Monthly Archives: April 2022

Algeria Threatens to Cut Off Gas Exports to Spain Amid Rising Geopolitical Tensions

As Europe’s energy crisis deepens in the East, relations are souring between the EU’s fourth largest economy, Spain, and its largest natural gas supplier, Algeria. Once again, the US is stirring the pot.

Until mid-March this year, Spain appeared to hold an enviable position in Europe’s natural gas markets. While it produced virtually no gas of its own, it was also almost completely free of dependence on Russian-supplied gas, thanks largely to its long-standing commercial ties with Africa’s largest exporter of natural gas, Algeria. In 2021 Algeria provided 43% of all the gas consumed in Spain. But those ties could be on the verge of breaking, leaving Spain in a much less enviable position.

On Wednesday (Apr 27), Algiers threatened to cut off the gas supply to Spain if the Sánchez government diverted any of the energy it received from Algeria to any third countries (without naming any names).

“Any transport of Algerian natural gas delivered to Spain whose destination is contrary to that provided for in the contracts will be considered a breach of contractual commitments, and consequently, could lead to a breach of the contract that binds Sonatrach (NC: Algeria’s state-owned natural gas company) with its Spanish customers,” the Algerian government said in a statement.

Though Algeria did not name any names, it didn’t need to. Spain has been talking for months about reversing the flow of the now dormant Maghreb-España (MGE) pipeline in order to shift gas to Morocco, which has struggled to secure new supplies since Algeria closed the MGE in November 2021.

This Algiers did for a number of reasons, including as retaliation for a cyber-espionage campaign by Rabat against high-ranking Algerian officials, including the president, the minister of foreign affairs, and a former military chief of staff. A staunch defender of Western Sahara’s claims for independence and home to close to 200,000 Western Sahrawi refugees, Algiers is also livid about Morocco’s aggressive (and so far largely successful) efforts to garner international support for its territorial claims over Western Sahara.

For both Spain and Morocco the pipeline was an important source of natural gas that has now gone. Spain is still receiving gas from Algeria through the Medgaz pipeline that links the two countries by sea as well as from LNG shipments. Morocco is having to depend on domestic production, which is not nearly enough to meet domestic demand.

The new plan, hatched between Madrid, Rabat and quite possibly Washington (more on that later) would work as follows: Morocco would purchase liquified natural gas on the international market, most likely the US, which will be regassified in Spain and then piped to Morocco. The US has already replaced Algeria as Spain’s largest supplier of gas in recent months.

“Not a Single Molecule” 

But Algeria is not happy with the idea, as Geoff D Porter, the president of North Africa Risk Consulting (acronym: Narco) notes in a report on the dispute:

Were Madrid to reverse the GME pipeline and use it to supply gas to Morocco, Rabat would have slipped Algeria’s stranglehold. But not only would Rabat have devised a way to
circumvent Algeria and secure a natural gas supply, Madrid would have been complicit in allowing it to do so.

“Not a single molecule of Algeria gas sent to Spain should arrive in Morocco”: That is the condition Algiers has placed on the operation, to which Spain’s Third Vice-President and Minister for the Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera replied: Spain’s “commitment with Algeria is that not a single molecule of the gas that reaches Morocco can be attributed to gas coming from Algeria.”

Algeria’s response was to up the ante a little more by demanding that the Spanish and Moroccan governments publicly certify the origin of each batch of gas sent to Morocco through the GME pipeline, reports El Confidencial. It seems Algiers literally wants to make sure that not a single molecule of Algerian gas reaches Morocco. But that is easier said that done since the gas that arrives in Spain, whether by pipeline from Algeria or by LNG tanker from one of Spain’s 20 or so suppliers of liquified natural gas, gets mixed together in the network.

“Very Dangerous” Geopolitics

Time for a little historical context.

Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco, just north along the coast, since 1975, the year Spain abandoned its former colony. One of the reasons why Morocco covets the territory so much is that it is home to some very valuable minerals including much of the phosphate rock on planet Earth, which, together with nitrogen, is one of the two most necessary components of synthetic fertilizer, as the 2016 Atlantic article, “The  Desert Rock that Feeds the World“, explains:

Unlike nitrogen, which makes up 78 percent of the atmosphere, phosphate is a finite resource. And there’s no way to manufacture it…

If you include this disputed region, Morocco holds more than 72 percent of all phosphate-rock reserves in the world, according to the most recent United States Geological Survey study. The next closest country, China, has just shy of 6 percent. The rest is spread out in smaller pockets around the globe. Morocco aggressively and sometimes violently argues that the notion of Western Sahara statehood is illegitimate, and that the region’s rich supply of phosphate is theirs. As a result, Western Sahara has been the stage for a growing human-rights conflict as well as significant regional geopolitical tensions.

“I’ve been to 70 countries, including Iraq under Saddam and Indonesia under Suharto,” says Stephen Zunes, an international-studies professor at the University of San Francisco.* “[Western Sahara] is the worst police state that I’ve ever seen.”

Between 1991, when the UN Security Council decided to establish a Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, and just over a month ago, Spain, like roughly 80 other countries as well as the African Union, supported the idea of holding a referendum to resolve the territorial integrity of Western Sahara, which has been occupied by Morocco since Spain abandoned the colony in 1975.

But all that changed on March 20, when the King of Morocco Mohammed VI read out a letter from Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on live TV praising Rabat’s plan for sovereignty over Western Sahara as offering “the most serious, realistic and credible” way of resolving the conflict.

Before sending the letter, which completely reversed 47 years of official Spanish policy, Sánchez did not consult the Spanish parliament on the issue. In fact, he didn’t even bother to inform some of his ministerial colleagues what he was about to do, and they, like the rest of Spaniards, found out about it from Mohammed VI. Since then Sánchez has faced virtually unanimous opposition to his unilateral decision to back Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, including from among his own coalition partners.

Predictably, the U.S., under the Trump administration, was the first major Western government to break with protocol and recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. To seal the deal, all Morocco had to do was recognize the state of Israel, becoming the second Arab country in North Africa — after Egypt — to do so.

Since coming into power Biden has, again predictably, not changed that policy in any kind of meaningful way. As Zunes told Democracy Now in February, 2021, this could have devastating repercussions not only for the welfare of Sahrawi people but also for international law as a whole…

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Seventy-Three Million People Lose Mobile Phone Access in Nigeria For Not Having Digital ID

As the World Bank drives the implementation of digital ID programs across the Global South, including in Nigeria, its fellow Bretton Woods institution, the IMF, is doing much the same for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

“I would never want to get a digital ID.”

Those are the words of Ann Cavoukian, who knows a thing or two about digital identity  platforms, having served three terms as privacy commissioner for the Canadian province of Ontario (1997-2014), which is now developing its own digital ID system. She is renowned for pioneering the concept of privacy by design, which takes privacy into account throughout system engineering processes.

Now serving as executive director of the Global Privacy and Security by Design Centre, Cavoukian has expressed fears that digital ID systems will fall victim to identity theft and online accessing of data by unauthorized third parties. These are just two of the many concerns the digital ID programs rapidly being rolled out around the world throw up. Another is their potential to exclude people — particularly those already on the margins — from being able to participate in the economy or society.

Cutting Off 73 Million People

Nigeria’s government, determined to speed up public adoption of its mandatory digital ID, just gave one example of how this could happen. To encourage (to put it kindly) citizens to get with its ID program, it has barred anyone who isn’t registered in the national digital identity database from being able to make outgoing calls from their mobile phones. The move has affected some 73 million people, according to a Thomson Reuters article.

That is roughly a third of the West African nation’s just over 200 million inhabitants. Considering just under half of Nigeria’s population is under the age of 15, many of whom presumably do not own a smartphone, it means the vast majority of Nigerians are currently unable to use their mobile phones to make outgoing calls. Given how important mobile networks are in Sub-Saharan Africa, serving as the only form of internet access for many, the impact will have been huge. Here’s more from the Reuters piece:

Nigeria is among dozens of African countries including Ghana, Egypt and Kenya with SIM registration laws that authorities say are necessary for security purposes, but digital rights experts say increase surveillance and hurts privacy.

Nigeria has been rolling out 11-digit electronic national identity cards for almost a decade, which record an individual’s personal and biometric data, including fingerprints and photo.

The National Identity Number (NIN) is required to open a bank account, apply for a driver’s license, vote, get health insurance, and file tax returns.

Multiple Functions

The government says digital identity is needed to bolster security and identify criminals as it battles insurgents and armed bandits who have kidnapped hundreds of people for ransom. A similar argument was used by the government of Mexico to justify the proposed creation of a National Register of Mobile Telephone Users, a centralized database containing the line number, date and time of activation for each user, their full name and biometric data, among other information.

Besides serving as a national ID card, Nigeria’s digital ID number (NIN) has multiple other functions, says French military contractor Thales Group, one of the companies contracted to help implement Nigeria’s digital ID system. It will also serve as a travel document, an electronic ID, a biometric e-ID (containing the holder’s 10 fingerprints and photograph captured during the registration process) and a payment card. In the second phase of its implementation, complementary applications such as an e-drivers’ license and other e-services, including eVoting, eHealth, and eTr​ansport​, will be included.​

The National Identification Number (NIN) is mandatory for all Nigerian citizens and legal residents in the territory of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But most people are still not registered. According to the local Guardian newspaper, as of March 31, 2022, 126.7 million Nigerians did not have a national identity number. In 2020, Nigeria’s telecommunications regulator declared that every active mobile phone number must be linked to the user’s NIN. It then repeatedly extended the deadline until April 4 this year, as Reuters reports:

The government said outgoing calls were being barred from April 4 from any mobile phone numbers that had not complied.

Millions of Nigerians have not registered their SIM cards, for reasons ranging from concerns over privacy to problems reaching registration centres or not having a NIN.

“There have been no reasonable explanations as to why we have to link NIN to our SIM,” said Nneka Orji, a journalist in southeast Nigeria who has not registered her SIM.

“For that reason, I am not ready to do that,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. She now relies on WhatsApp to make calls, even though not all of her contacts use the messaging service.

Data Privacy and Security Fears

In Nigeria, some citizens in rural areas may lack the means to travel to registration centers, of which there are nearly 800, according to official data. Others fear their personal data, including their most personal data of all — their biometric information — will be compromised or shared with third parties…

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The Russia-NATO Cyber War Is Escalating Fast

Fears are rising that the boundaries of the cyber war between Russia and NATO could soon spread beyond Europe.

Eight cybersecurity authorities from the so-called “Five Eye” nations (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand) released a joint statement on Thursday warning that more malicious cyber activity is on the way as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to impact geopolitical stability.

Before we look at the statement in any depth, an important five-pronged caveat is needed: both the US and the UK are among the primary antagonists in NATO’s ongoing war with Russia; they both have significant offensive cyber war capabilities of their own; US intelligence agencies, at Obama’s behest, have drawn up a list of potential overseas targets for cyber attacks; both countries have  surreptitiously conducted vast surveillance programs, targeting not only their own populations but also citizens and government leaders of other countries; and the world right now is in the grip of the biggest information war of this century.

As such, any information coming out of the Five Eyes’ intelligence services should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. That having been said, here are the first three paragraphs of the missive:

The cybersecurity authorities of the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are releasing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory. The intent of this joint CSA is to warn organizations that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could expose organizations both within and beyond the region to increased malicious cyber activity. This activity may occur as a response to the unprecedented economic costs imposed on Russia as well as materiel support provided by the United States and U.S. allies and partners.

Evolving intelligence indicates that the Russian government is exploring options for potential cyberattacks (see the March 21, 2022, Statement by U.S. President Biden for more information). Recent Russian state-sponsored cyber operations have included distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and older operations have included deployment of destructive malware against Ukrainian government and critical infrastructure organizations.

Additionally, some cybercrime groups have recently publicly pledged support for the Russian government. These Russian-aligned cybercrime groups have threatened to conduct cyber operations in retaliation for perceived cyber offensives against the Russian government or the Russian people.

The document also emphasized the frontline role likely to be played by Russian state actors, including the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), GRU’s Main Center for Special Technologies (GTsST) and the Central Scientific Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (TsNIIKhM) of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The authors of the document urge critical infrastructure organizations to take immediate steps to protect against cyberattacks. Those steps, they say, should include patching known exploited vulnerabilities, updating software, enforcing multi-factor authentication, securing and monitoring remote desktop protocol (RDP) and other “potentially risky” services, and providing end-user security awareness and training. As The Register, a British technology news website, notes, if any of these recommendations come as a surprise to critical infrastructure operators, “we’re screwed”.

The warning from the “Five Eye” nations comes just days after NATO began (as Bloomberg puts it) “the largest and most complex ‘live-fire’ cyber defense exercises” ever conducted. More than 2,000 people from 32 nations were expected to participate in the war game, which began on Tuesday in Tallinn, Estonia. They include representatives of five to 10 large global financial institutions, including Santander and Mastercard.

This is all happening as fears rise that the boundaries of the cyber war between Russia and NATO could soon spread beyond Europe, where attacks have been registered not only in Ukraine and Russia but also Poland and Finland. On March 21, President Joe Biden warned American businesses to prepare themselves for cyberattacks. Russia is likely to deploy cyber attacks as a form of retaliation against US sanctions, Biden said, adding that Russia has “a very sophisticated cyber capability,” which Putin “hasn’t used… yet” but which forms “part of his playbook.”

Cyber War Reaches Latin America?

Over the past week, two Latin American countries, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico, have suffered major cyber attacks targeting key national infrastructure. In Costa Rica a wave of attacks on Wednesday temporarily disabled websites belonging to the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunication, the Costa Rica Social Security Fund, the National Meteorological Institute (IMN) and the Costa Rican Radiographic Institute (Racsa).

Following the attack the Ministry of Science’s Director of Digital Governance, Jorge Mora, noted that the digitization of governmental activities creates risks as well as benefits. As for who was responsible, Mora said a US$10 million ransom demand had been posted on the dark web by the Conti Group, a pro-Russian ransomware gang that has threatened to deploy retaliatory measures if cyberattacks are launched against Russia…

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Global Energy Giants Breathe Sigh of Relief as Mexico’s Electricity Reform Falls at Final Hurdle

Within hours of the Electricity Reform’s failure, Mexico’s President AMLO had shifted his focus to a new mining law that will nationalize all of Mexico’s lithium deposits. 

After more than 13 hours of intense debate on Easter Sunday, 275 out of 499 deputies voted in favor of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s long-awaited, highly contentious Electricity Reform bill. Yet the bill still failed to pass. Since it required altering the constitution, it needed a two-thirds majority in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies. It only managed to secure 55% of the votes.

As a result, many of the world’s largest energy companies, in particular the Spanish behemoth Iberdrola, were breathing a sigh of relief on Monday morning. Washington recently claimed that as much as $10 billion of US investments were at risk.

But by Monday evening Lopéz Obrador (AMLO for short) had pivoted the focus of the debate from his failed energy reform bill to a totally different bill that will no doubt have many of the world’s mining conglomerates deeply concerned. It was time, he said, for plan B, which essentially involves fast tracking a mining bill aimed at nationalizing Mexico’s deposits of lithium and other “strategic minerals”.

Unlike constitutional reforms that require a two-thirds majority, amendments to the Mining Law only need a simple majority, which the Morena coalition has comfortably. By the end of the day Mexico’s House of Deputies had voted to nationalize the nation’s lithium stores, with 298 votes in favor, 0 against, 197 abstentions and an opposition walkout. The bill now goes to the Senate, where, as the Jacobin’s Kurt Hackbarth put it, “barring an Elon Musk-funded hit squad, it is certain to pass.”

Big Blow to AMLO

The AMLO government’s failure to pass its constitutional-level electricity reform still represents a big blow to AMLO, for whom the reform was one of the key planks of his so-called “fourth transformation” of Mexico. If the bill had passed, it would have awarded the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) control over the production of at least 54% of the nation’s energy supply. The CFE would also have become an autonomous legal entity, no longer hamstrung by the “autonomous” subsidiaries and commissions created in recent decades.

The proposed reform would also have curbed the abuses and excesses of energy companies, most of them foreign owned, that have rigged the system to their advantage. On top of that, it would have granted the State sole exploration and mining rights over lithium and other strategic minerals deemed strategic for the nation’s energy transition. As Hackbarth wrote in Jacobin some months ago, by including these provisions in the bill AMLO “elevated the ongoing scuffle between the public and private energy sectors to the level of a historic battle.”

But that battle was to be waged against some of the world’s largest energy companies, many of which had been awarded juicy deals in the energy privatization reforms of AMLO’s predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto. And those companies have virtually unlimited resources at their disposal.

For a start, they can count on the slavish support of Mexico’s three main establishment parties — the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ran Mexico for 70 uninterrupted years and which pushed through Peña Nieto’s energy reforms of 2013; the social democratic PRD party, which is largely a spent force in Mexican politics; and the conservative pro-business National Action Party (PAN) which governed Mexico between 2000 and 2012.

The energy giants also have vast lobbying power at their disposal, including the diplomatic weapons wielded by US and European governments. As I recently reported, the United States government has raised the pressure on Mexico in recent weeks by threatening to take legal action against the country if AMLO’s energy reform is passed. During Sunday’s debate Ildefonso Guajardo, the former secretary of economy who helped to write Peña Nieto’s energy reform bill as well as negotiate the terms of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), picked up the baton, warning that AMLO’s energy reform would violate the terms of USMCA

There will be two consequences. First, the traditional investor-state disputes. When we change the rules of the game… investors have the right to take us to international court. This without doubt would hit the Mexican people. Millions of dollars are at stake — over $36 billion according to estimates — and that is going to affect the ability of the Mexican government to serve the needs of the most vulnerable classes.

And the second and more important impact is that an affected State will be able to launch an investor state dispute against us, just as we have done against the US over transport issues. That gives the State in question the right to impose customs duties on our exports — on our cars, our electrical appliances, our avocadoes and tomatoes, affecting the well-paid jobs of Mexican women and men.

Spain has also threatened to retaliate against AMLO’s proposed energy reform. Juan Fernández Trigo, the secretary of state for Ibero-America in the government of Pedro Sánchez, warned that Spain will “react very clearly” against the new law. The US government even proposed setting up a team led by US Ambassador to Mexico Salazar that would work with the White House and to help the AMLO Government tweak its reform efforts, which AMLO roundly rejected the next day.

A New Low for Energy Lobbyists

During a recent plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies on AMLO’s electricity bill, an Italian lobbyist by the name of Paolo Salerno was spotted inside the chamber counselling two deputies, Edna Diaz of PRD and Margarita Zavala, a senior member of PAN and the wife of former President Felipe Calderon, who shortly after leaving office in 2012 joined the board of directors of Avangrid, a subsidiary of the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola.

The fact that energy industry lobbyists now feel emboldened enough to peddle their influence inside the chambers of government represents a fresh low for Mexican politics…

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The Global Fertilizer Shortage Is Already Causing Havoc in Latin America

Food prices were a huge problem across Latin America even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Thanks to surging fertilizer prices, the problem is getting worse. 

I would like to begin this piece with a brief recap of the recent political drama in Peru, where the fledgling Pedro Castillo government is already on the ropes less than a year after it was formed. A combination of rising economic pressures and growing discontent with both the government and the congress sparked major demonstrations in late March. What began as a strike by farmers and transporters against the rising prices of fuel, agricultural products, particularly fertilizers, and road tolls has plunged the country into yet another political crisis.

Two Protests in One

As in the case in so many places these days, there is certainly plenty of dissatisfaction to go round. According to the left-leaning Spanish daily Publico, the recent protests in Peru are being driven by two ideologically opposed forces:

Teacher unions are demanding that the current president fulfill the reform program he set out when he won the elections. The right, for its part, continues to do its thing, pursuing its own interests amid the escalating tension and fomenting what it used to crack down on most severely: social protests. A regular demand of the protests, which reached their apogee in the middle- and upper-class neighborhoods of the capital, is the immediate departure of the Castillo government.

These are two protests of diverse origins, composition and demands, but ultimately they represent two flanks that threaten a government bedeviled by an incapacity to respond effectively, weak leadership and internal fractures.

The latest problems began with a nationwide truckers’ strike in late March. In Huancayo, a mid-sized city some 120 kilometers east of Lima, a demonstration culminated in pitched battles with the police. Three protesters died. On April 1, the protests reached Lima. Roadblocks were erected that caused shortages in many of the capital’s markets. Stores were looted and private property vandalized. Following three days of chaos President Castillo announced a national state of emergency followed by curfews in Lima and Callao.

Rather than stabilizing matters, the repressive measures merely underscored the government’s weak position. Within hours of declaring the state of emergency, the Castillo administration  repealed it following a cacophony of complaints that it was unconstitutional.

Since then the government has tried to cushion the impact of rising priced by eliminating taxes on fuel and food. It has also increased the minimum wage and offered additional subsidies to farmers. These containment measures have helped relieve the pressure but probably only momentarily.

Following a string of corruption scandals involving myriad governments, the Peruvian people have lost virtually all faith in the political process. Six of Peru’s last seven presidents, dating all the way back to Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), have faced legal proceedings, investigations, convictions and even dismissal from Congress due to corruption cases. It is against this backdrop that Pedro Castillo, a virtual unknown, was able to take last year’s presidential elections by storm, narrowly winning the keys to Miraflores, Peru’s governmental palace.

But the Castillo government has had to contend with a largely hostile congress, which has blunted its ability to enact reforms. It has also been accused of its fair share of corruption scandals, with the result that patience is fast running out even among many of the government’s core supporters.

An even bigger problem for the Castillo government is that two of the main causes of the recent protests — surging energy prices and a severe fertilizer shortage — are almost totally beyond its control.

Spreading Economic Fallout from Ukraine

Russia, as is now common knowledge, is the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers.  Those exports are being impacted by surging energy prices, Western sanctions and the Russian government’s decision, in mid-March, not to export a string of products, including fertilizers, to so-called “unfriendly” countries. While Peru is not on that list, its imports of fertilizers have nonetheless been severely impacted.

The National Convention of Peruvian Agriculture (Conveagro), which represents the interests of agricultural unions and agricultural producers’ associations, has warned the country’s acute fertilizer shortage could cause food production in Peru to fall by as much as 40% in approximately three to six months’ time. What little supply is coming in costs 410% more than the normal price, according to Conveagro’s president, Clínico Cárdenas.

Conveagro has been warning the Castillo government about tight fertilizer supplies for the past five months, says Cárdenas. Global fertilizer supplies were already under serious pressure long before the Ukraine conflict began. In a meeting with the Deputy Economy Minister and Minister of Agriculture in November Cárdenas was told a solution would be found within eight months, but he says that “so far nothing has happened.”

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Biometric Surveillance Systems Are Being Hastily Rolled Out Across the West, With Next to No Public Debate

By embracing biometric surveillance, governments across the West are hurtling down a path that could lead us all to a very dark place. 

The Chinese Communist Party’s widespread use of facial recognition programs and other forms of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to track, monitor and, where possible, evaluate the behavior of members of the public has received ample attention from Western media in the past few years. Myriad reports, some overblown, have been published on China’s creeping introduction of a Social Credit System. By contrast, far less attention has been paid to the increasing use of many of the same highly intrusive technologies by so-called “liberal democracies” in the West.

In 2019, IHS Markit released a report showing that while China may be leading the way when it comes to using surveillance cameras to monitor its population, it is far from an outlier.  According to the report, the United States had almost as many surveillance cameras as China, with roughly one for every 4.6 people (compared with China’s one for every 4.1). The UK was not far behind with one for every 6.5. The report also forecast that by 2021 there would be more than one billion surveillance cameras on the planet watching us.

EU Plays Catch Up

Now the EU is on the verge of building one of the largest facial recognition systems on planet Earth, as reports the recent Wired UK article, Europe Is Building a Huge, International Facial Recognition System:

The expansion of facial recognition across Europe is included in wider plans to “modernize” policing across the continent, and it comes under the Prüm II data-sharing proposals. The details were first announced in December, but criticism from European data regulators has gotten louder in recent weeks, as the full impact of the plans have been understood.

“What you are creating is the most extensive biometric surveillance infrastructure that I think we will ever have seen in the world,” says Ella Jakubowska, a policy adviser at the civil rights NGO European Digital Rights (EDRi). Documents obtained by EDRi under freedom of information laws and shared with WIRED reveal how nations pushed for facial recognition to be included in the international policing agreement.

The first iteration of Prüm was signed by seven European countries—Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Austria—back in 2005 and allows nations to share data to tackle international crime. Since Prüm was introduced, take-up by Europe’s 27 countries has been mixed.

Prüm II plans to significantly expand the amount of information that can be shared, potentially including photos and information from driving licenses. The proposals from the European Commission also say police will have greater “automated” access to information that’s shared. Lawmakers say this means police across Europe will be able to cooperate closely, and the European law enforcement agency Europol will have a “stronger role.”

Targeting Children

The UK, while no longer part of the EU, is hurtling down a similar path. And it is targeting the most vulnerable and impressionable members of society: school children. As I reported in October, nine schools in the Scottish region of North Ayrshire started using facial recognition systems as a form of contactless payment in cashless canteens (cafeterias in the US), until a public outcry put paid to the pilot scheme.

But the Tory government is doubling down. According to a new report in the Daily Mail, almost 70 schools have signed up for a system that scans children’s faces to take contactless payments for canteen lunches while others are reportedly planning to use the controversial technology to monitor children in exam rooms. This time round, however, the government didn’t even bother informing the UK Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner Fraser Sampson of the plans being drafted by the Department for Education (DfE):

Professor Fraser Sampson, the independent Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, said his office was unaware the DfE was drafting new surveillance advice in response to the growing trend for cameras in schools.

‘I find out completely by accident a couple of weeks ago by going to a meeting that the Department for Education has drafted a code of practice for surveillance in schools which they are about to put out to the world to consult,’ he told The Mail on Sunday.

‘And they [DfE] said. “What do you think of it?” And I say, “What code?” We had no idea about it. And having seen it, it would have benefited from some earlier sharing.’

Similar facial recognition systems have been used in the US, though usually as a security measure.

Privacy advocates have warned that the growing use of facial recognition systems in school settings could have a much more goal: to condition children to the widespread use of facial recognition systems and other biometric technologies. In my book Scanned I cite Stephanie Hare, author of Technology Ethics, who argues that it is about normalizing children to understand their bodies “as something they use to transact. That’s how you condition an entire society to use facial recognition.”

The Battle for Privacy

As the EU prepares to pass its own long-awaited AI Bill, which will set out the rules for the development, commodification and use of AI-driven products, services and systems across the 27-member bloc, a battle has broken out between proponents of the technologies and privacy advocates. The former, which include  intelligence agencies, law enforcement bodies and tech companies, argue that emerging biometric technology such as facial recognition programs are necessary to catch criminals. The latter have called for an outright ban on the technologies due to the threat they pose to civil liberties.

They include Wojtek Wiewiorowski, who leads the EU’s in-house data protection agency, EPDS, which is supposed to ensure the EU is complying with its own strict privacy rules. In November 2021 Wiewiorowski told Politico that European society is not ready for facial recognition technology: the use of the technology, he said, would “turn society, turn our citizens, turn the places we live, into places where we are permanently recognizable … I’m not sure if we are really as a society ready for that.”

In a paper published in March, the EPDS raised a number of concerns and objections about Prüm II:

  • The Prüm II framework does not make clear what sort of circumstances will warrant the exchange of biometric data such as DNA or the “scope of subjects affected by the automatic exchange of data”.
  • “The automated searching of DNA profiles and facial images should only be possible in the context of individual investigations of serious crimes and not of any criminal offense, as provided for in the proposal.”
  • “The alignment of the Prüm framework with the interoperability framework of the EU information systems in the area of justice and home affairs” requires careful analysis of its implications for fundamental rights.”
  • “The EPDS considers that the necessity of the proposed automated searching and exchange of police records data is not sufficiently demonstrated.”

Flaws in the System

The problem is not just about privacy; it is about the inherent flaws within facial recognition systems. The systems are notoriously inaccurate on women and those with darker skin, and may also be inaccurate on children whose facial features change rapidly… 

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As Bilateral Trade Between Mexico and US Hits Record High, Diplomatic Relations Sink to Lowest Point in Decades

All eyes are now on Mexico’s proposed electricity reform, which threatens the interests of some of the world’s biggest energy companies, many of them in the U.S.

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO for short) said Wednesday that he will send a diplomatic note of protest to the United States if it withdraws the visas of 25 federal lawmakers who recently set up a pro-Russian group in Mexico’s Congress. A number of Democratic politicians, including Robert Memendez, the chair of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, sent a letter on Tuesday to the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for the Biden Administration to prevent the Mexican congresspeople from entering, traveling or investing in the U.S.

“I do not think it is fair and I do not think it is rational to want to suspend the visas of those who met to express their points of view regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” López Obrador said during his morning press conference at the National Palace.

Burning Up Goodwill

That Democrats are now calling on the Biden Administration to sanction a handful of lawmakers in its neighboring country for daring to set up a pro-Russian group is illustrative of just how clumsy and heavy handed US foreign policy has become. In its attempt to bully countries into supporting the economic war against Russia, the U.S. is not only showing total disregard for the sovereignty of so-called allied countries, it is (as NC reader PlutoniumKun recently put it) burning up a lot of goodwill and credit in the process, even in potentially sympathetic countries.

Mexico is the U.S.’ second largest trade partner, after Canada. And trade between the countries has never been more robust. In 2021, bilateral trade between Mexico and the U.S. was worth $661 billion, the highest amount on record. That was second only to Canada, whose bilateral trade with the U.S. weighed in at $664 billion.

But diplomatic relations between the two countries are at a multi-decade low. As I reported in the article, “US-Mexico Relations Hit New Low Over Russia-Ukraine Conflict,” Washington’s already strained relations with Mexico deteriorated further at the end of March after AMLO refused to endorse sanctions against Russia. Like most governments in Latin America, Mexico has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but refuses to join the pile on to sanction the country. Matters were hardly helped when the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar instructed Mexican lawmakers that Mexico could never have close diplomatic ties with Russia.

Another major bone of contention between the two countries is the AMLO government’s proposed energy reform bill, which will be voted on in the coming days. As it currently stands, the bill threatens to drastically dial back the privatization and liberalization of Mexico’s energy market, giving a much larger role in the market for the state-owned companies Petroleos de Mexico and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

If passed, the reform would amend Articles 25, 27, and 28 of the Constitution as a means of consolidating the role of the public Federal Energy Commission (CFE). As a result, the CFE would become an autonomous legal entity, no longer hamstrung by the subsidiaries and commissions created in recent decades. The CFE would also control the production of at least 54% of the nation’s energy supply. The proposed reform also stipulates that lithium and other minerals considered strategic for the nation’s energy transition should be controlled by the state, which would possess sole exploration and mining rights.

The Wrong Sort of Message

While the reform appears to enjoy the support of most Mexican citizens, it is fiercely opposed by powerful domestic and foreign business interests, including some of the world’s biggest energy companies, many of them in the U.S. and Spain. Large domestic businesses and foreign multinationals with operations in Mexico that benefit from heavily subsidized renewable electricity will also be affected. They include maquilas (assembly plants), bottlers such as Coca Cola FEMSA and large retail firms such as FEMSA-owned convenience store chain Oxxo. According to government figures, an unsubsidised household or small business pays on average 5.2 pesos per kilowatt hour while OXXO pays 1.8 pesos and Walmart 1.7 pesos.

This means that large companies have a huge cost advantage over their small business competitors. The electricity reform, as it currently stands, will do away with that, much to the horror of the companies affected as well as the U.S. government. It’s not just about the threat the reform poses to business interests in Mexico; it could also send a message to other governments in Latin America that reversing privatization is now a distinct possibility. As I reported in February, resource nationalism is on the rise in Latin America even among countries traditionally aligned with the Washington Consensus.

It is the sort of message Washington would be keen to stamp out…

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UK Airports Thrown into Chaos by Surge in Traffic, Labor Shortages and IT Outages

UK airports and carriers are suffering severe labor shortages, at a time of pent-up demand. Throw COVID-19 absences into the mix and it’s a perfect storm for an industry desperately trying to claw itself out of an existential crisis.

For the first time in almost two and a half years I am back in my native UK, able finally to see family and friends as well as get a taste of what life is actually like in so-called “new-normal,” post-Brexit Britain. In my 22 years of living abroad this is the longest period of time I have spent away from the country, but it is a fly-by visit. Having arrived on Friday lunchtime, my wife and I are scheduled to board our return flight to Barcelona tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

As the title of this piece implies, that may be easier said than done, given that some UK airports, in particular Manchester and Heathrow, and ferry ports have been plunged into chaos by a turbulent blend of surging passenger numbers, acute labor shortages (partly due to soaring COVID-19 cases among both ground and flight staff), IT outages, bad weather and Brexit chaos.

The chaos coincides with the start of the Easter holidays in many parts of the country. Following the removal of all COVID-19 travel restrictions, many Brits are looking to venture abroad for the first time since the pandemic began. The UK’s flagship airport, Heathrow, has estimated that demand for flights over the summer holidays could reach 85% of pre-pandemic levels. In February alone Spain received 3.15 million tourists, 1000% more than in the same month of 2021 and only 29% less than in February 2020, just before the lockdowns began.

In other words, mass tourism is making a comeback, though it is not clear for how long. To meet the pent-up demand many British airports have expanded their workforce in recent weeks. Heathrow, for example, recently said it is hiring an extra 12,000 employees to deal with the summer rush. It may not be enough.

The airport is already struggling to cope with the Easter rush. On Monday morning, reports surfaced that British Airways and Easyjet had cancelled over 200 flights each, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded. Easyjet alone cancelled 222 flights over the weekend and pulled another 62 of those scheduled for Monday, blaming the cancellations on staff shortages resulting from a surge in COVID-19 cases among employees. This comes as no surprise given that roughly one in 13 British people are currently infected by the virus, a record level, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Problems are also surfacing in Spain as airports brace for record post-pandemic numbers of UK arrivals, with Brexit travel rules adding to congestion. This was certainly the case with our outbound flight from Barcelona, which was delayed by half an hour due to the long lines at passport control. Palma de Mallorca alone handled more than 250,000 passengers this past weekend, as German and British tourists returned en masse.

Back in the UK many of Monday’s cancelled flights were announced at short notice on Saturday, leaving many travelers bereft of alternatives. Easyjet expects to cancel hundreds more flights this week as the disruption snowballs. An EasyJet spokesperson said:

“With the current levels of sickness we also decided to make some cancellations in advance which were focused on consolidating flights where we have multiple frequencies so customers have more options to rebook their travel, often on the same day…

“Unfortunately it has been necessary to make some additional cancellations today. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause to customers on affected flights.

“Customers have been contacted and provided with their options which include rebooking onto an alternative flight or receiving a voucher or full refund. We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

England was one of the first countries in Europe to remove all Covid-19 restrictions, including compulsory mask wearing. The wholesale removal of restrictions was primarily an act of political expediency by a government brought to its knees by an endless succession of corruption scandals. The Boris Johnson cabinet had been caught flouting so many of the restrictions it itself had implemented that either it or the rules had to go. It chose the latter…

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Spanish Government Reaps Whirlwind After Antagonizing Its Biggest Natural Gas Supplier

Alienating your most important natural gas provider (in Spain’s case: Algeria) is a bad idea even at the best of times. And right now, with the world facing its biggest energy crisis in at least half a century, these are not the best of times.

Yet this is exactly what Pedro Sánchez’s government has done by calling an abrupt end to Spain’s decades-long position of neutrality over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which was a Spanish colony until 1975. Until ten days ago, Spain, in line with the United Nations, had called for the Saharawi people to determine their own future through a referendum. But all that changed when the King of Morocco Mohammed VI read out on live TV a letter from Sánchez describing Rabat’s plan for sovereignty over Western Sahara as offering “the most serious, realistic and credible” way of resolving the conflict.

As I warned at the time, this subtle but significant policy change risks torpedoing Spain’s commercial relations with its biggest provider of natural gas, Algeria, a staunch defender of the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.

It didn’t take long for the blowback to begin. First, Algiers recalled its ambassador to Spain. Then it announced that it would refuse the return of African migrants intercepted at sea on their way to the Spanish coast. It has also cancelled some flights from Algeria to Spain while increasing the number of air connections with other European countries.

At home, Sánchez has faced virtually unanimous opposition to his unilateral decision to back Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, including among his own coalition partners who were not even forewarned about let alone consulted on the decision. The mood was best summed up by Basque Nationalist Party spokesman Aitor Esteban at last week’s Foreign Affairs Committee: “When you go to Rabat, remember that you do not have the backing of this Parliament.”

Another blow came earlier this week when Algiers sat down for talks with the government of the European country most likely to supplant Spain as Algeria’s number-one gas customer: Italy. On Monday an event was held at the Algerian Embassy in Rome whose attendees included Luigi Di Maio, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and Chakib Kaid, secretary general of the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Unsurprisingly, the main topic under discussion was energy. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Italy procured roughly half of its natural gas from Russia. With that supply now in danger, “Italy views Algeria as a key strategic partner in all respects,” Di Maio said, adding that Rome is angling for “a 360-degree strategic partnership to intensify political dialogue, further strengthen economic and energy cooperation, and to work together for the stability of the Mediterranean.”

As Arab News reports, Algeria is already Italy’s second-largest supplier of gas after Russia:

Gas imports are piped from the Hassi R’Mel field, the largest natural gas field in Africa, through Tunisia to Sicily via the TransMed pipeline.

Italian energy companies Eni, Enel and Edison have long-term contracts with Algeria, which last year shipped about 21 billion cubic meters of gas to Italy, about 20 percent of the country’s gas imports.

Reversal of Roles

“Spain should not be surprised by what is beginning to happen,” Yahia Zoubir, an analyst of Algerian origin closely connected to the Algerian establishment told the Spanish daily El Independiente. “Algeria is going to look for a new partner in Europe, which will be Italy. They will focus on the oil pipeline that goes from Algeria to Italy. In the medium and long term, Italy will replace Spain as the main route of gas supply to Europe.”

Chakib Kaid said that “Algeria will review all agreements with Spain, in all fields”, though he ruled out immediate consequences in the sale of oil and gas. Kaid also confirmed that Madrid did not inform Algiers of its policy reversal toward Western Sahara; they only learnt of it through a press release from the Moroccan Royal Palace.

Italy has a clear interest in reducing its energy dependence on Russia, which until recently provided almost half of the natural gas it consumes. Unlike Spain, Italy has not changed its posture vis a vis Western Sahara. In a statement provided to the Algerian newspaper El Moudjahid Italian President Sergio Mattarella reiterated Italy’s “support for Algeria’s role (in resolving the Western Sahara dispute) and its commitment within the UN framework with Western Sahara.”

The Transmed, a 2,475km-long natural gas pipeline completed in 1983 to transport natural gas from Algeria to Italy via Tunisia and Sicily, has the capacity to deliver 30.2bcm/y (billion cubic metres per annum) of natural gas. That is roughly equivalent to the combined capacity of the two pipelines connecting Algeria with Spain, the larger of which, the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline (MGE) which passes through Morocco into Spain, has been closed since November 1, 2021.

First Mover

While the Italians were charming the Algerians in Rome, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was sitting down with his Moroccan counterpart Naser Bourita on the other side of Mediterranean. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. was the first major Western government to break with protocol and recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. To seal the deal, all Morocco had to do was recognize the state of Israel, becoming the second Arab country in North Africa — after Egypt — to do so.

That was during the final months of the Trump Presidency. Since then France, Germany and now Spain have all followed suit, backing the Moroccan plan for Western Sahara, much to the frustration of the Sahrawi nationalist movement, the Polisario Front, and its backers in Algiers…

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