Russian lawmakers pass a bill punishing online searches for information deemed to be 'extremist'
The bill passed by the lower house, the State Duma, moves to its all-but-certain endorsement in the upper house and then goes to President Vladimir Putin to be signed into law.
The legislation punishes what it describes as 'deliberately searching for and accessing extremist materials' online. First-time offenders face a fine of up to the equivalent of $64.
The official definition of extremist activity is extremely broad and includes opposition groups like the Anti-Corruption Foundation, created by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and the 'international LGBT movement.'
It's not clear how authorities will track down violators. Some observers have suggested the information would likely come from internet providers or social media platforms, and police also could randomly check the search history of cellphones or computers.
The new legislation also contained a ban on advertising of virtual private network services, but stopped short of banning their use. It did list the use of a VPN as an 'aggravating circumstance' in case of other violations of the law.
The Russian authorities have ramped their multipronged crackdown on dissent after sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Since then, online censorship and prosecutions for social media posts and comments have soared. Multiple independent news outlets and rights groups have been shut down, labeled as 'foreign agents' or outlawed as 'undesirable.' Hundreds of activists and critics of the Kremlin have faced criminal charges.
The new legislation has sparked broad public criticism.
Liberal politician Boris Nadezhdin, who sought to challenge Putin in last year's presidential election but was denied a spot on the ballot, told reporters outside the State Duma that he opposed the new legislation. Nadezhdin's aide, Dmitry Kisiev, who picketed the parliament building with a poster likening the legislation to the world of George Orwell's dystopian '1984,' was quickly rounded up by police, who also detained several reporters covering the protest.
Even some pro-Kremlin figures have criticized the bill, arguing it would make it impossible for them to track down and deflect comments by Kremlin critics.
Yekaterina Mizulina, whose group Safe Internet League has frequently reported dissenters to authorities, has strongly condemned the new bill, arguing it would make it impossible for her group to monitor 'extremist communities' on the web.
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The Hill
26 minutes ago
- The Hill
How reliable is the jobs data? Economists and Wall Street still trust it
WASHINGTON (AP) — The monthly jobs report is already closely-watched on Wall Street and in Washington but has taken on a new importance after President Donald Trump on Friday fired the official who oversees it. Trump claimed that June's employment figures were 'RIGGED' to make him and other Republicans 'look bad.' Yet he provided no evidence and even the official Trump had appointed in his first term to oversee the report, William Beach, condemned the firing of Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics appointed by former President Joe Biden. The firing followed Friday's jobs report that showed hiring was weak in July and had come to nearly a standstill in May and June, right after Trump rolled out sweeping tariffs. Economists and Wall Street investors have long considered the job figures reliable, with share prices and bond yields often reacting sharply when they are released. Yet Friday's revisions were unusually large — the largest, outside of a recession, in five decades. And the surveys used to compile the report are facing challenges from declining response rates, particularly since COVID, as fewer companies complete the surveys. Nonetheless, that hasn't led most economists to doubt them. 'The bottom line for me is, I wouldn't take the low collection rate as any evidence that the numbers are less reliable,' Omair Sharif, founder and chief economist at Inflation Insights, a consulting firm, said. Many academics, statisticians and economists have warned for some time that declining budgets were straining the government's ability to gather economic data. There were several government commissions studying ways to improve things like survey response rates, but the Trump administration disbanded them earlier this year. Heather Boushey, a top economic adviser in the Biden White House, noted that without Trump's firing of McEntarfer, there would be more focus on last week's data, which points to a slowing economy. 'We're having this conversation about made-up issues to distract us from what the data is showing,' Boushey said. 'Revisions of this magnitude in a negative direction may indicate bad things to come for the labor market.' Here are some things to know about the jobs report: Economists and Wall Street trust the data Most economists say that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a nonpolitical agency staffed by people obsessed with getting the numbers right. The only political appointee is the commissioner, who doesn't see the data until it's finalized, two days before it is issued to the public. Erica Groshen, the BLS commissioner from 2013 to 2017, said she suggested different language in the report to 'liven it up', but was shot down. 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Trump also repeated a largely inaccurate attack from the campaign about an annual revision last August, which reduced total employment in the United States by 818,000, or about 0.5%. The government also revises employment figures every year. Trump charged the annual revision was released before the 2024 presidential election to 'boost' Vice President Kamala Harris's 'chances of Victory,' yet it was two months before the election and widely reported at the time that the revision lowered hiring during the Biden-Harris administration and pointed to a weaker economy. Here's why the government revises the data The monthly revisions occur because many companies that respond to the government's surveys send their data in late, or correct the figures they've already submitted. The proportion of companies sending in their data later has risen in the past decade. 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Still, the government also has to make estimates: What if a company goes out of business? It likely won't fill out any forms showing the jobs lost. And what about new businesses? They can take a while to get on the government's radar. The BLS seeks to capture these trends by estimating their impact on employment. Those estimates can be wrong, of course, until they are fixed by the annual revisions. The revisions are often larger around turning points in the economy. For example, when the economy is growing, there may be more startups than the government expects, so revisions will be higher. If the economy is slowing or slipping into a recession, the revisions may be larger on the downside. Here's why the May and June revisions may have been so large Ernie Tedeschi, an economic adviser to the Biden administration, points to the current dynamics of the labor market: Both hiring and firing have sharply declined, and fewer Americans are quitting their jobs to take other work. 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Hassett blamed a sharp drop in response rates to the government's surveys during and after the pandemic: 'When COVID happened, because response rates went down a lot, then revision rates skyrocketed.' Yet calculations by Tedeschi show that while revisions spiked after the pandemic, they have since declined and are much smaller than in the 1960s and 1970s. Other concerns about the government's data Many economists and statisticians have sounded the alarm about things like declining response rates for years. A decade ago, about 60% of companies surveyed by BLS responded. Now, only about 40% do. The decline has been an international phenomenon, particularly since COVID. The United Kingdom has even suspended publication of an official unemployment rate because of falling responses. 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Boston Globe
26 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Russia warns against threats after Trump repositions nuclear submarines
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Peskov's effort to play down the confrontation comes ahead of a likely visit to Russia this week by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who has met Putin four times in a so-far-unsuccessful bid to halt Russia's war. Advertisement Trump told reporters Sunday that the submarines are 'in the region.' Last week, responding to Medvedev on social media, Trump denounced the Russian's 'highly provocative statements,' which he said led him to dispatch the submarines 'just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.' 'Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences,' Trump continued, capping an intensifying exchange. 'I hope this will not be one of those instances.' Medvedev, whose relevance in Russia has waned since he left the prime minister's office in 2020, now often plays the role of social media provocateur. Russia's nuclear arsenal is central to Putin's effort to posture the country as a global power and to reinforce his conviction, shared by many Russian citizens, that Russia can never be defeated in war. On Sunday, Trump said he may send Witkoff to Russia on Wednesday or Thursday at Moscow's request, before imposing new sanctions. Trump has cautioned that the new sanctions would probably not deter Russia's war effort. After Trump last week shortened the deadline for agreement on a cease-fire in Ukraine to Aug. 8, Medvedev warned on social media that every Trump ultimatum was a step closer to war between the United States and Russia. Trump admonished Medvedev to 'watch his words'; then Medvedev responded on Thursday with an emoji of laughter through tears and the nuclear threat, warning Trump of the dangers of the 'Dead Hand.' On Friday afternoon, Trump said he would reposition two nuclear submarines. 'A threat was made … so we just have to be very careful,' he said, referring to Medvedev, adding: 'We're going to protect our people.' Advertisement Peskov distanced himself Monday from Medvedev's rhetoric, saying people should look to Putin instead. 'In our country, foreign policy is formulated by the head of state, President Putin,' Peskov said. He declined to comment on whether the Kremlin would tell Medvedev to tone down his rhetoric. Russia has sharpened its tone toward Trump in recent weeks after US officials indicated he is running out of patience with Putin's reluctance to compromise on his maximalist conditions to end the war, despite key concessions suggested by the United States, including keeping Ukraine out of NATO and allowing Moscow to keep the territory it has annexed illegally in Ukraine. 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Since the 2022 invasion, Moscow has calibrated its nuclear threat to deter Western support for Ukraine, in particular deliveries of Western missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory. Denied those, Ukraine has used drone strikes on distant targets. Advertisement These threats have at times been delivered directly by Putin, but also at other times by senior Russian officials who offer a level of deniability, including Medvedev. Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov on Sunday wrote that Witkoff's likely visit was the 'last chance' to reach an agreement between Moscow and Washington before Trump's deadline on a cease-fire expires Aug. 8. He wrote on Telegram that Putin may offer a partial cease-fire, ending missile and drone attacks.
San Francisco Chronicle
26 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
8 are missing, including an Irish missionary, after gunmen storm a Haiti orphanage
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Eight people, including an Irish missionary and a 3-year-old child, remained missing on Monday after gunmen stormed an orphanage in Haiti, the latest attack in an area controlled by a powerful collection of armed gangs. Authorities scrambled to relocate dozens of children and staff from the Saint-Hélène orphanage, run by Nos Petits Frères et Sœurs, an international charity with offices in Mexico and France. The orphanage cares for more than 240 children, according to its website. No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack early on Sunday. The area is controlled by a gang federation known as ' Viv Ansanm,' which the United States this year designated a foreign terrorist organization. Among those abducted was Gena Heraty, an Irish missionary who has worked in Haiti since 1993 and oversaw the orphanage's special needs program for children and adults. She was assaulted in 2013 when suspects broke into the orphanage and killed her colleague, according to Irish media. Her family issued a statement saying they were 'absolutely devastated' by Sunday's kidnappings: 'The situation is evolving and deeply worrying." Sunday marked the latest high-profile kidnapping involving a foreign missionary. In 2021, the 400 Mawozo gang kidnapped 17 missionaries, including five children, from a U.S.-based organization in Ganthier, east of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The majority were held captive for 61 days. Sunday's kidnapping took place in Kenscoff, a once peaceful community in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. The doors to the orphanage remained closed on Monday as Haiti's Institute of Social Welfare and Research worked with UNICEF to identify sites where children and employees could be relocated. The lush green and incredibly steep mountains where the orphanage is located has been under attack by heavily armed gangs since January. The latest attack over the weekend forced farmers in the area to flee. 'We can't work,' said 41-year-old farmer Sala Désire, who fled his home and carried a small oven up a mountain as he gathered his belongings and prepared for a 30-minute trek uphill. Joceline Souffrant, 52, said she would follow him shortly. 'Everyone is running,' she said. 'We can't say in the area because of the shooting.' Simon Harris, Ireland's deputy prime minister, said in a statement that the kidnappings of Heraty and the others were 'deeply worrying," and called for their immediate release. In a past interview with the Irish Independent newspaper, Heraty recalled being threatened with death when suspects broke into the orphanage in 2013. 'They were quite aggressive. One had a hammer, one had a gun,' she said. Heraty said her colleague was killed with a hammer after he rushed to help her and others. 'The last place you would expect a violent death to happen in Haiti would be in a house with special-needs people," she said. "Life is just not fair. We know that. We just have to accept it.' At least 175 people in Haiti were reported kidnapped from April to the end of June of this year, with 37% of those cases occurring in Port-au-Prince. The United Nations said a majority of those kidnappings were blamed on the Grand Ravine and Village de Dieu gangs, which form part of the Viv Ansanm federation.
