR Congo.
The groups have mounted fierce opposition to the project.
And despite the final investment decision being signed on February 1, involving US$10 billion, broad opposition and obstacles to securing funding may undo one of Africa’s most ambitious fossil fuel projects
At Lake Albert in western Uganda, project developers will build oil wells, a crude oil processing plant, underground pipelines, and infrastructure in the Buliisa and Nwoya districts for domestic oil consumption.
The Tilenga oil field to the north of Lake Albert, will include operations within Murchison Falls National Park, and is operated and owned 56.67% by TotalEnergies.
Controversies
Developers insist the projects will transform social and economic fortunes of Uganda and Tanzania. But the multinationals face significant resistance from local communities and civil society groups.
A total of 260 community groups from Uganda, Tanzania and other African countries, along with international organisations, have coalesced to push #StopEACOP campaign, a global movement largely premised on public mobilisation, legal actions, research, shareholder activism and media advocacy.
The groups insist large-scale oil extraction and crude oil export pipeline pose serious environmental and social risks to protected wildlife areas, lakes and rivers, forests, wetlands, national parks and communities throughout Uganda and Tanzania.
They say the pipeline will extract 250,000 barrels of oil daily at a time when much of the world is racing to reduce emissions and reliance on fossil fuels.
Calculations by researchers at Stockholm Environment Institute show carbon emissions associated with EACOP peak production at Lake Albert oil fields would equal over 33 million tonnes per year, more than 30 times current combined annual emissions of Uganda and Tanzania.
Omar Elmawi, a Kenyan lawyer with environmental group 350.org, which is part of the campaign, says the alliance had influenced 11 banks to withdraw funding for the pipeline.
The NGO claims it has mobilised a million people to sign a petition asking TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné and other financiers to halt operations on the project by challenging the investment in court and holding public protests.
Coleen Scott, a legal and policy associate with Inclusive Development International (IDI), a participant in #StopEACOP campaign, says the project will irreparably harm many of ecosystems supporting sustainable jobs such as tourism and fishing.
British NGO, Oxfam, claims more than 100,000 people will be directed affected by the project in Uganda and Tanzania.
More than 14,000 others risk being displaced from their 5,300 hectares of land to give way for construction.
The Stockholm Environment Institute in its 2021 analysis claims oil extraction and pipeline will disturb a total of 2,000 square kilometres of protected wildlife habitats.
These include Bugoma Forest hosting 12% of Uganda’s chimpanzees, Wambabya and Taala forests in Uganda, and Minziro Nature Forest Reserve and Burigi-Biharamulo Game Reserve in Tanzania.
Tilenga oil field includes operations inside Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s oldest nature reserve that is relied upon by more than a million people for fishing and water.
The Tilenga oil field will operate within Tilenga National Park, the only source of food and water for more than one million people poor, rural residents.
Nabiruma says though Ugandan law does not bar oil exploration in protected areas, as a member of International Union for Conservation of Nature, the country has pledged to avoid industrial activities in protected areas.
She says the pipeline poses high freshwater pollution risks, particularly to Lake Victoria basin, on which 40 million people rely on for water, food production and industrial production.
TotalEnergies and partners claim the project will create 12,000 direct jobs and nearly 50,000 indirect working opportunities during construction and production phases.
But Simon Nicholas, an energy finance analyst with Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, warns that poor track record of other fossil fuel projects in Africa offers little hope for optimism.
EACOP investors claim contractors will invest US$1.7 billion in business opportunities that will create jobs and enhance Uganda and Tanzania’s foreign direct investment by 60%.
It is also expected to generate annual revenues of up to US$2 billion from oil exports to countries, including China and India, says Stephanie Platat, TotalEnergies’ media relations officer.
He claims out of 18,800 households affected in Uganda and Tanzania, only 723 will be physically displaced by Tilenga and EACOP projects.
“These projects often come with promises for jobs and development yet always disappoint,” Nicholas warns. “African nations relying on fossil production see slower economic development than countries that are not.”
Elmawi of #StopEACOP campaign warns TotalEnergies and CNOOC hold 70% ownership of the pipeline, with Uganda and Tanzania left to share the remaining 30%. “This doesn’t sound like Uganda and Tanzania’s resources, but Total’s and CNOOC’s,” he told China Dialogue.
Elmawi and Simon Nicholas warn that instead of more oil and gas extraction, which would ship fossil fuels away from Africa, Tanzania and Uganda should look to renewables, tourism, sustainable agriculture and fishing.
In the recent past, three insurers and 15 international banks have terminated their links with the project throwing its financing into uncertainty.
“We suspect that Total and CNOOC are struggling to find banks willing to endure the reputational hit that will come with financing such a controversial project,” said IDI’s Coleen Scott.
“Last year, we saw the project costs rise sharply, roughly by 30%… due in part to the increased cost of loans resulting from so many financial institutions turning their backs on the project.”
Project’s future
EACOP project has been seeking US$3 billion loan. But as major global financiers ditch funding of oil and gas exploration to fight climate change, questions hang over the project’s future and success.
“Financing of EACOP project with bank debt is still being arranged with interested international financial institutions,” Platat was quoted saying in China Dialogue.
She says the project has been approved by shareholders who have committed to provide finance, yet commitments still leaves a US$3 billion shortfall that requires bank loans.
Scott warns an oil extraction project of EACOP scale could lock Uganda into fossil fuel dependency and undermine the country’s opportunity for green transition and expose Ugandans to more poverty. Critics, including Already, argue Ugandan investment in tourism, clean energy, agroforestry and other green economic sectors could generate nearly 4 million jobs, increase GDP by 10%. The move could save the country 30.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2031.
“The oil projects pose major environmental risks. Resources, some shared with countries such as DRC, Tanzania and Kenya, including Lake Albert, Lake Victoria and rivers, are at risk of oil pollution,” she says.
Vanessa Nakate, founder of Rise Up Climate Movement in Uganda, says: “There is no reason for Total to engage in oil exploration and construction of EACOP because this means fuelling destruction of the planet and worsening already existing climate disasters in the most affected areas.
“There is no future in the fossil fuel industry and we cannot drink oil. We demand Total to rise up for the people and planet,” she says.
Lucie Pinson, of Reclaim Finance, which works to de-carbonise the financial system, added: “We call on banks to publicly commit to stay clear of the project and investors to vote against Total’s climate strategy and the renewal of the mandate of its CEO Patrick Pouyanné at the group’s AGM in May.”
David Pred of Inclusive Development International, which supports communities to defend their rights against harmful corporate projects, said: “The oil companies are trying to dress up the investment decision signing ceremony, but fortunately this climate-destroying project is far from a done deal.
But TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné claims all partners are committed to implementing the projects in an exemplary manner and taking into highest consideration the biodiversity and environmental stakes as well as local communities’ rights.
“The Tilenga development and EACOP pipeline project are major projects for Total and are consistent with our strategy to focus on low break-even oil projects while lowering the average carbon intensity of the group’s upstream portfolio. These projects will create significant in-country value for both Uganda and Tanzania.
“Total is also taking into the highest consideration the sensitive environmental context and social stakes of these onshore projects. Our commitment is to implement these projects in an exemplary and fully transparent manner, he says.
Pouyane’s position is backed up by Robert Kasande, Uganda’s permanent secretary in the ministry of energy and mineral development. “We are mindful of the environment that we work in. It’s a very sensitive ecosystem. So we have put everything that we need to do in place.”
But renowned US ecologist Bill McKibben warns that East African Crude Oil Pipeline threatens one of the most ecologically diverse and wildlife-rich regions of the world.
He says nearly 1,445 km pipeline runs through numerous important habitats and nature reserves that are home to iconic and endangered animals, such as lions, elands, lesser kudu, buffalo, impalas, hippos, giraffes, roan antelopes, sitatungas, sables, zebras, aardvarks, and the red colobus monkey.
He warns that “the proposed route looks almost as if it were drawn to endanger as many animals as possible.”
On its way from Uganda to Tanzanian coast, the pipeline will disturb nearly 2,000 square kilometres of protected wildlife habitats, including the gorgeous Murchison Falls National Park, Taala Forest Reserve, Bugoma Forest, and Biharamulo Game Reserve.
The sites include multiple reserves critical to the preservation of vulnerable species such as Eastern Chimpanzee and African Elephant.
The African elephant, the largest animal walking the Earth, has herds walking in 37 countries around the world.
The creatures are not only magnificent in their own right, but play a critical role in maintaining suitable habitats for many other animals.
McKibben says: “If we care about animals and preserving what biodiversity we have left, we must do all we can to stop the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.”
And though EACOP poses significant climate risks and faces widespread resistance, members of civil society and journalists who have highlighted the dangers, continue to be intimidated and arrested.
On October 22, 2021, six staff members of Africa Institute of Energy Governance, including director Dickens Kamugisha, were arrested in Kampala. AFIEGO is one of the four Ugandan groups which have filed legal cases against the project, including one against TotalEnergies in France and in East African Court of Justice.
This has led to the project scrutiny by the UN Special Rapporteurs. Communities along the project line are also living in fear. More than 5,300 hectares of land are needed for construction and operation of the pipeline, which means around 14,000 households stand to lose small pieces of peasant, ancestral land.
Of the total figure, 200 households in Uganda while 330 in Tanzania will have to be resettled. Another 3,500 households in Uganda and 9,513 in Tanzania will be economically displaced
Climate impact
Ryan Brightwell of BankTrack warns that with EACOP pipeline expected to carry 216,000 barrels of crude oil per day at ‘plateau production’, the oil is likely to result in CO2 emissions of more than 33 million tonnes each year.
This will be significantly greater than the current combined emissions of Uganda and Tanzania. Financing the project will undermine other work by investors, regulators, and some of the same banks to address climate risk.
MIVILUDES (acronym for French Inter-ministerial mission for monitoring and combating cultic deviances) is a government agency belonging to the French Ministry of Interior, tasked with reporting on, and fighting against, what they call “cultic deviances”, a term that has no legal definition but means in fact that they are fighting against movements they consider to be “cults”. They have complete arbitrary autonomy to determine which religion, movement or spirituality should be included in that concept.
Throughout the years, the French MIVILUDES has been working shoulder to shoulder with FECRIS (European Federation of Research and Information Centers on Sects and Cults), an umbrella organization funded by the French government, that gathers and coordinates “anti-cult” organizations throughout Europe and beyond. Unfortunately for French officials, throughout the years, they have supported and shared panels with Russian members of FECRIS, most of them being Russian Orthodox extremists with a very anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian agenda.
Every year, FECRIS organises a symposium with the participation of the MIVILUDES’ representatives.
In 2021 in Bordeaux, France, the newly appointed Chief of Miviludes Hanène Romdhane participated to the FECRIS symposium, along with Alexander Dvorkin, Vice-President of FECRIS. Dvorkin has been described by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan governmental entity, as a threat to religious freedom to be publicly censured for his ongoing disinformation campaigns against religious minorities. He has been one of the main propagandists against Ukraine for years, spreading that the Ukrainians’ appetite for liberal democracy was the product of various “cults” working for the West. Dvorkin also heads organizations that gather information on Russian dissidents and opponents to the war to share them with police and FSB. He is also known for his anti-gay[1], anti-Muslim[2] and anti-Hindus diatribes[3], as well as for considering that the only acceptable religion is the one professed by the Russian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate and that almost any other Christian movement is part of a cult.
In 2019, in Paris, the representative of the MIVILUDES, Anne-Marie Courage, also shared the stage with Alexander Dvorkin.
In 2018, in Riga, Latvia, the representative of the MIVILUDES, Laurence Peyron, also shared the stage with Alexander Dvorkin.
In 2017, the Secretary General of the MIVILUDES, Anne Josso, shared the stage in Brussels with Dvorkin and Alexander Korelov, Dvorkin’s personal lawyer. Korelov is known for his theoretical developments on the “war of information”. For example, he explained that the fall of Spain in the 8th century was because of the “Jews, who generally and openly supported” the Arab conquerors. [4] For him, only a Christian State (to be understood as orthodox only) can create a civilization. As regards Ukraine, he declared that while the Ukrainians were certainly not “combat-ready”, they “howl much better than gay Europeans”.[5] He also advocates to denounce at once any “cult activities” to the FSB,[6] which includes (as for some of his fellow FECRIS members) not only Pentecostals, Baptists, Jehovah Witnesses, Hindus, etc., but also Orthodox “dissidents”, not aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. For him, these same “cults” are responsible for the fact that Ukraine emancipated itself from Russia, a serious crime in his mind.
In 2016 in Sofia, the former President of the MIVILUDES, Serge Blisko, shared the stage with Dvorkin and Roman Silantiev. The latter was appointed to Alexander Dvorkin’s deputy as head of the Expert Council on Religion at the Russian Ministry of Justice, and recently, in June 2022, went to the self-proclaimed Republic of Luhansk (Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces) to teach seminars on “destructology, cults, Satanism, and terrorism”. During his presentation, after calling the Ukrainian leadership “neopagan and occult”, he announced that soon Ukraine will no longer exist as an independent state and added “no one will need a Ukrainian Church in the unliberated Ukraine. Normal people there will go underground and will just wait for the Russian military to arrive.”[7] Already on March 18, 2022, Silantiev stated that it was “better [for Russia] to hit first”, after having explained that what the media described as school shootings by disturbed teenagers in Russia had been organized by “the centers of information and psychological operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”. He then envisioned “the upcoming parade of victory over Ukrainian Nazism”.[8]
In 2015 in Marseille, in 2014 in Brussels, in 2013 in Copenhagen and in 2012 in Salses-le-Chateau, Serge Blisko shared the stage with Dvorkin again. In 2012, Georges Fenech, the then outgoing president of the MIVILUDES, was also present, as well as attending with Dvorkin a 2011 symposium in Warsaw.
In 2011, Fenech also shared the stage with Alexander Novopashin, number 2 of the Russian FECRIS organisation. Novopashin calls Ukrainians “Nazis”, “Satanists” and “cannibals”, drives with a huge “Z” printed on his car[9], insists that Western cults were behind the Euromaidan and Ukrainian authorities, that “the special operation of denazification is carried out not only to destroy the hydra in its lair, but to protect the whole Russian world”, and that “after an end will be put to Ukrainian Nazism, some other aggressor country will appear, through which the United States will begin to threaten Russia. A civilizational war cannot be avoided.”[10]
Support of the Russian occupation of Crimea by a MIVILUDES’ current member and former President
Fenech was replaced as President of MIVILUDES in 2013 but came back to join its Orientation Council in 2021. Nevertheless, his acquaintance with the Putin’s regime had not stopped in the meantime. In 2019, he was part of a delegation led by French MP Thierry Mariani that visited the occupied Crimea, a trip paid and organized by Russians (The “Russian Fund for Peace”, according to Mariani). They were received by Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs in the Russian State Duma, and Vladimir Konstantinov, a Crimean MP who is accused of high treason in Ukraine, sanctioned by the European Union since 2014, and a strong supporter of Putin and the Russian annexation of Crimea. The purpose for the French delegation was to testify about how well Crimea was doing under Russian occupation. When journalists asked Mariani who was part of the delegation[11], Georges Fenech asked him to lie and say that he was not there, which Mariani reluctantly accepted to do. Unfortunately, French journalists from Liberation had recognized Fenech in a Russian documentary that flanked the visit, and Mariani had to admit Fenech was part of the delegation which had even met Vladimir Putin himself in Simferopol.
Picture of the French delegation in occupied Crimea, with Georges Fenech, former President of MIVILUDES, in the back.
At that time, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had strongly condemned this trip, considering the actions of these French politicians as direct connivance with the aggressor in “his unacceptable policy of expansionism, intolerance and discrimination, the militarization of Crimea and the creation of security threats in the region of the Black and Azov Seas, as well as massive and systematic violations of human rights on the occupied Crimean Peninsula.”
Concluding remarks
It is fairly certain that the current MIVILUDES is not an outspoken supporter of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, nor of its propagandists, per se. It’s also quite certain that the current Macron government would not provide any support for Moscow’s propagandists, should they realize that they have some in their ranks. Nevertheless, MIVILUDES continues to list FECRIS on its website as international partners, despite being informed about the extremist position of their Russian members for years.
The current war in Ukraine is not the product of a one-week preparation. It has been prepared with more than a decade of propaganda, and in fact started already in 2014 with the invasion and occupation of Crimea, and the support and participation of Russia to the war in Donbass. This should have been a strong warning light for the French MIVILUDES with regards to collaborating with Russian propagandists spreading hate of the West on behalf of the Kremlin. Surprisingly, given all the above, there has been no public announcement by MIVILUDES distancing itself from FECRIS and its hatemongers.
[9] The letter « Z » is a symbol painted on vehicles of the Russian army since the invasion of Ukraine started, and became a symbol for supporters of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The drought situation in many regions of Europe remains severe, according to the Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) latest ‘Drought in Europe – August 2022‘ report, an update of the assessment of Europe’s drought situation based on the data and analyses of the European Drought Observatory.
The evolution and impacts of the prolonged drought in the EU confirms the worrying situation of July 2022: 47% of the EU is still under warning conditions, meaning that precipitation has been less than usual and soil moisture is in deficit, and 17% of the EU is in alert, meaning that also vegetation and crops show the negative effects of drought. Cumulatively, 64% of Europe is under warning or alert, which is also contributing to spread widely the areas of fire danger across the EU.
Commissioner for innovation, research, culture, education and youth, Mariya Gabriel, said: “The combination of a severe drought and heatwaves has created an unprecedented stress on water levels in the entire EU. We are currently noticing a wildfires season sensibly above the average and an important impact on crops production. Climate change is undoubtedly more noticeably every year; the European Commission and its scientists are working tirelessly to map and study this crisis with the best technology available, from the space and on the ground, and are leading the efforts to protect our environment and our citizens from emergencies.”
Drought in Europe – August 2022 Soil Moisture – Anomaly beginning of August 2022. JRC Global Drought Observatory (GDO) of the Copernicus Emergency
Water and heat stresses worsen significantly previous negative outlook on yields for summer crops, as reported in the JRC MARS Bulletin of August 2022. Current yield forecasts for grain maize, soybeans, and sunflowers at the EU level are, respectively: 16%, 15%, and 12% below the 5-year average. The severe precipitation deficit has affected almost all rivers across Europe, affecting the energy sector for both hydropower generation and cooling systems of other power plants, as well as river transport. Several EU Member States took measures to restrict water as supplies may still be compromised in the coming weeks. Warmer and drier than usual conditions are likely to occur in the western Euro-Mediterranean region in the coming months, until November 2022.
In the last days, precipitation events have alleviated drought conditions in some regions of Europe. However, they brought new challenges as in some areas they occurred in the form of severe thunderstorms. According to JRC experts, the current drought still appears to be the worst since at least 500 years. Final data at the end of the season will confirm this preliminary assessment. The Joint Research Centre produces real-time drought information through the European and Global Drought Observatories (EDO and GDO), which are part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS).
