Monthly Archives: March 2020

Europe’s Defense Debate Is All About America – War on the Rocks

Posted: March 5, 2020 at 6:47 pm

Last year, when French president Emmanuel Macron declared in an interview with the Economist that NATO was brain dead, he caused a stir throughout Europe. Official European reactions came quickly, and they were negative across the continent. NATOs Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, any attempt to distance Europe from North America will not only weaken the trans-Atlantic alliance, it is also risking dividing Europe itself. European unity cannot replace trans-Atlantic unity. German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that she could not support Macron, and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki went as far as to qualify Macrons statements as dangerous. Rather than hearing the French wake-up call, the rest of Europe rallied around the NATO flag. Instead of advancing the European debate and generating support for greater European defense efforts as Macron probably hoped to do, his statements apparently had the opposite effect. Allies eventually decided to bury the controversy in a reflection-group process, following a German proposal. Macron recently repeated his call for a stronger Europe at the Munich Security Conference, causing less irritated reactions yet this event should not be seen as representative of the European debate. A large number of Europeans remain skeptical of Macrons vision of a less dependent Europe.

In times of increasing European doubts about the transatlantic link and in light of the massive problems European defense is facing, this can seem surprising. Three years into the administration of President Donald Trump, and with a good chance that Trump might be reelected in 2020, most Europeans understand very well that the transatlantic relationship is in a bad state. Westlessness, a sense of loss of purpose for the West, was the main theme of this years Munich Security Conference. Europeans are also increasingly aware that the rise of China will have a long-term impact on Euro-Atlantic security relations. For example, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commissions new president, announced that she wants her commission to be geopolitical in light of a world characterized by great-power competition. Yet openly saying that Europeans must stop relying almost exclusively on the United States for their defense remains something of a taboo. Breaking it triggers the reactions Macron experienced. Another reason for the pushback against Macrons comments is that in many Europeans eyes, France, its military strength notwithstanding, is probably the least credible leader on the issue of European defense unity given its own Gaullist legacy.

The key point to understand about the European defense debate is therefore that it is all about the United States at least indirectly. For the vast majority of Europeans, their attitude toward the United States and thus NATO determines their attitude toward European defense cooperation, not the other way around. Likewise, in times of growing transatlantic uncertainties, expectations about what the United States will do are what determines Europeans willingness to even think about a possible plan B.

The Link Between Attitudes on the United States and European Cooperation

That European attitudes toward the United States determine attitudes toward European defense cooperation is linked to threat perception. Threat perception varies widely across Europe, in both the nature and the intensity of threats perceived. In a nutshell, the debate is about threats from the south (failed states, terrorism) and threats from the east (Russia). Historical legacies obviously matter in countries threat perceptions, as does geography. A countrys defense priorities then inform its perceived and actual dependence on the United States. For the Atlanticists among the Europeans, this is thus not simply about blind followership no matter what Washington does or says. It is ultimately about ensuring the nations survival. Hence the United States as the independent variable and the fear to engage in any kind of activity that might alienate Washington.

That attitudes vis--vis the United States are the determining factor thus applies to the United Kingdom and Germany as well as other traditional Atlanticists such as the Netherlands. The rule of thumb holds even more true for the so-called Eastern flank countries, that is the Baltic states, the Nordic states, Poland, or Romania. The equation is simple: Without the Americans, they are helpless in facing their main threat, Russia. The greater the fear of Moscow, the stronger the respective capital clings to the United States. What Atlanticist countries are interested in today is effective deterrence against Russia. In their certainly accurate view, nobody else can provide credible deterrence but the Americans. Therefore, the transatlantic security link remains the only game in town: this means NATO, as well as all the bilateral U.S. engagement in European security, including with non-NATO countries Finland and Sweden. Any European type of defense cooperation, such as the European Unions Common Security and Defense Policy, is consequently relegated to second place: a nice-to-have, which must not negatively affect NATO. Real defense is about Russia, together with the United States, as there is simply no viable alternative to Washington.

French Exceptionalism

The major exception to that rule is France. Frances attitude vis--vis the United States traditionally derives from Paris own priorities. With its own (exclusively national) nuclear deterrent and a self-image as a capable military actor with global reach, France just does not consider its own survival to be linked to U.S. engagement in European security. In terms of defense, the French key priority is fighting terrorism in the global south, in particular in Africa. In these endeavors, France cooperates very closely with the United States and has tried hard to convince the United States to not abandon it in West Africa. (With some success: In late January, U.S. Defense Secretary Marc Esper announced that the United States would not completely withdraw forces from the region.) Yet, close transatlantic security ties are simply not as vital for France as they are for other European countries. Replacing the United States as a partner in the Sahel is obviously hard to do, but not impossible in particular if Europeans join forces. The traditional Russian threat to European security is, in turn, not very high on Frances agenda, nor is conventional deterrence against Moscow and that is the Eastern flanks key preoccupation. Thus Frances engagement in NATOs Enhanced Forward Presence in the Baltics is in reality better understood as Paris securing, for instance, Estonias support for expeditionary operations in the Sahel. For France, that is what real defense is about.

Replacing the United States is not on Frances agenda. Yet, Paris apparently fails to understand the fears that lead many Europeans to bet so heavily on the United States. As seen from Paris, and given French defense priorities, the United States is less difficult to replace than as seen from Warsaw. Moreover, France simply does not seem to understand that anything emanating from Paris is seen against the backdrop of several decades of Gaullist legacies, of which Macrons Economist interview is the latest example. That many perceive Macron as pursuing a Gaullist agenda certainly does not help Paris cause precisely because it is viewed as Frances cause rather than Europes.

Whats the Right Dose of U.S. Engagement?

That Europes defense debate is all about America is nothing new. How much America is the right amount? This argument goes back to the creation of NATO. Among the stranger aspects of this debate is that many Europeans approached it as if the degree of U.S. engagement were decided in Paris or London rather than in Washington. It was in any case fears of weakening NATO that made Britain oppose defense becoming an area of European integration, an attitude that only evolved to some degree during the late 1990s. An early illustration of Americas centrality is also the preamble the Germans added to the 1963 Franco-German Elyse Treaty. This preamble, which stressed Germanys interest in a larger European community including the United Kingdom and close ties with the United States, infuriated de Gaulle, and to this day, France and Germany are not on the same page when it comes to their Atlantic preferences.

After the Cold War, the debate continued to pit the proponents of a Europe of Defense (that is: France) against the Atlanticists with the latter camp growing with each round of E.U. and NATO enlargement. Europeans continued to debate how much of America they wanted in their defense. One explanation for Frances return to NATO in 2009 is thus Paris realization that such a Europe of Defense is unlikely to see the light of day, as former French foreign minister Hubert Vdrine writes in his 2012 official assessment. In sum, in all these debates, France traditionally stood, and continues to stand, on the other side of the European mainstream. At least in its modern version, this has yet little to do with anti-Americanism, but rather with the divergent priorities outlined above.

Does Europe Need a Plan B?

The European debates of the 1990s, such as on the European Security and Defense Identity or the traditional French take on lEurope de la defense, were mainly academic in nature. After the demise of the Soviet Union, or so many Europeans thought, defense had become a sort of nice to have. Many European countries preferred to take advantage of the peace dividend, notably those in Western Europe. This changed with Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea. NATO found a new raison dtre and is again considered the security linchpin in the vast majority of European capitals. But the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president led to questions of whether the United States would still be the partner the Europeans needed. After all, Trump had inter alia claimed the Atlantic alliance was obsolete, and NATO summits are nowadays considered diplomatic nightmares in numerous European capitals. Europeans seem to finally understood that the degree of U.S. implication will be decided in Washington, rather than in Paris or Warsaw. Thinking about a plan B consequently would appear a sensible thing to do.

The result is essentially the debate on European strategic autonomy. In this current version of the European defense debate, fault lines once again run exactly along the lines described above. Threat perception determines the degree of dependence on the United States, which in turn determines attitudes toward European defense efforts. France is thus the self-proclaimed leader on European strategic autonomy. The Atlanticists on the Eastern flank, in turn, are most skeptical of any attempt at building a European defense. Then-Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydo for instance declared that the so-called strategic autonomy of the EU [must] not lead to weakening of [the] European contribution to [the] deterrence and defence potential of NATO. Some even went as far as to argue long before the French presidents Economist interview that Macrons visions are suicidal for Poland. More nuanced academic assessments also come to the conclusion that the United States is simply irreplaceable in European security, identifying a strategic autonomy dilemma based on the need to preserve Washingtons engagement.

In short: yet again, this is all about America. Really strengthening European defense efforts indeed is plan B to many, and only of interest if plan A NATO backed by the United States is not available. Whether plan A is really off the table is hotly debated. The lack of a European consensus on the need for a plan B stems from divergent analyses of the transatlantic links future trajectory. In the French discourse and debate, the progressive and unavoidable disengagement of the United States from Europe is considered a given. Mounting frustration about not getting the message across may thus partly explain Macrons harsh words on NATO. In Germany, despite Merkels statement that Europe needs to take its fate in its own hands, hopes still seem high that transatlantic relations will go back to normal after Trump. In many Eastern flank countries, the standard argument is that Trump actually increased funding for the European Deterrence Initiative and that there consequently is no need to worry. Other items regularly mentioned by Poles or Swedes (as well as Americans meaning to reassure the Europeans) as proof of the United States commitment to European security are various polls and references to support for NATO in the U.S. Congress. Psychology certainly plays into it: On all sides, the analysis seems to magically yield the preferred result.

Answering the Key Question

In light of these divergent assessments, it is no wonder there is no consensus on the conclusions to draw for European defense and the need for a plan B. The main reason why Macrons wake-up call is unlikely to work is indeed that the key question remains unanswered: What will be the United States future engagement in European security? With America being the independent variable for a majority of European capitals and European defense cooperation the dependent one Paris ultimately lacks influence on their positions. A European debate based on what France wants (and its subsequent rejection by the Atlanticist camp) will lead nowhere. All Paris can do is find partners for projects even Atlanticist capitals consider nice-to-haves (and that do no harm to NATO), such as the French European Intervention Initiative. At the end of the day, this is the reality of European defense cooperation as of 2020. Macrons offer to start a strategic dialogue on the role of nuclear deterrence in European security made during his long-expected speech on nuclear deterrence on February 7 is unlikely to fundamentally change any of this. Europes key defense problems cannot be solved by nuclear means. Europes main defense challenge is conventional, boiling down to the question What if the tripwire in the Baltics fails?

Ultimately, only the answer to the question of future U.S. engagement in European security can provide the necessary impetus for European defense cooperation to really become an alternative to NATO and provide most Europeans with a reason to strive for that objective. Absent a unified European analysis, nobody but Washington can provide that answer either together with the Europeans or through unilateral acts and faits accomplis.

In an ideal world, Europeans would therefore engage in a constructive dialogue with Washington on the United States future engagement in European security. As Ronja Kempin and I have argued earlier in these pages, it is in Americas interest to have a Europe with strategic autonomy. A stronger European defense would lead to better burden-sharing, thereby strengthening the transatlantic link rather than weakening it, as its detractors would have it. This would in essence mean leaving the zero-sum logic that more Europe means less NATO behind. Unfortunately, this again seems to be the predominant view in Washington, most recently expressed in an official letter sent to the European Union.

Yet if the United States wants capable European partners in a 21st century that will be characterized by multipolarity and great-power competition, it must change its mind on Europes strategic autonomy. Attaining that autonomy is of course a matter for the Europeans, which requires European leadership. Germany has a key role to play in that respect. Yet the fear of alienating Washington many Europeans hold constitutes the major roadblock in attaining that objective, or even starting to think about operationalizing it. Answering the question that is, implicitly or explicitly, underlying the entire European defense debate is perhaps the greatest service the United States can do their European allies in the multipolar and potentially post-Atlantic era.

Dr. Barbara Kunz is a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg. She specializes in European and transatlantic security, with a special focus on Franco-German cooperation and the Nordics.

Image: The Kremlin

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Europe's Defense Debate Is All About America - War on the Rocks

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Schiff says Democrats are negotiating to include more privacy protections in key surveillance bill | TheHill – The Hill

Posted: at 6:46 pm

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam SchiffAdam Bennett SchiffDems unlikely to subpoena Bolton Trump tells Republicans he won't extend surveillance law without FISA reforms Hillicon Valley: Democrats in talks to bridge surveillance divide | DHS confident in Super Tuesday election security | State pledges M cyber help to Ukraine | Facebook skipping SXSW amid coronavirus MORE (D-Calif.) says Democrats are making progressin their negotiationsover the reauthorization of a key surveillance bill, stating Tuesday that they areworking to includemore privacy protections.

Intraparty rifts have emerged in recent weeks as some progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans push toinclude additionalprivacy protection amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), while others argue that a clean reauthorization billhas a better chance of making it through the Senate.

Schiffsays he and his staffhave been working the House Judiciary Committee as well as Reps. Zoe LofgrenZoe Ellen LofgrenTrump tells Republicans he won't extend surveillance law without FISA reforms Hillicon Valley: Democrats in talks to bridge surveillance divide | DHS confident in Super Tuesday election security | State pledges M cyber help to Ukraine | Facebook skipping SXSW amid coronavirus Schiff says Democrats are negotiating to include more privacy protections in key surveillance bill MORE (Calif.) and Pramila JayapalPramila JayapalBiden surge calms Democratic jitters House passes .3 billion measure to fight coronavirus Trump tells Republicans he won't extend surveillance law without FISA reforms MORE (Wash.) twoJudiciary Democrats who have pushed for more protections inan effort to get the bill passed by March 15. That's the deadline to extend three expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Actthattouch onroving wiretaps, lone wolf surveillance and a controversial program that allows the U.S. government to request access to phone metadata.

"We're trying to find as much common ground as we can," Schiff told The Hill. "We are trying to incorporate even more privacy protections in the hopes that we can get to an agreement in a timely way."

Schiff said some of Lofgren's amendments are being considered, including an amicus provision that would add an outside advocate for every FISA case in which an American is targetedas well asmake it illegal for the government to collect a U.S. citizens metadata.

"We're looking atexpanding the amicus provisions. We are lookingat limiting the period of attention to business records, what the business records provision can be used for,making sure thatyou can't use the business records to get things you would need a court order for in the criminal context,limiting the use of geolocation data or their usage oflocation information," Schiff said.

House Democrats last week were forced to pull their bill in the Judiciary Committeeand postpone a markup afterLofgrenthreatened to force votes on several FISA-related amendments. So far, a new markup has not been announced.

Schiff indicated an understanding has been reached on the issue of metadata butsaid they are still figuring out other issues like the amicus provisions.

"We're trying to figure out what's the capacity of the amicus but also how toweed out those cases that are truly routine that don't present any novel issues, making sure that that's a real distinction," he said.

He said one area of disagreement is whether some provisions could overly constrain the gathering of intelligence.

"Part of the issue is whether we use the FISAprocess to impose constraints that are not even present in the criminal law process, and that is a philosophical difference that may be driving some of the division on particular provisions," he said.

Jayapal, when asked about the state of negotiations, also saidthere'smore work to be done.

"So far, we are just not there, but we are continuing to talk and hope to see new proposals that address the areas we have raised," Jayapal said, adding that she too hopes to reauthorize by the deadline.

The debate has also engulfed Republicans, with GOP members clashing as well on whether they should have a clean reauthorization bill or overhaul it to include new protections.

Libertarian Republicanssuch as Sens.Rand Paul(R-Ky.) andMike Lee(R-Utah) arepushing forsweeping reforms.

Still, most Republicans are also pushing for additional protections, pointing tothe use of a wiretap on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page during the 2016 election.

Federal officials suspected Page of working as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia during the 2016 presidential election, particularly after he made a trip to the Kremlin in July of that year when questions were already swirling about the campaigns ties to Moscow.

They say the extensive review of the 2016 FISA process by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz aids their case. While he did not find evidence to suggest political bias impacted the FBIs decision to open the counterintelligence probe and concluded that the FBI had an authorized purpose for the inquiry, he did find17 significant errors or omissions in the surveillance warrant applications for Page, dating back to 2016.

Trump is also involved.He is expected to meet with key Republican allies in the House and Senate Tuesday afternoon to discuss the matter.It is unclear where Trump will stand onit.

Rep. Chris StewartChristopher (Chris) Douglas StewartSchiff says Democrats are negotiating to include more privacy protections in key surveillance bill Trump shakes up Justice Department, intelligence community John Ratcliffe back under consideration by Trump for top intel job MORE (R-Utah), a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, also said he wants to outside advocatesas well as a transcriptof the court proceedings. If Democrats include such provisions, among a few others, then he believes Republican will also support the bill.

"The question is, will the White House support it? I think we'll know later on this afternoon," Stewart added.

Trumphas told congressional allies that he will not accept a clean reauthorization bill, as Attorney GeneralWilliam Barrand GOP leadership are said to support a position that is at odds with what Barr is said to have told senatorsearlier this month.

As the debate continues, some senatorshave stated their supportfora short-term extension to iron out the rest of the differences.

Schiff, meanwhile,indicated that he believes some Republicans are taking their push too far.

"We're open to any general policy proposals for reform. We are not open for politicizing this or using the bill to make partisan statements, and that's sort of where many Republicans are at the moment,"Schiff said.

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Senate passes $8.3 billion coronavirus bill, sending it to Trump | TheHill – The Hill

Posted: at 6:46 pm

The Senate on Thursday easily passed more than $8 billion in funding to fight the coronavirus, sending the measure to President TrumpDonald John TrumpAs Biden surges, GOP Ukraine probe moves to the forefront Republicans, rooting for Sanders, see Biden wins as setback Trump says Biden Ukraine dealings will be a 'major' campaign issue MORE, who is expected to sign it.

Senatorsvoted 96-1on the bill, which was finalized and cleared the House the day before.

The bill provides $7.76 billion to agencies combating the coronavirus. It also authorizes another $500 million in waivers for Medicare telehealth restrictions, bringing the total figure greenlighted under the bill up to $8.3 billion.

Included within that is $2.2 billion to help federal, state and local public health agencies prepare for and respond to the coronavirus, including funds for lab testing, infection control and tracing individuals who might have had contact with infected people.

The Senate's passage caps off a weeks-longsprint to get emergency funding through Congress amid growing concerns about a widespread outbreak within the United States.

There have been 99 U.S. cases spread among 13 states, and 10 people have died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Trump administration sent its emergency request to Congress on Feb. 24, less than two weeks ago. The initial $2.5 billion amount, only half of which would have been new funding, was criticized by Democrats and some Republicans as being too low.

By late last week, the bipartisan group negotiating the deal were looking at between $6 billion and $8 billion, sources told The Hill. By Monday that had climbed to $7.5 billon, and the final figure ended up being slightly higher.

But talks appeared stuck as late as Wednesday morning over the issue of vaccine affordability.

Democrats had pushed for language in the bill that would require any coronavirus vaccines or treatments developed by private companies with federal funding to be priced affordably. But Republicans had argued that could discourage drug companies from investing in potential cures and vaccines.

A source told The Hill that there was also discussion at a leadership level about ensuring Medicare would fully cover copay for a vaccine, but the idea was rejected by Republicans. Government health care experts have said a vaccine is a year to 18 months away.

The bill does state that the Health and Human Services secretary may take measures to assure those products are affordable.

Democrats also touted the inclusion of $300 million for purchasing vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. A House Democratic aide said the carveout would help ensure that "when a vaccine is developed, Americans can receive it regardless of their ability to pay."

The bill did face one final hurdle on Thursday in the form of Sen. Rand PaulRandal (Rand) Howard PaulAs Biden surges, GOP Ukraine probe moves to the forefront Republicans, rooting for Sanders, see Biden wins as setback Trump tells Republicans he won't extend surveillance law without FISA reforms MORE (R-Ky.). The libertarian-minded GOP senator wanted to use money from foreign aid accounts to offset the billions in coronavirus spending, but senators easily set aside his amendment. Paul was the lone senator to vote against the final measure Thursday.

"I think that we should not let fear or urgency causeus to lose our minds," Paul said ahead of the vote, "and causeus to act in an irresponsible fashion."

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Civility and pleas to be heard mark debate among 18 marginal candidates – The Fulcrum

Posted: at 6:46 pm

Griffiths is a contributing writer.

While the Democratic contest was quickly condensing into a two-man race, 18 minimally known presidential aspirants were convening for a sprawling discussion on Wednesday.

Though billed as a debate among independents, organizers said the gathering was really more an intervention on a broken system a moment to give candidates on the margins an opportunity to rail against the Republican and Democratic duopoly, and to show how rivals can discuss policies more civilly than the polarized shouting that marks so much political discourse.

"One thing that's clear is that the political system we have right now is not serving us well. Worst of all, it doesn't even allow for straightforward solutions to be part of the conversation. That's why we're creating this platform for a new national dialogue," said Christina Tobin, who created the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, which staged the livestreamed event at a hotel in downtown Chicago.

To create a more comprehensive discussion and a more thoughtful tone, where sound bites were not necessary for candidates unspooling views that stretched across the ideological spectrum, Tobin moderated a pair of debates among nine candidates each both of them lasting three and a half hours.

"There's a large and growing political reform wave that is slowly but surely winning transformational changes at the local level, but you wouldn't know it from listening to the mainstream political coverage. It's past time for democracy itself to be part of the national conversation," said Eli Beckerman, founder of Open The Debates, the debate's co-host.

Though the debate included topics that ranged from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to mandatory vaccinations, the conversation largely focused on political reform and the obstacles third-party and independent candidates face nationwide -- starting with the fall presidential debates.

"Democrats and Republicans will stop at nothing to squash any other voice from being heard," said Libertarian Jo Jorgensen. "It's how they stay in power. What most Americans don't realize is that the debate commission is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican and Democratic parties."

While venting frustration at rules that restrict access to the nationally televised debates, candidates also deliberated the finer points of an array of other proposals for making the political process more democratic and representative of the national will: ranked-choice voting, the rival alternative called approval voting, efforts to make it easier for partisan outsiders to get on the ballot, public financing of campaigns, regulating money in politics and various plans for altering the rules of the Electoral College.

"Our country is in crisis. But it's not the first time we've ever been in crisis. I've spent my career teaching American history. And every time that we have a period of crisis we also have a period of creativity, where lots of new ideas pop up, and many of those ideas pop up from third parties," said American Solidarity Party nominee Brian Carroll.

"I think we need more transparency in our current system first, and more options to be used at the local level. We need to really think this through," Libertarian Erik Gerhardt said in urging a go-slow approach to a nationwide refashioning of the election system,.

The debate was notable for how infrequently the candidates talked beyond their two-minute limits, interrupted one another, spoke out of turn or made a disparaging comment about somebody else on stage.

Organizers made an effort to exclude dozens of people who say they're running for president on the true margins of reality. More than two-dozen people qualified for an invitation because they are seeking the nominations of one of the five parties that have primaries and are on the ballot in at least two states Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green and Constitution or are independents running the bureaucratic traps to get on the ballots of at least two states.

The candidates with hope of gaining some traction for their cause often point to a recent USA Today survey in which 65 percent said they support "making it easier for third-party and independent candidates to run for office."

Independent Mark Charles, a member of the Navajo Nation, said he thought the event provided "a dialogue that our nation's simplistic two-party system does not know how to have."

Tobin said she hopes the event is the beginning of a tour of open presidential debates that are inclusive and focused on solutions. FEEF has not announced when or where a second event might take place.

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Plenty of contested races on the ballot this year – Norfolk Daily News

Posted: at 6:46 pm

The field is set for May as the deadline to file for elected office passed Monday night, and there will be contested races all throughout the ballot.

Two city council seats in Norfolk will be challenged by multiple candidates.

In the first ward, three candidates will compete for the seat held by Dick Pfeil, who is not seeking reelection. Those three are Christopher L. Moore, Juan E. Sandoval and Kory Hildebrand. In the second ward, four candidates have filed for Jim Langes seat: Frank Arens, Bill Hattery, Carl Weiland and Randy Dee. The top two vote-getters in each ward in May will advance to the general election in November.

At least two candidates will advance to the general election in the race for Madison County commissioner. Republicans Eric Stinson and Chris Thompson will compete in their partys primary, while Libertarian Zak Hookstra is running unopposed in that party. No Democratic candidate filed for the seat. Incumbent Christian Ohl declined to run for another term.

Three area state legislative seats will be contested between incumbent and challenger. Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston will face Sheryl Lindau of Wayne in District 17. The district covers Wayne, Thurston and Dakota counties. Sen. Lynne Walz of Fremont is being challenged by David Rogers of Fremont in District 15, which covers Dodge County. In District 43, which covers a large swath of North Central Nebraska, incumbent Tom Brewer of Gordon will be challenged by Tanya Storer of Whitman.

A Norfolkan also is throwing his hat into the race for the U.S. Senate. Dr. Daniel Wik, who was previously the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016, has filed in the Democratic primary for this years Senate race.

Dr. Wik, a pain management physician, faces a crowded field, with seven other candidates competing in the Democratic primary.

Other contested races include:

Four candidates will run for three seats on the Norfolk Public Schools board of education: incumbents Arnie Robinson and Sandy Wolfe and challengers Jenna Hatfield and Brenda Carhart.

Four candidates will run for three seats on the Elkhorn Valley board of education: incumbents Tyler Tegeler and Jenny Schutt, both of Meadow Grove, and challengers Sam Johnsen and Lucas Negus, both of Tilden.

Five candidates have filed for two seats on the Battle Creek City Council: incumbent Brent Nygren and challengers Chris Prauner, Nicole Schacher, Dave Trudeau and John Hrabanek.

Four candidates will compete for three seats on the Tilden City Council: incumbents Travis Rutjens and Darrell Wyatt, along with challengers Lisa A. Meyer and Terry James.

Patti Gubbels of Norfolk will run against Mike Goos of Columbus for a seat on the state board of education. The seat is held by Rachel Wise of Oakland, who has declined to run for another term.

Timothy Miller of Norfolk is challenging incumbent Jeff Scherer of Beemer for an at-large seat on the Northeast Community College board of governors.

Four races for seats on the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District board of directors are contested. Those include seats for subdistrict 1, between incumbent Aaron Zimmerman of Pierce and challenger Jay Reikofski of Foster; in subdistrict 2 incumbent Mark Hall of Norfolk is being challenged by Lee Klein of Norfolk; in subdistrict 4 Rod Zohner of Battle Creek and Michael Fleer of Battle Creek will vie for an open seat and Randy Ruppert of Fremont will challenge incumbent Gary Loftis of Craig in subdistrict 7.

Dennis Bridge of Royal and Cody Frank of Brunswick are running for an open seat on subdistrict 5 on the Upper Elkhorn NRD board of directors.

Incumbent Barry DeKay of Niobrara will be challenged by Aaron Troester of ONeill for a seat on the Nebraska Public Power District board of directors.

Several races, however, will proceed to May and November with no official opposition.

That includes Norfolk Mayor Josh Moenning, who is running for his second term.

Mike Flood, a Norfolk attorney and business owner, will run unopposed for the Nebraska Legislature to represent District 19, which covers Madison County. Flood, who previously served two terms in the Legislature, is running to replace Sen. Jim Scheer, who is ineligible because of term limits. Sen. Tom Briese of Albion will be running unopposed for a second term in District 41, which includes Boone, Antelope and Pierce counties.

Norfolk City Council incumbents Gary Jackson and Thad Murren also will advance with no opposing candidates.

In other uncontested races:

Jeremy Pochop, Toby Thompson and Sean Lindgren are running for three seats on the Battle Creek board of education. Pochop and Thompson are incumbents.

Eric L. Stone, Becky Wallin and Ginger Buhl-Jorgensen are running for three seats on the Newman Grove board of education. Wallin and Buhl-Jorgensen are incumbents.

Madison City Council incumbents Paul Kellen and Robert Fite are running unopposed to another term.

Donovan Ellis, Nicole Sedlacek, Arlan Kuehn, Gene Willers and Dirk Petersen are running unopposed in their respective districts for the Northeast Community College board of governors.

Cris Elznic is running unopposed to another term on the Newman Grove City Council.

Robert Huntley, Jerry Allemann and Matt Steffen are running unopposed for reelection to Lower Elkhorn NRD subdistricts 3, 5 and 6.

Russell Schmidt, Chris A. Johnson, Marcel Kramer, Carolyn A. Heine and Curtis Armstrong are all running unopposed to continue their terms on the Lewis & Clark NRD board of directors.

Karl Connell, Jack Engelhaupt, Randy Klawitter, Raymond Naprstek, Brian Kaczor, John Janzing and Donald Holtgrew are running unopposed to continue their terms on the Lower Niobrara NRD board of directors.

Leonard Danielski and Greg Wilke are running unopposed to another term on the Middle Niobrara NRD board of directors, while Tim Nollette is running for an open seat.

Roy Steward, Curtis Gotschall, Gene Kelly, Gary Bartak and Keith Heithoff are running unopposed to continue their terms on the Upper Elkhorn NRD board of directors. Arthur Tanderup is running unopposed for an open seat in subdistrict 6.

In the races for federal office, Republican Ben Sasse faces a challenge within his own party from Matt Innis of Crete. In addition to Dr. Wik, seven other Democrats have filed as well: Dennis F. Macek, Chris Janicek, Larry Marvin, Angie Philips, Alisha Shelton, Andy Stock and Gene Siadek.

In the first congressional district, Republican incumbent Jeff Fortenberry is unopposed in the primary, as is Libertarian challenger Dennis B. Grace. Democrats Kate Bolz of Lincoln and Babs Ramsey of Bellevue will compete in their partys primary.

In the third congressional district, incumbent Republican Adrian Smith faces a slew of challengers: Larry Bolinger, William Elfgren, Justin Moran and Arron Kowalski. Democrat Mark Elworth Jr. and Libertarian Dustin C. Hobbs face no opposition in their partys primaries.

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Plenty of contested races on the ballot this year - Norfolk Daily News

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Talking about a revolution – The Economist

Posted: at 6:46 pm

Mar 7th 2020

ON AN ICY late evening in Boston, on March 5th 1770, an angry mob advanced on a dozen redcoats standing outside the citys customs building. Ignoring the pleas of the British officer present, Captain Thomas Preston, the Bostonians hurled razor-edged oyster shells and blocks of wood and ice in the darkness, knocking one soldier off his feet. He fired back, prompting several others to do likewise before Preston, despite having been clubbed in the mle, ordered them to stop. The soldiers retired, leaving three men dead in the snow and several wounded, two of whom died shortly after.

To ascertain what had gone wrong and who was to blame for the bloody massacre, there followed the most forensic series of investigations of the colonial period. It led to and included the trials of Preston and eight of his men for murder, at which scores of eye witnesses were cross-examined by the sharpest legal minds. The defence team for the soldiers included John Adams, a future president, and called 52 witnesses. The testimonies were contradictory. Some claimed Preston had ordered the soldiers to shoot. Most described the British retaliating under severe provocation; given the noise, darkness and confusion it was hard to be sure of anything.

Two of the redcoats were convicted of manslaughter and had the letter M seared into their thumbs. The rest were acquitted. Facts are stubborn thingswhatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, said Adams in his defence of the soldiers. In a later diary entry, displayed in a fine anniversary exhibition at the Massachusetts Historical Society, he determined that the verdict of the jury was exactly right.

That is not a view with which many of those who gather to watch Bostons annual re-enactment of the riot this week would concur. An idea of the massacre as an act of imperialist terror which provoked the crisis, five years later, after which this column is named is one of Americas most popular historical myths. This reflects a disinformation campaign that began directly after the violence and has continued, one way or another, ever since. At a time when the political use of history is proving especially contentiousfollowing the impeachment row and another over the New York Timess 1619 Project, which aims to reframe the American story around racismthe Boston Massacre is an instructive example.

Bostonians antipathy towards the 2,000 British troops sent to the city in 1768 has also been exaggerated. A new book by Serena Zabin documents many family ties between the armed forces and civilian population (it helped that Boston had a surfeit of women). Nonetheless, the garrison offended the libertarian zeal of the Bostonian elite, whose members duly seized on the riot for propaganda value. A cartoon engraved by Paul Revere depicted the redcoats as sneering killers, Preston as their apish cheerleader and the customs office as Butchers Hall. An annual Massacre orationthe precursor of this weeks re-enactmentwas launched a few months after the redcoats acquittal. Adams declined to give the third oration on the spurious ground of old age (he was 37). Yet he had in a way facilitated this burgeoning distortion through his own economy with the truth. He had taken pains to absolve regular Bostonians of any blame for the violence, instead attributing it to a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and molattoes, Irish teagues. Based on sketchy evidence, he blamed one of the victims, a black sailor called Crispus Attucks, in particular.

This had unforeseen consequences. Eighty years later Attucks was embraced by black abolitionists in Boston as the first martyr of the American revolution. When it was put to them that the riot was not the revolution and there was scant evidence for Attuckss lead role, they had only to cite Bostons orations and Adamss defence. A Bostonian paramilitary group, precursor to black units in the Union army, was called the Attucks Guards. A grand monument to Attucks was raised in Boston Common in 1888. Dedicating it, the Irish nationalist poet John Boyle OReilly tied Attucks to freedom struggles everywhere: We honour a shrine unfinished, a column uncapped with pridewhen Crispus Attucks died.

Attucks remains popular with black activists. In the civil-rights era, schools were named after him. Recent victims of police brutality and the group they inspired, Black Lives Matter, have been compared to him. White activists also recall the massacre. During its re-enactment in 1975, protesters against Massachusettss then policy of busing black children to affluent schools collapsed in the streetto assert that they were also victims of tyranny.

This saga holds several lessons. Libertarian ideals were the intellectual basis for the revolutionary struggle, yet a distorting lens through which to understand almost any isolated episode of it. Their epic force (illustrated in the massacres early commemorations: the 1775 oration was delivered by Joseph Warren, months before his death at Bunker Hill, in a toga) proved irresistible from the start, however. This politicising of events has in turn fuelled a rich American tradition of mobilising history to score points.

The Timess 1619 Project (named after the year Africans were first brought to North America) is not only a corrective to that tradition, but part of it. It has been criticised for being partial and containing inaccuracies. It also downplays the contribution of African-Americans to Americas struggle to live up to the founders vision; and the inspiration many of them have found in it. African-Americans were participants in the Boston Massacre and, in one of the first states to restrict and then abolish slavery, beneficiaries of the events it helped set in train. In the figure of Attucks, they also found an unlikely inspiration in massacre propaganda.

Sticklers for historical accuracy have much to complain of here. Yet the incontestable fact of the massacre offers consolation. In 18th-century Boston, justice and the rule of law prevailed over politics and the mob. Perhaps even more than ideas of freedom, they are Americas foundation. May Adamss successors remember it.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Legends of the slaughter"

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Global conservation communities pinning their hopes on new agreement to save nature – Independent Online

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By Sheree Bega Mar 3, 2020

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Humanity is driving at full speed towards the abyss of ecosystem collapse, from local freshwater systems to the global climate, but is blindly ignoring the warning lights and crash barriers continuing to ramp up business as usual, says environmental futurist Professor Nick King.

As the web of life unravels across the planet, many in the global conservation community are pinning their hopes on a new agreement to save nature - and humanity itself.

Touted as a Paris-style accord to halt the collapse of nature, the draft UN Global Biodiversity Framework sets out a global plan to safeguard nature through 2030, under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

But King, a global change analyst and strategist, is sceptical.

We keep setting non-binding goals and targets, change little by way of policies and incentives to meet them, miss them widely and then spend extraordinary amounts of time and efforts setting new ones, all to no avail as they dont address the underlying causes of loss.

The decline of nature is driven by other sectors, such as the extractives sector, as evidenced in the 2019 Global Resources Outlook reportof the UNEP's Integrated Resources Panel, thus the biodiversity sector cannot address them without a fundamental shift in governance structure and authority within governments and globally.

King served as co-chairperson on the science and policy advisory panel of the report, which shows how over 90% of biodiversity loss and freshwater stress, as well as more than 50% of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, are from the extractives sector, including agriculture

Since the 1970s, the global population has doubled, the use of natural resources has tripled and global GDP has grown fourfold, the report shows.

These trends, says King, have gobbled large amounts of natural resources to fuel economic development and improvements in human well-being.

But they have come at a tremendous cost to our natural environment, ultimately impacting human well-being and exacerbating inequalities within and between countries.

In May, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned how one million assessed plant and animal species face extinction, perhaps within decades, more than ever before in human history.

All our recent global assessments such as from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPBES and GEO6 talk of the need for transformative change. This is recorded in the zero draft (of the Global Biodiversity Framework), says King. Without this transformative change in our values, consumptive way of life, economic growth at all costs idiocy, unlimited population growth, etc, we will not address the causes.

It is physically impossible for the Earths natural resource base to maintain itself - and meet humanitys demands. So, frankly, another set of targets, couched yet again in all the same wonderful rhetoric of how much we depend on natures bounty etc, is, at best, simply meaningless in terms of actual change, and at worst, it allows politicians and others to believe everything is fine, under our control and no further actions are needed.

This very dangerous complacency is exacerbated by the fact that, globally, almost no politicians have any sort of qualifications in environmental science and are incapable of actually understanding the dire straits were in, let alone setting policies to address this. As humanity, we have and are incurring enormous ecological debt and very soon, nature is going to invoice us for repayment.

In 2010, parties to the CBD adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, and its 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets but experts say these have failed to halt nature's precipitous decline.

This week, over 190 nations met in Rome to continue negotiations on the zero draft of the post-2020 framework, which will eventually be agreed at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China, in October.

The draft global plan is hopelessly weak and inadequate, believes Friends of the Earth International, noting how it fails to address the root causes of the collapse of nature - the over-consumption of resources by wealthier countries, industrial agriculture and an economic system that drives further destruction and greater inequality.

The draft will not halt damaging practices such as mining, commodity crops or pesticide use. The main failure of the existing plan was that governments mostly ignored it without repercussions It allows for nature to be destroyed as long as it is saved elsewhere, which would lead to corporations putting a price on nature and offsetting their damage by paying to save it in another place. This will inevitably lead to a financial market in saving and destroying biodiversity.

The draft, it says, ignores the vital role of indigenous peoples and local communities in defending ecosystems.

Professor Belinda Reyers, of the Future Africa unit at the University of Pretoria, points out the zero draft is a very early draft, with a fair way to go before it is negotiated by the worlds governments and finalised in Kunming.

The previous biodiversity framework was "not what one would call a resounding success as we have largely not made progress to most of the targets it set.

"There is a lot of concern, that just like that 2020 framework, this post-2020 framework seems tofocus more on what we are losing, than why we are losing it.By focusing on things like extinction rates, or areas of ecosystems lost we are reallyjust documenting the decline of the natural world.

"Goals a, b, and c in the draft framework fall into this basket of targets whichfocus our attention on the decline, but not on the causes of the decline.Even under these goals in their action targets the focus appears to be on pollution or invasive alien species, which while important, recent research has shown are reallynot the major culprits of biodiversity loss."

The main causes at a global scale are land use and sea use change through agriculture and aquaculture expansion and intensification, for example, climate change and over-exploitation of species for food, trade or other uses, Reyers points out.

"If we focus attention on these only we will really only be 'managing the decline of the natural world', rather than the ambitious plan that is needed to halt biodiversity loss and restore it to some of its former glory.This is what was meant bytransformative change: fundamental changes or reconfigurations in the economic, political, social and value systems and structures that have caused the high rates of biodiversity loss we are witnessing.

"So, a framework that focuses on ecosystems, extinction rates and protected areas,is really not ambitious enoughto counteract and influence the larger drivers of biodiversity lossincluding large scale drivers of change on the planet from agriculture, energy, trade, urbanisation, climate change, inequality."

While there are small hints of this in the draft framework, "calls right now are to make these hints more central and ambitious in the framework".

A key challenge, as always, she says, is that so many of these drivers of biodiversity loss and levers or areas of transformative change lie outside the biodiversity and environment sector.

"Hence the limited focus on protected areas and use of wild species which fall more within the remit of the biodiversity sector. Setting targets that lie far outside the sector, will prove challenging for the environmental sector to actually implement and make progress on. This is a core tension at the heart of the framework: targets you have some say over as a sector vs. targets that will make a difference."

Reyers points to theunsophisticated way that biodiversity is linked to outcomes for people in the draft framework."There is so much evidence of the critical role that biodiversity plays in almost all aspects of social and economic development from food production, sources of income, protection from natural hazards, mitigation of climate change, and a myriad of spiritual, cultural, aesthetic, health and recreational benefits that South Africans are very familiar with from our mountains, beaches, game reserves, forest and rivers.

"And yet this framework which sets itself up as a having a 'mission to put biodiversity on a path to recovery for the benefit ofplanet and people' only lists nutrition, water and disaster resilience as benefits to people."

This has two major implications. "First, this narrow focus will miss out on changes in biodiversity that have real consequences for people. Second, at a time when we need all the support we can get to put biodiversity on this 'path to recovery' from across all sectors of society and the economy, failing to make clear why this mission is important to these other sectors from health, to education to rural development is a misstep."

Morn du Plessis, the chief executive of World Wide Fund for Nature-SA, says 2020 is being punted as a Super Year for nature.

This presents the opportunity to adapt and renew international targets for three interdependent issues: the Sustainable Development Goals, nature (with three major international gatherings on biodiversity coming up) and climate, in particular the resilience that needs to be built into the system.

We are looking at a planetary level emergency when it comes to nature loss, with major economic and social costs. This includes fragmentation and under-delivery of nature-related conventions and the need to connect nature with the economy and climate. Among the many challenges we are facing are the need to provide food and water for 9 billion people by 2030, in the face of biodiversity loss and a rapidly changing climate.

A new narrative that positions healthy, diverse and functional natural systems as the foundation for social and economic development, stability and security, as well as individual well-being is needed.

Were looking for an agreement that is in the same league as the Paris climate agreement and are pushing for heads of state to buy into a concept of setting nationally determined contributions similar to the climate agreement.

Individual governments must develop and implement their own ambitious national action plans to contribute to these targets, and then report back to the CBD on their progress regularly.

This then enables all governments to work together to identify global implementation gaps and increase their ambition where necessary until the collective effort is aligned to the ambitious targets.

A movement of non-state actors working with governments, in particular the private sector, will be critical.

Globally, South Africa is recognised as a biodiversity superpower, says Du Plessis. By the majority of measures we fall within the top 10 most biologically diverse countries. With this statistic comes not only pride, but the obligation of care through legally binding global commitments that we have signed up to.

Ambitious plan to stabilise loss of nature by 2030

Biodiversity, and the benefits it provides, are fundamental to human well-being and a healthy planet, says the zero draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, but it is deteriorating worldwide.

The framework sets out an ambitious plan to implement broad-based action to bring about a transformation in societys relationship with biodiversity and to ensure that by 2050, the shared vision of living in harmony with nature is fulfilled.

It is built around a theory of change, which recognises that urgent policy action globally, regionally and nationally is required to transform economic, social and financial models so the trends that have exacerbated biodiversity loss will stabilise in the next 10 years and allow for the recovery of natural ecosystems in the following 20 years.

It presents five long-term goals for 2050, with 20 targets for 2030 meant to contribute towards achieving these goals.

The draft plan proposes, among others, placing around a third of land and oceans under some form of protection, and cutting pollution from plastic waste and excess nutrients and biocides by 50% by 2030, and restoring freshwater and marine ecosystems.

I know that the world is eagerly waiting out there for demonstrable progress towards a clear, actionable and transformative global framework on biodiversity,"Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the acting executivesecretary of the CBD, said in a statement.

"They want a framework that can be implemented at all levels, namely, at global, regional levels, national and subnational levels. They want a framework that builds upon the existing Biodiversity Strategic Plan 2011-2020 and its accompanying Aichi Biodiversity Targets and a framework that aligns with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development."

This initial zero draft was based on extensive consultations, advice from governments, scientists, indigenous peoples, NGOs and others, gathered through dozens of meetings and hundreds of written submissions.

It was developed in response to the 2019 IPBES assessment.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, in a position paper, says that while it welcomes the draft framework, the proposed draft action targets will not deliver the goals outlined, and will not therefore halt the net loss of biodiversity by 2030. It follows that the framework will not deliver the required transformative change.

Avoiding extinction:

If 30% of the land area is conserved in tropical regions in Latin America, Africa and southeast Asia, the extinction risk facing vascular plants, birds and mammals could be halved.

A new study published this week in the journal Ecography, authored by 21 global biodiversity and climate change scientists, finds that increased conservation efforts together with efforts to limit global warming to 2C offers the best chance to slow species loss.

Avoiding extinctions results in healthy ecosystems that provide many services critical to people, including maintaining key carbon stores that prevent runaway climate change.

Do your bit:

What is biodiversity?

The variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is considered to be important and desirable.

SAs rich biodiversity:

The number of South African animal species is estimated at 67000 and more than 20400 plant species have been described.

Approximately 7% of the worlds vascular plant species, 5% of mammal, 7% of bird, 4% of reptile, 2% of amphibian, 1% of freshwater fish and 16% of shark, skate and ray species are found in the country.

It is home to nearly 10% of the world coral species and almost a quarter of the global cephalopod species such as octopus, squid, cuttlefish.

Some terrestrial invertebrate groups have high richness relative to global statistics - 13% of the worlds sun spiders and nearly 5% of butterflies occur in the country.

Around half of the countrys species of reptiles, amphibians, butterflies and freshwater fish are endemic. Almost two-thirds of plant species are endemic - mostly linked to the unique Cape Floristic Region.

Approximately 40% of South Africas estimated 10 000 marine animal species are endemic, the vast majority invertebrates.

Did you know?

South Africa is ranked in the top three countries globally when it comes to plant and marine species endemism (species found nowhere else on earth).

The diversity and uniqueness of its species and ecosystems makes the country one of the worlds 17 mega diverse nations - countries that together contain more than two-thirds of the worlds biodiversity.

The economy is highly dependent on this biodiversity. For example, biodiversity tourism demand generates a direct spend of about R31 billion in the economy annually, and its 2 000 medicinal plant species contribute to the African traditional medicine sector worth around R18bn a year.

How biodiversity benefits people:

- Nearly invisible insect pollinators are essential for the production of nutritious fruits and vegetables.

- SAs plant and animal species are used for food and medicine; Aloe ferox, for example, is 95% wild-harvested and used in over 140 cosmetic and complementary medicine products.

- Healthy estuarine and marine ecosystems supports 22 commercial fisheries sectors, about 29 000 small-scale fishers and 700 000 recreational fishers.

- Interacting with nature brings measurable emotional, mental and physical benefits, influences our cultural and spiritual development, and provides R31bn per year to the tourism economy.

To help protect biodiversity:

- Consider what you eat: consume foods from local sources that are sustainably produced.

- Think before you buy: minimise purchasing of items that have only a single use (plastic straws, food in single-use packaging), and buy locally-made items to reduce your carbon footprint.

- Reduce your waste: recycle all packaging, reduce your energy and water consumption, and make sure you dont waste them, dispose of any other waste appropriately.

- Become involved: support local initiatives that protect, restore and study nature - like coastal clean-ups, biodiversity citizen science projects, alien plant hacking, and more. Source: SA National Biodiversity Institute

SAs role in Rome

Albi Modise, the spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Affairs, says South Africa took part in the discussions in Rome this week and was engaging through the Africa regional group.

Modise says: The African priorities that SA is advancing as chair of the AU are related to ecosystem protection and restoration, management and enhancement of freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, thus supporting associated socio-economic activities; management of invasive alien species; access and benefit-sharing with associated traditional knowledge, impact assessment aligned to Article 14 of the Convention on Biological Diversity; mainstreaming biodiversity into relevant sectors; natural capital accounting; biosafety; climate change and biodiversity and poaching and illegal wildlife trade.

These elements would need to be supported by means of implementation focusing specifically on financial resources, scientific co-operation and technology transfer as well as capacity building.

The zero draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework has been drafted by the co-chairs on the basis of the extensive consultations that have been undertaken and the inputs that have been received.

It provides a basis on which the key elements can now be developed for further negotiations. The focus of the meeting is to identify areas where further preparatory work or consultation is required

Future meetings will then focus on addressing the levels of ambition and setting targets. It seems too early and unjustifiable to judge the current draft as hopelessly weak for parties to commence with focused and structured engagements.

The Saturday Star

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Top 5 things to know about the state of artificial intelligence – TechRepublic

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Artificial intelligence continues to grow rapidly. Tom Merritt breaks down the five things you need to know about AI, according to a report from Stanford University.

Every year the Human-Centered Artificial Institute at Stanford puts together the Artificial Intelligence Index Report, relying on experts from around the discipline, including folks at Harvard, Google Open AI, and more, to try to pin down where we are with artificial intelligence (AI). You should definitely read all 290 pages, but for now here are five things to know about the state of AI.

SEE: Artificial intelligence ethics policy (TechRepublic Premium)

That's just where the work is getting done and where the money flows. As far as results, AI seems to be helping make software work a little better. But, most of your human skills are just getting help from the competition, not being replaced for now.

We deliver the top business tech news stories about the companies, the people, and the products revolutionizing the planet. Delivered Daily

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Can Machines And Artificial Intelligence Be Creative? – Forbes

Posted: at 6:42 pm

We know machines and artificial intelligence (AI) can be many things, but can they ever really be creative? When I interviewed Professor Marcus du Sautoy, the author of The Creativity Code, he shared that the role of AI is a kind of catalyst to push our human creativity. Its the machine and human collaboration that produces exciting resultsnovel approaches and combinations that likely wouldnt develop if either were working alone.

Can Machines And Artificial Intelligence Be Creative?

Instead of thinking about AI as replacing human creativity, it's beneficial to examine ways that AI can be used as a tool to augment human creativity. Here are several examples of how AI boosts the creativity of humans in art, music, dance, design, recipe building, and publishing.

Art

In the world of visual art, AI is making an impact in many ways. It can alter existing art such as the case when it made the Mona Lisa a living portrait a la Harry Potter, create likenesses that appear to be real humans that can be found on the website ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com and even create original works of art.

When Christies auctioned off a piece of AI artwork titled the Portrait of Edmond de Belamy for $432,500, it became the first auction house to do so. The AI algorithm, a generative adversarial network (GAN) developed by a Paris-based collective, that created the art, was fed a data set of 15,000 portraits covering six centuries to inform its creativity.

Another development that blurs the boundaries of what it means to be an artist is Ai-Da, the worlds first robot artist, who recently held her first solo exhibition. She is equipped with facial recognition technology and a robotic arm system thats powered by artificial intelligence.

More eccentric art is also a capability of artificial intelligence. Algorithms can read recipes and create images of what the final dish will look like. Dreamscope by Google uses traditional images of people, places and things and runs them through a series of filters. The output is truly original, albeit sometimes the stuff of nightmares.

Music

If AI can enhance creativity in visual art, can it do the same for musicians? David Cope has spent the last 30 years working on Experiments in Musical Intelligence or EMI. Cope is a traditional musician and composer but turned to computers to help get past composers block back in 1982. Since that time, his algorithms have produced numerous original compositions in a variety of genres as well as created Emily Howell, an AI that can compose music based on her own style rather than just replicate the styles of yesterdays composers.

In many cases, AI is a new collaborator for todays popular musicians. Sony's Flow Machine and IBM's Watson are just two of the tools music producers, YouTubers, and other artists are relying on to churn out today's hits. Alex Da Kid, a Grammy-nominated producer, used IBMs Watson to inform his creative process. The AI analyzed the "emotional temperature" of the time by scraping conversations, newspapers, and headlines over a five-year period. Then Alex used the analytics to determine the theme for his next single.

Another tool that embraces human and machine collaboration, AIVA bills itself as a creative assistant for creative people and uses AI and deep learning algorithms to help compose music.

In addition to composing music, artificial intelligence is transforming the music industry in a variety of ways from distribution to audio mastering and even creating virtual pop stars. An auxuman singer called Yona, developed by Iranian electronica composer Ash Koosha, creates and performs music such as the song Oblivious through AI algorithms.

Dance and Choreography

A powerful way dance choreographers have been able to break out of their regular patterns is to use artificial intelligence as a collaborator. Wayne McGregor, the award-winning British choreographer and director, is known for using technology in his work and is particularly fascinated by how AI could enhance what is done with the choreography in a project with Google Arts & Culture Lab. Hundreds of hours of video footage of dancers representing individual styles were fed into the algorithm. The AI then went to work and "learned how to dance. The goal is not to replace the choreographer but to efficiently iterate and develop different choreography options.

AI Augmented Design

Another creative endeavor AI is proving to be adept at is commercial design. In a collaboration between French designer Philippe Starck, Kartell, and Autodesk, a 3D software company, the first chair designed using artificial intelligence and put into production was presented at Milan Design Week. The Chair Project is another collaboration that explores co-creativity between people and machines.

Recipes

The creativity of AI is also transforming the kitchen not only by altering longstanding recipes but also creating entirely new food combinations in collaborations with some of the biggest names in the food industry. Our favorite libations might also get an AI makeover. You can now pre-order AI-developed whiskey. Brewmasters decisions are also being informed by artificial intelligence. MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is making use of all those photos of the food that we post on social media. By using computer vision, these food photos are being analyzed to better understand peoples eating habits as well as to suggest recipes with the food that is pictured.

Write Novels and Articles

Even though the amount of written material to inform artificial intelligence algorithms is voluminous, writing has been a challenging skill for AI to acquire. Although AI has been most successful in generating short-form formulaic content such as journalism "who, what, where, and when stories," its skills continue to grow. AI has now written a novel, and although neural networks created what many might find a weird read, it was still able to do it. And, with the announcement a Japanese AI programs short-form novel almost won a national literary prize, its easy to see how it wont be long before AI can compete with humans to write compelling pieces of content. Kopan Page published Superhuman Innovation, a book not only about artificial intelligence but was co-written by AI. PoemPortraits is another example of AI and human collaboration where you can provide the algorithm with a single word that it will use to generate a short poem.

As the world of AI and human creativity continue to expand, its time to stop worrying about if AI can be creative, but how the human and machine world can intersect for creative collaborations that have never been dreamt of before.

You can watch the full interview with Marcus du Sautoy here:

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UH Hilo receives $500K grant to research artificial intelligence interaction with humans – UH System Current News

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Travis Mandel (Photo credit: Raiatea Arcuri)

A computer scientist at the University of Hawaii at Hilo is the recipient of a more than half-a million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation aimed at developing new techniques in artificial intelligence (AI). Assistant Professor Travis Mandel, an AI expert, will use the prestigious $549,790 award to enhance research based on human-in-the-loop AI. The techniques are based on how AI and machine learning systems collaborate with humans to solve real-world problems too challenging for either to address alone.

The goal of this project is to create new algorithms and interaction paradigms that enable humans and artificial intelligence systems to work together, leveraging each others strengths to collect better data, Mandel said.

The National Science Foundation award is expected to have a major impact on research and education on Hawaii Island. The hope is to drive increased interest in science and technology at UH Hilo and showcase the universitys emerging data science program.

Im particularly excited about the opportunities this grant will provide for our talented and hardworking undergraduate students to get involved in cutting-edge computer science and data science research, Mandel said. The project also includes components that integrate research and education, such as building new data science curriculum and developing interactive video game exhibits at Imiloa Astronomy Center and the Hawaii Science and Technology Museum.

For more go to UH Hilo Stories.

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