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Komisi Pemilihan Umum (KPU) akan mengumumkan hasil Pemilihan Umum 2024 pada Rabu (20/03) – tenggat penghitungan suara berdasarkan Undang-Undang Nomor 7 Tahun 2017 tentang Pemilu.

Proses rekapitulasi suara nasional baru dilanjutkan kembali pada Rabu (20/03) siang. Ada dua provinsi yang tersisa menjelang berakhirnya tenggat, yakni Provinsi Papua dan Papua Pegunungan

Komisioner KPU, August Mellaz, mengatakan tim KPU Papua Pegunungan baru tiba di Jakarta pada pukul 03.00 WIB setelah mencarter pesawat Trigana Air. Sedangkan tim KPU Papua baru tiba pukul 13.30 WIB.

Di dalam rapat pleno tersebut, KPU Papua Pegunungan mengatakan bahwa proses rekapitulasi suara Kabupaten Tolikara harus berpindah dari Wamena ke Jayapura tempat lima kali karena masalah keamanan.

Situasi itu membuat rekapitulasi suara tingkat provinsi di Papua Pegunungan baru selesai pada Selasa (19/03) malam.

Dari 37 provinsi yang telah selesai direkapitulasi hingga Rabu (20/03) sore, pasangan Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming menang di 35 provinsi.

Hasil rekapitulasi terbaru hingga Rabu (20/03) pukul 15.30 WIB menunjukkan bahwa Prabowo-Gibran juga unggul di Papua Pegunungan, Jawa Barat, dan Maluku.

Prabowo-Gibran hanya kalah di dua provinsi, yakni Aceh dan Sumatera Barat yang dimenangkan oleh Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar.

Prabowo-Gibran juga meraih suara terbanyak unuk pemilihan yang dilakukan di luar negeri — di 128 Panitia Pemilihan Luar Negeri.

Sementara itu, di depan KPU, aparat polisi berjaga untuk menangani aksi unjuk rasa dari sejumlah elemen masyarakat.

Polri mengerahkan lebih dari 3.000 personel untuk mengamankan demonstrasi di KPU dan DPR RI terkait hasil pemilu.

Unjuk rasa telah mewarnai proses pemilu sejak beberapa pekan terakhir. Pada Selasa (19/03), polisi “mengamankan” 16 orang pengunjuk rasa di KPU dan DPR RI.

“Tentunya ada alasan rekan petugas kepolisian melakukan pemeriksaan terhadap beberapa orang ini karena ada gangguan keamanan dan ketertiban tadi malam. Namun secara persuasif sudah dilakukan imbauan literasi komunikasi sudah dilakukan,” kata Kepala Bidang Humas Polda Metro Jaya Kombes Ade Ary Syam Indradi.

Prabowo-Gibran menang di mana saja?

Dari 37 provinsi yang rekapitulasi suaranya telah disahkan KPU, Prabowo-Gibran hanya kalah dua provinsi. Di Aceh, mereka meraup 787 ribu suara, kalah dari Anies-Muhaimin yang meraih 2,3 juta suara.

Di Sumbar, Prabowo-Gibran kalah dari Anies-Muhaimin. Suara mereka berselisih sekitar 500 ribu dari Anies-Muhaimin yang meraih 1,7 juta suara.

Hingga Rabu sore, Prabowo-Gibran telah dipastikan oleh KPU menang di Papua Pegunungan, Jawa Barat, Maluku, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, Gorontalo, Kalimantan Tengah, Bali, Lampung, Bangka Belitung, dan Kalimantan Barat.

Mereka juga menang di Sumatera Selatan, Jawa Tengah, DKI Jakarta, Kalimantan Selatan, Kalimantan Timur, Kepulauan Riau, Nusa Tenggara Timur, serta Banten.

Prabowo-Gibran unggul pula di Kalimantan Utara, Jawa Timur, Sulawesi Tenggara, Sulawesi Barat, Riau, Papua Barat, Sulawesi Utara, dan Bengkulu.

Provinsi lain yang mereka menangkan adalah Sulawesi Selatan, NTB, Papua Selatan, Jambi, Maluku Utara, Sumatera Utara, Sulawesi Tengah, Papua Tengah dan Papua Barat Daya.

Kemungkinan satu atau dua putaran?

Untuk memenangkan Pilpres dalam satu putaran, pasangan capres-cawapres harus memenuhi syarat yang tertuang pada Pasal 6A ayat 3 UUD 1945 dan Pasal 416 ayat 1 UU 7/2017 tentang Pemilu.

Regulasi tersebut mengatur tiga syarat yang wajib dipenuhi, yaitu:

• Paslon capres dan cawapres mengantongi suara lebih dari 50% dari total jumlah suara dalam Pilpres 2024.
• Capres dan cawapres menang lebih dari setengah provinsi di Indonesia, atau minimal 20 dari 38 provinsi di Indonesia.
• Meraih minimal 20% suara dari setengah provinsi di Indonesia.

Merujuk rekapitulasi suara di 37 provinsi dan 128 PPLN yang sudah disahkan KPU, pada Rabu (20/03) sore, Prabowo-Gibran menang di 35 provinsi.

Bagaimana hasil suara partai politik?

Merujuk rekapitulasi suara 70 daerah pemilihan yang sudah disahkan KPU, PDI-P meraih suara terbanyak, yaitu 21,9 juta suara (17,96%).

Golkar berada di peringkat kedua dengan 18,7 juta suara (15,36%), diikuti Gerindra dengan 15,6 juta suara (12,8%).

Secara berturut-turut, PKB dan Nasdem berada di urutan berikutnya, masing-masing dengan 13,1 juta suara (10,7%) dan 12,2 juta suara (10%).

Partai Demokrat, PKS, dan Partai Amanat Nasional per Selasa pagi juga telah melampaui ambang batas parlemen sebesar 4%.

Selain yang telah disebut di atas, partai lain belum melampaui ambang batas parlemen, termasuk Partai Persatuan Pembangunan yang selama ini selalu lolos ke Senayan.

Mereka baru meraih 4,6 juta suara (3,8%). PPP berpeluang menempatkan kader ke DPR juga suara mereka melonjak di 14 dapil yang akan direkapitulasi hari ini.

Masalah apa saja yang masih mengganjal?

Berbagai persoalan mewarnai proses penetapan rekapitulasi suara oleh KPU dari tingkat kabupaten/kota, provinsi, dan nasional. Berbagai kalangan juga telah mengadukan dugaan kecurangan kepada Bawaslu.

Sejumlah KPU di tingkat kabupaten, kota, dan provinsi bahkan gagal menyelesaikan rekapitulasi suara sesuai tenggat.

Merujuk Peraturan KPU 5/2024, rekapitulasi suara di tingkat kabupaten/kota harus selesai maksimal 5 Maret, sementara untuk tingkat provinsi paling lambat 10 Maret.

Akibat proses yang molor, Ketua KPU Hasyim Asy’ari mengeluarkan surat dinas Nomor 454/PL/01/8-SD/05/2024.

Melalui surat itu, Hasyim meminta KPU di daerah terus melanjutkan rekapitulasi suara meski telah melewati tenggat waktu.

Tenggat waktu rekapitulasi suara mengikat KPU secara hukum, kata Fadli Ramadhani, peneliti dari Perkumpulan untuk Pemilu dan Demokrasi.

Dia berkata, KPU wajib memenuhi tenggat waktu itu agar proses tahapan pemilu dapat berjalan.

Di saat KPU terikat untuk mematuhi tenggat waktu, Fadhli menyebut Bawaslu dapat secara simultan memeriksa dugaan kecurangan yang diadukan kepada mereka.

“Jika kecurangan terbukti terjadi dalam proses penegakan hukum oleh Bawaslu, perbaikan dan koreksi dapat dilakukan dalam proses rekapitulasi KPU,” kata Fadhli.

“Misalnya, jika terjadi kecurangan di tingkat kecamatan, koreksi suara bisa dilakukan ke tingkat kabupaten/kota. Pelaku dapat disanksi oleh Bawaslu. Begitu juga kecurangan pada tingkat selanjutnya,” tuturnya.

Fadhli berkata, dugaan kecurangan hanya dapat diselidiki dan diputus oleh Bawaslu.

“Bagaimana sikap Bawaslu? Mereka sengaja tidak menyelesaikan laporan, tidak menemukan bukti atau bagaimana?” kata Fadhli.

Anggota Bawaslu, Lolly Suhenty, membuat klaim bahwa lembaganya akan mempercepat penanganan dugaan kecurangan.

Lolly berkata, Bawaslu akan mengambil putusan soal kecurangan sebelum tenggat penetapan rekapitulasi hasil penghitungan suara pada 20 Maret.

“Kecuali perkara-perkara yang memang sifatnya lebih kompleks sehinga tidak bisa diambil putusannya sebelum tanggal 20. Tentu kami juga harus menghormati proses yang berjalan nanti di MK,” kata Lolly.

Fadhli menuturkan, satu-satunya jalan untuk mempersoalkan dugaan kecurangan soal penghitungan suara pasca penetapan pemenang Pemilu hanyalah Mahkamah Konstitusi.

Bagaimana sikap tim pemenangan capres-cawapres?

Pasangan Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD menyatakan akan fokus mempersoalkan kecurangan yang bersifat terstruktur, sistematis, dan masif.

Ketua tim hukum Ganjar-Mahfud, Todung Mulya Lubis, sebelumnya berkata kepada BBC News Indonesia bahwa mereka pasti akan membawa dugaan kecurangan Pilpres ke MK.

Kubu Anies-Muhaimin juga telah menyatakan rencana mereka mengajukan gugatan ke MK.

Mereka membuat klaim telah mengantongi berbagai data dan bukti untuk menguatkan dalil kepada hakim konstitusi.

“Pengacara dari Tim Hukum AMIN ada 1.000 orang yang akan support di MK,” kata Iwan dalam keterangannya, Jumat pekan lalu.

Di sisi lain, kubu Prabowo-Gibran menyebut tidak terjadi kecurangan apapun dalam proses rekapitulasi suara oleh KPU. Apalagi, klaim kubu pasangan itu, masyarakat turut mengawasi proses penghitungan suara.

“Tidak ada suara rakyat yang dicurangi dalam rekapitulasi. Hasilnya untuk pilpres kami menilai secara umum rekapitulasi suara oleh KPU berlangsung dengan sangat baik dan lancar,” kata Juru Bicara Tim Kampanye Nasional Prabowo-Gibran, Budisatrio Djiwandono, melalui keterangan pers, Selasa pagi.

Demo mewarnai proses rekap suara KPU

Selama beberapa pekan terakhir, sejumlah unjuk rasa berlangsung di kantor KPU. Berbagai kelompok menuntut KPU dan Bawaslu mengusut dugaan kecurangan yang terjadi selama tahapan Pilpres.

Senin kemarin, misalnya, kelompok yang menamakan diri mereka Koalisi Nasional Penyelamat Demokrasi, berunjuk rasa menentang kecurangan pemilu.

Lebih dari itu, mereka juga menyampaikan aspirasi soal pencopotan Jokowi dari kursi presiden.

Anggota KPU, August Mellaz, menyebut unjuk rasa adalah bagian dari setiap proses pemilu dari tahun ke tahun.

Namun dia enggan mengafirmasi dugaan-dugaan yang disebut oleh kelompok pengunjuk rasa. Menurutnya, KPU telah bekerja secara transparan, termasuk dengan proses pengawasan pihak eksternal.

“Kalau tudingan ke KPU termasuk unjuk rasa kan sudah ada kalau dilihat Pemilu sebelumnya sama proses-proses rekapitulasi menjelang penetapan kan pasti ada unjuk rasa. Tapi itu bagian yang normal saja,” ujarnya di kantor KPU, kemarin. https://sukaati.com/

By Emma Saunders

Entertainment reporter

Hollywood director Gareth Edwards has always done things differently. Now his latest film has all the tech heads in Tinseltown talking.

Best known for blockbusters such as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Godzilla (2014), and now rumoured to be helming the next Jurassic Park movie, his sci-fi action film The Creator is in the running for best special effects and best sound at the Oscars next month.

The film sees John David Washington play Joshua, an ex-special forces agent, as a future war rages between humans and artificial intelligence (AI). The movie also stars Gemma Chan and Alison Janney.

Speaking to BBC Click’s Spencer Kelly, Edwards says: “I used to jokingly refer to the style of the film [as] if Terrence Malik had sex with James Cameron and had a baby… that was the ultimate high benchmark of what this film was trying to do!”

Its impressive visuals – check out that huge military spaceship called The Nomad – have been widely praised, especially given the film had a budget of around $80m (£63m), a third of what a special effects-heavy movie like this would usually cost.

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Working with pioneering studio Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), which was founded in 1975 in order to create the visual effects for Star Wars, British-born Edwards took inspiration from his first film Monsters (2010), an indy made on a tiny budget with a small team.

Most big films meticulously plan and build elaborate sets before shooting the majority of their special effects against a blue/green screen, which is hugely expensive.

But Edwards switched things up, shooting on location in countries including Cambodia and Thailand, then adding the special effects later.

Referencing Monsters, which had a crew of just six and also shot on location, Edwards says: “[I was] trying to get back to the positives of doing a guerrilla film.

“It’s a way more efficient, exciting and interesting process. If you go to a location that’s like the place in the scene and… if the crew is small enough, it’s cheaper to fly anywhere in the world than it is to build a set.

“Whatever was the best place in the world we could find for that scene, we would go and shoot it there, knowing that in the computer afterwards, we can change things.

“And [it] already looks good before you hand it over to the visual effects company.”

Working that way has been made easier with recent advances in technology, Edwards explains.

“We tried to keep everything small and what allowed for that, which couldn’t have happened five years ago, was that the camera technology had become really good.”

A Sony FX3 camera was the tool of choice: “It’s very cheap and small, I could just move with the camera. It was a massive, liberating thing.”

The careful choice of locations also helped keep the budget down.

“It looks bigger than your average film because every location is an Instagram destination,” Edwards tells Kelly.

A significant chunk of The Creator was filmed in Thailand because “money goes a lot further there”.

But creating a film in this way requires a lot of trust on behalf of the visual effects company, who come in at the tail-end of the project.

Edwards explains that he showed the early stages of the scenes to ILM so any misunderstandings could be ironed out quickly.

Shooting on location was also an advantage for the cast.

Londoner Andrew Roberts was the on-set special effects supervisor for the film.

“It’s great to have something real for the visual effects artists to build on top of, and also for the actors to be in a space where there is something real that can inform their emotion and their performances, rather than being surrounded by blue or green [screen] and being told to imagine.”

The film has received much praise for its special effects, although some critics have not been quite as impressed with the storytelling itself.

The Guardian’s Wendy Ide awarded it four stars, writing: “British director Gareth Edwards finally gets to make the sci-fi spectacular he was always destined to tackle.

“And with this ambitious, ideas-driven, expectation-subverting, man-versus-machines showdown, he has co-written and directed one of the finest original science fiction films of recent years.”

But the Evening Standard’s Hannah Strong had reservations, awarding it just two stars: “It’s a handsome film and demonstrates the filmmakers’ vivid imagination, but this doesn’t quite extend to the story itself, or its dialogue which often veers into cheesy territory.”

For Edwards, the film posed a different challenge to the likes of Rogue One, his last movie which came out eight years ago.

Reports claimed that Lucasfilm left Edwards out in the cold towards the end of the project, bringing in Tony Gilroy to write new dialogue and shoot extra scenes.

Edwards has disputed this, however, telling KRCW’s The Business podcast that when Gilroy was brought in, they both worked together until the very end of the movie.

“Having done these massive franchises, there’s pros and cons,” Edwards tells BBC Click.

“The cons are you have this giant fanbase and all this pressure and you cannot fail; it had better be a massive hit because there’s so many people waiting to see it.

“When you do an original science fiction [film], you’ve got the opposite problem – no-one’s heard of it, no-one cares, you’ve got to educate the world about what it’s about… why they should go and see it.

“It’s a double-edged sword. [You’re] trying to do something new but if it’s too out there… I just made this stuff up in my head and everyone is helping me create it but what if I’m wrong and it doesn’t work?”

‘Proud parent’

Perhaps surprisingly given his pedigree, Edwards, who hails from Nuneaton, is his own worst critic.

“I always think I’m not pushing things enough, I always think I’ve conformed and sold out… I always look at my heroes and beat myself up. My heroes growing up were Spielberg, Lucas, James Cameron.

“We could go a lot further and do something more unique…” he trails off.

“[But] the day you get through a film, and everything about it was easy and fun and enjoyable, is the day you made your worst movie and you should probably retire.”

And on The Creator’s Oscar chances?

He modestly points out that he’s not personally nominated as the recognition is for the visual effects team (Roberts, Jay Cooper, Ian Comley and Neil Corbould) and the sound crew.

“As a proud parent of the film, it’s a nice end to the journey,” he concedes.

Roberts adds: “I was born and grew up in the UK, my parents are from the Caribbean, a working class family and… to be at this point of being an Oscar nominee and potentially getting to win… I never could have dreamed this.”https://sukaati.com/

By Christine Ro

Technology of Business reporter

The British Library used to be my unofficial office. Once I even argued that for writers, the British Library was the best aspect of living in London.

But the UK’s national library now feels a bit like a throwback to pre-internet times. Books have to be ordered in person, using paper slips. Much of its digital content is inaccessible.

The problems trace back to a ransomware attack in October 2023, which paralysed IT systems.

The Russian hacker group Rhysida claimed responsibility, and demanded a ransom of 20 bitcoin (equivalent to £600,000 at the time). After the British Library refused to pay up, and following an online auction of stolen data, the hackers leaked the nearly 600 GB of private information on the dark web.

It wasn’t until January 2024 that the online catalogue became useable again, and even this was an incomplete version.

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The organisation has prepared users for a lengthy recovery process, noting that it could take several months just to analyse the leaked data. The library has not specified a timeframe for further recovery, but outside observers believe that it could take a year.

The British Library declined to comment for this article.

The good news is that this is an unusually long timeframe for recovery from a cyber-attack. According to the data site Statista, from 2020 to mid-2022, the average amount of downtime following a ransomware attack in the US was 24 days.

A UK government survey conducted in 2022-23 found that 88% of businesses and 84% of charities had been able to restore their operations within 24 hours of their most devastating cyber breach or attack.

But protracted recovery isn’t unheard of. From identifying affected IT systems to decrypting servers, uninstalling non-functional applications, blocking connections, disabling accounts, and restoring uninfected backups, each step can create bottlenecks.

To some extent the longer-term recovery depends on the amount of rebuilding, or new system construction, an organisation does following a cyber-attack.

For the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), which was hit by a ransomware attack back in December 2020, this process is continuing today. “SEPA made the decision to build back better from new rather than re-establish legacy systems,” according to a spokesperson for the agency.

There are many variables determining the length of cyber-attack recovery. These include the type and number of systems affected, the quality and quantity of backups, the experience of IT staff, and the sophistication of both the attack and the initial response.

For instance, with the rise of cloud computing, it’s become increasingly common for companies to use hypervisors, which basically generate digital versions (virtual machines) of physical computer systems.

Ransomeware attackers can encrypt the hypervisor – locking up multiple systems and programs in one go. It’s a trend being seen by Mandiant, a cyber security firm that is now a subsidiary of Google Cloud.

In a situation where a hypervisor is running many programs critical to business operations, “the impact is more significant and in some cases can actually impact the underlying infrastructure that the organisation would use to be able to get back up and running more quickly,” says Kimberly Goody, the head of cyber crime analysis at Mandiant.

The size of the organisation could also be a factor. “A larger organisation could take a longer time to recover because when you look at the staff to systems ratio, it could be much higher than a smaller organisation,” Ms Goody says.

In the anomalous cases where recovery drags on into months or even years, one potential reason is that an organisation’s “backups might have been encrypted and they haven’t been able to restore them,” Ms Goody comments. For instance, it may be a painfully slow process to obtain a decryption key.

Ensuring that backups are created and tested frequently is one way that organisations can make themselves more resilient to cyber attack.

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Another is to avoid reliance on a single type of prevention. Just one reason that antivirus fails, Ms Goody says, is because “today there is a whole underground marketplace” where criminals can cheaply test out malware samples against different antivirus programmes. If they see that their malware isn’t detected by a particular antivirus product, they can target an organisation with those weak defences.

Shoring up defences would include investing in cyber-security staff and tools. Ms Goody also offers some advice to organisations overwhelmed by the array of cyber-security products on the market. “The only way to know how effective they are for you, and how relevant they’re going to be for you and your team, is to test that in your own environment,” she emphasises.

Even well-prepared organisations may fall victim to cyber-attacks. In these cases, cyber-risk insurance can help to absorb financial losses. Ms Goody calls this “a really valuable component of an organisation’s broader risk plan given the evolving nature of cyber-attacks”.

Financial losses from disrupted operations can dwarf the initial ransom demand. “The majority of the costs can be on the business interruption side of the things, not actually the extortion,” says Simon West, the cyber-advisory lead at Resilience.

This is the case for the British Library, whose digital rebuilding will cost millions of pounds, requiring the organisation to use its reserves.

Preparation is essential given the inevitability of future cyber-attacks. Ciaran Martin, the former head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, has predicted that a cyber-attack as severe as the one that has debilitated the British Library is likely for every one of the next five years.

Mr West says, “Even though our research shows that the ransom amounts are decreasing, it’s still very lucrative for criminals. It’s now easier than it ever was before” – with cyber-attackers able to outsource phishing attacks and other services to third parties, and with AI presenting them with new opportunities.

“While the going’s good for them, I don’t see it stopping.”https://sukaati.com

By Bernd Debusmann Jr

BBC News

A Japan-based US Navy sailor has been charged with espionage for allegedly passing classified information to a foreign government.

Bryce Pedicini is alleged to have given documents to foreign agents at least seven times in 2022 and 2023.

The US Navy also accuses him of trying in May 2023 to hand over photographs showing the screen of a military computer.

He faces a court martial while the investigation continues.

The accused is a chief petty officer fire controlman assigned to a Japan-based guided missile destroyer, the USS Higgins.

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He has been in custody since May 2023, just days after the last alleged incident in Japan.

The other incidents took place over a period of four months in Hampton Roads, Virginia, in late 2022 and early 2023, say US investigators.

The document alleges that he was handing over information “with reason to believe that it would be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation”.

It is unclear what country he was allegedly attempting to pass documents to, or what those files contained.

The charging sheet notes only that the information was “relating to national defence”.

Commander Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesman for US Naval Surface Force, said in a statement: “The incident remains under investigation and legal proceedings continue.”

CPO Pedicini’s military records show that he enlisted in the US Navy in 2009 and served on several naval vessels.

In addition to charges of espionage and communicating defence information, CPO Pedicini is accused of failing to report foreign contacts to his superiors, failing to report solicitation of classified information, transporting classified information and taking a personal device into a secure room.

The charges were referred to a court martial in January.

Also last month, a 26-year-old sailor, Wenheng Zhao, pleaded guilty to passing on information to Chinese intelligence while working at a California naval base. He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

Zhao was arrested in August alongside another sailor, 22-year-old Jinchao Wei, who was accused of conspiring to send defence information to a Chinese agent.

Mr Wei – who had access to sensitive information about his ship – was allegedly approached by a Chinese agent in early 2022, when he was going through the process of becoming a US citizen.https://sukaati.com/

By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes

BBC News, Taiwan

“How would you like it if we started sending official delegations to Honolulu to meet with separatist leaders who want Hawaiian independence from the United States? What would you do if we started selling them weapons?”

It might seem like a false equivalence, but this is a line of argument often deployed by China’s legion of armchair warriors, who take to social media to condemn any visit to Taiwan by US government officials – and especially members of the US Congress. China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be under Beijing’s control, and so, to these social media users, such visits are an unacceptable provocation and interference in China’s internal affairs.

Of course, these visits – like the one being made by Representative Mike Gallagher, head of the US House’s China committee, this week – are viewed very differently in Washington and Taipei, which sees itself as distinct from the Chinese mainland, with its own constitution and democratically-elected leaders.

But it does raise the question, what is their purpose? Are they a genuine show of support that helps deter China – or are they publicity stunts that serve to provoke Beijing, and solidify the view that Washington is intent on the permanent separation of Taiwan?

The visits are not without consequence. How the US handles its relationships with Beijing and Taipei will do much to determine whether the current tense stalemate across the Taiwan Straits remains that way, or gets a lot worse.

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“We have come here to reaffirm US support for Taiwan and express solidarity in our shared commitment to democratic values,” said Congressman Ami Bera and Mario Díaz Balart as they wound up a trip here in January. They were the first to make the pilgrimage to Taipei following the 13 January presidential election.

Now, the hawkish Rep Gallagher – who told the Guardian last year Beijing was aiming “to render us subordinate, humiliated and irrelevant on the world stage” – arrives with a number of colleagues a month later. It is likely they will not be the last. Since 2016, the number of US congressional delegations crossing the Pacific has increased dramatically. In 2018, for example, six lawmakers made the trip. Last year, 32 visited, according to a tally by Global Taiwan.

That trend has been actively encouraged by Taiwan’s current President Tsai Ing-wen, and does not appear to have been discouraged on the US side. Indeed, President Joe Biden has been the most explicit of any US leader yet in his defence of Taiwan – albeit while still continuing a commitment to America’s One China policy.

• What is the ‘One China’ policy?

“It’s important,” says J Michael Cole, a former Canadian intelligence officer and one-time advisor to President Tsai. “The United States keeps saying we have a rock-solid commitment to Taiwan. But you need a public component to that exercise. That’s what rattles Beijing, that’s what gets journalists writing about it.”

And unlike the $80m (£63m) grant signed off by Biden in November, these visits also represent a low-cost way for the US to re-assure the people of Taiwan that they do mean what they say.

“We have research that shows high-level visits increase people’s confidence in the US-Taiwan relationship,” says Chen Fang-yu, a political scientist at Soochow University in Taipei.

Such visits promote a more friendly attitude towards America from those who remain sceptical of whether the US would actually turn up if Taiwan were attacked by China, he explains. However, there are others here who have imbibed conspiracy theories, many of which originate from across the Taiwan Strait, that America is pushing Taipei down the road to war with China, just as conspiracy theorists say it did with Ukraine’s war with Russia.

Meanwhile, American congressmen and women have their own, not always selfless, reasons for coming here. The pilgrimage to Taipei is increasingly a way for those on the right to burnish their anti-China credentials to voters back home – although these days, the left appears just as keen to prove their own tough stances when it comes to Beijing.

https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.51.0/iframe.htmlMedia caption,

Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan: Democracy a source of strength

The increased frequency, and unabashed publicity, shows how much has changed between Washington and Beijing.

“Before 2016, people thought visits here should be low key,” says Chen Fang-Yu. “They wanted to avoid angering China. But now more and more people realise that no matter what they do, they will anger China.”

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Taiwan’s relationship with the US Congress is deep and long. When in 1979, President Jimmy Carter broke relations with Taipei, and recognised Beijing, it was the US Congress that forced him to sign the Taiwan Relations Act. That act is what underpins the relationship with Taipei to this day. It explicitly commits the US to opposing any attempt to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait by force, and to supplying Taiwan with sufficient weaponry to defend itself against China.

In the 1970s, Taiwan was a military dictatorship. Its US allies were Republican. The cold war was still very chilly, and the islands were seen as a bulwark against Communism. Today, anti-communism may still play a small part. But far more important is solidarity with a fellow democracy. Taiwan is no longer a Republican Party cause. In the wake of things like Trump’s trade wars, arguments over Covid’s origins and spy balloons being spotted in the US, support for Taiwan among Americans now spreads through both parties.

Added to this, the US also has major national security and economic interests tied to Taiwan – in particular, the semiconductor trade.

It all means that, unlike with Ukraine, there a no voices in Congress calling for the US to cut military support for Taiwan. If anything, it is the opposite.

But that question remains. Do the visits do more harm than good? When Nancy Pelosi came here in the summer of 2022, Beijing responded by firing ballistic missiles over the top of the island for the first time, including over the capital Taipei. Opinion polls taken after the visit showed a majority here thought the visit had damaged Taiwan’s security.

It is quite common these days to hear those who specialise in Taiwan studies quoting the old maxim from President Theodore Roosevelt to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. J Michael Cole says that is exactly what the US and Taiwan are doing. He says the US congressional visits might be symbolic, but they are good PR for Taipei and for the members of Congress. With the exception of the Pelosi visit, they also fall below the threshold of what really upsets Beijing.

But, says J Michael Cole, what do these visits really mean for US-Taiwan relations? After all, “the really substantive aspect … such as the increasingly high-level exchanges on things like intelligence, like defence, those don’t make the news”.

“Those are constructive,” he continues. “And the United States is adamant that those shall not be publicised by Taiwanese government.”https://sukaati.com/

By Natalie Sherman

Business reporter, New York

Nancy Pontius is ready to share an unpopular view: she doesn’t think inflation is a major issue, and says concerns about the economy won’t influence her vote in November’s election.

But that’s not because the 36-year-old Democrat hasn’t felt the same financial strain as tens of millions of Americans over the past couple of years.

“I definitely felt the gas price increase,” the mum-of-two from Pennsylvania says, “but I also recognised that it was likely to be temporary”. Ms Pontius voted for Joe Biden four years ago and plans to do so again, motivated by issues like abortion. “I’m not worried about the big picture economy,” she says.

Such confidence is welcome news for Mr Biden, whose first term has been troubled by a once-in-a-generation 18% leap in prices, which propelled economic dissatisfaction and eroded political support.

Even as the American economy’s booming emergence from the pandemic drew envy abroad, opinions at home remained starkly negative.

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Now there are signs that may be changing, as petrol prices fall back towards $3 a gallon nationally and wages get closer to catching up with price rises.

Economic sentiment – what some pollsters describe as the “vibe” that people feel around the economy – has improved in business surveys in recent months.

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Democrats like Nancy are now as positive about the economy as they were in 2021, when prices had just started their climb – and more positive than at any point during the Trump presidency, according to the University of Michigan, which has surveyed consumers for decades. Even the views of Republican voters have brightened a bit, their research indicates.

The White House hopes the change in mood will last and shore up support for the president as the election approaches in November – especially in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania.

But that’s far from guaranteed.

The president’s approval ratings are hovering around the lowest levels of his term, hit by concerns over immigration, his age and the war in Gaza.

And despite the positive signs, overall economic sentiment has yet to recover from the beating it took during the pandemic, despite solid growth and a historic streak of unemployment below 4%.

Among Democrats, the issue is particularly hurting Mr Biden with those under the age of 30, just a quarter of whom rated the economy as excellent or good in a recent Pew survey, compared to 70% over the age of 65.

Kim Schwartz, a 28-year-old health technician from Pennsylvania, voted for Mr Biden in 2020 but has been disappointed by his economic policies.

“I don’t see any progress in getting more money into the hands of middle class and working class Americans to keep up with [inflation],” she says.”I am going to vote, but whether it will be a write-in or third party or Biden, I don’t know.”

Though her financial position has improved since 2020, when she was struggling to cover her expenses while studying and working part-time, she still scouts multiple grocery stores each week in search of the lowest prices.

She has deferred work on her car due to cost concerns; and big financial and life goals, like buying a house, still feel achingly out of reach.

“I am surviving,” she says. “It’s enough to maintain but it’s not enough to improve or progress.”

It’s a truism of American politics that the state of the economy decides elections. On that basis, Mr Biden should be in safe territory, with growth of 2.5% last year and inflation down sharply from its 2022 high, at 3.1% last month.

But the typical weekly wage in the US, adjusted for inflation, at the end of last year remained lower than it was when Mr Biden took office.

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Frustrations like Kim’s turn up repeatedly in political polling, where majorities express serious concern with the price of food, consumer goods and housing and describe the state of the economy as “poor” or “fair”.

“It’s like a race and you’re trying to keep up with it,” says John Cooke, a 34-year-old restaurant manager in Pennsylvania.

Though business at the eateries where he works has been good, he says inflation has cut into profits and he has not had a pay raise.

“Car insurance has gone up, health insurance has gone up, my rent has gone up. They are saying the economy is doing great. That’s great to show me all these numbers but how is that helping me?”

Republicans, who have an historic advantage among voters on economic issues, have made the economy one of their key lines of attack, hammering Mr Biden on inflation and blaming his “tax-and-spend” agenda for driving up prices.

Economists say generous government financial support for households during the pandemic did help to fuel inflation by lifting consumer demand and cushioning household budgets, allowing firms to put up prices without major blowback.

But the shock to oil prices from the war in Ukraine and supply shortages tied to the pandemic also played important roles.

Democrats have held their own in elections since 2020 – including the 2022 midterms – by blaming wider forces for inflation and focusing on non-economic issues that motivate the base. But independent and infrequent voters, for whom the economy ranks highly, are more likely to vote in presidential contests.

“The core issues the Biden coalition cares about are still issues like abortion, like gun safety, like voting rights, like climate change,” says Danielle Deiseroth, executive director at the progressive pollster Data for Progress. “But in an election that’s going to come down to a couple thousand votes in a couple of states, you can’t leave any issue off the table for swing voters.”

Strategists say Mr Biden for too long relied on the big national numbers to defend his record – a response that felt emotionally out of touch.

“When you just say the economy is great; GDP is great – nobody ever bought a dozen eggs with GDP. Nobody cares,” says pollster Celinda Lake, who worked on Mr Biden’s 2020 campaign.

That criticism appears to have landed. In recent weeks, Mr Biden has adopted a markedly more populist tone, attacking companies for price gouging and “shrinkflation” – charging more for less – and sharpening his criticism of “extreme MAGA Republican” economic policies.

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Don Cunningham, a long-time Democratic politician in Pennsylvania, says he expects the disconnect between economic sentiment and reality to heal in the months ahead.

Mr Cunningham leads the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation – drumming up investment in a former steel-making region that was hit hard in the 1980s as the industry hollowed out, but is enjoying a revival today.

“I see challenges [for Biden] there but they are not related to economic issues,” he says. “How people are feeling personally, how candidates make them feel, if there’s an age gap, if younger folks are frustrated because there’s not someone from their generation… those are all real issues that go into how people vote and why people vote.”

There are signs a significant number of Americans are dismayed by the likely choice they face in November – with Mr Biden and Mr Trump looking set for a 2020 rematch.

Even Nancy’s urgency has cooled. Four years ago, she proudly planted a Biden sign on her lawn, but going into the 2024 race she’s planning to take a lower profile, leery of alienating her neighbours.

“We might still put the Biden-Harris sign out,” she says. “But I was willing to be a little louder in 2020… than I am now.”https://sukaati.com/

By Meryl Sebastian

BBC News, Kochi

“The single most memorable sound of my childhood was the clarion call of ‘Hey-y-y’ as Fearless Nadia, regal upon her horse, her hand raised defiantly in the air, rode down upon the bad guys,” acclaimed Indian playwright and director Girish Karnad wrote in 1980.

“To school kids of the mid-forties, Fearless Nadia meant courage, strength and idealism.”

Actress and stuntwoman Mary Ann Evans, best known by her stage name Fearless Nadia, took the Indian film industry by storm in 1935 when she appeared in the Hindi film Hunterwali (The Woman with a Whip).

A blonde, blue-eyed woman of Australian origin, she made a splash as she appeared in a cape, leather shorts and knee-high boots with a whip in hand.

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Evans was born in Perth, Australia, in 1908 to a Greek mother and British father, according to Rosie Thomas, author of Bombay before Bollywood. She arrived in India in 1911 with her father’s army unit but settled with her family in Bombay (now Mumbai) after his death.

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According to Thomas, Evans – who’d grown up learning dance and horse-riding – toured India with a Russian ballet troupe and briefly performed for a circus.

The young performer became known as a singer and dancer, performing at all kinds of venues across the country.

She was working in theatre and circus in the early 1930s when she was discovered by prominent Bollywood movie director JBH Wadia.

Wadia initially cast her in small roles in films produced by his studio Wadia Movietone, which he ran with his brother Homi.

Evans was great at stunts and had a “can-do-anything attitude”, says Roy Wadia, JBH Wadia’s grandson.

So the Wadia brothers cast her in her first lead role in Hunterwali, in which she played an avenging princess who turns into a masked vigilante as she seeks revenge for her father’s death at the hands of an evil court official.

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But while they were thrilled with their new star, others were not quite as ready to embrace their vision.

“The financiers of the film were quite horrified that these Parsi brothers would star a blonde, blue-eyed, white woman in a film where she was wearing hot pants and leather vests and carrying a whip and basically beating up all these bad guys in the film,” Roy Wadia says.

So they pulled out and the Wadia brothers released the film themselves.

The 1935 film was a huge hit, running houseful in theatres for weeks, and Evans went on to become the top box-office female star of the 1930s and 1940s, according to Thomas.

The film’s success also transformed Wadia Movietone into a studio known for films with fantastic stunts and theatrics. Evan’s famous yell “hey-y-y” in Hunterwali became a catchphrase.

“The roles she played, and the screenplays that my grandfather created for her, were about emancipation, about the freedom struggle, about literacy, about anti-corruption – all themes that were particularly relevant at that time of huge social change and turmoil [of the Indian Independence movement],” says Roy Wadia.

“Although strict British censorship forbade overt references to the freedom movement, film-makers of the 1930s and 1940s would slip casual references to Congress [party] songs and symbols into the soundtrack or screen,” Thomas writes.

“Nadia saw her role – on-screen and off – as supporting the nationalist movement and stated explicitly, ‘In all the pictures there was a propaganda message, something to fight for, for example for people to educate themselves or to become a strong nation’.”

Her roles often featured her as a cosmopolitan woman who took charge to physically fight off villains in her films, often flipping burly men over her shoulder.

“She would be jumping off waterfalls, jumping off planes, riding horses bareback, swinging on chandeliers, jumping 30ft from the roof of a castle – all stunts she did herself,” Roy Wadia says.

“In those days, there were no safety nets, no body doubles and certainly no stamped insurance.”

The actor’s dynamism and skill at stunts helped sell her on-screen persona to a fascinated audience. But they were not always an easy feat.

In a 1980 interview with Karnad, Evans talked about one of her most terrifying moments from a film shoot. The actor was working on Jungle Princess (1942), which had a scene with a lion.

“We started shooting and suddenly a lioness called Sundari gave an enormous roar and jumped. She jumped straight across my head, Homi’s head, the photographer’s head and barged through the cage, and there she was, hanging with her head and front paws on the outside and the rest of her inside.”

The lion trainer eventually got her out unharmed.

In her films, Evans often switched easily from Western clothing to Indian attire. “Always with a sense of humour and glint in the eye that lets you know that she’s like a chameleon but not really changing because under all that she remains the same person,” Roy Wadia says.

Evans eventually fell in love and became Homi Wadia’s partner, a relationship that was not approved by many in the Wadia family. The couple had the staunch support of his brother JBH Wadia, but they only married after Wadia’s mother passed away.

Roy Wadia remembers Evans as a down-to-earth, ordinary woman with a great sense of humour. “She had this huge laugh, she would make all sorts of jokes – naughty ones as well.”

Every year Evans and Homi Wadia would throw a Christmas party at their shack in Juhu, where they entertained everyone from industry colleagues, family members to friends.

“Homi would dress up as Santa Claus and make his appearance in all sorts of dramatic ways. And Mary was his partner in crime there,” Roy Wadia recalls.

The couple did not have children, but Homi Wadia adopted Evans’s son from a previous relationship. Evans died in 1996 soon after her 88th birthday. She was perhaps the first foreigner to attain cult status in Bollywood.https://sukaati.com/

By Thomas Mackintosh

BBC News

A Star Wars film script left by Harrison Ford in a west London flat has been sold at auction for £10,795.

It was left at a flat on Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill, that Ford rented in 1976.

Ford had been filming Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, which was made in Elstree Studios, Hertfordshire, and needed somewhere to stay close by.

The script went under the hammer at Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, on Saturday afternoon.

It sold for more than its pre-sale low estimate of £8,000.

The owners of the Notting Hill flat said Ford developed a relationship with them after he responded to their advert in the Sunday Times for a tenant.

Ford bought plants for their garden and attended their son’s first birthday party, the family said.

They said Ford was “an excellent tenant, very tidy” – but explained they now wanted to sell the script along with several other items.

The auctioned script, written by George Lucas, is the fourth draft of the first Star Wars film – which was originally titled The Adventures Of Luke Starkiller.

It introduces Ford as the cynical hero Han Solo on page 56.

The script is incomplete and unbound, with differing-coloured pages indicating revisions – and includes scenes and characters cut from the final edit.

A second lot was made up of other items Ford left behind in the flat, such as a letter from his agent, Patricia McQueeney, in which she discussed his contracts and future film prospects.

The letter, which also scolded the Hollywood actor for not contacting his wife, fetched £177.80.

One of the film’s shooting schedules was also put on sale, which included a handwritten note that appears to refer to a meeting between Ford and the film producer Robert Watts.

This sold for £4,826.

Jonathan Torode of Excalibur Auctions said: “The sale saw competitive bidding from around the globe for these never-before-seen pieces of Star Wars history.

“The personal provenance makes them totally unique. We hope they will be as treasured by their new owners as much as they were by the previous ones.”https://sukaati.com/

By Andre Rhoden-Paul

BBC News

Sir Paul McCartney has been reunited with the bass guitar he used on Beatles hits including Love Me Do and She Loves You, 51 years after it was stolen from the back of a van in London.

The Höfner bass was found in a family’s attic in Sussex thanks to a search by a project called the Lost Bass.

Sir Paul bought the guitar in 1961. It was taken in west London in 1972.

A spokesperson for the former Beatle said he was “incredibly grateful” for its return.

The hunt began after the star urged Höfner to find his beloved instrument. The bass was used on Love Me Do and She Loves You.

Following an appeal for information by the Lost Bass search project, a family living in a terraced house in Sussex contacted the team remembering they had an old bass guitar in their attic.

It was reunited with Sir Paul in December.

His spokesperson said: “Following the launch of last year’s Lost Bass project, Paul’s 1961 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar, which was stolen in 1972, has been returned.

“The guitar has been authenticated by Höfner and Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved.”

Speaking to BBC News, the team behind the Lost Bass project said they were thrilled to solve the case they dubbed “the greatest mystery in the history of rock and roll”.

“There were no leads, no evidence really where it might be,” said journalist Scott Jones, who alongside his wife and fellow journalist Naomi last year joined the search headed by Höfner bass expert Nick Wass.

“To have found it quite quickly is amazing and we’ve heard how thrilled Paul McCartney is to have it back.

“That’s just the icing on the cake to know that bloke we all love is smiling tonight because his old guitar is back.”

The guitar was retrieved in late September and verified by experts to confirm it is genuine.

Luckily the bass was complete and still with its original case, but will need some repairs to make it playable again.

During their investigation, the team received tip-offs about the theft from the back of a van in Ladbroke Grove in October 1972.

They found it was then sold to a landlord of a pub in the area, before it made its way to Sussex, where it was sitting in a family’s attic.

Speaking on why people came forward, journalist Mrs Jones said: “People wished McCartney well and wanted to help, because of that we had all these people come forward.

“The search wasn’t about attributing blame. We were saying to people you can speak to us on an anonymous basis.”

The guitar, originally purchased for £30 in Germany in 1961, has not been valued, but the Lost Bass team think it would be worth more than the most expensive guitar ever sold – a Kurt Cobain guitar which sold for a record $6m (£4.9m) at auction in 2020.https://sukaati.com/

John Lennon’s stolen guitar sold for $2.4m (£1.9m) when it resurfaced half a century later.

By Zoe Kleinman & Tom Gerken

BBC News

My son’s favourite game is Minecraft.

He plays it wherever he can. On his phone, on his tablet, on our PlayStation, on his dad’s Xbox. He watches Minecraft videos on YouTube and he uses an unofficial app to create and share skins and mods.

He doesn’t care who owns the game (Microsoft bought the Mojang studio in 2014) and he has no brand loyalty to a particular device – his favourite is whichever one is to hand.

He’s 12 years old and this is what the games giants are up against: a generation of young gamers who don’t buy into their hype.

Tonight, Microsoft published an update which suggests it is starting, very cautiously, to respond to that.

Four video games – and the firm was frustratingly careful not to name them – will be opened up to alternative platforms for the first time, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said.

He gave a couple of clues: they are all community-driven, more than one year old, and they do not include Starfield or Indiana Jones.

This feels like a change of gear for Microsoft, which has long favoured exclusivity to its own Xbox platform and Games Pass subscription service.

During its contentious acquisition of the massive games maker Activision Blizzard, one of the chief objections of its rival Sony was that it could make smash hits like Call of Duty, played by millions on PlayStations, Xbox-exclusives. Microsoft was forced to promise that it would not do so for at least 10 years.

Tonight Mr Spencer insisted the four latest games did not signify a fundamental change in the firm’s games strategy.

But then he added: “I have a fundamental belief that in the next five to 10 years, exclusive games, which are exclusive to one piece of hardware, are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the games industry.”

And it’s not just Xbox warming to the idea – there have been similar rumblings from Sony. In a recent earnings call, interim gaming president Hiroki Totoki said that he wanted to put more PlayStation games onto other platforms.

But much like Microsoft, he did not name any particular games, or any particular platforms. It is possible he meant the firm would continue with the status quo of putting PlayStation games onto PC several months or even years after their release.

Nintendo meanwhile, has more of a tendency to keep its games to itself.

The idea of basically turning any device with a screen into your company’s console is blisteringly simple, when you think about it. Why go through the expensive and time-consuming process of building and selling proprietary hardware when so many people are essentially carrying around a high-performance computer already, in the form of their phones?

Why restrict access to your best-selling titles when there’s a vast audience with alternative devices out there who also want to buy them, play them, and pay for in-game extras?

The analysts Ampere estimated that in 2023 there were a total of around 46.5m consoles sold, of which only 7.6m were Microsoft’s Xbox. That leaves nearly 39 million gamers that Xbox exclusives such as the long awaited Starfield from Bethesda, didn’t reach.

You begin to see that this is an old-fashioned business model, with an old-fashioned motive: money.

“The key reason Microsoft has been pursuing a more progressive multi-platform strategy with its games content and services since early in the Xbox One cycle is because it was unable to build on the relative success of the Xbox 360 era and take market share from Sony, and latterly, Nintendo post-the launch of the Switch,” says analyst Piers Harding-Rolls from Ampere.

In addition Microsoft has been busy hoovering up successful games studios for large amounts of cash – at a time when making games is already an expensive business.

There has been some speculation that Microsoft might be preparing to walk away from the hardware market altogether, abandoning the Xbox console entirely, but Mr Harding-Rolls doesn’t think something that dramatic is on the horizon.

“Ampere does not expect Microsoft to exit the console platform business in the medium term as that would leave a gaping hole in its games-related revenues,” he added.

Indeed, Xbox president Sarah Bond even teased the idea of some brand new hardware in a podcast released by Microsoft on Thursday.

“What we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation,” she said.

Unfortunately, your guess about that at this stage is as good as ours, although the rumour mill is going into overdrive that it could be some kind of handheld device, designed to compete with the huge success of the Nintendo Switch.

In any case Darren Edwards from gaming news website TheXboxHub sums it up neatly: “It’s hardly a doomsday scenario for Xbox.”

As for the games themselves, Microsoft’s preferred gateway is via Games Pass. For £12.99 per month, it offers unlimited streaming access to hundreds of titles.

The firm has been very quiet for a while about subscriber numbers, but tonight revealed it had hit 34m. It launched in 2017 with an ambition to hit 100m by 2030, a goal that still feels some way off, with six years to go.

But it’s still good news for those making games which are on the Games Pass, like the UK-based publisher No More Robots.

“We want as many people on Game Pass as possible, because that naturally leads to more people playing our titles, which is especially useful for multiplayer titles that require larger player counts to keep the community alive,” said director Mike Rose.

Needless to say there are also a lot of relieved Xbox owners on social media right now. Many felt the announcement was an anti-climax after days of anticipation, and it certainly threw up more questions than answers. But at least the message was more business as usual than console bonfire.

One gamer on X summed up the most popular view: “Xbox isn’t going away or going 3rd party. Can we all chill now?”https://sukaati.com/