WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian general Surovikin was sympathetic towards Wagner rebellion, US officials say

General Sergei Surovikin, deputy commander of Russia's military operations in Ukraine, was sympathetic to mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's weekend rebellion, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, though it was unclear if he actively supported it.

Prigozhin startled the world by leading an armed revolt on Saturday that brought his Wagner Group fighters from the Ukrainian border to within 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Moscow before he abruptly called off the uprising.

Three officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Surovikin had been in support of Prigozhin but Western intelligence did not know with certainty if he had helped the rebellion in any way.

As the rebellion began, Surovikin publicly urged fighters of the Wagner private militia to give up their opposition to the military leadership and return to their bases.

"I urge you to stop," Surovikin had said in a video posted on Telegram messaging app, his right hand resting on a rifle.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Surovikin had advance knowledge that Prigozhin was planning a rebellion.

The Kremlin, asked on Wednesday about the report, said there would be "a lot of speculation" in the aftermath of the events.

Surovikin, nicknamed "General Armageddon" by the Russian media for his reputed ruthlessness, is a veteran of wars in Chechnya and Syria who has been decorated by President Vladimir Putin.

In October, Surovikin was put in charge of the military campaign in Ukraine but was moved into a deputy role earlier this year after Russia's limited success in the invasion.

Prigozhin, a one-time Putin ally, in recent months has carried out an increasingly bitter feud with Moscow, including publicly saying his troops were not being provided enough weapons by the Russian ministry of defense.

U.S. officials and Western officials said Prigozhin had been stockpiling weaponry ahead of the mutiny attempt. The U.S. officials suggested he must have believed he had enough firepower and sympathy within the Russian military to carry out his uprising.

Still, a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Prigozhin ultimately miscalculated by believing that his loyalty to Putin, his usefulness to the Kremlin and his support among Russian military officials would be enough to insulate him from consequences.

Putin initially vowed to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the wartime turmoil that ushered in the revolutions of 1917 and then a civil war, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus.

**EU leaders to debate Russia mutiny, pledge support for Ukraine

European Union leaders will on Thursday debate the repercussions of the aborted mutiny in Russia as they pledge further support for Ukraine in its war against Moscow's invasion.

At a summit in Brussels, the leaders will also talk with NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg and discuss what role the EU could play in Western commitments to bolster Ukraine's security.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said the leaders were certain to discuss Saturday's dramatic abandoned mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group, even though it is not on the agenda of the summit or mentioned in drafts of its written conclusions.

"It will definitely come up," she told reporters in Brussels on the eve of the two-day summit, a regular gathering that will also discuss migration, relations with China and other issues.

Like several other EU leaders, Kallas said the mutiny showed cracks appearing in Russia's leadership. She said she had seen different views on how the mutiny could affect the Ukraine war and the risk Russia poses to the West.

The West should not be swayed and continue to support Ukraine and bolster its own defences, Kallas said.

Charles Michel, the president of the European Council of EU leaders, struck a similar note.

"Ever more in these circumstances, we will reassert our commitment to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, including through sustainable financial and military assistance," he wrote in a letter inviting leaders to the summit.

SECURITY PACKAGE

The nature of that assistance will also be on the table in Brussels as Western countries work on a package of long-term assurances to provide weapons, equipment, ammunition, training and other military aid to Kyiv.

A draft of the summit conclusions said EU countries were ready to contribute to future security commitments to Ukraine, to "help Ukraine defend itself in the long term, deter acts of aggression and resist destabilisation efforts."

Diplomats said the text had been proposed by France, a champion of a greater military and security role for the EU.

Diplomats from some countries said they wanted more details and were concerned the idea may conflict with efforts involving the United States and NATO on long-term commitments to Ukraine.

“There are many questions for many member states,” said a diplomat from one EU country.

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Countries including the U.S., Britain, France and Germany are discussing such measures ahead of a NATO summit next month in Vilnius, Lithuania, where Ukraine's long-term security will be a major theme.

France has insisted any EU contribution would dovetail with those made by others and build on existing EU initiatives.

These include the European Peace Facility, a fund that reimburses EU members for military donations to Kyiv, and a training mission for Ukrainian soldiers.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Only 11% of Russians back call to use nuclear weapons – survey

The absolute majority of people in Russia oppose the idea of Moscow using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in the ongoing conflict, according to a fresh poll conducted by the media outlet RTVI and the Russian Field polling agency. Almost three quarters of respondents (74%) said that a nuclear option is “unacceptable” regardless of the situation on the battlefield, RTVI reported on Wednesday.

Only 10% of Russians said the use of nuclear weapons was “acceptable” at any moment, while another 5% said such a step could only be made in the face of a real risk of defeat. Some five percent of respondents provided no clear answer to this question.

Men, middle-aged and older Russians appeared to be more supportive of a nuclear option, according to the survey. Respondents with higher education and those perceiving the ongoing conflict as a potential threat to their personal security tend to oppose it.

Meanwhile, a majority of Russians expressed their readiness to aid the Russian forces fighting on the frontlines. According to the survey, 61% of respondents said they were ready to do so and almost 40% told the surveyors they had already provided some aid to the military at least once, through various aid and support programs. Almost 30% also collected clothes and various useful items for the soldiers.

The issue of a potential nuclear strike has briefly come into the spotlight in Russia after political scientist Sergey Karaganov raised such a possibility in an opinion piece.

In the article titled ‘A Difficult But Necessary Decision’, Karaganov argued that Russia could escalate to using nuclear weapons against European countries supporting Ukraine, in order to force the US and its allies to back off from a wider conflict with Russia and thus prevent a global nuclear war and World War 3.

In mid-June, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that even discussing of the issue lowers the threshold for a potential nuclear arms use. Under the current official doctrine, Russia will only utilize its atomic arsenal if faced with an existential threat, the president said at that time, adding that he also did not believe in using tactical, low-yield nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

** Russian Battlegroup Center hits eight area of concentration of Ukrainian troops

Warplanes of Russia’s Battlegroup Center delivered airstrikes on eight areas of the deployment of Ukrainian troops and artillery, the battlegroup’s spokesman Alexander Savchuk told TASS on Thursday.

"Su-25 fighter jets of the Battlegroup Center delivered rocket strikes on eight areas where Ukrainian manpower and artillery were concentrated. Apart from that, crews of Su-34 warplanes delivered strikes on two enemy centers of temporary deployment, one stronghold, and a communications point," he said.

According to the spokesman, a Fury drone was shot down from a Tor-M1 air defense system in the Krasny Liman area. Apart from that, in his words, the enemy artillery and mortar positions were hit by Russian forces in the course of counterbattery activities. "Enemy armored combat vehicles, an armored infantry carrier and five pickup trucks, as well as manpower were hit by artillery," Savchuk said.

 

Reuters/RT/Tass

Islamists wield hidden hand in Sudan conflict, military sources say

Thousands of men who worked as intelligence operatives under former president Omar al-Bashir and have ties to his Islamist movement are fighting alongside the army in Sudan's war, three military sources and one intelligence source said, complicating efforts to end the bloodshed.

The army and a paramilitary force have been battling each other in Khartoum, Darfur and elsewhere for 10 weeks in Africa's third largest country by area, displacing 2.5 million people, causing a humanitarian crisis and threatening to destabilise the region. Reinforcements for either side could deepen the conflict.

The army has long denied accusations by its rivals in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that it depends on discredited loyalists of Bashir, an Islamist long shunned by the West, who was toppled during a popular uprising in 2019.

In response to a question from Reuters for this article, an army official said: "The Sudanese army has no relation with any political party or ideologue. It is a professional institution."

Yet the three military sources and an intelligence source said thousands of Islamists were battling alongside the army.

"Around 6,000 members of the intelligence agency joined the army several weeks before the conflict," said a military official familiar with the army's operations, speaking on condition on anonymity.

"They are fighting to save the country."

Former officials of the country's now-disbanded National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), a powerful institution composed mainly of Islamists, confirmed these numbers.

An Islamist resurgence in Sudan could complicate how regional powers deal with the army, hamper any move towards civilian rule and ultimately set the country, which once hosted al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, on a path for more internal conflict and international isolation.

Reuters spoke to 10 sources for this article, including military and intelligence sources and several Islamists.

In a development indicative of Islamist involvement, an Islamist fighter named Mohammed al-Fadl was killed this month in clashes between RSF forces and the army, said family members and Islamists. He had been fighting alongside the army, they said.

Ali Karti, secretary general of Sudan's main Islamic organisation, sent a statement of condolences for al-Fadl.

'OUR IDENTITY AND OUR RELIGION'

"We are fighting and supporting the army to protect our country from external intervention and keep our identity and our religion," said one Islamist fighting alongside the army.

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Bashir's former ruling National Congress Party said in a statement it had no ties to the fighting and only backed the army politically.

The army accused the RSF of promoting Islamists and former regime loyalists in their top ranks, a charge the RSF denied. Army chief Abdel Fattah Burhan, who analysts see as a non-ideological army man, has publicly dismissed claims that Islamists are helping his forces. "Where are they?" he cried out to cheering troops in a video posted in May.

The military, which under Bashir had many Islamist officers, has been a dominant force in Sudan for decades, staging coups, fighting internal wars and amassing economic holdings.

But following the overthrow of Bashir, Burhan developed good ties with states that have worked against Islamists in the region, notably the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Gulf states provided Khartoum with significant aid.

Nowadays, former NISS officers also help the military by collecting intelligence on its enemies in the latest conflict. The NISS was replaced by the General Intelligence Service (GIS) after Bashir was toppled, and stripped of its armed "operations" unit, according to a constitutional agreement.

Most of the men from that unit have sided with the army, but some former operations unit members and Islamists who served under Bashir entered the RSF, one army source and one intelligence source said.

"We are working in a very hard situation on the ground to back up the army, especially with information about RSF troops and their deployment," said a GIS official.

BASHIR-ERA VETERANS

The army outnumbers the RSF nationally, but analysts say it has little capacity for street fighting because it outsourced previous wars in remote regions to militias. Those militias include the "Janjaweed" that helped crush an insurgency in Darfur and later developed into the RSF.

Nimble RSF units have occupied large areas of Khartoum and this week took control of the main base of the Central Reserve Police, a force that the army had deployed in ground combat in the capital. They seized large amounts of weaponry.

But the army, which has depended mainly on air strikes and heavy artillery, could benefit from GIS intelligence gathering skills honed over decades as it tries to root out the RSF.

On June 7, fire engulfed the intelligence headquarters in a disputed area in central Khartoum. Both sides accused the other of attacking the building.

After Burhan and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, carried out a coup in 2021 which derailed a transition to democracy, Hemedti said the move was a mistake and warned it would encourage Islamists to seek power.

Regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the UAE had seen Sudan's transition towards democracy as a way to counter Islamist influence in the region, which they consider a threat.

Publicly, the army has asserted its loyalty to the uprising that ousted Bashir in 2019.

But after the military staged a coup in 2021 that provoked a resurgence of mass street protests, it leaned on Bashir-era veterans to keep the country running. A taskforce that had been working to dismantle the former ruling system was disbanded.

Before the outbreak of violence, Bashir supporters had been lobbyingagainst a plan for a transition to elections under a civilian government. Disputes over the chain of command and the structure of the military under the plan triggered the fighting.

About a week after fighting broke out in April, a video on social media showed about a dozen former intelligence officials in army uniforms announcing themselves as reserve forces.

The footage could not be independently verified by Reuters.

Several senior Bashir loyalists walked free from prison in Bahri, across the Nile from central Khartoum, during a wider prison break amid fighting in late April. The circumstances of their release remain unclear. Bashir is in a military hospital.

 

Reuters

Shortly after his investiture as the new Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, proclaimed that he felt like a tiger ready to chase away criminals in the country. Despite the jeers he received from those who wondered if he has a multiple personality disorder, the man’s point is well-understood. It is that feeling of exhilaration that accompanies being imbued with administrative political powers. Besides, through both physical and metaphysical means, humans have always sought to extend the limits of their abilities by appropriating the attributes of animals. So, I will take him up on his metaphor to ask him what kind of tiger he plans to be in office: a paper tiger or Tiger Woods? Only one of those options has made a historical impact and Egbetokun must quickly clarify his choices to himself now that the duty to secure justice for another Nigerian over supposed blasphemy calls on him.

On Sunday, a mob accused and killed a butcher, Usman Buda. The unfortunate incident was eerily reminiscent of the lynching of Deborah Samuel in that same town just a year ago. Her vile murderers were so confident they put their own faces on video. The police responded to the attendant public outrage by arresting and charging two suspects, Bilyaminu Aliyu and Aminu Hukunci, to court. For a moment, it seemed justice would prevail and those who carry out such crimes would have their privilege undercut. Unfortunately, that never happened. Last month, Aliyu and Hukunci were freed because, according to court documents, the police prosecutors absconded from the trial.

Their cowardly retraction from confronting the fanatics that killed Samuel was worse. By starting what they could not finish, the police emboldened those who would kill again over such spuriousness. If Egbetokun’s immanent raging beast raring to go all out against those who diminish our citizenry wants to proclaim his tigritude, he should consider revisiting Samuel’s case. If Egbetokun does not want to end up as another tiger in a gilded cage that cannot bare its claws, he should stand up for Buda too. These two cases afford him a chance to stand up to the cowards who take lives cheaply because they have been nurtured to believe they can determine who should live or die.

If there is anything Buda’s case should teach the faux liberals who, in the wake of Samuel’s killing, urged us to “respect other people’s religious beliefs,” it is that one can never try enough to please those who have arrogated the power over one’s life to themselves. All it takes to kill you is their wanting to kill you. They will do it because they know that no law in Nigeria restrains them. Sorry, some laws proscribe lynching, but those who should enforce it will rather avoid it. To confront lynching incidents is to challenge the nation’s ideological fault lines cracked by the compounding of regional and religious identities.

You know how badly the police have been cowed when an alleged lawyer blackmailed them into arresting Mubarak Bala for his atheistic views and they capitulated. Imagine a world where a random guy with a law degree has the effrontery to petition the police and demand they clamp down on someone’s rights to freedom of thought and expression. The police not only ran this petitioner’s errand, but they also disobeyed the court order that mandated them to release Bala. Ideally, the police should have set the petitioner and his cohort straight by pointing out to them an atheist has the democratic right to proclaim his non-belief the same way they proclaim their beliefs, but no, they were too fearful of mob action.

Nigeria has had one too many instances of people taking religious offence and ascribing the power to mete out violence to themselves. These people have neither understanding nor respect for other people’s democratic freedoms. Nigeria, unfortunately, condones their barbarism. Those who try to downplay religious killings by pointing out that they are no different from the regular violence one can experience on the streets in Nigeria willfully forget that this crime is unique because of politics. Lynching in the name of God is a crime indulged by people in high places who cannot risk their political capital. We were all here when a presidential candidate who initially condemned the killing of Deborah eventually withdrew his sympathies. Some loose-nuts-and-bolts-in-the-head threatened they would not vote for him in the elections for daring to speak out against their barbarism, and he backtracked.

That pattern of refraining from the path of justice so as not to offend the voting mob has been consistent. Some religious and political agents who condemned the lynching of Buda could not just bring themselves to hit the nail on the right part of the head. For instance, Sokoto governor Ahmed Aliyu issued a press release where he asked the people to be calm and law-abiding. He said, “I want to call on the people of Sokoto State to avoid taking laws into their hands, instead, report any alleged crime or blasphemy to the appropriate quarters for necessary action. Our religion does not encourage taking laws into one’s hand, so let us try to be good followers of our religion.”

An Islamic rights advocacy group, the Muslim Rights Concern of Sokoto went as far as condemning the lynching of Buda but still upheld the erroneous idea that something called “blasphemy” is punishable. They said, “Islam does not allow people to do what they like or take laws into their hands as they deem fit. It is only the courts (Shariah and common law courts) that have powers to execute offenders after proving them guilty through fair trial.”

The question for both the governor and MURIC is the law under reference here. Which law are these maniacs taking into their dirty hands? They are sheer murderers, simple. By construing their crime as “taking the law into their hands,” you make it seem they have a legitimate grouse that only needed appropriate channelling. Look, the whole idea of blasphemy might have made sense in medieval times, but it has no basis to stand in our modern times. Some religious laws were designed for an era when people’s eyes were still on their knees, and they are no longer tenable in the 21st century. You cannot kill people because their (ir)religious views offend you. The best you can do is to obey religious laws for yourself as a private individual. For instance, if a butcher says things you consider a negation of what you believe, your freedom to respond accordingly could go as far as dissociation. While you are free to never buy meat from them forever, you cannot coerce their beliefs without violating their inalienable right to thought and expression.

Nigeria should have long taken charge against blasphemy accusations and the concomitant vigilantism. They should have disallowed even Sharia courts from pronouncing death sentences for it (or for any reason). These acts are unconstitutional, negate democratic tenets, and outrightly barbaric. They cannot stand. Those that killed Buda and others did not “take any law into their hands” because there is no law proscribing blasphemy anyone is constitutionally bound to obey.

If the IG is serious about displaying some savagery against Nigeria’s enemies, this is his opportunity. This case is his chance to inscribe the integrity of the law because it is about belief—not just in God or any supernatural being—but in Nigeria as a political entity. This is ultimately about belief in democracy, the rule of law, and the rights of citizenship which it grants. If those who killed Buda are—once again—allowed to get away with their crime, you would have legitimised their conflicting vision of the ruling order of the nation.

 

Punch

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed paper-thin solar cells that can be attached to any kind of surface to convert it into a power source. 

Thinner than human hair, these cells could be laminated onto various kinds of surfaces, such as the sails of a boat to provide power while at sea, onto tents and tarps that are deployed in disaster recovery operations, or onto the wings of drones to extend their flying range.

The findings were first published in the journal Small Methods in a paper co-authored by Vladimir Bulović, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT, Mayuran Saravanapavanantham, an electrical engineering and computer science graduate student at MIT, and Jeremiah Mwaura, a research scientist in the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics.

Scientists used electronic printable inks, using a technique similar to how designs are printed on t-shirts. As these thin solar cells are difficult to handle and can tear easily, scientists searched for a lightweight, flexible, and resilient material that could adhere to those solar cells. The fabric they chose was Dyneema Composite Fabric, a material known for its incredible strength. 

After printing the electrodes on a flat sheet of plastic, they glued the sheet of plastic on Dyneema. Lastly, they peeled away the fabric, which has picked up the electrodes, leaving a clean sheet of plastic behind. 

“While it might appear simpler to just print the solar cells directly on the fabric, this would limit the selection of possible fabrics or other receiving surfaces to the ones that are chemically and thermally compatible with all the processing steps needed to make the devices,” Saravanapavanantham told MIT News. “Our approach decouples the solar cell manufacturing from its final integration.”

Although the cells can only generate half the energy per unit area compared to traditional silicon panels, they can generate 18 times more power per kilogram, Fast Company reported.

During testing, the solar cells generated about 730 watts per kilogram of energy freestanding and about 370 watts per kilogram if deployed on Dyneema fabric. For reference, it would only add about 44 pounds to the roof to generate the same amount of power as an 8,000-watt traditional solar installation on a home in Massachusetts, as MIT News reported.

The scientists are aiming to make solar energy more accessible and portable to be used where traditional solar panels cannot instead of replacing them entirely. 

“My expectation would be that the format of these new cells should allow us to completely rethink how rapidly we can deploy solar cells, and how rapidly we can manufacture solar cells,” Bulović told Fast Company. “In the long run, we think this can be as rapid as printing a newspaper.” 

As the demand for clean and renewable energy grows, this technologycould revolutionize solar energy by making it more accessible. 

 

The Cool Down

When were you last lied to? To your knowledge, obviously. Was the lie something that mattered? Was the liar convincing? Did they confess, or did you find them out? And how did you react? Maybe with anger. Maybe with hurt bemusement. Or contempt – like my grandmother, who had a stock retort for anyone who tried to pull the wool over her eyes: “I hate liars. They’re worse than thieves.”

Did you feel, afterwards, that you’d been easy to fool? If so, you’d be in good company. It’s the norm to assume communication is honest – and that’s something to be thankful for, because we’d live in a miserable, suspicious world otherwise. Less helpfully, it’s common to assume that body language gives away dishonesty when it does arise. Liars look shifty, in the popular imagination. They cough before they speak, fidget and don’t look you in the eye. Unfortunately, none of these cues are very reliable.

People who convince themselves of their own truthfulness while being dishonest may act no differently to normal. The weight of empirical research shows it’s hard to identify even very purposeful liars from their behaviour. A meta-analysis from 2006, “Accuracy of Deception Judgments”, by social psychologist Charles F Bond of Texas Christian University and others, looked at more than 200 studies to find that people’s accuracy when distinguishing truth from lies isn’t much better than chance. A more recent review, 2019’s “Reading Lies: Nonverbal Communication and Deception”, led by Aldert Vrij of the University of Portsmouth, hammered home the point. People are mediocre judges of deception. This seems to be true generally, but the question of who we might find believable, and why, gets more complicated within certain relationship dynamics.

I once knew a woman, Julia, who by any measure was attractive and charming. She seemed a kind, sympathetic listener. She was generous with cake, hugs and praise. I loved her for all these things, yet I often felt guarded in her company for reasons I could neither put words to nor think about clearly. Her compliments were so warm one could feel dizzied. Within such a context, if she made improbable claims people tended to take them at face value. I know I did.

Her believability was filtered through a troubling pattern of behaviour. Sometimes she’d persuade me I had said things I didn’t remember saying. Other times she’d persuade me I’d imagined things she’d said. She would advise me on a practical problem – emphatically, in detail and with certainty, because she had a love of organisation – and I’d follow her guidance. Months later, she would express dismay at my choices and ask what had driven them. Over time my trust in my judgment eroded. If I was so very forgetful, I couldn’t rely on my own perceptions; I could barely feel them through a mental fog. She had the same effect on other people.

Within this fog, Julia said extreme things about people I knew – Cathy was mistreating a pet, Daniel was ripping off his mother, Pamela kept taking Julia’s belongings for use in a stalkerish shrine. I privileged Julia’s perception over my own, until I had distorted views of Cathy, Daniel and Pamela.

One day, the leopard ate my face. I learned Julia had been discussing my health with people. Under the pretext of concern, she’d claimed I had a range of illnesses, physical and mental, that I’ve never suffered from or matched criteria for. They included stigmatised conditions that people usually have strong reactions to. What she said was untrue. I asked a few of Julia’s other contacts if we could compare notes. We discovered Julia had set us against each other with a complicated web of falsehoods. Several relationships had broken down, extracting a painful toll from those involved.

The moment Julia realised we were on to her, she severed ties. She never explained her behaviour, nor could I tell whether she believed her own contradictory and false accounts in the moment of giving them. I have guesses, but I’m more interested in how the rest of us responded to her growing implausibility. As a rule, she was believed.

Anyone online these days is likely to have encountered the idea of gaslighting, or denying a shared reality, to manipulate someone into questioning their senses. The most effective gaslighters I’ve met also seemed more likely to be believed when they told common-or-garden lies, with one strategy supporting the other. After all, a gaslighter can isolate victims more effectively if their more basic lies are readily accepted by outsiders. Who the liar is – rather than what they’re saying – factors into their success, because humans are unfortunately prone to cognitive bias. Perceived credibility can be gendered and racialised. It’s also influenced by what psychologists call halo errors; we expect people to be truthful when we like them. Good looks, hospitality and generosity with compliments (at least to one’s face) are qualities that can buy undeserved leeway, without consciously being weighed in the balance.

Normal desire for connection can also muddy the waters. Take a situation such as friends sharing gossip. For the purposes of psychological research, gossip is often defined as unsubstantiated personal chat rather than as malicious activity per se. According to a recent review of evidence, “When and Why Does Gossip Increase Prosocial Behavior?”, led by Annika S Nieper of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, gossip can benefit your wider social group – provided the content is true. Anthropologists such as Robin Dunbar and Max Gluckman before him, have argued that gossip plays a part in forging social bonds. Sharing an inside scoop flatters the receiver because it implies trust, belonging or even, in whisper networks, the urge to protect. Such an exchange involves powerful feelings that serve a purpose when the whispers are accurate; but can be readily exploited by a liar. The flipside of heightened intimacy is lowered guards. Drama and mess can feel pleasurable, in a queasy way; it’s tempting to roll with a compelling story from a friend.

While I was writing my latest novel – a supernatural horror set in a 1920s hotel – I kept coming back to why we believe some people even as they make extraordinary, unsupportable claims. (Gothic fiction in general is littered with unreliable narrators, doubles and people not being quite what they seem.) The characters in my novel include a young woman who fakes clairvoyant visions to express socially unacceptable feelings, and a psychoanalyst who is skilled at “paltering”, or the use of factual statements to mislead. The ease with which the clairvoyant cons her audience inspires a little jealousy in the psychoanalyst, who bitterly comments that the audience must want to be deceived. In context, the line is meant to be an example of bad-faith victim-blaming. It’s also a stance that victims of deception can internalise; they may feel gullible to a fault once the lie comes to light, or even fear they had a vested interest in the ruse.

But rather than wanting to be deceived, there is a sadder explanation for extending the benefit of the doubt, at least in situations where warning signs can’t penetrate the fog. Freud wrote of disavowal: minimising a reality that we can’t tolerate. Some truths are painful and we protect ourselves from them by proceeding in a conflicted state of knowing and not-knowing. Julia was deeply familiar to me. I loved her, and valued the nurturing persona she cultivated. So, along with everyone else, I smiled at her exaggerations, while I pushed to the back of my mind her more disturbing capacity for damage. This is why, when I learned how she had misrepresented me, I felt something wordless I’d always known about her was finally in full view.

Being lied to can impair trust in several ways that outlast the original harm. First, and most obvious, is an ongoing suspicion that other people don’t mean what they say. This is both understandable and a distortion. Several studies show that telling one or two white lies a day is common, but the percentage of people who lie prolifically is estimated in single figures. Second, and more subtly, there is the disturbing knowledge that people in general, good people, struggle at lie detection. In a conflict, they cannot be relied upon to back an honest person over a liar. Third, you may lose confidence in your own judgment, and it has to be re-earned. The best course of action, it seems to me, is to attend to any sense of being divided against oneself. Confusing, wordless unease at the back of one’s mind should be pulled into the light as a matter of course.

A tricky balance must be struck between the kind of dignity my grandmother once showed – when telling a liar to sling his hook – and faith in humanity, because the desire not to be fooled again can go badly astray. There’s a comforting simplicity to viewing everyone sceptically: a liar won’t get through and no one else will, either. What helps me is knowing how very much better my life has been without Julia in it. Outside her influence, optimism is easier, which includes realising most people are honest – and deserve to be met as such.

 

The Guardian, UK

The 2023 general elections did not ensure a well-run transparent, and inclusive democratic process as assured by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) has said. 

The EU EOM noted that shortcomings in the law and electoral administration hindered the conduct of well-run and inclusive elections and damaged trust in INEC.

In its final report released on Tuesday in Abuja, the EU EOM said public confidence and trust in INEC were severely damaged during the presidential poll and were not restored in state-level elections, leading civil society to call for an independent audit of the entire process.

“The widely welcomed Electoral Act 2022 (the 2022 Act) introduced measures aimed at building stakeholder trust. However, the Act’s first test in a general election revealed crucial gaps in terms of INEC’s accountability and transparency, proved to be insufficiently elaborated, and lacked clear provisions for timely and efficient implementation.

“Weak points include a lack of INEC independent structures and capacities to enforce sanctions for electoral offences and breaches of campaign finance rules.

“Furthermore, the presidential selection of INEC leadership at the federal and state level leaves the electoral institution vulnerable to the perception of partiality. Closer to the polls some started to doubt INEC’s administrative and operational efficiency and in-house capacity. Public confidence gradually decreased and was severely damaged on 25 February due to its operational failures and lack of transparency.

“While some corrective measures introduced before the 18 March elections were effective, overall trust was not restored,” it said.

Addressing a press briefing in Abuja, Chief Observer, EU EOM, Barry Andrews, noted that his team carried out its work between 11 January and 11 April on the invitation of INEC.

The EU EOM offered 23 recommendations for consideration by the Nigerian authorities that would contribute to the improvement of future elections.

Andrews said: “We are particularly concerned about the need for reform in six areas which we have identified as priority recommendations, and we believe, if implemented, could contribute to improvements for the conduct of elections.”

The six priority recommendations point to the need to; remove ambiguities in the law; establish a publicly accountable selection process for INEC members; ensure real-time publication of and access to election results; provide greater protection for media practitioners; address discrimination against women in political life, and; impunity regarding electoral offenses.

Reacting, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, who spoke to journalists after the presentation said: “We are going to harmonise all the reports by international observers that have been presented and we are going to look at the reports holistically.

“From the report presented, the EU made mention of the fact that there have been significant improvements in our electoral process and there have been so many positives to this particular election.

“One of the positives is that we registered over 93 million Nigerians during this election. Not only that if you look at the reports submitted by international observers, in terms of voters accreditation, the BVAS performed optimally.”

Okoye, however, admitted that there were challenges, promising that recommendations from international observers would be worked on and implemented.

 

Daily Trust

Nigerian banks are heading for their best quarterly performance in six years as a return to more conventional economic policies and a sharp devaluationof the naira are expected to boost profits in the West African nation. 

Banking stocks are up 34% this quarter and headed for the best quarterly performance since 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The NGX10 index, which tracks the performance of the lenders on the Nigerian Exchange, is up 45% so far this year, extending its gain to 54% in the last 52 weeks. That compares with a 2.3% loss on the MSCI Emerging Markets Europe, Middle East and Africa Index over the same period. 

Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shows that the currency in circulation (CIC) reached a year high of N2.5 trillion in May 2023, up by 7.4% from N2.3 trillion in January 2023.

The CIC comprises the currency outside the banking system and the vault cash of banks.

According to the data, currency in circulation rose from N2.3 trillion to N2.5 trillion, the highest recorded in 2023, and since the Supreme Court reversed a CBN policy on new naira notes.

Meanwhile, currency outside banks also rose to N2.1 trillion in May from N2 trillion at the end of April 2023.

The spate of rise in currency in circulation suggests the country is gradually going back to trends recorded in 2022 when the currency in circulation grew month and month, climaxing to about N3.3 trillion in May 2022.

Between February when the currency in circulation was around N982 billion and May this year, it has risen by 50%, the fastest we have seen in recent years.

 

Daily Trust

Nigerian authorities have reported a new oil spill at a Shell facility in the Niger Delta, which they say has contaminated farmland and a river, disrupting livelihoods in fishing and farming communities.

The spill came from the Trans-Niger Pipeline operated by the British multinational oil and gas company, which runs through communities in the Eleme area of Ogoni land in Rivers State, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) told Associated Press.

It was detected on June 11 and lasted for more than a week before bursting into the Okulu River, which connects to other rivers and eventually empties into the Atlantic Ocean, according to the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria), an NGO that monitors spills in the Niger Delta.

Authorities in the West African country are investigating the cause of the spill in order to determine the volume of oil leaked, which is currently unknown.

The YEAC said a team comprising NOSDRA and local community representatives was at the site on Monday to gather information, analyze data, examine physical evidence, and determine the causes of the leak.

Shell has faced decades-long local pushback to its oil explorations in the Niger Delta, with numerous legal disputes regarding oil spills.

Earlier this year, more than 11,000 people and 17 institutions in Nigeria’s oil-producing state’s Ogale community sued the company for allegedly disrupting their livelihoods through pollution caused by spills.

The London-based energy giant attributes the majority of the spills to pipeline sabotage and illicit extraction of crude oil.

Climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, Thandile Chinyavanhu, said the recent spillage further damages Shell’s reputation in Africa’s largest economy.

“Shell must be held accountable and financially responsible for this spill and for its neocolonial role in causing climate loss and damage,” she said.

The oil company has “money to pay, after reporting $40 billion in profits last year,” Chinyavanhu added.

Last month, the UK Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by two Nigerians against two Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 offshore oil spill in which the claimants had argued that the consequences of the pollution constituted a “continuing nuisance.” The judges rejected the claimants’ submission, stating the leak “was a one-off event or an isolated escape.”

 

Russia Today

Despite the curfew imposed by Plateau State Government to curb insecurity in the Mangu Local Government Area, gunmen, on Monday, killed five persons during an attack on the Sohon Kerang community in the the local government area.

It was gathered that the suspects, after perpetrating the crime between 5pm and 8pm, fled into the bush.

It was learnt that the attack occurred after gunmen, in a similar manner, attacked neighbouring communities last week and reportedly killed several persons.

Speaking with our correspondent on Tuesday, a resident of the community, Joseph Kabir, said the slain victims included a yet-to-be-identified man and his wife, adding that all the victims were given a mass burial a day after the attack.

Kabir said, “I can confirm to you that five people including a man and his wife were killed by terrorists between 5pm to 8pm on Monday, June 26, 2023, in the Sohon Kerang community of the Kerang District, Mangu Local Government Area.

“We thought that with the declaration of curfew by the government, security agents will be able to stop the terrorists from killing innocent residents. But the gunmen came to the community which is behind the SWAN Water Company Limited located around 5pm and started firing gunshots which killed the victims.

“They escaped into the bush after carrying out their evil acts. It was this morning that the corpses of the victims were discovered by residents who have been thrown into mourning. The victims were given a mass burial this morning.”

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Alabo Alfred, had yet to make a statement regarding the attack as of the time of filing this report.

 

Punch