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The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, also known as the Oil Fund, had a good year. The fund that is managed by the Norwegian Central Bank on behalf of the countrys Ministry of Finance in 2023 returned 16,1 percent, equivalent to 2,222 billion kroner (195 billion), CEO Nicolai Tangen of Norges Bank Investment Management announced this week.

As of 31st of December 2023, the fund had a value of 15,765 billion kroner (1,383 billion), of which 70,9 percent was invested in equities. The Oil Fund now holds about 1,5% of all of the worlds listed companies. It is the worlds largest single sovereign wealth fund.

Despite high inflation and geopolitical turmoil, the equity market in 2023 was very strong, compared to a weak year in 2022, Tangen said.

To a great extent, that turmoil is triggered by Russia and its war against Ukraine. Still, the Norwegian government fund continues to own a significant part of Russias leading companies. According to the list of holdings, there are 52 Russian companies in the portfolio.

The most valuable holdings are in the field of oil and gas, and especially the companies Gazprom and Lukoil, worth respectively 232 million NOK and 288 million NOK. The Fund also owns a 0,72 percent stake in Sberbank that has a value of 326 million NOK.

The Fund also owns more than one percent of companies such as Phosagro, Segezha Group, Rosseti, Bank St Petersburg PJSC and more. On the list are also companies sanctioned by the USA and EU, such as Sberbank and diamond producer Alrosa.

In addition, the Norwegians owns shares in several of the companies actively exploited by the Kremlin to censor and streamline public opinion.

The Oil Fund owns 0.47 percent of VK Holding, the technology company that operates social media vKontakte (VK). The social media now has more than 650 million accounts and is one of the most popular websites in Russia. In late 2021, Russian state-owned bank Gazprombankand insurance company Sogar acquired 57,3 percent of the VK shares and consequently secured full control over the company.

Few years earlier, founder and CEO Pavel Durov had been forced out of the company, reportedly following his refusal to hand over personal details of users to the FSB and his refusal to shut down a VK group dedicated to anti-corruption activistAleksei Navalny.

Over the last few years, the VK has blocked hundreds of accounts operated by independent journalists, civil society activists and other Kremlin critics. In 2022, the company blocked the pages of Aleksei Navalny, Ilya Yashin, as well Mikhail Khodorkovsky and media companies Meduza, MediaZona, Dozhd, Echo Moscow, Current Time and others.

On the list of ownership is also Yandex, the Russian tech company that is most known for its internet search engine. The Oil Fund owns 0,96 percent of company that is considered Russias biggest technology company.

One of the founders of Yandex was Arkady Volozh, a man who in 2017 showed Vladimir Putin around in the fancy downtown Moscow offices, but who five years later emigrated to Israel following war and Kremlin crackdown.

According to Meduza, the tech company was in 2023 taken over by a group of Kremlin-loyal oligarchs. It is now controlled by Vladimir Potanins Interros, Aleksei Mordashovs Severstal, Vagit Alekperovs Lukoil and bank VTB.

The Norwegian Oil Fund also owns minor shares in telecommunications companies MTS and Rostelecom.

The latter is Russias biggest state telecom company. Recently, the company has been busy developing an electronic distant voting system that is to be applied in the upcoming Russian presidential elections, company CEO Mikhail Oseevsky told Putin in a meeting in June 2023.

The most valuable Russian holding of the Norwegian Fund is Sberbank. The Norwegians own 0,72 percent of the company that is Russias biggest bank and one of the countrys major technology developers.

Sberbank is actively working in a wide field of tech development, including in artificial intelligence. When Putin visited the Rossiya exhibition on the 1st of February this year, he had a stop at Sberbanks stand.

In his meeting with Sberbank CEO German Gref in March 2023, Putin revealed that he is in constant contact with the Sberbank leader.

The 52 Russian holdings total only a tiny share of the Norwegian Oil Fund. Whereas the assets had a value of more than 31 billion NOK (2,72 billion) in 2019, they were in 2023 worth less than 1,5 billion NOK (131 million).

But the symbolic effect and moral aspect of holding stakes in Russias war economy and the system of repression, propaganda and censorship is significant.

The Barents Observer has approached the press service of the Norges Bank Investment Management for a comment, but by the time of publishing this article the bank has not responded to questions about why the Fund still has holdings in 52 Russian companies and whether there are plans to get rid of the ownership.

Read more from the original source:
Norway owns a part of Putin's propaganda and censorship machine - The Independent Barents Observer

HONG KONG Nicole Kidmans latest project is set in Hong Kong, but people who live there are blocked from seeing it, prompting speculation about censorship in a city where civil liberties are shrinking fast.

The first two episodes of Expats, a six-episode drama about expatriate women, were released on Amazon Prime on Jan. 26. But when viewers in Hong Kong try to watch it, they instead get a message saying that this video is currently unavailable to watch in your location.

Read More: Lulu Wangs 'Expats' Is the First Must-See Show of 2024

The city has hardened its controls over political speech after 2019 anti-government protests rocked the city.

In 2020, China passed a National Security Law that criminalized political activities, such as protesting for independence. Since then, hundreds of activists have been arrested or driven into exile, while opposition-leaning media have been forced out of business.

Expats is based on a book by Hong Kong-born American writer Janice Y.K. Lee, and is directed by China-born American director Lulu Wang. The first episode includes a brief scene in which people at a rally chant in Cantonese I want real general elections. The trailer for the show also features a crowd holding umbrellas, a reference to the 2014 Umbrella Movement, when protesters demanded the right to choose the citys Chief Executive.

Previously, the Walt Disney Co. removed an episode of the cartoon series The Simpsons that included a reference to forced labor camps in China from its Disney Plus streaming service in Hong Kong. In both cases, its not clear whether authorities were involved in the decision to pull the content or companies acted on their own.

In June 2021, the citys government changed the Film Censorship Ordinance to give them the power to remove films which include portrayal, depiction or treatment of any act or activity which may amount to an offense endangering national security.

Read More: Killing of Winnie the Pooh Flick in Hong Kong and Macau Raises Chinese Censorship Concerns

A spokesperson at the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau said the government was not commenting on the issue, and directed questions to Amazon.

Representatives of Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kidmans role in the series prompted controversy in 2021, during the height of the pandemic, when the government gave her permission to skip a mandatory quarantine when she came to Hong Kong to film the series, according to local media outlet HK01.

On Tuesday, the Hong Kong government announced plans to enact a local version of the 2020 National Security Law.

Continue reading here:
Prime Video's 'Expats' Was Filmed in Hong Kongbut You Can't Watch It There - TIME

Friday, Feb 2, 2024

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, regarding a friend-of-the-court brief ADF attorneys filed Thursday on behalf of The Douglass Leadership Institute, The Radiance Foundation, and Speak for Life at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in the case Melton v. City of Forrest City, in which a firefighter in good standing with the city had his employment terminated after he posted a pro-life image on social media:

All Americans should be free to express viewpoints and ideas without fear of government intervention. When the government decides which topics are appropriate for debate, we all lose. As we explain in our brief, the First Amendments absolute bar on viewpoint discrimination protects the full-bodied discussions necessary for representative democracy to function. If the government monopolizes the marketplace of ideas, organizations like The Douglass Leadership Institute, The Radiance Foundation, and Speak for Life, which stand for life, especially Black communities that are disproportionately affected by abortion, cannot speak without fear of government reprisal. We urge the 8th Circuit to reverse the lower court decision and allow free speech to flourish for all.

The ADF Center for Academic Freedom is dedicated to protecting First Amendment and related freedoms for students and faculty so that everyone can freely participate in the marketplace of ideas without fear of government censorship.

# # #

See the original post here:
ADF to 8th Circuit: Govt can't censor pro-life views - ADF Media

EXCLUSIVE A former COVID-19 senior adviser in the Biden administration was forced to defy a congressional subpoena this week after the White House instructed him not to comply with it because of concerns with the rules surrounding his appearance.

Andrew Slavitt, a longtime health official who worked on President Joe Bidens coronavirus response team, was scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 31. Letters obtained by the Washington Examiner reveal the White House instructed Slavitt not to appear.

To protect the constitutional separation of powers and the institutional interests of the White House, I write to inform you that the White House does not authorize Mr. Slavitt to appear at the Committees scheduled deposition, White House counsel Richard Sauber wrote to Slavitts attorney one day before the scheduled deposition.

Sauber communicated the same message to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) in a separate letter, and he indicated that the administration also objected to the committees forthcoming deposition with Robert Flaherty, Bidens former director of digital strategy.

The committee is seeking to speak with Slavitt and Flaherty about the well-documented pressure they put on social media companies to censor content, particularly about COVID-19, beginning in 2021.

Flaherty, who now works for the Biden presidential campaign, was cited dozens of times in a sweeping memorandum from a federal judge, who found the former official had a key role in coercing Meta, X, and YouTube to censor content.

Flaherty would routinely demand the companies report to him on their practices for removing content, such as posts that showed vaccine hesitancy and borderline content.

In one instance, Flaherty became angry with Meta in July 2021, indicating he was displeased with the platforms efforts to censor a group that became known as the disinformation dozen, which included Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Are you guys f***ing serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today, Flaherty wrote to Meta.

Slavitt, in another instance, wrote an ominous email to the platform saying, Internally, we have been considering our options on what to do about [the lack of censorship].

The Judiciary Committee could sue the pair of former officials or attempt to hold them in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas.

Everything is on the table as to what comes next, a committee spokesperson said.

The White House pointed to Saubers correspondence when asked for comment.

Sauber cited in his letter to Slavitts attorney the Department of Justices long-held stance that Congress is obligated to allow government counsel to be present at certain depositions, a position that the Judiciary Committee disputes.

Because of the constitutional defects with the Committees subpoena and consistent with its past advice, [the DOJ] has advised me of its position that Mr. Slavitt cannot be prosecuted for contempt of Congress, Sauber wrote.

The committee has run into similar resistance from the Biden administration before regarding depositions and transcribed interviews. The committee has maintained throughout this Congress that it allows the option for witnesses to appear with personal counsel but not government counsel unless the setting is a transcribed interview and the witness does not have personal counsel.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Slavitts attorney wrote to Jordan on the day of the scheduled deposition, saying his client had flown to Washington, D.C., from California to meet with the committee.

My client has no interest in turning around and heading back to California without speaking to the Committee. However, given that Mr. Slavitt now has received a letter from the White House instructing him not to appear, he unfortunately cannot do so, the attorney wrote to Jordan.

Link:
White House refuses to allow former COVID-19 adviser to testify before Congress in censorship investigation - Washington Examiner

Theater is a form of escapism and a catalyst of joy for Cassius Klingenfuss, 18, a senior at the Sun Valley Community School.

Klingenfuss said its bittersweet that he is close to his last performance, but that hes honored to be cast in Indecent, which will run Thursday, Feb. 8, through Saturday, Feb. 10 at the school.

I am grateful for a lot of these moments and the theater life, especially this show, which is a true example of what theater is, Klingenfuss said.

Indecent was inspired by a 1906 Broadway play titled God of Vengeance. The 1906 play was very controversial because it documented antisemitism and a lesbian relationship, said SVCS Creative Arts Academy Co-Director Kevin Wade.

The play is a meta-theatrical look at why theater matters, how censorship is harmful, how representation of all kinds of love is critical in how we tell stories, and how instrumental Yiddish theater and Jewish culture was in the genesis of contemporary American drama, Wade said.

Wade said Indecent is a play within a play, you laugh a lot and it leaves you in pieces at the end.

This is a real ensemble piece, where a troop of dead actors rise to tell a story of purgatory in a theatrical space, Wade said.

Indecent was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel when she was a graduate student at Cornell University in 1973. It was first produced between 2015 and 2016 Off-Broadway, then premiered on Broadway in 2017. Indecent was nominated for three Tony Awards, and won for Best Direction of a Play and Lighting Design, according to the official Broadway website.

"The play is a metatheatrical look at why theater matters, how censorship is harmful, how representation of all kinds of love is critical in how we tell stories."

Kevin Wade

SVCS Creative Arts Academy co-director

When God of Vengeance first premiered on Broadway in 1906, the cast were jailed for indecency, Wade said. Indecent charts the history of an incendiary drama and the path of the artists who risked their careers and lives to perform it.

Its important to make history accessible to everyone and tell about antisemitism and censorship and how it manifests in all aspects of life, said Katie Gardiner, 18, who is also in the show.

Students on stage include Aster Pitts, Cassius Klingenfuss, Elizabeth Dahlen, Elyse Duffield Evan Dittami, Ida Belle Gorby, Ingrid Pratt, Katie Gardiner, Lidia Kaminer, Lizzie Loving, Moxxie Tellez, Phoebe Everett Williams, Steven Serva-Gonzales, Sydney Lovering, Winnifred Dolson and Callan Duke.

Students behind the scenes are Carter Hickey, Kyan Gandhi, Ida Belle Gorby, Moises Bicas-Dolgen, Bridger McBee, Cash Ammons and Reed Fowler.

This is an important show to come to and shows the power of theater, Klingenfuss said.

Wade said that, since there are depictions of antisemitism and violence, including events such as the Holocaust, it is recommended for high-school-age and older audiences.

Tickets range from $7 to $12, with a $2 convenience fee per ticket, and are available online at communityschool.org.

More here:
Community School theater to perform 'Indecent,' a play tackling censorship and antisemitism - Idaho Mountain Express and Guide