Calls Mount in Europe For Reciprocal Access to Tibet

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Calls Mount in Europe For Reciprocal Access to Tibet

Calls are mounting in Europe for member states of the EU to enact legislation demanding that European diplomats, journalists, and researchers be granted access to travel in Tibet, a region largely restricted to outsiders while Chinese nationals can freely travel throughout European countries, a Tibet advocacy group said in a new report on Monday.

Writing in an op-ed on Monday appearing in European media outlets and newspapers, 57 parliamentarians from 19 European countries called on their governments to pass a law barring access to Europe to Chinese officials who block foreign travel in Tibet, a formerly independent Himalayan country now ruled from Beijing.

“Government officials, journalists and tourists who seek to enter Tibetan areas are routinely denied, and the few who do get in are forced to stay on strictly controlled official tours,” the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement on Monday.

“[There], they are shown Potemkin villages that hide the truth about China’s horrific repression of the Tibetan people,” ICT said, adding that by denying unfettered access to Tibet, Beijing seeks to shut down criticism of what the rights group called “its atrocious human rights record in Tibet.”

There is now a growing awareness in Europe of the dangers of an “asymmetrical relationship with China,” building on recent statements by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that Europe’s relationship with China should be based on “trust, transparency, and reciprocity,” ICT said.

“It is now incumbent upon European governments and the European Union to insist on reciprocity in their dealings with the People’s Republic of China,” said Tsering Jampa, executive director for ICT Europe, in a statement Monday.

“This principle should not be limited to trade and investment but should also include fundamental freedoms in order to address the asymmetry of China’s authoritarian influence not only in Tibet, which has been isolated from the rest of the world for the past six decades, but also on our own societies,” Jampa said.

The privilege and right to travel

“We know that Tibet is closed to foreigners—to analysts, to members of parliament, to lawmakers, and so on,” said ICT-EU policy director Vincent Matten, speaking on Monday to RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“But the opposite is not true. Chinese officials, journalists, and so on have the privilege and right to travel and to visit Europe.”

Recent U.S. legislation denying access to the United States to Chinese officials blocking travel by Americans to Tibet could now serve as a model for European policymakers, Matten said, noting at the same time that the “institutional architecture” across the EU’s many member states is different.

“So we need to have imaginative ways for the EU to think of how they could do this. But this is their job,” Matten said.

In December 2018, President Donald Trump signed the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, a law under which Chinese officials responsible for excluding U.S. citizens, including Americans of Tibetan ethnic origin, from China’s Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), could be banned from entering the United States.

The law also requires the State Department to provide to the Congress each year a list of U.S. citizens blocked from entry to Tibet.

Reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.



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Ski Town Grads Ride The Chairlift To Collect Their Diplomas

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Ski Town Grads Ride The Chairlift To Collect Their Diplomas

“Out of all the different types of graduations different high schools are having, I think this is the coolest,” says one senior at Kennett High School in North Conway, N.H.

(Image credit: India Drummond/courtesy of India Drummond)



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Captured Rakhine Villagers Forced to Work For Myanmar Army, Relatives Say

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Captured Rakhine Villagers Forced to Work For Myanmar Army, Relatives Say

Families of villagers from Rakhine state held by the Myanmar military since March for suspected ties to the rebel Arakan Army on Monday demanded the release of the men, telling reporters that some detained civilians are being forced to perform hard labor for the army.

The 18 captives — residents of strife-torn Kyauktaw township — were arrested in mid-March, when Myanmar soldiers entered the region amid fighting and burned down dozens of homes in the 500-home ethnic Rakhine village tract.

Relatives if 18 detainees told a news conference in the Rakhine capital Sittwe that about 10 of the captives from Tin Ma village tract are being forced to perform hard labor in a military battalion.

Oo Than Yee, wife of a Tin Ma village tract administrator, said she confirmed that her son Nay Lin Oo is among the detainees when she sneaked into the Taung Shay mountain area near Tin Ma Gyi village.  Her son, who has hearing and speech impairments, was working in a military camp with others.

“I recognized my son there,” she said. “I saw other villagers, too. They were forced to work. Some were shoveling dirt, and others were carrying bags of soil on the shoulders.”

Win May Oo, wife of detained villager Maung Kyi Linn, appealed the authorities to release her husband, who is the family’s breadwinner.

“I rely on my husband’s earnings. I don’t have a job. I am gravely concerned about his safety,” she said.

Aye Yee, mother of 14-year-old Tun Tun Wai who is being detained, said she filed a complaint with police and education officials, but nothing has been done to help free her son.

“I have reported it to the education officials, but they said they don’t have any ‘weapons’ to take on a fight,” she told RFA. “They said the authorities who detained the villagers are too powerful to touch.”

The police also said they can do nothing but will inform us when the military has transferred the detainees to them, she added.

Ma Hla Aye, wife of one of the detained residents from Tin Ma Thit village, said she does not want to see others like her husband detained.

“We’ve got three children. Every day they ask when their dad will be home. I’ve got no answer,” she said.

“I want to appeal the authorities not to treat Rakhine civilians cruelly,” she added.

Myanmar military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun was not available Monday for comment on the 18 detained villagers.

When RFA asked him about the fate of the residents on June 10, he said he did not have specific information on the case but would review their status.

Myint Than, director general of Myanmar’s General Administration Department, speaks during a press conference in Naypyidaw, June 15, 2020.
Credit: RFA

No martial law in Rakhine

Despite ongoing fighting and the increasing number of civilians caught up in the hostilities, the Myint Than, director general of the General Administration Department in Naypyidaw, told RFA that the situation in northern Rakhine state is not severe enough to be placed under martial law.

“People are talking about martial law out of fear based on the resignation of 51 village administrators last week,” he said, referring to dozens of local officials in n Myebon township, one of several areas in northern Rakhine hit by heavy fighting.

The village and ward administrators filed resignation letters on June 5, fearing arbitrary arrest by the Myanmar military after the recent detention of three of their colleagues on terrorism charges.

“The Rakhine state government is working on getting peace and having a smooth administration in the region,” Myint Than said.

RFA could not reach Major General Tun Tun Nyi, vice chairman of the military’s True News Information Team, for comment.

Myint Than’s comments came after political analysts predicted that the 18-month-old war between the government military and the AA would spread to urban areas following a knife attack on a military officer and the abduction of his colleague by assailants believed to be Arakan fighters in a Ponnagyun town market.

The atmosphere of lawlessness hit home on June 10 when four unknown men robbed a Kanbawza Bank branch in Rakhine’s capital Sittwe, on June 10, with the government military and AA blaming the other side for the theft.

In another brazen daytime attack, a police officer was stabbed to death by two people on motorcycles in downtown Kyauktaw on June 13, striking fear in local residents who remained indoors, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported.

Clashes continued in rural areas of Rakhine as well, with fighting in rural Ann township on June 13 forcing about 100 predominantly ethnic China residents of Mingalardon village to flee to Myatheintan monastery in Dalet Chaung Anauk village.

Villager Maung Pe said the residents left Mingalardon because they faced a food shortage with land and water blockades by Myanmar forces preventing them from getting to markets.

“[We] can’t go anywhere, [and] we have no food to eat, so we came to this monastery because of a lack of food and because we faced bombs and bullets,” he told RFA.

Weak controls

Rule of law in Rakhine in under stress where fighting is taking place, said Khin Saw Wai, a lawmaker from Rathedaung township about the recent incidents.

“The current government and security officials have also been weak on controlling the situation in Rakhine,” she said.

AA spokesman Khine Thukha noted that Rakhine has been under martial law in the past and that it is under military administration now.

“The military has forced the government to run an official military administration in Rakhine in order to cover up its actions in this region,” he said. “We will have peace in Rakhine only if Rakhine people can govern it.”

The AA, branded an outlawed organization and terrorist group by the Myanmar government, demanded on May 29 that all government administrative offices and the military immediately leave Rakhine state, where the predominantly Buddhist force seeks greater autonomy for ethnic Rakhine people.

The fighting, most of which has taken place near villages outside urban areas, left 260 civilians dead and injured about 570 others during the period from December 2018 to June 11 of this year, according to figures compiled by RFA’s Myanmar Service.

The armed conflict also has displaced more than 160,000 civilians, according to the Rakhine Ethnics Congress, a local relief group.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Mying Maung, Khet Mar, and Nandar Chann. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.



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Vietnam’s Supreme Court Reaffirms Death Sentence in Decade-Old Ho Duy Hai Murder Case

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Vietnam’s Supreme Court Reaffirms Death Sentence in Decade-Old Ho Duy Hai Murder Case

Death row inmate Ho Duy Hai’s sentence for murder was re-affirmed by Vietnam’s top court in a meeting Monday of the National Assembly, state media reported.

Ho was arrested in March 2008 and convicted nine months later of plundering property and murdering two female postal employees in Long An Province. The People’s Court of Long An province sentenced him to five years for the theft, and gave him the death penalty for the murders.

Appealing to the National Assembly is the last recourse for Ho and his family after the Supreme People’s Court last month rejected a request by the procuracy to reinvestigate the decades-long case that has seen appeals and a 2014 stay of execution ordered by the then president.

Two National Assembly deputies petitioned the legislative body to reinvestigate irregularities in how the case was handled. As part of the investigation Supreme Court Chief Judge Nguyen Hoa Binh Monday reaffirmed that Ho was guilty of the crimes.

Nguyen was also the judge in last month’s cassation trial that upheld the sentence, leaving Ho’s family little option but to hope the assembly would agree to reinvestigate.

Judge Nguyen Hoa Binh explained Monday that Ho gave 25 statements to the court admitting his guilt. Nguyen added that at his first testimony, Ho wrote down the details of the case rather than interrogate himself.

Nguyen also confirmed Ho’s admissions came at lt at several key junctures.

For example, Nguyen said, when Ho was set to be executed on Dec. 5, 2014, he petitioned then-President Truong Tan Sang to try to get a reduced sentence. He did not claim innocence in his petition, and was granted a temporary stay of execution the day before it was to be carried out.

While the judge reaffirmed the court’s belief that Ho is guilty, the National Assembly has not yet indicated that it is close to making a decision on concluding its investigation.

Procedural errors

Observers have pointed to several procedural errors in Ho’s case, including that it was largely based on a confession that he later recanted, saying he had been forced to do so by police during his detention.

Additionally, prosecutors lacked crucial evidence, as no time of death for the two victims was ever established, fingerprints at the crime scene did not match Ho’s, and the murder weapons were misplaced by the forensic team.

London-based rights group Amnesty International has cited Ho’s mother as saying that he was tortured in prison, citing his deteriorating health and loss of weight.

In February 2015, the National Assembly’s Committee on Judicial Affairs declared after a reinvestigation into the case that during both the initial trial and the appeal, there had been “serious violations of criminal procedural law.”

The committee urged that the case be reviewed on appeal, but in Dec. 2017, Long An province’s procuracy pushed for execution.

In November last year, Amnesty International sent a petition with 25,000 signatures to President Trong calling for Ho’s acquittal.

Between August 2013 and June 2016, Vietnam executed 429 people, while 1,134 people were given death sentences between July 2011 and June 2016, according to government figures released in 2018.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Huy Le. Written in English by Eugene Whong.



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To Gain Public’s Trust, Should Members of Congress Stop Trading Stock?

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To Gain Public’s Trust, Should Members of Congress Stop Trading Stock?

The idea is that even the appearance of a conflict — a senator writing aviation policy, say, who owns stock in Boeing — undermines the public’s already abysmally low trust in Congress and therefore its ability to legislate effectively. Congress, they point out, already makes similar conflicts of interest illegal for executive branch employees, and thousands of federal officials undergo ethics reviews each year that often require them to divest any financial interests they have in companies or industries that their work could affect.

For his part, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said that each member should be allowed to invest as they saw fit.

“As for myself, I decided many years ago I was more comfortable not owning individual stock,” he said in a statement.

A review by the Campaign Legal Center found that between early February and early April, as Covid-19 roiled the markets and Congress approved about $2.8 trillion in relief programs that touched almost every corner of the American economy, 12 senators made 227 stock purchases or sales worth as much as $98 million. In the House, 37 members made 1,358 trades worth as much as $60 million.

“Multiple members are picking stocks and trading at the same time they are picking industry winners with a bailout,” said Kedric Payne, general counsel for the group who worked on the study.

Practical considerations are also moving other lawmakers to reconsider. Even if a lawmaker accused of insider trading, like Ms. Loeffler or Mr. Burr, can ultimately prove they acted legally and ethically, doing so can be costly.

As Ms. Loeffler found this spring, in a highly polarized political and news media climate, many voters are not waiting to see what lengthy investigations find. Ms. Loeffler decided along the way to divest her portfolio from almost all individual stocks and stepped down from a subcommittee that indirectly oversaw the company led by her husband. She conceded no wrongdoing but said, realistically, that her denials were simply “being ignored.”

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In April, 50-70% drop in transactions through credit & debit cards, cheques

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In April, 50-70% drop in transactions through credit & debit cards, cheques

Written by Sunny Verma
| New Delhi |

Updated: June 16, 2020 5:01:50 am





Payment transactions contracted by a massive 46 per cent in value in April over the previous month as the nationwide lockdown affected economic activity across the board.(Representational Image)

PAYMENT transactions contracted by a massive 46 per cent in value in April over the previous month as the nationwide lockdown affected economic activity across the board.

Latest data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that transactions and payments through various banking channels — cheque payments, ATM withdrawal, NEFT and RTGS, fell between 26 per cent and 71 per cent in April over March, depending upon the mode of transaction.

The sole exception was direct benefit transfer (DBT) payments by the government using the Aadhar-enabled platforms, which recorded a 138 per cent jump.

Transactions through issuance of cheques – a paper instrument – saw the sharpest contraction of 71 per cent in April to Rs 1.63 lakh crore from Rs 5.65 lakh crore in March.

The RBI-operated Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system, the largest mode for online high value transactions, recorded a contraction of 46.5 per cent in value to Rs 64.43 lakh crore in April from Rs 120.47 lakh crore in March.

Among the other highly used online payment mode, the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) recorded a fall of 42.7 per cent in transaction value to Rs 13.06 lakh crore in April, down from Rs 22.83 lakh crore in March.

Together, RTGS and NEFT account for a little over 90 per cent of total payments in the country. Transactions under RTGS are processed continuously on real time basis, whereas NEFT transactions are processed in half-hourly intervals.

With a lockdown in force, ATM withdrawals through debit cards slumped to Rs 1.27 lakh crore from Rs 2.49 lakh crore — a contraction of 49 per cent. Peoples’ need for cash dropped since it was used mostly for buying essential items or meeting health needs. This also suggests people hardly spent on discretionary items.

The data show that other digital modes of payment also witnessed sharp fall in value transacted during the month.

Transactions through IMPS — or immediate payment service — also fell by 40 per cent to Rs 1.21 lakh crore in April from Rs 2.01 lakh crore in March. Unique payment interface or UPI transactions fell 26.8 per cent during the same period.

Point-of-sale (POS) machines or POS-based credit card transactions value contracted by 69.7 per cent to Rs 26,656 crore in April from Rs 8,052 crore in March.

The exception was APBS (Aadhaar Payment Bridge System), which is used by the government to transfer funds/subsidies under various heads directly into Aadhaar-enabled accounts of beneficiaries. Value transacted under APBS jumped by 138 per cent to Rs 18,996 crore from Rs 7,951 crore. The RBI started capturing the APBS data separately from November 2019.

This could be because of government transferring funds to beneficiaries’ accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana that was announced on March 26 to provide income support to the poor during the lockdown period.

As part of the Rs 1.7 lakh crore of relief package, the government had announced that 2.40 crore women Jan Dhan account holders will be given Rs 500 per month for three months. First instalment of Rs 2000 due to farmers in 2020-21 was also paid in April, among other measures.

The RBI’s payments data for April mirrors the industrial production data released by the government for the same month last week, which showed that factory output contracted by a record 55.5 per cent in April. Industrial activity had contracted 16.7 per cent in March.

These data sets point out that the Gross Domestic Product for April-June quarter will be severely impacted.

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Chief Minister of Myanmar’s Yangon Bows Out of 2020 Elections

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Chief Minister of Myanmar’s Yangon Bows Out of 2020 Elections

The chief minister of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, seen as a possible successor to Aung San Suu Kyi, told RFA on Monday he will not contest elections in November because of a “health condition,” dismissing reports he had filed papers to run.

Phyo Min Thein had been nominated by the ruling National League for Democracy party to run again for his current Yangon regional parliamentary seat. He won the seat in the NLD’s landslide victory in the 2015 general elections, and serves as local MP concurrently with his job as chief minister of Myanmar’s biggest city.

“I have informed the party that I can no longer serve as an MP [member of parliament] due to my health condition, so I will not contest in the upcoming election,” Phyo Min Thein told RFA’s Myanmar Service during an exclusive interview. He said local media reports saying that he had submitted a candidate application are false.

Phyo Min Thein, 51, who underwent heart surgery four years ago, did not elaborate on his health condition.

“I will keep contributing to the party’s works and nation-building efforts,” he added.

Phyo Min Thein emerged several years ago as a strong candidate to succeed state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi after impressing her and other top NLD officials with his willingness to take on tough infrastructure and transportation challenges in the country’s largest city. The former Rangoon was the commercial and political hub of British Burma and the country’s capital until 2006.

A former political prisoner like Aung San Suu Kyi and many of her followers in a decades-long struggle against military rule, Phyo Min Thein began his ascent in 2012, when he joined the then-opposition NLD party and won a seat representing Yangon in a by-election.

In October 2016, he was made a member of the NLD’s 12-person Central Executive Committee, the party’s top decision-making body, as part of a party restructuring and was quickly mentioned as a possible successor to Aung San Suu Kyi, who will be 75 on June 19.

The chief minister’s decision not to seek a seat in November came as he faced criticism, including from some NLD leaders, for flouting government-ordered restrictions on public gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Myanmar government on March 13 prohibited gatherings of more than four people and religious activities and has extended the restrictions until June 30.

In May, the party rebuked him at a Central Executive Committee meeting in Naypyidaw for attending a Buddhist religious event at the riverside Botahtaung Pagoda in Yangon with members of his cabinet and other officials.

People across Myanmar, including a Christian pastor in Yangon and some of his followers, had been arrested and charged under the Natural Disaster Management Law for violating the ban, creating what many saw as a double standard. Some residents in Yangon filed complaints against Phyo Min Thein for violating the ban.

Yangon region Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein (2nd from L) claps during a celebration marking the Lunar New Year along with his wife (C) at Chinatown in Yangon, Jan. 25, 2020.
Credit: Associated Press

‘No one above the law’

Thein Tun Oo, spokesman for the opposition Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP), said the NLD’s immediate decision not to take action against Phyo Min Thein appeared hypocritical.

“There is no one above the law, [and] it is unfair to others who were detained for participating in gatherings like the Yangon chief minister,” he told RFA. “The government should not ignore its members breaking the law.”

Government spokesman Zaw Htay told reporters during an online press conference on May 30 that the President’s Office asked the Yangon regional government to explain Phyo Min Thein’s attendance at the gathering and said that the government would take action depending on his explanation.

The party has also admonished the minister.

“The party has warned him to follow the orders, requests, instructions and suggestions issued by the national-level Central Committee for COVID-19 Prevention, Control and Treatment,” said NLD spokesman Monywa Aung Shin.

On June 5, Yangon regional lawmakers from the USDP, the military, and other political parties moved to impeach Phyo Min Thein.

“We still have to wait for the review from the parliament,” said Sandar Min, an NLD lawmaker who represents Seikkyi Kanaungto township’s No. 1 constituency in the Yangon regional parliament.

“The speaker will review it to see if at least two-thirds of all regional MPs support the allegation that he is not suitable for the chief minister position.”

Critics nevertheless have lambasted the Myanmar government for failing to take disciplinary action against Phyo Min Thein, who still is not off the hook yet for his actions.

“The government never allows any legal action to be taken against its officials,” said Myanmar human rights attorney Kyee Myint. “They must take action in this case, because charges cannot be made without its permission.”

Phyo Min Thein also was criticized when he sued Eleven Media for libel after an October 2018 report with a critical focus on Yangon government spending, charging that officials mismanaged public funds through business dealings by the chief minister.

The report also said that Phyo Min Thein received a watch worth U.S. $100,000 from an individual in return for favorable treatment.

The chief minister denied the allegation, and the media group issued an apology, after the arrest of three journalists in the incident prompted complaints that the he was suppressing media freedom. The Eleven Media staffers were later released.

Yangon region Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein (front C) holds a portrait of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi along with his wife (L), and NLD lawmaker May Win Myint (R), outside City Hall in Yangon, Dec. 10, 2019. The gathering was a show of support for Aung San Suu Kyi, who defended the military at the International Court of Justice in The Hague during a hearing on genocide allegations over the army's campaign against the Rohingya minority group.

Yangon region Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein (front C) holds a portrait of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi along with his wife (L), and NLD lawmaker May Win Myint (R), outside City Hall in Yangon, Dec. 10, 2019. The gathering was a show of support for Aung San Suu Kyi, who defended the military at the International Court of Justice in The Hague during a hearing on genocide allegations over the army’s campaign against the Rohingya minority group.
Credit: Associated Press

‘As much as he can’

Phyo Min Thein made a name for himself by tacking the commercial hub’s crippling traffic congestion by overhauling the public bus and school bus networks, removing vendors from city streets, and working on a plan for significant urban infrastructure improvements.

He also has traveled outside Myanmar at Aung San Suu Kyi’s behest, to try to get foreign companies to invest in Yangon.

But he has come under fire for some of his projects and decisions and faced criticism for what some say is a lack of economic development and investment in the city that drives the rest of the country.

Yangon residents, for instance, widely lambasted his changes to the bus system, citing increased fares, long delays, and irregular service.

Now, the Yangon regional parliament has rejected nearly U.S. $30 million in spending requests in the budget proposals of more than 20 government departments for the upcoming fiscal year 2020-21, deeming them excessive or inappropriate, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported.

Nyein Chan Suu Kyi, an activist and resident of Yangon’s Sanchaung township, said that Phyo Min Thein’s projects in Yangon have had mixed results.

“The Yangon Bus System and the school bus system are the chief minister’s most visible achievements,” she told RFA. “He is working as much as he can, but, yes, in some places he made some mistakes.”

“The progress is not as good as it was supposed to be, but he has done everything he can, as much as he can,” she said. “[But] I’ve also noticed that he has taken some actions carelessly.”

Opposition USDP spokesman Nandar Hla Myint said, “The voters had high hopes for the Yangon chief minister, [but] in the past five years, his promises have been like building castles in the air.”

“There are many people who can revamp Yangon region,” he added. “Many of them are in NLD party. They just need to find the right person.”

Reported by Khin Maung Soe, Aung Theinkha, Thant Zin Oo, and Phyu Phyu Khine for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung, Maung Maung Nyo, and Khin Khin Ei. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.



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The AI powered app for buying clothes online

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The AI powered app for buying clothes online

Buying clothes online has always been problematic because you can’t see them for real or try them on.

But one platform has taken things to a whole new level, making you the model. The artificial intelligence powered app Zeekit aims to give you a real life experience of trying on clothes.

BBC Click’s Lara Lewington put the app to the test buying a new dress. When it arrives in the post will it match expectations and will it fit?

See more at Click’s website and @BBCClick



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Instagram ‘will overtake Twitter as a news source’

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Instagram ‘will overtake Twitter as a news source’

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Photo-sharing app Instagram is set to overtake Twitter as a news source, research suggests.

The 2020 Reuters Institute Digital News report found the use of Instagram for news had doubled since 2018.

The trend is strongest among young people. It said nearly a quarter of UK 18-24-year-olds used Instagram as a source of news about coronavirus.

But social media platforms were also among the least-trusted sources.

Just 26% of people said they trusted social media as a source of information about the virus. A similar percentage said they trusted news that had been shared via chat apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

National governments and news organisations, by contrast, were both trusted by about 59% of respondents.

Instagram is now used by more than a third of all people who answered the survey, and two-thirds of under-25s. And 11% use it for news, putting it just one point behind Twitter.

“Instagram’s become very popular with younger people”, said Nic Newman, lead author of the report. “They really respond well to stories that are told simply and well with visual images”.

Stand-out visual stories in recent months have helped – climate change, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the coronavirus have all seen massive engagement on the platform.

News use vs non-news use on social media

Percentage of people who used the social network in the past week

“It’s not that one necessarily replaces the other,” Mr Newman said. “They might use Facebook and Instagram, or might use Twitter and Instagram.”

Instagram is owned by Facebook, which now reaches 85% of people each week. The company’s dominance in how stories are being told “remains incredibly important”, he added. The firm also owns WhatsApp.

Temporary trust boost

The coronavirus pandemic also seems to have offered a temporary reprieve to a downward trend in how much news organisations are trusted.

Only 38% of people said they trusted the news most of the time. Less than half – 46% – said they trusted their favoured news source.

In total, 40 countries were surveyed. Only in six of them did a majority say they could trust “most of the news most of the time”.

The case was particularly poor in the UK, where only 28% of respondents backed the statement. That figure was 12 percentage points lower than the nation’s response in the 2019 report.

That plummet in confidence was only matched by Chile and Hong Kong, which have both seen violent street protests – and still rank more highly than the UK, on 30% each.

But things changed substantially once the coronavirus crisis hit.

A slightly differently worded question in April – about the level of trust in information about the coronavirus – saw news organisations surge to a 59% trust rating, on a par with national governments.

Trust in sources of Covid-19 information

Average of six countries, April 2020

The report’s authors speculate the identical levels of trust as a result of news organisations amplifying public health advice.

But that sudden high has already started to fall.

Trust is a precious commodity for journalists which, like all social goods, is easily destroyed, but not easily created. Maintaining trust in the era of social media gets harder every day, as conspiracy theories go viral, accuracy is too often sacrificed at the altar of virality, and the very idea of truth is so contested.

This report shows a curious paradox in relation to trust. It is true that trust in what is sometimes disparagingly referred to as mainstream journalism is falling; yet the huge audiences for those outlets at the start of the pandemic are nothing if not a verdict on the public appetite for reliable, trustworthy news. In Britain, with its regulated broadcasting, there is still a lot of it about.

The deeper question is whether a young audience will consume it.

Reuters show the remarkable growth of Instagram as a news source, which makes Facebook’s purchase of it look ever more like one of the greatest bargains in history. If, as the authors predict, Instagram overtakes Twitter next year, that might be the moment for journalists to finally realise that the latter, though their favoured platform, resembles public opinion less and less.

“What we’re seeing is relatively high levels of trust – at the time of the lockdowns – in the media and national governments. But we have some polling since then, which shows that trust in the media fell 11 percentage points between April and May,” Mr Newman said.

While not officially part of the report, that recent polling suggests that the “moment of national unity” may have passed.

Impartial news

Amid all this analysis of trust issues, most people – what the report calls the “silent majority” – prefer what they consider “objective” news.

The authors of the report had not asked this question since 2013, since when the use of opinion and open stances on news reporting has grown.

In nine countries where this was explored, all said they preferred news from sources with “no point of view”.

The strongest preference was in Germany, Japan, the UK and Denmark. These are “all countries with strong and independent public broadcasters”, the report noted.

In contrast, the US – “where both politics and the media have become increasingly partisan over the years” – many more people said they prefer news which shares their point of view.

BBC News, which contributed data to the study, remained the most trusted news brand in the UK, with 64% trust.

“Despite the fact that the BBC has come under a lot of criticism, what we find consistently is the BBC remains, with most people, highly trusted,” Mr Newman said. “[It], along with broadcasters like ITV, tends to be the most trusted.

“But obviously, we have seen that eroding – particularly with a particularly vocal minority on both left and right, that in the last few years have trusted the BBC less.”

The decline is particularly marked in those on the political left. Since the 2019 election, the left saw their confidence in the news dive to just 15%, the report found.

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‘Fake news’ fears as Covid-19 highlights the dangers of misinformation – The Mail & Guardian

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‘Fake news’ fears as Covid-19 highlights the dangers of misinformation – The Mail & Guardian

As Covid-19 — one of the most serious public-health threats in recent history — dominates global media coverage, less than four in 10 people trust the news.

This sobering statistic comes from the Reuters Institute’s recently released report on global media behaviour, which found that concerns about “fake news” and misinformation remain high. 

The report, which is published annually, reveals that in a poll conducted in January only 38% of the more than 80 000 respondents said they “trust most news most of the time” — a fall of four percentage points from 2019. And fewer than half of respondents (46%) said they trust the news they consume.

The survey drew responses from 40 countries, including South Africa, just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit many of them.

“The seriousness of this [coronavirus] crisis has reinforced the need for reliable, accurate journalism that can inform and educate populations, but it has also reminded us how open we have become to conspiracies and misinformation,” the report reads.

“Journalists no longer control access to information, while greater reliance on social media and other platforms give people access to a wider range of sources and ‘alternative facts’, some of which are at odds with official advice, misleading or simply false.”

According to the report, 56% of the respondents remain concerned about what is real and fake on the internet when it comes to news. 

But for respondents in parts of the Global South, where social media use is high and traditional institutions are often weaker, this concern tends to be much higher. More than 70% of the South African respondents said they worried about identifying fake news. 

Although South African media has built a strong reputation for independence, the report notes, political and business interference “is an increasing concern”. 

South Africa was among the countries — after the United States, Brazil and the Philippines — where politicians were seen as having an even higher responsibility for online misinformation than in other regions.

Researchers conducted additional, more limited, surveys in the thick of global responses to the coronavirus pandemic to determine changes in media consumption during this period. 

This survey found that news outlets struggling to survive online saw a bump in readers during the crisis. But although some countries saw significant increases in people paying for news online, across all countries most people are still not paying for online news.

“Over the last nine years, our data have shown online news overtaking television as the most frequently used source of news in many of the countries covered by our online survey. At the same time, printed newspapers have continued to decline while social media have levelled off after a sharp rise,” the report reads.

“The coronavirus crisis has significantly, though almost certainly temporarily, changed that picture.”

The reports surmises that the economic aftermath of the pandemic will likely have a lasting effect on the future of the media.

Earlier this month, the South African National Editors’ Forum took a closer look at the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on local media organisations.

Researcher Reg Rumney found that traffic to news websites increased 72% in March, just before the countrywide lockdown, and that these sites saw a 44% growth in unique browsers. Many news websites saw double-digit growth in their audience numbers in the same month.

Rumney estimated that there could be up to 400 job losses at small print-media organisations as a result of the economic pinch triggered by the pandemic, and noted that bigger news organisations have had to cut salaries to survive.

In March, the Mail & Guardian published an editorial describing the week leading up to the start of the countrywide lockdown as “one of the worst we have ever experienced in contemporary times”. The national lockdown — and the consequent uncertainty caused by the pandemic — led many companies to stop or drastically reduce their advertising spend. And the cancellation of events such as live concerts and soccer matches also meant advertising revenue from those sources dried up.

In his presentation this month, Rumney said the coronavirus crisis “has made it more urgent than ever to get readers to pay for online news”. 



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