A picture released by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022. The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, raising suspicions of sabotage. Photo: AFP
More than four months after the explosion of Nord Stream pipelines, a shocking report by US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh released on Wednesday has once again ignited international public opinion. The report provides details of how the US intelligence agencies planned the sabotage under the order of US President Joe Biden and how the US Navy carried out the bombing with the cooperation of the Norwegian forces. After the report was published, Washington quickly denied it. But simply using the phrase "fake news" is obviously not convincing. The international community needs to keep asking Washington until it gives a convincing explanation.
The 85-year-old Hersh is a famous Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. More than 50 years ago, his report that exposed the US military's massacre of Vietnamese civilians significantly pushed the anti-war movement in the US. He was also behind the investigation of the notorious incident of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in 2003 and contributed to revealing the Watergate scandal, one of the most disgraceful political scandals in Washington's history. Hersh's latest report is not comparable to conspiracy theories in public opinion, nor are they something Washington can just gloss over.
To be honest, the suspicions about the US are not baseless, but the details that got exposed still send chills down one's spine. For example, the report claims that Washington had been secretly planning the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines since the end of 2021, long before the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And in more than nine months of debate, Washington focused not on whether to blow up the pipelines, but on how to leave no evidence behind. Therefore, the execution forces, time, place, and the way the explosion was carried out were all carefully planned. Even the most imaginative screenwriter in Hollywood would not dare to write such a plot. If what is reported in Hersh's article is true, then the world will probably have to reassess the US' capability to disrupt peace.
The explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines, one of the world's most important transnational energy supply infrastructures, was an extreme event in international politics. Under the fragile political mutual trust, the Nord Stream pipelines were once a main artery of energy connecting Western Europe and Russia, stabilizing the security situation by expanding common interests. Because of this, it has always been a "thorn in the eye" of Washington.
With the blast of the Nord Stream pipelines, the only remaining bridge to build common security in Europe was destroyed, which means that Western European countries have to choose to be deeply bound with the US at the crossroads of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Hersh also mentioned in his latest report that "Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia - while diminishing European reliance on America." This is one of the main reasons Washington decided to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines.
Attacking and destroying major civil infrastructure is a highly egregious act of terrorist nature and must not be tolerated. The international community has no dispute over this. After the explosion, many countries publicly condemned it, and the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also declared that sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines would be "in no-one's interest."
The Global Times then published an editorial, calling for relevant international agencies to set up a joint investigation team to restore the truth as soon as possible, find out the perpetrators, and let them be punished. But as expected, some countries are blocking such an international investigation, and more than four months have passed, with little progress made. Hersh's report now at least provides an important clue to the international investigation.
It is worth noting that the US mainstream media, which has always claimed to be "professional" and "independent," was selectively blind to Hersh's revelations or simply reported denials by the US government. Compared with their unanimously pointing their fingers at Russia after the explosion, this abnormal silence shows that American media agencies are very clear about when to be high-profile or low-key.
A large number of facts show that the US is the well-deserved leader in the "double standard arena." It is obsessed with and good at fabricating rumors or making groundless accusations against others. But it will never admit its own mistakes or even crimes, even if the evidence is solid. It will instead try to blame others. Public opinion predicts that the US government will most likely respond to Hersh's revelations in this way, which will leave another stain on its international credibility.
It is likely to become an event with the Rashomon effect in the 21st century for how the Nord Stream pipeline incident happened. But it does not mean that we should give up the pursuit of the truth, because it is not only about morality, responsibility, and conscience, but also about what kind of footnotes human beings will write for war and peace when looking back at this period of history in the future. This is very important.
US urged to explain Nord Stream blasts after Pulitzer winner's probe
A picture released by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022. The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, raising suspicions of sabotage. Photo: AFP
About five months after the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines which shocked the world, an article by veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has accused the US of being the culprit of the blasts.
Washington has denied the accusations without further explanation, but the article immediately prompted a fierce verbal confrontation between the US and Russia and making waves in geopolitics.
Given previous US behaviors, Chinese experts believe that the Hersh report is highly credible and Washington's denial cannot hinder Russia's determination to dig out more evidence from the report's value as a clue.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday urged the US to give an explanation over its role in 2022 explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. "The White House must now comment on all these facts," Zakharova said in a post on her Telegram page.
In response, White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said on Wednesday that the investigative article was "utterly false and complete fiction," and the CIA and Pentagon also dismissed the allegation with similar rhetoric, according to media reports.
Hersh, an 85-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, published the article on his personal website on Wednesday, stating the US military involvement of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines after senior White House officials' nine-month long plot inside the national security community.
Citing sources with direct knowledge of the plot, the article revealed many details of the operation: Explosives were planted by US Navy divers under the cover of the NATO maritime exercise; and a surveillance plane of NATO member Norway triggered the explosives on September 26, 2022 after US President Joe Biden greenlighted the operation.
Although there's no final verdict on who was responsible, the US, NATO, as well as investigators from Sweden and Denmark agreed it was "a result of sabotage."
Finding smoking gun
Some US media had blamed Russia as the likely culprit soon after the Nord Stream explosion in September 2022, but Hersh wrote that political elites from his country has more incentives to destroy the pipeline regarding their words prior to the incident.
On February 7, 2022, US President Joe Biden threatened that "if Russian tanks or troops cross the border of Ukraine, there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2."
At a press conference in September 2022 about the consequences of the worsening energy crisis in Western Europe, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested halting Nord Stream is a "tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy" and stop Russia from "weaponizing energy" for political purposes.
If Biden were an ordinary citizen, and a tube explosion had happened somewhere in the US after Biden made those threats, his words would have been interpreted by the US procurator as a strong motive, and Biden would bear legal liability,Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.
Hersh proved his credibility in his investigations on the 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians by US forces and US troops brutalizing Iraqi prisoners after the US invasion in 2003, which prompted Lü to believe in his latest investigation of the North Stream pipeline explosion.
"Even if it's not 100 percent accurate - exposure of such shady activity can hardly be 100 percent accurate - it's definitely not made up out of nowhere," Lü noted.
As of press time, US mainstream media including The New York Times and The Washington Post maintained silence on the matter, which is qualified to be top on a US newspaper's front page.
Lü suspected the consistent silence was a sound coordination between the US media and the US government, and the strategy is to deny it and wipe it from news portals even if their smoking gun was caught.
Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday that as the US had used washing powder to accuse Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction, it's a genius of playing dirty.
Hersh's courage should be praised, yet analysts expressed concerns about his safety.
It is obvious that the US benefited most from the destroyed pipelines. "If the US was behind the sabotage, definitely the Americans would have carefully planned how to destroy or hide the evidence and mislead the public," Li said.
Lü said that without an entity in legal sense to be in charge of such international disputes, it is almost impossible to establish a legal fact even if more evidence further support the point that the US was the culprit. But this investigative report will strengthen Russia's determination to dig out more evidence, he said.
Reactions to the blasts by some Western leaders also added to suspicion of US, including then British Prime Minister Liz Truss' texting "it's done" to Blinken and former Polish foreign minister's tweet "Thank you, USA."
In January 2023, Russia blamed that Sweden and Denmark, who were investigating holes in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, "have something to hide" and blocked Russia from engaging in the joint investigation.
"Whether or not the US is the culprit, Europe has acted too obedient. It is also tragic that as the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensifies, Europe has less and less room to bargain with US on security issues," Li said.
European politicians should reflect on whether blindly following the US would ultimately benefit Europe, or just the opposite, the expert said. He urged Europe to effectively strengthen autonomy. "Otherwise incidents like the Nord Steam pipeline blasts could happen again, and the price will again be paid by Europe, not the US."
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What are the US demands for Chinese government to accomplish in order for the US to list China as a friendly nation?
There are things American politicians will say and wrap them as highly noble, but are actually destructive and dangerous. Here are some examples you can hear from any “well intentioned” American politician.
Statement no.1: “We want China to become a fully democratic society with a vibrant political life.”Reality: “We want China to become a toxic, polarized and unstable society where even simple state decisions will be next to impossible to make because of corrupted political parties representing only their own interests, not the national ones. We’ll also be able to influence those parties through our “democracy development funds” and ensure that there’s always enough polarization to prevent any serious economic and infrastructure development.”
Statement no.2: “We want China to give Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and all provinces freedom of self determination and let them grow civil rights organizations and political parties that will promote new, democratic values.”Reality: “We want China to fall apart to many smaller regions and provinces that will be easy for us to control through advocating and financing organizations that promote separatism and anti-China policies - look, some people in HK and Taiwan already claim they’re not Chinese! If Islamic terrorism starts happening again in Xinjiang, we’ll call those terrorists fighters for freedom. If some rioters in Hong Kong burn cars, loot shops and attack anyone who speaks Mandarin, we’ll call them young fighters for democracy.”Statement no.3: “We want China to allow full media freedom”Reality: “We want China to allow our media companies to enter the market and promote destructive values through publishing lies or skewed facts that show that the government is the enemy of the people. We will promote the destruction of the current political and social system and then claim that we’re fighting for freedom and democracy. We will accuse everyone saying anything good about the current government even when it’s true to be an anti-democratic piece of scum. If the society in China implodes as a result this anti-national propaganda - pity, you cannot have democracy and freedom without victims”
Statement no.4: “We want China to open its economy to equal treatment of American businesses and investments”Reality: “We want China to sell all their valuable companies to us and let us enter the strategic national industries we would never allow Chinese companies enter in the US. The fact that many American companies do business in and with China is not good enough for us - we want to be able to own the strategic industries in China. At the same time, we’ll ensure that no Chinese companies buy anything truly valuable in the US under the guise of protecting the American national interests, which is a great trump (!) card no one will ever dispute.”
Statement no.5: “We want China to stop government subsidies and allow a fair market competition.”
Reality: “We want China to stop investing in development of industries that can compete with ours and just buy our products. Even then, if a Chinese company has any potential to succeed in the US, we will make sure that through corporate lobbying and merciless anti-China campaigns any chance of success is nipped at the bud. We’re all for free markets, but only when it works for our companies.”
Answer: Nothing can be done. The US at this moment wants to see China weak, poor and destroyed. A strong, developed China with a competitive economy and global Chinese brands is something the US will never accept.
"US-style democracy," which has long been used by the US as a weapon to instigate conflicts, has increasingly incurred alarm in
the world, while the banner of ideology can no longer hide the true color of hegemony, bullying and high-handedness.
Attendees of the talk and networking session for semiconductor industry players in Penang.
MALAYSIA’S role in the global semiconductor supply chain is invaluable as the country is one of the United States’ largest semiconductor trading partners.
Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) president and chief executive officer John Neuffer said Malaysia was also a leader in semiconductor assembly, test, and packaging.
“The Semiconductor Industry Association looks forward to continuing our work with our counterparts in Malaysia to ensure Malaysia and our industry can thrive, innovate, and realise an even brighter future built on semiconductors,” he said.
Speaking after the Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association (MSIA) and SIA talk and networking session with MSIA members in George Town, Neuffer said in the 1990s, “the US produced 37% of the world’s chips but today, it only generates 10%.”“The US has not kept pace with the rest of the world and it has seen chip manufacturing growth everywhere in the world except in the US.
“Chips are designed to make the US competitive and not to replace any country, not to decouple from the world but to be a competitive destination for investment along with countries like Malaysia and many others,” he said.
Neuffer noted that the long-term outlook for the semiconductor industry was still bright with the digital transformation of every industry with technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence and 5G.
“Everyone needs more and more chips with the advanced growth and development of technologies worldwide.
“The good news here is that the pie will be getting bigger and the pieces of the pie will also get bigger.
“The future of the industry is bright and the CHIPS Act 2022 is not expected to badly affect the industry’s growth especially in countries like Malaysia,” he said, although the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) forecast a decline of 4.1% in the industry this year due to inflation pressures and weaker demand.
The CHIPS Act prohibits funding recipients from expanding semiconductor manufacturing in China and countries defined by US law as posing a national security threat to the US.
MSIA president Datuk Seri Wong Siew Hai, when asked about the recent US semiconductor policy, said, “Although the situation will add another layer of uncertainty to the outlook for the semiconductor industry, there is a window of opportunity for South-East Asian countries especially Malaysia.
“There will be opportunities to capture investments, business opportunities and sales orders as Malaysia is quite broad based.
“In cases where US factories in China have to move, we hope the volume will eventually move out to Malaysia,” he said.Wong added that all E&E (Electrical and Electronics) companies, US companies, Chinese companies including Malaysian companies would be assessing the potential impact of the CHIPS Act and US exports control restrictions and how they could mitigate the impact.
Wong also urged the E&E industry and the Malaysian government to move quickly to seize these opportunities.
Despite Malaysia’s Electrical and Electronics (E&E) sector’s slower global growth, exports for 2022 was RM593bil, 30% higher than in 2021.
Malaysia continues to be an attractive location for E&E companies with 7% of the global market share and 13% global market share for semiconductor assembly, test and packing.
Malaysia has attracted E&E investments of RM186.2bil since January 2020 and some of the investments have started operations with more being operational this year and in 2024.
Neuffer and his team from SIA, which is the voice of the US Semiconductor Industry, were in Malaysia to meet with key relevant stakeholders including SIA member companies and those in the E&E community.
MSIA is an industry association which covers individuals and companies incorporated in Malaysia who are involved directly or related to semiconductor industry (electronics and systems), semiconductor industry supply chain, institutions providing significant related services to semiconductor industry such as engineering, finance, legal and those societies, associations, chambers and government-linked agencies.
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FILE PHOTO-OpenAI and ChatGPT logos are seen in this illustration taken, February 3, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
THE two investment obsessions of the year so far – artificial intelligence (AI) and super-tight labour markets – meet head on.
If the hype about the former is to be believed, concern about the inflationary impact of the latter should be well wide of the mark. If only they were so perfectly aligned.
Timing is everything of course. The speed with which ChatGPT-style AI tools zap swathes of white-collar desk jobs could be more glacial than any Big Tech rah-rah suggests – and at least slower than the 12-18 months of the Federal Reserve’s current policy horizon.
But two reasonable questions are being asked around investment houses.
Does the wave of layoffs in the digital and banking worlds this year relate directly to the presumed quantum leap in so-called generative AI – just as pandemic-related overstaffing and more recent job hoarding is being pared back?
And if it does, should policymakers relax more about what could be temporary worker shortages in the service sector, where most of the wage and inflation concerns seem to centre?
Far from relaxing, should office or home-based workers now fret that we’re in for anything but a tight jobs market over the coming years?
More questions than answers perhaps – but enough to have investment strategists thinking laterally and joining dots.
Morgan Stanley’s thematic research team said last week it was inundated with enquiries about generative AI during its recent client visits.
And while investment fads come and go, they said, this one is “worth considering seriously” given the speed of take-up and its diffusion across many industries.
Aside from stock price and valuation frenzies, the team said a new wave of AI fed the debate about white-collar industry disruption in a “creative destruction moment” – with possible side benefits from reskilling workers to better wage diffusion.
Citing numbers indicating employment in business, knowledge, customer and developer outsourcing in excess of 100 million across Asia alone, Morgan Stanley said the impact was already being felt even if the jury was still out on “the degree to which it is deflationary or productivity enhancing.”
If this generative AI takes the tech transformation to non-routine office work that it largely skirted over the last decade, it will affect tens of millions more jobs than currently assumed.
The two sides of the theoretical debate at least are whether that then leads to mass unemployment and demand problems – requiring a reconsideration of things like universal basic income to support economies – or whether productivity gains lift wages and see workers simply choosing to work ever fewer hours over time as bots take their place.
London-based Fathom Consulting last Thursday concluded that a “fourth industrial revolution powered by AI could greatly affect the demand for and supply of labour” and the United States and China were bound to vie for leadership.
“The speed and impact of this change will be profoundly disruptive for global politics and for the structure of the labour market,” economists Erik Britton and Andrew Harris wrote, adding that the United States needed to keep investing in tech that both supports and replaces labour in order to retain its edge.
But just what is the scale of the likely disruption?
A frequently cited study by business consultant McKinsey from 2017 showed 60% of occupations worldwide have at least 30% of work activities that could be automated – even though automation may well create more jobs in tandem.
That tallies with numbers from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which reckoned 10% to 15% of jobs will be lost due to tech changes over the next 20 years – but about as many may be created in other industries.
While varying hugely among the 46 countries it examined, the McKinsey study said up to 30% of activities could be displaced by 2030 – with advanced and ageing economies more likely to move faster given higher wages and incentives.
More recent polling from McKinsey last year showed companies saying at least a quarter of their tasks could be automated over the next five years but less than a fifth of respondents reckoned their firms were yet in a position to do that.
And that observation underlines the timing of all this in terms of years. How soon do tech revolutions change the world – and at least aggregate demand or supply for workers?
As the flub by Alphabet’s chatbot Bard illustrated in spectacular fashion this week, the big problem for the latest wave of emerging AI is still one of accuracy.
“While ChatGPT’s output is credible, accuracy is its Achilles’ Heel,” Morgan Stanley’s team wrote. “Manual validation should act as a breakwater to this employment threat for now.”
If creases take years to iron out, perhaps it’s not so useful to see the craze providing a timely offset to tight labour markets and wage inflation.
There’s even a chance the trepidation may exaggerate the prevailing conundrum and cause as many problems as the reality.
In a discussion paper published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research last month, economists Marta Golin and Christopher Rauh said their work found a “strong relationship” between worry about automation and intentions to join a union, retrain or switch occupations, preference for taxation and government handouts, populist attitudes and voting intentions.
Much like the pandemic, fear of automation could have as big an economic impact as its actual spread. — Reuters
Mike Dolan is a columnist for Reuters. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
To assist companies in charting effective talent management strategies, LinkedIn, Shahul, Yee and edotco Group chief people officer Ramon Chelva will share insights in a panel on Feb 21, 2023.
Information and registration here: https://events.thestar.com.my/event/the-talent-magnet-how-to-build-a-thriving-workforce/
ChatGPT may have blown away many who have asked questions of it, but scientists are far less enthusiastic. Lacking data privacy, wrong information and an apparent built-in racism are just a few of the concerns some experts have with the latest 'breakthrough' in AI. — Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa
BERLIN: ChatGPT may have blown away many who have asked questions of it, but scientists are far less enthusiastic. Lacking data privacy, wrong information and an apparent built-in racism are just a few of the concerns some experts have with the latest 'breakthrough' in AI.
With great precision, it can create speeches and tell stories – and in just a matter of seconds. The AI software ChatGPT introduced late last year by the US company OpenAI is arguably today's number-one worldwide IT topic.
But the language bot, into which untold masses of data have been fed, is not only an object of amazement, but also some scepticism.
Scientists and AI experts have been taking a close look at ChatGPT, and have begun issuing warnings about major issues – data protection, data security flaws, hate speech, fake news.
"At the moment, there's all this hype," commented Ruth Stock-Homburg, founder of Germany's Leap in Time Lab research centre and a Darmstadt Technical University business administration professor. "I have the feeling that this system is scarcely being looked at critically."
"You can manipulate this system"
ChatGPT has a very broad range of applications. In a kind of chat field a user can, among others, ask it questions and receive answers. Task assignments are also possible – for example on the basis of some fundamental information ChatGPT can write a letter or even an essay.
In a project conducted together with the Darmstadt Technical University, the Leap in Time Lab spent seven weeks sending thousands of queries to the system to ferret out any possible weak points. "You can manipulate this system," Stock-Homburg says.
In a recent presentation, doctoral candidate and AI language expert Sven Schultze highlighted the weak points of the text bot. Alongside a penchant for racist expressions, it has an approach to sourcing information that is either erroneous or non-existent, Schultze says. A question posed about climate change produced a link to an internet page about diabetes.
"As a general rule the case is that the sources and/or the scientific studies do not even exist," he said. The software is based on data from the year 2021. Accordingly, it identifies world leaders from then and does not know about the war in Ukraine.
"It can then also happen that it simply lies or, for very specialised topics, invents information," Schultze said.
Sources are not simple to trace
He noted for example that with direct questions containing criminal content there do exist security instructions and mechanisms. "But with a few tricks you can circumvent the AI and security instructions," Schultze said.
With another approach, you can get the software to show how to generate fraudulent emails. It will also immediately explain three ways that scammers use the so-called "grandchild trick" on older people.
ChatGPT also can provide a how-to for breaking into a home, with the helpful advice that if you bump into the owner you can use weapons or physical force on them.
Ute Schmid, Chair of Cognitive Systems at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg, says that above all the challenge is that we can't find out how the AI reaches its conclusions. "A deeper problem with the GPT3 model lies in the fact that it is not possible to trace when and how which sources made their way into the respective statements," she said.
Despite such grave shortcomings, Schmidt still argues that the focus should not just concern the mistakes or possible misuse of the new system, the latter prospect being students having their homework or research papers written by the software. "Rather, I think that we should ask ourselves, what chances are presented us with such AI systems?"
Researchers in general advocate how AI can expand – possibly even promote – our competencies, and not limit them. "This means that in the area of education I must also ask myself – as perhaps was the case 30 years ago with pocket calculators – how can I shape education with AI systems like ChatGPT?"
Data privacy concerns
All the same, concerns remain about data security and protecting data. "What can be said is that ChatGPT takes in a variety of data from the user, stores and processes it and then at a given time trains this model accordingly," says Christian Holthaus, a certified data protection expert in Frankfurt. The problem is that all the servers are located in the United States.
"This is the actual problem – if you do not succeed in establishing this technology in Europe, or to have your own," Holthaus said. In the foreseeable future there will be no data protection-compliant solution. Adds Stock-Homburg about European Union data protection regulations: "This system here is regarded as rather critical."
ChatGPT was developed by OpenAI, one of the leading AI firms in the US. Software giant Microsoft invested US$1bil (RM4.25bil) in the company back in 2019 and recently announced plans to pump further billions into it. The concern aims to make ChatGPT available to users of its own cloud service Azure and the Microsoft Office package.
"Still an immature system"
Stock-Homburg says that at the moment ChatGPT is more for private users to toy around with – and by no means something for the business sector or security-relevant areas. "We have no idea how we should be deal with this as yet still immature system," she said.
Oliver Brock, Professor of Robotics and Biology Laboratory at the Technical University Berlin, sees no "breakthrough" yet in AI research. Firstly, development of AI does not go by leaps and bounds, but is a continuing process. Secondly, the project only represents a small part of AI research.
But ChatGPT might be regarded as a breakthrough in another area – the interface between humans and the internet. "The way in which, with a great deal of computing effort, these huge amounts of data from the internet are made accessible to a broad public intuitively and in natural language can be called a breakthrough," says Brock. – dpa
