Weekend Box #112: Seeds of Unrest in Kashmir, Cannes & more
Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s weekly round-up of interesting or obscure political, business and cultural news from around the world.
Image credit/Obaid Hassan Qureshi/License
KASHMIR: THE SEEDS OF UNREST
This past week has seen escalating tensions in the contested Kashmir territory after a protest over the cost of flour and electricity led to the death of three young men in the Pakistan-administered part of the region.
The demonstrations began on May 11th, when a convoy in the hundreds, organised by a group called the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), journeyed from the region’s Bagh district to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The protest movement turned tragic on Monday when the government called in the paramilitary, who clashed with protesters resulting in fatalities and injuries.
The JAAC, a coalition of civil society leaders led by chairman Shaukat Nawaz Mir, has been demanding cheaper flour, electricity at production cost, and financial reforms to better serve this contested region. Although the Pakistani government agreed to most demands in February, implementation has been sluggish, leading to ongoing frustration and demonstrations this week.
The government's response to the demonstrations has been a mix of concessions and crackdowns. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced an $82m subsidy programme on Monday to reduce wheat and flour prices. This was meant to quell the unrest, but the death of the three young protesters by the paramilitary spurred the movement to further dissent.
Amid these clashes, there have been accusations that India is backing JAAC in order to stir domestic resentment against the Pakistan government. The territory has been subject to multiple violent conflicts between the two nations since independence from British rule in 1947. However, Imtiaz Aslam, of the JAAC leadership, denies any Indian involvement.
“Our fight is not with the state of Pakistan. We are only arguing against the corrupt rule of the current government here [in Pakistan-administered Kashmir]. This is what government always does, whenever anybody tries to raise voice, they allege an Indian connection,” he said.
GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT
This week Denmark hosted the latest edition of the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, the annual event of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation looking at the relationship between technology, democracy, and freedom.
Two major speeches about countering disinformation were delivered at the summit – one from a European leader, the other from a far-east Asian leader – reflecting the global nature of the issue.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed a "European Democracy Shield" to defend against foreign interference if she wins a second term in June. The idea is to expand the EU's capacity to tackle fake news and deep fakes, focusing on “pre-bunking” to educate citizens about propaganda techniques before they take root. This preventative approach seeks to build societal resilience against the spread of malicious information and bolster support for democratic values and unity within the EU.
From Asia, Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang drew on her country’s recent history. In elections earlier this year, manipulated videos alleging electoral fraud were circulated on social media. Much like von der Leyen, Tang emphasised the importance of pre-empting false narratives by informing the public in advance about potential misinformation tactics.
Taiwan, increasingly worried about the impact of Chinese interference in its democratic processes, has instituted measures requiring government ministries to respond to disinformation within an hour of detection. Taiwanese schools are now engaging students in fact-checking exercises to develop critical thinking and media literacy. Tang said that “it’s not the checked facts that inoculates people, rather the act of going through the fact-checking process, understanding the framing effect that inoculates people.”
As the risks of bad actors and foreign governments deploying interference tactics ramps up, we may yet see British children learning about disinformation in the classroom.
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere will recall that summer last year was exceptionally hot, prompting droughts, wildfires, and casualties. At the time, scientists declared June to August to be the warmest summer period since records began in the 1850s.
Now, new research reveals that it was the warmest for 2,000 years, with an average temperature nearly four degrees Celsius warmer than the coldest previous summer and over 2°C higher than the average.
The new research, by climate scientists from the University of Cambridge and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, combines instrument-based records back to the mid-1800s with analysis of tree rings across nine sites in the Northern hemisphere. Tree rings – the rings found in a cross-section of a tree trunk – provide absolutely-dated evidence and reach back as far as the oldest trees and fossils allow. The coldest summer since the height of the Roman Empire was in 536CE, following a large sulphur-rich volcanic eruption which partially blocked the sun and cooled surface temperatures.
Summer 2023 and this summer fall within the El Nino climate cycle, which typically generates warmer conditions in the Northern hemisphere. That natural cycle has been intensified over the last 60 years or so, as global warming by greenhouse gas emissions has intensified its effects, promising more record-breaking temperatures and related risks this year.
"When you look at the long sweep of history, you can see just how dramatic recent global warming is," said study co-author Jan Esper, from Johannes Gutenberg University. Last year's summer temperatures reached 2.07°C higher than “pre-industrial” 1850-1900 and were 2.2°C warmer than the estimated average temperature across the years 1 to 1890. Allowing for all uncertainties, the authors say summer 2023 surpassed the range of natural climate variability by at least 0.5°C.
BRITAIN LETTING SHOPS DROP
While some European countries are doing their best to intentionally limit tourism, the UK has found its own – less intentional – means of doing so. The debate about VAT rebates on shopping for foreign tourists is once again in the headlines, as new data from tax refund provider Global Blue identified that 34,000 tourists have shifted their tax-free shopping from the UK to the EU.
The rebate system was initially dropped in 2021 as a consequence of Brexit. Whereas pre-Brexit the rebates were available to tourists from non-EU countries, as a stand-alone country the UK would have to apply the offer to EU countries as well as the wider world. Warned that this would cost £1.4bn a year, then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak decided against reintroducing it and has stood firm in this position (despite a brief reversal of the policy in Kwasi Kwarteng’s 2022 mini-budget).
In March this year, current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt asked the ORB to review the impact of this tax, leading many to suspect another reversal was on its way. The ORB stuck by the c.£1.4bn loss figure, and the policy stuck too, despite facing vocal opposition from retail lobby groups and brands alike.
The Association of International Retail (AIR) claim that spending by tourists in shops in the UK fell by 28% in 2022 on 2019 levels, while spending in France, Italy, and Spain increased to 98% above 2019 levels. Designer Paul Smith bemoaned the impact on his business, “Effectively, we’re 20 per cent more expensive than every EU country.”
Part of the complexity is in modelling the financial impact of VAT rule-changes, which accounts for the enormously varied estimates about the impact of the change. The AIR suggests that bringing it back would result in a gain of £450m, while other independent analysis suggests that the knock-on effects of this boost to tourism could ultimately provide an £11bn boost to GDP.
Image credit/bestentours/License
A CANNES-DO ATTITUDE TO CHANGE?
The atmosphere is particularly charged at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, which began this week.
It appears attempts are being made to reckon with abuse in the French film industry and criticism directed at Cannes for “doing too little to foster gender parity in film.” Meanwhile, reports suggest a list of “explosive allegations of abuse in the industry” is due to be published during the Festival.
The rumoured list has reportedly spurred the Festival to “set up a crisis management team.” At the time of writing, no further news on the list has emerged. Criticism has been levelled at the ‘media circus’ surrounding it, distracting from work by the likes of French actress and director Judith Godrèche to challenge the industry on the issue of abuse.
Godrèche premiered her short film ‘Moi Aussi’ (‘Me Too’) on Wednesday, platforming the voices of survivors of sexual abuse. Its title alludes to the #MeToo movement of which Godrèche has been a prominent voice, speaking out on her own historic experiences in the French film industry and its culture of silence towards abuse of women and girls.
Another story that has made headlines is the long-awaited premier of The Godfather/Apocalypse Now director Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film, Megalopolis. The premier itself has been overshadowed somewhat by reports of struggles to find US distributors and alleged inappropriate behaviour by Coppola onset.
A film by a director of Coppola’s pedigree would, in theory, not be hard to sell. However, representatives of major distributors including Disney and Netflix were quoted in April suggesting the film was simply not commercial enough for them to market.
One might say the overwhelming theme of Cannes this year is change: how much has changed about the film industry, and how much is still needed.
And that’s it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at cwilkins@audleyadvisors.com.
For now, that’s The Weekend Box officially closed.