The White Fox restaurant in Mosul, Iraq, isn’t known for its comfortable atmosphere or its great food and drinks. It’s known for its servers. VOA’s Kawa Omar filed this report, narrated by Rikar Hussein.
Producer and camera: Kawa Omar.
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Day: December 24, 2021
US President Joe Biden says defeating the coronavirus pandemic – both at home and around the world – is his top priority. VOA looks at how he handled this unprecedented global and domestic challenge during his first year as president, with this report from White House correspondent Anita Powell.
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“There is nothing in the world like the food you can find in Louisiana,” Chef Isaac Toups, owner of popular New Orleans restaurant Toups Meatery, told VOA. “It’s such a unique mix of so many different cultures that converged here from around the globe. They brought their ideas about food with them and made a cuisine that is unparalleled.”
Immigrants’ culinary influences span centuries in New Orleans, a port city near the mouth of the Mississippi River. From French colonists who were the first Europeans to permanently settle in the area in 1699 to Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s to recent arrivals from all over the world, newcomers have continually added to the DNA of local cuisine.
Liz Williams, founder of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum and author of New Orleans: A Food Biography, says there’s something unique about the way cultures – and cooking – have melded in this Southern city compared with other places in America.
“You can find every food in the world in New York City,” Williams said. “Go two blocks that way for this type of cuisine and six blocks the other way for that type of cuisine.”
New Orleans, by contrast, has spawned a gastronomical melting pot. Or, to use a local analogy, a gumbo.
“There’s no ‘New York City cuisine’ because all those immigrant groups didn’t meld together,” she said. “In New Orleans, though, all of these different immigrant cuisines have been influenced by New Orleans food and influenced New Orleans food. There’s a melding, merging and updating that seems to be constantly happening here that doesn’t happen in other places.”
Early settlers
Mention Louisiana cooking, and most people think of Creole cuisine, Cajun cuisine or some mixture of the two.
“When the two foods were first being established in Louisiana in the 18th century, they were two distinct cuisines from two distinct regions,” explained chef Donald Link, owner of several New Orleans restaurants all under the banner of the Link Restaurant Group. “Creole food was being created in New Orleans while Cajun food was in the more rural, southwestern part of the state.”
Creole culture in New Orleans arose from a mixture of the early French settlers, Spanish immigrants who followed shortly after, enslaved people taken from Africa and the Native Americans who were already here. Once the United States purchased Louisiana from France in 1803, waves of Anglo-Americans came to New Orleans as well as thousands who fled the Haitian Revolution taking place at the same time.
The confluence created a unique mix of cultures that is reflected in local cooking to this day.
“New Orleans is often called the most northern city in the Caribbean, and there was a lot of influence coming from Spanish-controlled Latin countries,” explained Link. “They brought their rice, beans, guisados and stews. And then the French brought their boudin and fricassees and all these celebrated techniques, and Africans had gumbo, which comes from the West African word for okra. It all came together to make what we call Creole food.”
Creole food is considered a cosmopolitan cuisine. It often features rich sauces, local herbs, ripe tomatoes and local seafood.
“You use what you have available to you,” said Brad Hollingsworth, owner of longtime New Orleans favorite Clancy’s. “Here, that means all these great, fresh fish from the Gulf of Mexico: speckled trout, pompano, red snapper, redfish, flounder and all the way down the line.”
Hollingsworth said cuisine from Creole culture is more focused on sauces than its Cajun counterpart. That, he said, is in large part because of the city’s ability to attract settlers from more cosmopolitan, cultured areas of France.
“They brought with them the French mother sauces that we really lean into at Clancy’s,” Hollingsworth said. “Bechamel, velouté, espagnole, hollandaise and tomato. We use them to complement our local fish or meat. It’s a combination of using what is geographically available and the techniques of the immigrant groups who came here.”
Cajun food, on the other hand, is known for being more rustic. It features meat-heavy, all-in-one-pot dishes like jambalaya and the rice-filled, spicy pork blood sausage known as boudin.
The Cajuns were also largely originally of French descent, but these French-influenced immigrants came from backcountry parts of Acadia in Canada rather than the major cities of France. They were forced out of Canada by the British in 1755, and about 3,000 arrived in rural Louisiana, where they interacted with German immigrants, Native Americans and enslaved people – all of whom added their own culinary influences.
“Cajun cuisine was more of a country food, while Creole cuisine was more of a city food,” said Toups, who grew up in the part of Louisiana known as Cajun Country, about two-and-a-half hours west of New Orleans. “That’s because the Cajuns were French fur trappers, not French-trained chefs like you might find in the city. As a poorer immigrant group, we had to add things to make our meals last. Fortunately, the region had tons of rice, which is why you find rice in our classics like boudin, jambalaya and gumbo.”
Continuing the evolution of a food
During the 19th and 20th centuries, thanks to improved methods of communication and better transportation, the two cuisines began to merge and inspire each other. They also continued to be influenced by other groups
German immigrants, for example, brought their passion for sausages to Cajun food, which helped create Louisiana’s famed spicy andouille. But the next big addition to the local food scene came when nearly 300,000 Italian immigrants – most of them Sicilian – moved to the city between 1884 and 1924.
“If you look at stuffed peppers in other places, they’re usually prepared with rice,” said Liz Williams, who will be releasing the book, Nana’s Creole Italian Table in March 2022, “but in New Orleans, our veggies are stuffed with breadcrumbs. That’s an effect of the Sicilians who arrived here.”
Red gravy, the Creole adaptation of tomato sauce – similar to how Creoles use a roux in gumbo as a thickener – and the introduction of sno-balls, made from shaved ice, to New Orleans are further examples of how New Orleanian and Sicilian cuisines merged.
“In Sicily and lots of Europe, it was common during hotter months to walk up a mountain to collect snow that you could flavor with syrup for a summertime treat,” Williams said. “In America, most places use crushed ice for more of a frozen sherbet. In New Orleans, however, shaved ice is used because it emulates more of what our Sicilians knew back home.”
In more recent decades, Mexican immigrants came to New Orleans to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. They, too, left an impact on their new home – not just on the cuisine, but also the way it’s served.
New Orleans is now dotted with dozens of taco trucks it didn’t have before the storm.
“Because the local ingredients are different here,” Williams explained, “so are the items sold. You’re not going to find fried oyster tacos in many places in the world, but you can find them in New Orleans.”
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Pots and pans in kitchens across one of the world’s most unique food cities clatter with creations that can’t be found anywhere else. At two-time James Beard award-winning chef Alon Shaya’s restaurant, Saba, Louisiana blue crab is a local addition to a traditionally Mediterranean hummus. Popular Indian restaurant Saffron NOLA adds curried seafood and basmati rice to gumbo, Louisiana’s state dish.
And Dong Phuong Bakery, an institution formed in 1982 after thousands of Vietnamese refugees arrived in New Orleans after the Vietnam War, has forever changed how many residents think of two of their most prized foods. Dong Phuong and their unique king cake – topped with cream cheese icing because bakery owner Huong Tran didn’t want her cake to be as sweet as the ones with traditional sugar icing – is one of the most popular in the city. Also, the bakery’s bread is sold by the thousands to restaurants across the city. The beloved Louisiana po’boy sandwich is now often made with Vietnamese-style banh mi bread instead of the more Louisiana-standard French bread.
“We came here as refugees with nothing, so of course it makes us so proud to have our new home appreciate what we can add to the food here,” explained Linh Tran Garza, president of Dong Phuong Bakery. “But we’re also continuously influenced by our home, as well.”
Garza points to the emergence of Viet-Cajun cuisine as proof that the two cultures are evolving with each other.
“It’s a great thing, I think. We should always be paying attention to the community and seeing how we can get better, give customers what they want, or create some new amazing food.”
Liz Williams said that is something New Orleans is especially able to do, perhaps more so than any other American city, because of its past.
“I think it has to do with us being originally colonized by the French while much of the rest of America was colonized by the British,” she said. “The British have a way of doing things and, historically, exercise less flexibility. The French, however, are more curious and more eager to make great food. They see it as an art, and they welcome new inspiration. The Creoles sought and welcomed that inspiration centuries ago, and I think our culture continues to do it today.”
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President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden brought some Christmas Eve cheer to hospitalized children who aren’t well enough to go home for holidays.
It’s longstanding tradition for first ladies to visit Children’s National Hospital at Christmastime, but Joe Biden’s visit on Friday was a surprise. It marked the first time that a sitting president had joined the fun, the White House said.
The Bidens are set to help a group of children making lanterns as part of a winter craft project. Jill Biden will also sit by the Christmas tree and read “Olaf’s Night Before Christmas” to the kids. Video of her reading will also be shown in patient rooms throughout the hospital.
The Walt Disney Co. provided copies of the book for each patient so they can follow along with the first lady, the White House said. Each book includes a White House bookmark designed by her office.
The annual tradition of a hospital visit by the first lady dates to Bess Truman, who served in the role from 1945-1953.
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Deep in the desert of the United Arab Emirates, the moment that camel breeders had been waiting for arrived.
Families hauled their camels through wind-carved sands. Servers poured tiny cups of Arabic coffee. Judges descended on desert lots.
A single question loomed over the grandstand: Which camels were most beautiful?
Even as the omicron variant rips through the world, legions of breeders from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar traveled to the UAE’s southwestern desert this week with 40,000 of their most beautiful camels for the Al Dhafra Festival.
The five-man jury at the annual pageant insists beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Camel aesthetics are evaluated according to precise categories determined generations ago. Only female camels participate because males fight too much, authorities said.
As hundreds of woolly black camels trotted through the dusty pastures, necks and humps bobbing, one of the organizers, Mohammed al-Muhari, outlined the platonic ideal.
Necks must be long and slim, cheeks broad and hooves large, he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Lips must droop. They must walk tall with graceful posture.
“It’s not so different from humans,” al-Muhari said, his robe sparkling white amid clouds of dust.
The high standards have prompted many breeders to seek an advantage, using banned Botox injections to inflate the camel’s lips, muscle relaxants to soften the face and silicone wax injections to expand the hump.
Festival spokesman Abdel Hadi Saleh declined to say how many participants had been disqualified over plastic surgery this week. All camels undergo rigorous medical exams to detect artificial touch-ups and hormones before entering Al Dhafra Festival.
Since Emirati investigators began employing X-rays and sonar systems a few years ago, Saleh said the number of cheaters has plummeted.
“We easily catch them, and they realize getting caught, it’s not worth the cost to their reputation,” he said.
A great deal is at stake. Al Dhafra Festival offers the top 10 winners in each category prizes ranging from $1,300 to $13,600. At the main Saudi contest, the most beautiful fetch $66 million. Camels change hands in deals worth millions of dirhams.
But breeders insist it’s not only about the money.
“It is a kind of our heritage and custom that the (Emirati rulers) revived,” said 27-year-old camel owner Saleh al-Minhali from Abu Dhabi. He sported designer sunglasses over his traditional headdress and Balenciaga sneakers under his kandura, or Emirati tunic.
Gone are the days when camels were integral to daily life in the federation of seven sheikhdoms, a chapter lost as oil wealth and global business transformed Dubai and Abu Dhabi into skyscraper-studded hubs with marbled malls, luxury hotels and throbbing nightclubs. Foreigners outnumber locals nearly nine to one in the country.
However, experts say Emiratis are increasingly searching for meaning in echoes of the past — Bedouin traditions that prevailed before the UAE became a nation 50 years ago.
“Younger Emiratis who have identity issues are going back to their heritage to find a sense of belonging,” said Rima Sabban, a sociologist at Zayed University in Dubai. “The society developed and modernized so fast it creates a crisis inside.”
Camels race at old-world racetracks in the Emirates, and still offer milk, meat and a historic touchstone to citizens. Festivals across the country celebrate the camel’s significance. Al Dhafra also features falcon racing, dromedary dancing and a camel milking contest.
“People in Dubai may not even think about them, but young people here care deeply about camels,” said Mahmoud Suboh, a festival coordinator from Liwa Oasis at the northern edge of the desert’s Empty Quarter. Since 2008, he has watched the fairgrounds transform from a remote desert outpost into an extravaganza that draws camel lovers from around the world.
In a sign of the contest’s exploding popularity, about a dozen young Emirati men who call themselves “camel influencers” filmed and posed with the camels on Wednesday, broadcasting live to thousands of Instagram followers.
The digital likes have proven important this year, as the coronavirus pandemic curtailed tourism to the festival and dampened the mood. Police checked that visitors had received both vaccine doses and tested negative for the virus. Authorities nagged attendees to adjust their face masks, threatening fines. There were few foreigners or other spectators strolling the site Wednesday.
Each category in the 10-day pageant is divided into two types of camels: Mahaliyat, the tan breed that originates from the UAE and Oman, and Majaheen, the darker breed from Saudi Arabia. Wednesday’s showcase focused on 5-year-old black Majaheen camels.
For hours, judges scrutinized each camel, scribbling lists of the animal’s body parts for scoring purposes. Breeders shouted to startle camels so they’d look up and show off elongated necks.
As the sun set over the sands, the winning breeders were called to accept their gleaming trophies. Down below in the dirt rings, camels were crowned with gold and silver-lined shawls.
“Until now we are the first in the category … We’ve received over 40 prizes (in various camel contests) this year alone,” beamed Mohammed Saleh bin Migrin al-Amri as he juggled four trophies from the day, including two golds.
Then he jumped into his Toyota Land Cruiser. The victory parade of honking SUVs and grunting camels faded behind the desert dunes.
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While many countries are fighting off their worst coronavirus outbreaks yet, Japan is detecting hardly any COVID-19 infections at all. Observers are trying to figure out why.
As recently as late summer, Japan’s coronavirus outlook wasn’t great. An outbreak coinciding with the Tokyo Olympics was killing dozens per day and overwhelming hospitals.
Starting in September, though, as Japan ramped up its vaccination campaign, the country saw a dramatic plunge in the number of reported cases and eventually the number of deaths.
Since then, the situation has only improved. Japan this month has reported an average of less than one COVID-19 death per day – a shockingly low number for a country of 126 million.
No one knows exactly why Japan has experienced such success — especially while other countries, even its immediate neighbors, have been hit by serious winter waves of the coronavirus.
There are many possible explanations. Nearly 80% of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated. Virtually everyone wears masks. Even after the government relaxed restrictions this autumn, people continued to socially distance themselves.
Some researchers have pointed to Japan’s low rates of obesity. Several recent studies have concluded that COVID-19 is more severe in obese individuals.
Cultural customs may also play a role. For instance, Japanese do not typically kiss, hug, or even shake hands during greetings. Many Japanese are also relatively quiet in public settings, points out Kentaro Iwata, an infectious disease specialist at Japan’s Kobe University.
“Masking and keeping silent in public places is very important [for fighting the virus]. Everybody knows it, but practicing it can be very difficult in some parts of the world, maybe due to cultural reasons,” said Iwata, who has dealt with infectious outbreaks for more than 20 years, by email.
Those factors, however, do not explain why neighboring South Korea, which shares many cultural traits, is dealing with its worst COVID-19 outbreak yet.
One possible explanation is that Japan is testing far fewer people, Kenji Shibuya, an epidemiologist and researcher at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, said.
In the first half of December, Japan tested an average of 44,623 people per day, according to government data. South Korea, whose population is less than half that of Japan, conducted an average of 238,901 tests per day during the same period, according to official data.
Because of Japan’s lack of testing, it is difficult to believe that official case figures reflect reality on the ground, Shibuya told VOA in an email.
If the lack of testing were a major factor, though, Japan would have likely seen a surge in other indicators, such as the number of hospitalizations or deaths from respiratory illnesses, as other experts have noted.
In the absence of any definitive explanation, some researchers have tried to identify a so-called X-factor. One study even suggested many Japanese people share a genetic feature linked to white blood cells that helps the fight against COVID-19. Others theorize that the coronavirus variant spreading in Japan may have mutated itself into extinction.
Whatever the reason for Japan’s success, the battle is not over, said Shibuya, who said he still expects the country to see a winter wave of infections.
In a possible ominous sign, Japan this week identified its first cases of community transmission of the omicron variant, which scientists say spreads much faster than previous iterations of the virus. Many of those found to be infected with omicron had no history of overseas travel, officials said.
“White-knuckle” — That’s how Rusty Whitman describes the month ahead, after the launch of the historic James Webb Space Telescope, now tentatively set for Saturday.
From a secure control room in Baltimore, Maryland, Whitman and his colleagues will hold their breath as Webb comes online. But that’s just the beginning.
For the first six months after Webb’s launch, Whitman and the team at the Space Telescope Science Institute will monitor the observatory around the clock, making tiny adjustments to ensure it is perfectly calibrated for astronomers across the world to explore the universe.
The most crucial moments will come at the beginning of the mission: the telescope must be placed on a precise trajectory, while at the same time unfurling its massive mirror and even larger sun-shade — a perilous choreography.
“At the end of 30 days, I will be able to breathe a sigh of relief if we’re on schedule,” said Whitman, flight operations system engineering manager.
He leads the team of technicians who set up Webb’s control room — a high-tech hub with dozens of screens to monitor and control the spacecraft.
In the first row, one person alone will have the power to send commands to the $10 billion machine, which will eventually settle into an orbit over 1.5 million kilometers away.
In other stations, engineers will monitor specific systems for any anomalies.
After launch, Webb’s operations are largely automated, but the team in Baltimore must be ready to handle any unexpected issues.
Luckily, they have had lots of practice.
Over the course of a dozen simulations, the engineers practiced quickly diagnosing and correcting malfunctions thought up by the team, as well as experts flown in from Europe and California.
During one of those tests, the power in the building cut out.
“It was totally unexpected,” said Whitman. “The people who didn’t know — they thought it was part of the plan.”
Fortunately, the team had already prepared for such an event: a back-up generator quickly restored power to the control room.
Even with the practice, Whitman is still worried about what could go wrong: “I’m nervous about the possibility that we forgot something. I’m always trying to think ‘what did we forget?”
In addition to its job of keeping Webb up and running, the Space Telescope Science Institute — based out of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University — manages who gets to use the pricey science tool.
While the telescope will operate practically 24/7, that only leaves 8,760 hours a year to divvy up among the scientists clamoring for their shot at a ground-breaking discovery.
Black holes, exoplanets, star clusters — how to decide which exciting experiment gets priority?
By the end of 2020, researchers from around the world submitted over 1,200 proposals, of which 400 were eventually chosen for the first year of operation.
Hundreds of independent specialists met over two weeks in early 2021 — online due to the pandemic — to debate the proposals and pare down the list.
The proposals were anonymized, a practice the Space Telescope Science Institute first put in place for another project it manages, the Hubble Telescope. As a result, many more projects by women and early-career scientists were chosen.
“These are exactly the kind of people we want to use the observatory, because these are new ideas,” explained Klaus Pontoppidan, the science lead for Webb.
The time each project requires for observations varies in length, some needing only a few hours and the longest needing about 200.
What will be the first images revealed to the public? “I can’t say,” said Pontoppidan, “that is meant to be a surprise.”
The early release of images and data will quickly allow scientists to understand the telescope’s capacities and set up systems that work in lock step.
“We want them to be able to do their science with it quickly,” Pontoppidan explained. “Then they can come back and say ‘hey – we need to do more observations based on the data we already have.'”
Pontoppidan, himself an astronomer, believes Webb will lead to many discoveries “far beyond what we’ve seen before.”
“I’m most excited about the things that we are not predicting right now,” he said.
Before the Hubble launched, no exoplanets — planets that orbit stars outside our solar system — had been discovered. Scientists have since found thousands.
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U.S. chipmaker Intel is facing criticism in China after it apologized Thursday for a letter the firm sent to suppliers asking them “to ensure that its supply chain does not use any labor or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region.”
On Thursday, Intel posted a Chinese-language message on its WeChat and Weibo accounts apologizing for “trouble caused to our respected Chinese customers, partners and the public. Intel is committed to becoming a trusted technology partner and accelerating joint development with China.”
Intel’s apology came as U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans the import of goods produced by Uyghur slave labor. Under the measure, a company is prohibited from importing from China’s Xinjiang region unless it can prove that its supply chains have not used labor from Uyghurs, ethnic Muslims reportedly enslaved in Chinese camps.
Beijing denies complaints of abuses in the mostly Muslim region.
Intel is just the latest multinational firm to be caught up in the struggle over the Uyghurs issue as China prepares to host the Winter Olympics in February. Intel is among the International Olympic Committee sponsors. According to Reuters, 26% of Intel’s 2020 total revenue was earned in China.
Earlier this month, Intel’s letter to suppliers asking them to be sure not to use labor, products or services from Xinjiang cited restrictions imposed by “multiple governments.”
That sparked a backlash in China, with calls for a boycott and criticism of the company in state and social media. Global Times, a Chinese state-run newspaper, called Intel’s request to suppliers “arrogant and vicious,” according to reports.
Wang Junkai, also known as Karry Wang, a singer with the popular boy band TFBOYS, said on Weibo on Wednesday that he would not serve as an Intel brand ambassador. “National interests exceed everything,” he said, according to wire service reports.
Chinese officials acknowledged Intel’s apology.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said at a daily briefing in Beijing that “we note the statement and hope the relevant company will respect facts and tell right from wrong,” according to Reuters.
The White House also appeared to note the company’s apology.
Without naming Intel, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said at a briefing Thursday that U.S. companies “should never feel the need to apologize for standing up for fundamental human rights or opposing repression,” according to reports.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
Worried that a new COVID-19 wave could overwhelm understaffed U.S. hospitals, federal officials on Thursday loosened rules that call on health care workers to stay out of work for 10 days if they test positive.
Those workers will now be allowed to come back to work after seven days if they test negative and don’t have symptoms. Isolation time can be cut to five days or even fewer if there are severe staffing shortages, according to new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“As the health care community prepares for an anticipated surge in patients due to omicron, CDC is updating our recommendations to reflect what we know about infection and exposure in the context of vaccination and booster doses,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.
“Our goal is to keep health care personnel and patients safe, and to address and prevent undue burden on our health care facilities,” she added.
Isolation is designed to keep infected people away from uninfected people and prevent further spread of the virus.
CDC officials have advised that in calculating the 10-day isolation period, the first day should be the first full day after symptoms first developed or after a positive test. If a person develops symptoms sometime after a positive COVID-19 test, the quarantine period must restart, beginning one day after the symptoms develop.
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Polish Senator Krzysztof Brejza’s mobile phone was hacked with sophisticated spyware nearly three dozen times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s campaign against the right-wing populist government in parliamentary elections, an internet watchdog found.
Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone — then doctored in a smear campaign — were aired by state-controlled TV in the heat of that race, which the ruling party narrowly won. With the hacking revelation, Brejza now questions whether the election was fair.
It’s the third finding by the University of Toronto’s nonprofit Citizen Lab that a Polish opposition figure was hacked with Pegasus spyware from the Israeli hacking tools firm NSO Group. Brejza’s phone was digitally broken into 33 times from April 26, 2019, to October 23, 2019, said Citizen Lab researchers, who have been tracking government abuses of NSO malware for years.
The other two hacks were identified earlier this week after a joint Citizen Lab-Associated Press investigation. All three victims blame Poland’s government, which has refused to confirm or deny whether it ordered the hacks or is a client of NSO Group. State security services spokesman Stanislaw Zaryn insisted Thursday that the government does not wiretap illegally and obtains court orders in “justified cases.” He said any suggestions the Polish government surveils for political ends were false.
NSO, which was blacklisted by the U.S. government last month, says it sells its spyware only to legitimate government law enforcement and intelligence agencies vetted by Israel’s Defense Ministry for use against terrorists and criminals. It does not name its clients and would not say if Poland is among them.
Citizen Lab said it believes NSO keeps logs of intrusions so an investigation could determine who was behind the Polish hacks.
EU response
In response to the revelations, European Union lawmakers said they would hasten efforts to investigate allegations that member nations such as Poland have abused Pegasus spyware.
The other two Polish victims are Ewa Wrzosek, an outspoken prosecutor fighting the increasingly hardline government’s undermining of judicial independence, and Roman Giertych, a lawyer who has represented senior leaders of Brejza’s party, Civic Platform, in sensitive cases.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday dismissed revelations that Giertych and Wrzosek were hacked as “fake news.” Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said he had no knowledge of “illegal actions aimed at the surveillance of citizens” but also said Poland was “not helpless” in taking action against people suspected of crimes.
Giertych was hacked 18 times, also in the run-up to 2019 parliamentary elections that the ruling Law and Justice party won by a razor-thin margin. That victory has continued an erosion of democracy in the nation where the popular 1980s protest movement Solidarity presaged the eventual collapse of the Soviet empire.
The intense tempo of the hacks of Brejza and Giertych “indicates an extreme level of monitoring” that raises pressing questions about abuses of power, Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton said. Pegasus gives its operators complete access to a mobile device: They can extract passwords, photos, messages, contacts and browsing history, and activate the microphone and camera for real-time eavesdropping.
“My heart sinks with each case we find,” Scott-Railton added. “This seems to be confirming our worst fear: Even when used in a democracy, this kind of spyware has an almost immutable abuse potential.”
Other confirmed victims have included Mexican and Saudi journalists, British attorneys, Palestinian human rights activists, heads of state and Uganda-based U.S. diplomats.
An NSO spokesperson said Thursday that “the company does not and cannot know who the targets of its customers are, yet implements measures to ensure that these systems are used solely for the authorized uses.” The spokesperson said there is zero tolerance for governments that abuse the software; NSO says it has terminated multiple contracts of governments that have abused Pegasus, although it has not named any publicly.
Despite any measures NSO might be taking, Citizen Lab notes, the list of abuse cases continues to grow.
Doctored texts
Brejza, a 38-year-old attorney, told the AP that he has no doubt data stolen from his phone while he was chief of staff of the opposition coalition’s parliamentary campaign provided critical strategy insights. Combined with the smear effort against him, he said, it prevented “a fair electoral process.”
Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone were doctored to make it appear as if he created an online group that spread hateful anti-government propaganda; reports in state-controlled media cited the altered texts. But the group didn’t exist.
Brejza says he now understands where TVP state television got them.
“This operation wrecked the work of staff and destabilized my campaign,” he said. “I don’t know how many votes it took from me and the entire coalition.”
Brejza won his Senate seat in that October 2019 race. But since the ruling party held on to the more powerful lower house of parliament, it has steered Poland further away from EU standards of liberal democracy.
Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said at the time that control of state media gave the ruling party an unfair advantage but called the elections essentially free. They were unaware of the hacking.
Brejza has been a Law and Justice party critic since it won power in 2015. For example, he has exposed large bonuses paid to senior government officials. In another case, he revealed that the postal service sent tens of thousands of dollars to a company tied to ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Brejza fears the hacking could have compromised whistleblowers who had reached out to him with evidence.
NSO Group is facing daunting financial and legal challenges — including the threat of default on more than $300 million in debt — after governments used Pegasus spyware to spy on dissidents, journalists, diplomats and human rights activists from countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and the United States. The U.S. blacklisting of NSO has effectively barred U.S. companies from supplying technology to the Israeli firm.
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