| First coronavirus case confirmed in New York Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:31 PM PST  The coronavirus global death toll has reached nearly 3,000 as countries around the world continue to report their findings to the World Health Organization. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday night that the state has its first coronavirus patient. The woman, who is only described as being in her late 30s, contracted the virus while she was traveling in Iran and is currently isolated in her home, Cuomo said.
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| Japan Virus Woes Pose Existential Threat to Abe Government Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:15 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Shinzo Abe has overcome countless political perils on the road to becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister. He may have met his match with the coronavirus.In a sign of mounting concern, Abe abandoned his relatively mild approach to the epidemic last week with a shock announcement urging schools to shut nationwide from Monday. The move sent millions of parents rushing to arrange childcare and raised doubts about the government's grasp on a situation threatening to tank the economy, scuttle Tokyo's plan to host the Summer Olympics in four months and tarnish Abe's legacy."This step signals both the government's alarm at the outbreak's trajectory and –- perhaps more importantly –- Abe's awareness that mismanaging the outbreak could critically damage his premiership," said Tobias Harris, a Japan analyst for Teneo Intelligence in Washington. "However, it seems unlikely that this step will either contain the outbreak or restore the public's confidence in Abe's leadership."The reversal followed weeks of controversy over Abe's efforts to contain a disease that has infected more than 200 people in Japan and hundreds of others in an attempt to quarantine a cruise ship offshore. Abe's health minister acknowledged last week that Japan was conducting only a fraction of the number of tests as its peers, meaning the cases confirmed so far may only be the tip of the iceberg.The episode has damaged Japan's reputation for competent governance, even as people began to wonder whether it might be safer to postpone the Olympics for the first time since World War Two. Tokyo has already spent more than $26 billion to prepare for the event, which Abe has made a centerpiece of his campaign to attract foreign tourists.On Monday, Abe said he would work on legislation to allow the government to declare a state of emergency. The northern Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido, which includes some of Asia's premier skiing destinations, on Friday announced a state of emergency until March 19, urging people to say at home.The blow has fallen on a Liberal Democratic Party-led government already weakened by a series of corruption scandals and a sales tax hike in October that left the economy teetering on the brink of a recession. Support for Abe's cabinet sagged last week to its lowest average level since July 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Economics. One poll published by the LDP-backing Sankei newspaper showed support falling 8 percentage points to 36%.Abe defended his response to the outbreak at a news conference Saturday, arguing that Japan was experiencing a less severe situation than places such as neighboring South Korea. He took personal responsibility for the dramatic decision Thursday to urge schools to close with just three days' warning. He's set to speak again in parliament on Monday."A decision that affects people's daily lives will of course result in various opinions and criticisms," Abe told reporters. "As prime minister, it is a matter of course for me to listen to those voices. But at the same time I need to protect the lives of the people."Japan's benchmark Topix gauge marked its worst weekly decline in four years last week and continued to fall for a sixth straight day on Monday. That bodes ill for an economy that contracted 6.3% in the last three months of 2019. Unemployment rose to 2.4% in January, compared with 2.2% in December.The outbreak is only becoming harder to control as it spreads from its source in China around the world, with the U.S., Australia and Thailand reporting their first deaths due to the disease over the weekend. The virus has infected at least 86,000 people and killed almost 3,000 worldwide, including several in Japan and at least six former passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.While Abe benefits from a divided opposition that recently failed to merge its two biggest parties, a simultaneous collapse of the economy and the Olympic project might be too much for the LDP to ignore. Further declines could prompt the ruling party to ditch Abe ahead of the next general elections, which must be held by October next year.Kazuhiro Haraguchi, a lawmaker with the opposition Democratic Party for the People and former minister for internal affairs, criticized the government for not triggering an action plan laid out for influenza control under the previous administration."At first they said it wasn't a big deal," Haraguchi said in an interview ahead of the announcement on school closures. "The next thing they will probably do is say it's too late to tackle it."Abe -- like leaders in South Korea, Hong Kong and elsewhere -- has faced criticism for the government's reluctance to institute a total ban on Chinese arrivals, instead of curbing visitors from only its hardest-hit provinces. The Sankei poll found two-thirds of respondents wanted all visitors from mainland China banned temporarily.That's complicated Abe's push to restore ties with China that were mired in one of their biggest crises ever when he took power in late 2012. Both Tokyo and Beijing still say they plan to go ahead with a state visit by President Xi Jinping in April, though the Sankei newspaper reported it could be delayed to autumn or later.Although Abe has survived worse slumps before, the coronavirus outbreak is shaping up to be his toughest challenge yet. Waiting in the wings is Shigeru Ishiba, a former LDP defense minister whose efforts to distance himself from the government have helped make him the most popular candidate to succeed Abe."There are major cracks appearing in his bedrock support," said Shigeharu Aoyama, an upper house LDP lawmaker, who said Abe's policies had shown consideration for China, while placing burdens on the Japanese people. "Doubts are emerging over the nature of the administration and whether it's appropriate for the nation."(Updates with Abe comments in parliament)\--With assistance from Gearoid Reidy, Jeremy Diamond and Yuki Masujima (Economist).To contact the reporter on this story: Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Jon HerskovitzFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Biden warmly welcomed in Selma as Dems court black voters Posted: 01 Mar 2020 04:30 PM PST  Joe Biden received a warm reception Sunday in this crucible of the civil rights movement as he and other Democratic presidential hopefuls appealed for black support in a town where demonstrators were once beaten for marching for the right to vote. Themes of fighting voter suppression, providing the poor with a way up and defeating President Donald Trump took center stage at events marking the 55th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," the day in 1965 white police attacked black marchers in Selma. This year's commemoration came two days before Alabama Democrats join voters in more than a dozen states in the Super Tuesday cluster of primary elections.
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| Talking about life after the divorce: EU and Britain set for new talks Posted: 01 Mar 2020 04:00 PM PST |
| Campaigners urge PM Johnson to 'turbocharge' climate plans ahead of U.N. summit Posted: 01 Mar 2020 04:00 PM PST |
| It’s Not the Migration Crisis Turkey and Greece Say It Is Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:36 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Istanbul's working class neighborhood of Zeytinburnu was buzzing Sunday as migrants huddled in groups debating whether to travel to the border with Greece so they could achieve their dream: to live in Europe.Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's decision to open the frontier, excitement rippled through the district of about 300,000 people that's home to young Afghans, Central Asians and Iranians, as the propaganda machines went into overdrive on both sides of the border.Turkey said more than 100,000 people have left, but visits to both sides of the border show it's unclear how many have crossed into Europe or got stuck in no man's land along the frontiers with Greece and Bulgaria. Athens said it stopped mass crossings, while the International Organization for Migration said a much smaller number than what Turkey claims has been trying to cross.The reality on the ground does not match the rhetoric. Erdogan has played a particularly sensitive card at a time populists are beating the drum about migrants coming to Europe with diseases amid a possible pandemic of the coronavirus. European leaders including Germany, the bloc's economic motor, are waiting to call his bluff. Meanwhile, top diplomats will meet in Brussels.Greece has mirrored the heated language of its sworn enemy and neighbor by invoking an emergency clause of European treaties and refusing to accept asylum applications for a month. Officials have talked of an "invasion" by some 150,000 people waiting to board boats across the island of Lesbos. Our reporters on the Turkish coast only observed small groups of families."We used to get families from Syria, but now we get mainly young men," said Georgios Arabatzakis, the village chief of Marasia, on the banks of the Evros river which runs along the Greek-Turkish border. "People here used to give refugees water and clothing, but the situation now looks like an invasion."Despite the rising tensions, what was clear on Sunday was that this was not yet anything on the scale of the 2015 refugee crisis when almost a million people crossed into Europe, fueling the rise of anti-immigration sentiment that changed the face of the continent's politics.Since Turkey suffered its biggest single-day loss of troops in decades in Syria against Russian-backed forces loyal to Bashad al-Assad in the northwestern region of Idlib, Erdogan has threatened to unleash another flood of Syrian refugees in Europe.Whether he can is another story. Turkey is the world's biggest host of migrants with more than 3.5 million Syrians on its soil. Erdogan has said hundreds of thousands of people are already on the move from Idlib toward Turkey and the total number could exceed 2 million. But early indications on the ground suggested Turkey is stuck with its refugee burden.So far, there was little sign of Syrians trying to cross into Europe.In Zeytinburnu, Emre, a 45-year-old taxi driver who normally ferries wealthy Middle Eastern tourists around Istanbul, said he had been driving mostly young Afghan men in his white Mercedes for about 150 Liras ($25) each to the city of Edirne, where they hoped to cross into Greece."You see all these young people," he said, pointing to them with his chin, "they're waiting for news from their friends. If they know others have succeeded, they'll go. If not, they'll keep on waiting." He took one family of 11 to the border and then returned them to Istanbul when they realized there was no way through.Migrants who'd listened to claims by Turkish officials that there'd be no exit checks were met with tear gas and a wall of Greek police officers and soldiers waiting for them at the Evros river. The situation risks becoming a tinderbox.With bruises on his hands and face, Zabi Parsan, an 18-year-old Afghan, said Greek security forces beat him up as he tried to cross the border and took all of his money and mobile phone. So he took a bus back to Istanbul where he'd been living for a year and found friends to pay for his return ticket.At the Pazarkule gate, on the Turkish side of the border, 39-year-old Muhammed Aghram, who came from Iran to Turkey seven years ago, handed out bread he baked in his shop. "What's shocking is that there are so many Iranians here," he said. "I felt compelled to help them so I drove down here."Nearby, 18-year-old Mourad Mohammed, said he's been wandering the streets of Istanbul unable to get work in the year since he left his native Ethiopia. "So when I heard the doors are open, I was immediately like – I'm going." He said he'd wait by the border for a couple of more days and then go back to Istanbul if he couldn't cross.Smugglers on Sunday were advising crowds to forget about the land route and try the sea route – and take advantage of the loose checks by the Turkish coast guard, as well as the beautiful weather on a balmy spring-like day. One human trafficker in his early 30s said he was putting about 34 people in a boat and charging between $400-800 per person.It's very different to the height of the migration crisis in 2015, when his business was solid with 200 boats setting off each day.Back in Zeytinburnu, 21-year-old Burak was hunting for passengers to carry to the border in his Ford Transit but was growing bored with the lack of business. He says he took 30 people to Yenikarpuzlu, a village on the Meric River, roughly 300 kilometers from Istanbul, and drove back a group of 13 Nigerians and Senegalese after they failed to enter Greece."I did the Istanbul-Edirne trip twice back and forth yesterday, but most people couldn't cross the border," he said. "So now the crowd here is waiting for some good news. If someone calls them and says 'I made it to Greece,' they will come to me and ask me to take them there."In the sleepy towns on the Greek side of the border, local residents didn't seem particularly alarmed at what was going on but were adamant that the EU had to take action."Erdogan has opened the gates to blackmail Europe," said 65-year-old Thanassis Tseretis in his cafe in central Kastanies, a kilometer away from the border crossing. "There's no easy solution, but European leaders need to get together and find a solution. They've left us all alone, these are European borders and they've left Erdogan to do what he wants with them."\--With assistance from Nikos Chrysoloras.To contact the reporters on this story: Onur Ant in Istanbul at oant@bloomberg.net;Cagan Koc in Istanbul at ckoc2@bloomberg.net;Constantine Courcoulas in Athens at ccourcoulas1@bloomberg.net;Sotiris Nikas in Athens at snikas@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, ;Benjamin Harvey at bharvey11@bloomberg.net, Caroline Alexander, Karl MaierFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| AP sources: Buttigieg ending his presidential campaign Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:19 PM PST  Pete Buttigieg, who rose from being a small-town Midwestern mayor to a barrier-breaking, top-tier candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, is ending his campaign. The decision came just a day after one of Buttigieg's leading rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, scored a resounding victory in South Carolina that sparked new pressure on the party's moderate wing to coalesce behind Biden. Buttigieg had been critical of Biden, charging that the 77-year-old lifelong politician was out of step with today's politics.
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| Iraq's PM-designate withdraws from post, prolonging deadlock Posted: 01 Mar 2020 02:16 PM PST  Iraq's prime minister-designate announced his withdrawal from the post Sunday night after failing to secure parliamentary support for his Cabinet selection, prolonging the political deadlock in the country amid multiple economic, health and security challenges. Prime Minister designate Mohammed Allawi blamed political parties he did not name, saying they "were not serious about implementing reforms that they promised to the people" and accusing them of placing obstacles in the way of a new and independent government. Allawi's withdrawal a month after he was selected for the post plunges the country in more uncertainty at a critical time and as the country weathers troubled times, including ongoing anti-government protests and the constant threat of being ensnared by festering U.S.-Iran tensions.
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| Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan poet and priest, dies at 95 Posted: 01 Mar 2020 02:07 PM PST  Ernesto Cardenal, the renowned poet and Roman Catholic cleric who became a symbol of revolutionary verse in Nicaragua and around Latin America, and whose suspension from the priesthood by St. John Paul II lasted over three decades, died Sunday. Cardenal penned verse that went around the globe, and lived until his last days with a lucidity that inspired amazement and admiration in the literary world. Bosco Centeno, a close friend of Cardenal, told The Associated Press the poet was hospitalized in Nicaragua's capital of Managua a couple of days ago with a heart problem.
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| Hungary and Greece are closing their borders to asylum seekers amid the coronavirus outbreak Posted: 01 Mar 2020 01:37 PM PST  Countries are boosting travel restrictions and barring entry to foreign nationals who've recently been to China, South Korea, Iran, and Italy.
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| Bernie Sanders Responds To Attack From Israeli Official After Netanyahu Criticism Posted: 01 Mar 2020 11:57 AM PST  Israel's ambassador to the U.N. called Sanders a "liar" and a "fool," and said Sanders is unwelcome in Israel after he accused the prime minister of racism.
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| Kremlin Media Still Like Bernie, ’Cause They Love Trump Posted: 01 Mar 2020 11:35 AM PST  Prior to the South Carolina primary, Russian state media were touting Senator Bernie Sanders as the most likely Democratic nominee, and it won't be surprising if they do the same after Super Tuesday. There are many reasons they like to promote Sanders, none of them a credit to him. And they really don't like Joe Biden. As Russian state media often make perfectly clear, Donald J. Trump is their choice—and even their "agent."Russia's State TV Calls Trump Their 'Agent'So, reporting from the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2020, Russian state media correspondent Denis Davydov of Rossiya-1 confidently described "Comrade" Bernie Sanders as President Trump's "main rival in the race."In the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, Russian state media strongly backed both Sanders and Trump. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of the St. Petersburg troll farm, known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA) detailed how its operatives were instructed to "use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them)."In 2018, Russian state media included Bernie Sanders in its line-up of "Russia's friends," alongside Dennis Kucinich, Dana Rohrabacher, Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Mike Flynn.Sanders made the list because in 2012 he voted against the Magnitsky Act, a piece of legislation seeking to impose sanctions for the Russian government's extrajudicial killings, torture, or other human rights violations committed against individuals seeking to promote human rights or to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the government of the Russian Federation. In 2017, Senator Sanders voted against legislation that imposed sanctions against North Korea, Iran and Russia. The bill was passed by Congress in response to Russia's interference in the 2016 US election, as well as its human rights violations, annexation of Crimea, and military operations in eastern Ukraine.In 2019, Bernie Sanders was the sole senator to miss the vote on a bill that would prevent the U.S. Treasury Department from rolling back sanctions on three companies owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Senator Sanders skipped the vote in order to meet with former staff members who conveyed their dismay over the alleged mistreatment of women during his 2016 campaign.But Sanders' voting record is not the sole reason for Russia's reported attempts to boost his presidential bids in 2016 and 2020. His campaign is widely perceived by Russian experts as a boon for Trump's re-election. In 2019, when Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy, analyst Dmitry Drobnitsky told RT (formerly Russia Today) that if "Socialist Sanders" ends up as the Democratic Party's nominee, Trump "would eat him for breakfast." The perception remains the same today, with Russian state media—a reliable barometer of the Kremlin's viewpoint—describing Bernie Sanders as the ideal opponent for Trump because he'd be beaten with ease.Writing for RT on February 25, 2020, historian and political analyst Kirill Benediktov surmised that barring unforeseen developments, Trump's re-election is "inevitable." In 2016, Benediktov, alongside other Russian analysts and activists, celebrated Trump's election as "a great victory" and "the real reset of the Western world." In his 2020 essay for RT, Benediktov referred to candidate Sanders as the "Nutty Professor," "a sloppy Jewish intellectual" and "an elderly socialist" with radical views. Benediktov dismissed the candidacy of Pete Buttigieg because of his sexual orientation and used President Trump's derogatory nicknames and favorite insults, panning "Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren" and Amy Klobuchar as "losers." Russian state media are concerned about Mike Bloomberg and his financial reach, describing him as the possible "dark horse" in the presidential race. But former Vice President Joe Biden remains the Kremlin's least favorite option.It would be a mistake to think Bernie Sanders is by any means Russia's "Manchurian candidate." His value to the Kremlin is as a disrupting force whose candidacy benefits Trump. Presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard, who often appears on Fox News to criticize the Democrats, is perceived in the same light. When it suits them, Russian state media trot out glowing profiles of Sanders and Gabbard. They have traced Sanders' socialist leanings to his childhood, noting that his older brother, Larry, introduced him to the works of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. The host of state TV show, The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, has described Sanders as a "leftist Grandpa," a radical Trotskyite "spoon-fed by Lenin," the likes of which are extinct even in the post-Soviet states.The leader of the Russian Communists, Gennady Zyuganov, said: "Bernie Sanders did not accidentally enter the upcoming elections. This is a leftist person who shares socialist views and ideas. Therefore, it is not in vain that Trump is trying to bring down those tendencies. We are strong in the world and society, including the American one."Russian pundits and analysts were noticeably irritated by Bernie Sanders' response to the reports of continued Russian interference in the U.S. presidential elections. They noted that President Trump never concealed his pro-Russian leanings, while candidate Sanders dared to demand that Russia stay out of the American elections—a comment Benediktov described as "vicious." Appearing on the federal Russian channel TVC, political scientist Sergei Sudakov made the point that unlike other American politicians, "Trump never criticized Putin in his entire life." TVC host Alexey Frolov asked Sudakov to speculate whose election would be more beneficial for Russia: Donald J. Trump or Bernie Sanders. Sudakov sided firmly with President Trump, predicting that he will continue to pursue better relations with Vladimir Putin and Russia, noting that it's always better to stick with "the Devil we know."The Russian state media network Vesti is showcasing a lineup of articles and videos about U.S. elections with a simple slogan: "America chose Trump," a headline that betrays the Kremlin's not-so-subtle preference. The weekly program International Review on state television network Rossiya 24 introduced its segment about U.S. elections by proclaiming: "In spite of such a wealth of choices, there is no other alternative—this is why America is electing Trump." Trump's Fury at Intel Briefing Shows Putin's Bet Keeps Paying OffThe Kremlin's most feared candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, has been panned as someone who stands no chance of being nominated. Russian state media actively disseminated conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and his son Hunter, while pushing Ukraine to comply with President Trump's demands for an investigation, and these attempts to discredit Joe Biden were widely perceived as a successful operation. State media pundits and experts described the former vice president as a "political corpse." After his decisive primary victory in the South Carolina 's Democratic presidential primary, Joe Biden exclaimed: "We are very much alive." And it was clear the Russian state media did not want to hear that. Hours after the results of the voting came in, they were unwilling to acknowledge the outcome. State media channel Rossiya-24 briefly mentioned that Joe Biden "seems to be leading so far" in the South Carolina's primary, centering its coverage, instead, around Tom Steyer dropping out of the race.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Improving humanitarian assistance at the heart of 2nd Riyadh International Humanitarian Forum Posted: 01 Mar 2020 10:35 AM PST  Over two thousand delegates and the directors of six United Nations Agencies have gathered in Riyadh for this high-level event which brings together humanitarian experts and world leaders to discuss the challenges facing humanitarian action and how to better assist people in need. The forum will result in the presentation of recommendations for ways forward in approving humanitarian response.
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| Eastern Libya officials visit Syria to discuss Turkey Posted: 01 Mar 2020 10:33 AM PST |
| AP Photos: Migrants head to Turkish-Greek border Posted: 01 Mar 2020 10:09 AM PST  All it took was a thinly veiled suggestion by a Turkish official that his country would no longer prevent migrants and refugees from trying to cross Turkey's borders into the European Union. Within hours, thousands were heading from Istanbul to the Greek border, about three to four hours' drive away. Greek authorities said Turkish authorities also fired tear gas at the Greek border.
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| Genetic clues hint at hidden virus cases in Washington state Posted: 01 Mar 2020 10:05 AM PST  The coronavirus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in Washington state, a preliminary finding that could mean hundreds of undiagnosed cases, researchers said Sunday after analyzing the genetic sequences of viruses from two people. Washington state, home of the nation's first confirmed infection, has seen eight confirmed cases, including the nation's first death from the virus this weekend. State and local authorities stepped up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew nationwide, with new infections announced in California, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state.
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| How Prepared Is the U.S. for a Coronavirus Outbreak? Posted: 01 Mar 2020 09:26 AM PST  In 2005, the federal government sought to assess how a respiratory-related pandemic might play out in the United States. Its report estimated that a severe influenza pandemic would require mechanical ventilators for 740,000 critically ill people.Today, as the country faces the possibility of a widespread outbreak of a new respiratory infection caused by the coronavirus, there are nowhere near that many ventilators, and most are already in use. Only about 62,000 full-featured ventilators were in hospitals across the country, a 2010 study found. More than 10,000 others are stored in the Strategic National Stockpile, a federal cache of supplies and medicines held in case of emergencies, according to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Tens of thousands of other respiratory devices could be repurposed in an emergency, experts say, but the shortfall would be stark, potentially forcing doctors to make excruciating life-or-death decisions about who would get such help should hospitals become flooded with the desperately sick.Much about the coronavirus remains unclear, and it is far from certain that the outbreak will reach severe proportions in the United States or affect many regions at once. With its top-notch scientists, modern hospitals and sprawling public health infrastructure, most experts agree, the United States is among the countries best prepared to prevent or manage such an epidemic.But the coronavirus, which appeared in China in December and has stricken more than 86,000 people around the world, killing nearly 3,000, has already exposed significant vulnerabilities in the ability of the United States to respond to serious health emergencies.Across the country, educators, businesses and local officials are beginning to confront the logistics of enduring a possible pandemic: school closings that could force millions of children to remain at home, emergency plans that would require employees to work remotely, communities scrambling to build up supplies.In plausible worst-case-scenarios given the pattern of the outbreak thus far, the country could experience acute shortages not just in ventilators but also health workers to operate them and care for patients; hospital beds; and masks and other protective equipment."Even during mild flu pandemics, most of our ICUs are filled to the brim with severely ill patients on mechanical ventilation," said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an expert on health care preparedness. "I hope and pray COVID-19 turns out to be a moderate pandemic, but if not, we're in serious trouble," he said, referring to the name given the disease caused by the virus.Resources are concentrated in the most populous and wealthiest cities, leaving rural areas and other neglected communities exposed to greater risk. And public health experts worry that efforts to contain an outbreak could be hamstrung by budget cuts that have weakened state health departments.Seventy cases have been identified in the United States as of Saturday night, most of them patients infected while abroad. But officials at the CDC warned on Tuesday that number will almost certainly rise and urged Americans to prepare for significant disruptions to their lives. On Saturday afternoon officials announced the first death, a patient in Washington state.Health officials are working to confine outbreaks to small geographic clusters, which would limit the impact on the nation's health care system and buy time for the development of a vaccine, an effort that could take a year or longer. But flawed test kits distributed to states by the CDC and strict criteria initially used for identifying potential cases may have slowed detection of the virus spreading within communities across the country.On Friday, three new patients -- in California, Oregon and Washington state -- were detected who had not traveled outside of the United States and had no known contact with infected individuals, suggesting such community transmission has already begun.Critics say a contradictory message about the threat posed by the virus from President Donald Trump -- who called Democrats' criticism of his handling of the situation a "hoax" at a rally on Friday night -- amplified on conservative media, has caused confusion, arguably slowing efforts to prepare."The Chinese bought us a month of time to prepare ourselves by imposing these astonishing and draconian measures," said J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which last year issued a report that identified flaws in the nation's health security. "Unfortunately, we didn't make good use of that time and now we're heading into a very dangerous situation."China's decision to quarantine tens of millions of its citizens raises questions about what kind of measures U.S. authorities might adopt. Although public health experts in the United States say walling off entire cities and shutting down transport systems would most likely be counterproductive and do more harm than good, federal and state laws give governments the authority to limit civil liberties to protect the public health.To help avert a severe epidemic, health officials are legally empowered to isolate the infected and those who had contact with them, restrain the sick if they resist treatment and close down whole institutions, from hospitals to churches.These powers come with limits. Officials are supposed to use the least restrictive measures possible to protect public health, and people whose liberties are being infringed have the right to appeal in the courts.Quarantines also require an enormous dedication of personnel to manage, and those workers must also be kept safe. Gregg Gonsalves, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said the experience in China suggested that quarantines could create their own set of problems for people who are confined. "You may not have the basic necessities you need, including food, water, and basic sanitation supplies," he said.Screening at airports and bordersFor now, U.S. authorities are trying to limit the spread of the virus by identifying and monitoring anyone who has come into contact with an infected patient -- a methodical process known as contact tracing -- and by policing the nation's borders.As of Friday, about 47,000 travelers had been subjected to "enhanced screening" at airports, according to the CDC. All passengers arriving from China have their temperatures checked, and those who are feverish or present other symptoms of the coronavirus undergo further evaluation to determine whether they require hospitalization.Aaron Bowker, an officer in the Buffalo field office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said employees faced the complex challenge of trying to assess people for signs of illness. "That's probably the hardest part," he said. A cough does not always trigger further scrutiny of someone with no recent travel history to China, and some infected people have no fever or symptoms at all.There have also been significant gaps in the guidelines that may have allowed more infected people to enter the country. On Saturday, the administration announced new measures intended to plug some of those holes, including preboarding screening of people traveling to the U.S. from Italy and South Korea and restrictions on noncitizens who had been in Iran.To date, arriving travelers who have visited mainland China in the prior two weeks are supposed to be stopped and questioned, but those protocols have not been applied to travelers from other countries where the virus has spread significantly. On Friday, health officials in Washington state announced that a woman there who had traveled to South Korea, which has reported more than 3,000 cases, had tested positive for the virus.Anjali Goel, 18, a New York University student studying in Italy, returned home this past week after the university shut down its campus in Florence. She said she was surprised when a customs officer at Washington Dulles International Airport simply waved her through without asking any questions."I expected him to ask me something because I was coming from an infected area," she said.For now, Goel has opted to self-quarantine, just in case. "I'm staying indoors, limiting my interaction with people and checking my temperature," she said, "even if I am feeling perfectly normal."Rationing careIf the coronavirus does spread in the United States, health care facilities like Danbury Hospital in Connecticut will be on the front lines. This past week, the hospital's critical care doctors gathered to discuss the potential for a surge in patients who might require breathing assistance, a complication that affects the small portion of patients most seriously ill with the coronavirus."We've assessed how many ventilators we have, what our capacity is, who's going to take what role," said Dr. Paul Nee, an infectious disease specialist and co-chairman of infection control at the hospital, which has about 370 licensed beds. He said that the hospital had about 50 ventilators, but that some older ventilators that were still functioning could be pulled into service if needed, and that other forms of ventilation that do not require a breathing tube could be used to support patients with pneumonia.In an extreme situation, some hospitals' plans include provisions for rationing, even removing some patients from ventilators without requiring their consent to make way for others presumed to have a better chance of survival. Some plans would also limit the access of certain categories of patients from critical care or even hospitalization during a peak pandemic based on criteria such as their age or an underlying chronic disease.The concept of imposing such measures makes physicians dedicated to saving every life uncomfortable, and there is evidence that many people who could be removed from life support or refused care under such protocols would otherwise survive.Dr. Mark Jarrett, chief quality officer for Northwell Health, which has 23 hospitals, mostly in New York state, said creative thinking and new technologies could ease the need for some drastic measures.For example, he said, officials at Northwell were contemplating the use of telemedicine to augment care in an epidemic. Roughly two-thirds of the system's hospitals, for example, are equipped with electronic intensive care unit systems that allow off-site providers to monitor patients and communicate with them through video screens. Computer algorithms alert nurses when patients' vital signs are worrisome."We are hoping we never need to do this, but we'd rather have the plans in place," he said.Gary Cox, the Oklahoma health commissioner, said reopening rural hospitals that had closed in recent years was an option under consideration, and the state was also exploring the idea of using recreational vehicles to house people who have tested positive for the virus but do not need hospital care.China has dealt with the problem by dispatching tens of thousands of health workers from other areas of the country to the hot zone and constructing additional hospitals and isolation centers.The U.S. government, too, has the ability to assign preestablished teams of health workers to augment overwhelmed facilities during crises, and the cadres have already provided health monitoring and basic medical care for evacuees from China and the Diamond Princess Cruise ship. But there is one big limitation: Many members of these teams, part of the National Disaster Medical System, hold regular jobs in the health care sector.During an epidemic, that system could deploy personnel from less affected areas, but Department of Health and Human Services officials said in a statement, "if all parts of the country were overwhelmed simultaneously, providers who serve as NDMS personnel would be desperately needed in their own communities and their primary responsibility is at their home facility."Another looming concern is protecting health care workers and preventing the spread of outbreaks within hospitals. Keeping health workers safe requires protective equipment, much of it made in China and already in short supply. Panicked buying of masks by regular consumers is exacerbating the problem. On Saturday the U.S. Surgeon General tweeted, "Seriously people -- STOP BUYING MASKS!":Scott Sproat, director of emergency preparedness and response at the Oklahoma State Department of Health, said medical facilities in his state were facing delays in receiving respirator masks that have a higher ability to filter viruses than regular surgical masks.The secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, told reporters on Friday that 300 million of such masks, known as N95s, are needed for the emergency medical stockpile for health care workers and that the government was considering invoking a Korean War-era law to accelerate production domestically. Domestic mask manufacturers, which account for a tiny proportion of the U.S. market, have warned for years about potential disruptions in the supply of foreign produced masks during a global infectious outbreak.Some hospital workers have already reported difficulty obtaining masks. A nurse in charge of emergency preparedness in a rural part of Oklahoma, who was not authorized to speak on behalf of her hospital, said she had tried to order N95 masks this past week but none were available.Other workers reported significant price hikes. And some hospitals in the New York City area have been "drawing down on the state stockpile," said Jenna Mandel-Ricci, vice president for emergency preparedness for the Greater New York Hospital Association.Many hospitals are trying to conserve supplies. Some have removed the masks from most locations in the hospital and instead are requiring staff members to request them and explain their need."We do have stockpiles that we're just beginning to dig into," said Dr. Paul Holtom, an epidemiologist at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. "If this goes on for many months, all of us will be more challenged."Skilled nursing homes represent one of the greatest vulnerabilities in the health care system. They serve older adults and the infirm -- the demographic most at risk from the coronavirus -- and such facilities face particular challenges in stopping the spread of infection. Multiple studies have shown that germs spread easily in such places, partly because employees are overworked or poorly trained, and because the patients are so susceptible to infection.On Saturday, the CDC reported the first cases in the U.S. from a skilled nursing facility: both a patient and a worker at Life Care in Kirkland, Washington. Officials said that other residents and employees had symptoms."We are very concerned about an outbreak in a setting where there are many older people," said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, the health officer for public health in Seattle and King County.Dr. Kevin Kavanagh, who has studied infection control practices in health care settings, said such facilities might eventually have to limit visitors, or even keep residents under quarantine as a preventive measure."Nursing homes will be extremely vulnerable to this epidemic, and it will be difficult to implement hygiene practices to prevent the spread," he said.Schools, businesses and everyday lifeOn Friday, an employee of an elementary school near Portland, Oregon, tested positive for the coronavirus and the school, Forest Hills Elementary School in Lake Oswego, was shut down. In Washington state, where a high school student received a diagnosis of coronavirus the same day, officials suggested that people needed to prepare for the possibility of schools closing and businesses keeping workers home. In Santa Clara County, California, where another new case was announced, Dr. Sara Cody, the county health officer, said, "Schools should plan for absenteeism, and explore options for learning at home and enhanced cleaning of surfaces."The spread of the coronavirus has rattled companies across Asia and Europe, forcing them to stop production, cut hours and instruct employees to work from home. Dan Levin, who runs a plant outside Chicago that makes furniture and wall paneling, is starting to make similar plans. "There's no playbook for this," he said. "I'm kind of navigating this alone."Levin employs roughly 100 people at his plant in Rochelle, Illinois. About half of them are engineers or estimators, while the rest work on the factory floor. In the event of a coronavirus outbreak, the estimators would be able to do most of their work at home, he said.But engineering tasks are much harder to complete from a kitchen or living room. Levin said he would need to outsource that work to companies in other parts of the country.Still, he said, no amount of planning would do much to mitigate an outbreak that prevents the majority of his manufacturing staff from coming to work. A group of 15 employees cannot suddenly do the work of 50.Most major companies in the United States have said little about how they would respond to an outbreak, except to note their concern for the health and well-being of employees.A spokeswoman for Amazon said the company was "watching this situation closely" but declined to comment on specific protocols. Representatives for several major banks, retailers and technology companies said they would look to the CDC for guidance.Other large companies have already put new precautions in place. Facebook is asking employees who host guests at its corporate offices to make sure the visitors have not recently traveled to mainland China. And at an all-hands meeting on Thursday, executives at the commercial real estate firm SquareFoot in New York told employees to take their laptops home on Friday in case they have to work remotely this next week.It's unclear whether workers, especially in retail and manufacturing jobs, would continue to be paid if the coronavirus crisis forced stores and factories to close for an extended period.For some small-business owners, the coronavirus still feels like a distant threat."We're not trying to overreact," said Michael Stanek, who runs a company near Cleveland that manufactures toner for printers. "We could probably continue to operate with up to maybe 50% of employees sick."Still, Stanek said he was considering ramping up production in the coming days so that the company has enough inventory to keep supplying its customers even if its plant shuts down.And when he gave out paychecks on Thursday, he reminded employees to wash their hands.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| 4 Takeaways From the U.S. Deal With the Taliban Posted: 01 Mar 2020 09:22 AM PST  DOHA, Qatar -- The agreement just signed by American and Taliban negotiators opens the way for direct negotiations between the insurgents and other Afghans, including the country's government, on a political future after the United States ends its military presence. The negotiations could also result in a cease-fire.Here are the main points in the agreement, and a look at how events could unfold.A gradual U.S. troop withdrawal will begin.The United States has agreed to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan in exchange for assurances by the Taliban that it will deny sanctuary to terrorist groups like al-Qaida.Right now, the United States has about 12,000 troops in the country, down from about 100,000 at the peak of the war nearly a decade ago. They are supported by several thousand others from NATO allies.The two sides have agreed to a gradual, conditions-based withdrawal over 14 months. In the first phase, about 5,000 troops are to leave within 135 days. During the gradual withdrawal, the Taliban and the Afghan government would have to work out a more concrete power-sharing settlement. That time frame would give the government the cover of U.S. military protection while negotiating.The Taliban pledged to block terrorist groups.The United States invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban government had given safe haven to al-Qaida, which conducted the Sep. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.Over the years, even as al-Qaida has been decimated by years of U.S. military operations, the Taliban refused to publicly disavow the group, which still pledges allegiance to the Taliban's supreme leader. As part of the deal, the Taliban commit to keeping al-Qaida and other terrorist groups from using Afghan territory to stage attacks against the United States and its allies.One fact that the agreement sidesteps: A dominant faction within the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, is still classified as a terrorist group by the United States, having carried out dozens of deadly suicide bombings. The leader of the network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the Taliban's deputy leader and operational commander.The United States and the Taliban are to establish a joint monitoring body in Qatar, where their negotiations have been held, to assess progress on the commitments.The United States also committed to working to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, held by the Afghan government, and 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces held by the Taliban side by March 10, before both sides are expected to sit down for direct negotiations. The United States will also review sanctions it has on Taliban members and start diplomatic efforts with the United Nations to remove the penalties.Complicated talks between Afghans come next.The agreement between the United States and the Taliban unlocks a difficult but crucial next step: negotiations between the Taliban and other Afghans, including the government, over future power-sharing. Those talks are expected to start soon, within 10 days or so.But the Taliban, who led most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 before they were toppled by the U.S. military invasion, refuse to recognize Afghanistan's democratic government. The goal of their insurgency has been returning to power and establishing rule based on their view of Islam.Other major issues, including women's rights and civil liberties, are also at stake. Many Afghan women have expressed concern that they have been sidelined from the process, and they fear that protections created for them over the past 18 years could be bargained away to the ultraconservative Taliban movement.Divisions inside Afghanistan will complicate the negotiations. The democratic side has been bitterly divided by a disputed election, with the main challenger declaring he would form his own government after President Ashraf Ghani won a second term in office.The deal is tied to reducing bloodshed immediately.For much of the negotiating process, the American side demanded a cease-fire that could pause the bloodshed, in which dozens are killed daily, and create space for talks over the future of the country. With violence as their main leverage, the Taliban refused that demand in the early stages of the talks, saying they were willing to discuss it only in negotiations with other Afghans once the United States promised to withdraw its troops.Eventually, the two sides found a compromise: a significant "reduction in violence" that would not be called a cease-fire. The signing of the deal was conditioned on a seven-day test of that violence reduction, which officials said largely worked. Attacks across Afghanistan, which normally would number as many as 50 to 80 on any given day, dropped to below a dozen.The reduction in violence is expected to continue into the next phase of the process, until the two Afghan sides can agree to a more comprehensive cease-fire.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Israel envoy assails Bernie as lobby splits Democrats Posted: 01 Mar 2020 08:52 AM PST  An Israeli envoy on Sunday assailed leading US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders as a "fool" as the conference of the pro-Israel lobby laid bare divisions over right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sanders is staying away from the annual conference of AIPAC, saying it offers a platform for "leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights," and has denounced Netanyahu as a "reactionary racist." Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu's Likud Party, wasted no time in denouncing Sanders as thousands of AIPAC activists opened their meeting at a Washington conference center.
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| Pentagon sees Taliban deal as allowing fuller focus on China Posted: 01 Mar 2020 08:45 AM PST  The Trump administration's peace deal with the Taliban opens the door for an initial American troop withdrawal that Defense Secretary Mark Esper sees as a step toward the broader goal of preparing for potential future war with China. Esper has his eye on "great power competition," which means staying a step ahead of China and Russia on battlefields of the future, including in space and in next-generation strategic weapons like hypersonic missiles and advanced nuclear weapons. To do more to prepare for the China challenge, Esper wants to do less in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places.
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| Coronavirus Fever: An Infected Priest, a Murder Charge, and a Shortage of Tests Posted: 01 Mar 2020 07:54 AM PST  ROME—It is, by now, impossible to keep up with the fast-changing coronavirus statistics: the number of confirmed cases in new countries seems to roll like ticker tape. The latest confirmations include an American student studying in Italy who reportedly just tested positive for the coronavirus while on a weekend trip to the Czech Republic, one of the first three cases there. Add to that a dozen new cases in the U.K. and an increase by nearly half in Iran to 978 reported cases.Minute by minute, new countries announce deaths, too—the first in both Australia and Thailand followed the first in the U.S. state of Washington Saturday night.But as the strange new world of life in the time of coronavirus takes hold, a few stories still manage to capture attention. On Sunday, U.S. vice president Mike Pence said on CNN that more than 10,000 test kits are "in the mail" to regional health officials trying to stem the spread, after confirming that only around 500 people in the whole of the United States have been tested. That is a shocking number when you consider that nearly 100,000 have been tested in South Korea and more than 21,000 have been tested in Italy, considered two of the most significant outbreaks in the world. In Hungary, the government is using the fear of the spread to close borders and transit zones to migrants on the move, though they are not the first to politicize the virus. President Donald Trump in the U.S. and far-right leader Matteo Salvini in Italy have done the same. In Rome on Sunday, men in white hazmat suits swooped in to close the famous Luigi dei Francesi church next to Piazza Navona which houses three original Caravaggio paintings. A French priest who had been in Rome to celebrate Ash Wednesday mass had just tested positive in France, where the number of confirmed cases is growing. Italy has seen the number of cases climb to nearly 1,700 and the number of deaths rise to 34, but—until now—it had not been a problem in Rome.The spread in France caused the Louvre in Paris on Sunday to close its doors early amid growing concern by workers that they might be at risk. It is unknown how long one of the world's most famous museums will be closed. In South Korea, which has seen an explosion in the number of cases—now at 3,730—and 21 deaths tied to the Shincheonji religious sect, the founder and 11 others have just been charged with murder, causing harm and violating the Infectious Disease and Control Act. To date, more than 85,403 cases have been confirmed in over 60 countries, according to the World Health Organization. More than 2,900 people have died worldwide. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Thousands bury Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria's Idlib Posted: 01 Mar 2020 07:34 AM PST |
| Coronavirus: Pence defends Trump Jr claim Democrats want 'millions' to die Posted: 01 Mar 2020 06:36 AM PST  * Vice-President is leading White House taskforce on outbreak * Republicans are only 'pushing back', Pence claims * Robert Reich: Trump's cuts have made the danger far worseWhen Donald Trump Jr said Democrats hope coronavirus "kills millions of people" in the US because they want to bring his father down, he was merely "pushing back" at politicisation of the viral outbreak by Trump opponents, Mike Pence claimed in an interview broadcast on Sunday."It's time for the other side to turn down the volume," the vice-president told NBC's Meet the Press.At a White House press conference on Saturday, Trump was forced to defend his use of the word "hoax" in reference to the outbreak. Harshly criticised by contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, the president said he had been referring to politicisation of coronavirus, not the outbreak itself.In the interview broadcast on Sunday, NBC host Chuck Todd played Pence clips of Trump allies discussing the outbreak which on Saturday claimed its first US death, a man in Washington state.Rush Limbaugh, the conservative shock jock to whom Trump gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said: "The coronavirus is being weaponized, as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump."> You see voices on our side pushing back on outrageous and irresponsible rhetoric on the other side> > Mike PenceRepublican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel said: "Democrats are using this for their political gain to try and stoke fear in the American people, which is shameful, wrong, and I think un-American."And Donald Trump Jr, appearing on Fox News, said: "For them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump's streak of winning is a new level of sickness."On CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, host Jake Tapper twice asked Pence if he agreed with Trump Jr's claim that Democrats want coronavirus to "kill millions of people".Pence avoided the question, instead saying people need to set politics aside in the response to the outbreak and insisting Trump, who at his Friday rally claimed "the Democrat policy of open borders is a direct threat to the health and wellbeing of all Americans", was directing all sides to take politics out of the equation.Pence is in charge of White House efforts in response to the outbreak. Saying he was leading "decisive action to protect the American people", he told NBC: "And when you see voices on our side pushing back on outrageous and irresponsible rhetoric on the other side, I think that's important, and I think it's justified."Todd said: "It seems like people are taking nervousness and turning it into a political wedge issue.""Well," Pence replied, "that's why my friends that you just played clips of are pushing back as hard as they're pushing. It is time for the other side to turn down the volume."Asked to cite instances of politicisation of the outbreak by Democrats or the media, Pence said: "There was a column in the New York Times by a prominent liberal journalist that said, 'We should rename it the Trump virus.'""I mean, to have someone advocate that you rename the coronavirus the Trump virus is reckless and irresponsible."The column in question, by Gail Collins, ran on Wednesday under the headline "Let's call it Trumpvirus" and with a standfirst which read: "If you're feeling awful, you know who to blame."A critical take on Trump's response to the virus, its first line read: "So, our Coronavirus Czar is going to be … Mike Pence. Feeling more secure?"Pence has faced criticism for his record on public health while governor of Indiana, and for his view of science-based policy as a strict Christian.On Saturday night, the Washington Post published a deeply reported account of what it called "the administration's slapdash and often misleading attempts to contain not just the virus, but also potential political damage from the outbreak – which has tanked financial markets, slowed global commerce and killed some 3,000 people worldwide".On NBC, Pence was asked if the president was nervous that the outbreak was going to affect the US economy in an election year."The president's concern is the health and safety of the American people," Pence said. "I mean, the fundamentals of this economy are strong … and as the president said yesterday, we're going to focus on the health of the American people and this economy and particularly the stock market that saw some downturns this week, it will come back."But our focus is going to remain on the health and well-being of the American people."A man in his 50s in Washington state is the first person known to have died from coronavirus in the US, but officials said on Saturday they did not know how he contracted the virus.Twenty-two Americans have coronavirus that is either travel-related or was spread from another person, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of the Americans repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship and Wuhan, China, 47 have tested positive for coronavirus.According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) situation report, there have been reports of 83,652 cases of coronavirus and nearly 2,800 deaths worldwide.The majority of cases are in China but severe outbreaks have been reported in Iran, South Korea and Italy. On Saturday, Pence announced measures including new travel restrictions on Iran and screening of passengers coming to the US from other countries.
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| 10 things you need to know today: March 1, 2020 Posted: 01 Mar 2020 06:11 AM PST |
| Some states make it harder for college students to vote Posted: 01 Mar 2020 05:45 AM PST  Vanderbilt University student Will Newell wishes it was easier for college students like him to cast ballots in Tennessee, one of 14 states holding a presidential primary on Super Tuesday. The campus has no locations for early voting, so students must visit an off-campus polling location to cast a ballot on Election Day. Newell drives but worries that many students who don't have their own transportation won't make it to a precinct.
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| Officials say Yemen’s rebels seize strategic northern city Posted: 01 Mar 2020 04:27 AM PST  Yemen's Houthi rebels wrested control of the strategic northern city of Hazm, officials on both sides of the conflict said Sunday, a major blow to the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia. Capturing the capital of Jawf province after weeks of fighting could pave the way for the rebels to move toward the central province of Marib, one of the shrinking safe spots for those opposing the Houthis in northern Yemen. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation, has been convulsed by civil war since 2014.
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| Coughing pope cancels participating in Lenten retreat Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:39 AM PST  A coughing Pope Francis told pilgrims gathered for the traditional Sunday blessing that he is canceling his participation at a week-long spiritual retreat in the Roman countryside because of a cold. It is the first time in his seven-year papacy that he has missed the spiritual exercises that he initiated early in his pontificate to mark the start of each Lenten season. The 83-year-old pontiff, who lost part of a lung to a respiratory illness as a young man, has canceled several official engagements this week as he battled an apparent cold.
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| Sanders raised stout $46.5M in February; Warren got $29M Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:33 AM PST  Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign said Sunday that it raised more than $46.5 million in February, a show of financial strength after the Vermont senator finished a distant second behind Joe Biden in South Carolina's primary. Fellow progressive Elizabeth Warren announced collecting a respectable $29 million last month, as she copes with a weaker South Carolina showing. Biden said on CNN that he'd raised about $17 million since the start of February — including a $5 million boost in the last 24 hours that coincided with his first win of the primary.
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| Iran raises death toll to 54 from new coronavirus Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:11 AM PST  Iran's health ministry on Sunday raised the nationwide death toll from the new coronavirus to 54 as the number of confirmed infected cases jumped overnight by more than half to 978 people. The ministry's spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said new cases were confirmed in a number of cities, including Mashhad, which is home to Iran's most important Shiite shrine that attracts pilgrims from across the region. Calls by Iran's civilian government to clerics to close such shrines to to the public have not been uniformly followed.
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| Sanders Could Be Harshest Israel Critic to Occupy Oval Office Posted: 01 Mar 2020 03:00 AM PST |
| Iran's Guards allocate facilities to tackle coronavirus outbreak Posted: 01 Mar 2020 02:38 AM PST |
| Inside the Cyber Honey Traps of Hamas Posted: 01 Mar 2020 02:23 AM PST  TEL AVIV—The 20-year-old Israeli soldier couldn't believe his luck. Out of nowhere, a pretty brunette named Maria Yakovlevah messaged him on Telegram. She was a year older, originally from Odessa, but now living in northern Israel according to her Facebook profile, which had a post that read, in Hebrew: "A pretty woman isn't always happy, but a happy woman is always pretty."Revealed at Last: Trump's Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal to End All PeaceThe two got to chatting. Maria said she loved listening to music, traveling and watching movies. "What are you looking for?" the soldier inquired. "To go through life," Maria replied with a coquettish upside-down smiley face emoji. The conversation turned more flirtatious; Maria pressed the soldier to download an app called "catchandsee" so they could exchange risqué pictures—which he did, or at least tried to. As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed last week, "Maria Yakovlevah" wasn't a real person, but rather an elaborate online cutout created by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group. And the link she sent for the "catchandsee" app, which was supposed to work like the popular Snapchat and erase all those racy images? Once clicked, it inserted powerful spyware into the soldier's smartphone, allowing Hamas to take full control of the device—camera and GPS locator, contacts, files, images, and audio—and send all the data back to Hamas' servers.Honey traps have been laid for Israeli soldiers in many ways over many years, but in the past the aim was to lure the man into a vulnerable position. Now the target, pretty much from start to finish, is his phone.According to the IDF, hundreds of soldiers were targeted, with "several dozen" non-officers potentially compromised. The Israeli military was at pains to stress that no classified information was leaked, yet in its scale and sophistication, even IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus admitted that Hamas' cyber-unit was "upping its game."Multiple fake online personas of attractive younger women with Israeli names, all writing in passable, slang-infused Hebrew, operating credible looking profiles across Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and the aforementioned Telegram.To throw suspicious targets further off the scent, the images used were slightly altered to make it harder to reverse-search for them online. To explain away certain language mistakes, the characters created often were portrayed as recent immigrants (like Maria), with some even claiming to be deaf or speech-impaired to keep the conversations text only. Yet female Hamas operatives on several occasions did respond with brief audio messages—again, in Hebrew.The IDF, famously, is a conscript army with mandatory service beginning at 18; despite its reputation for dominance, the people on the ground are often teenagers, as preoccupied with games and memes, boys and girls, as their peers elsewhere. Smartphones are a constant presence on bases, used to while away the hours on guard duty, keep in touch with family, and set up romantic encounters. Through its cyber capabilities and elaborate social engineering, Hamas has attempted to exploit this all-too "human" breach to gather operational intelligence on the IDF. Despite the incongruity of pious Islamist militants pretending to be young women who throw around words like "honey" and "sweetheart," Hamas operatives above all are innovators. In the organization's three-decade conflict with Israel, the group perfected the suicide bomb vest in the 1990s to bloody effect; turned rocket fire from its Gaza Strip stronghold into a normal occurrence (and was indeed the first since Saddam Hussein to shell Tel Aviv in 2012); and has developed extensive cross-border tunnel networks that would have been the envy of the Vietcong.The latest creative dimension, apparently, is cyber—as a terror group that controls a slender, overcrowded piece of territory with an average of 11 hours of electricity a day does battle with the vaunted "Start-Up Nation."Arguably the first reported instance of a Palestinian cyber attack against Israel came in 2002. IDF reconnaissance drones flying high above Gaza were hacked by Palestinian Authority security officers, with the intercepted footage relayed to Hamas. "We shouldn't underestimate them," veteran Palestinian affairs correspondent Avi Issacharoff, who first reported the story a few years ago, told The Daily Beast. "The Palestinians, just like every enemy in every locale, are getting better in each level, and part of that is technology." In 2014, according to Israeli security sources, Hamas itself was able to beam its own television footage via terrestrial antenna into the homes of Bedouin Arabs in southern Israel during that summer's Gaza war. Beginning around this time, actual cyber attacks on Israeli websites—usually simple denial of service (DoS) campaigns—became more common, although it's unclear if these were Hamas orchestrated. In early 2017, however, the IDF publicized for the first time Hamas efforts to use fake Facebook profiles of attractive younger women to gather information on soldiers and entice them to download a video chatting app that, similar to the recent campaign, was really spyware meant to take control of the smartphone. "This time, their weapon isn't a bomb, gun, or vehicle. It's a simple friend request," the IDF said in reference to Hamas.The following year Hamas's cyber unit doubled down, launching two fake dating apps—called Glance Love and Wink Chat—that were openly available for download in the Google Play store.Here again, young women targeted gullible Israeli soldiers and pressed them to install what was in fact a virus. By the IDF's own count, hundreds of Israelis, including soldiers serving in frontline bases near the Israel-Gaza border, were targeted, and a dozen at least actually downloaded the apps. In a literary flourish, the IDF termed the campaign "Operation Broken Heart." The summer of 2018 also saw Hamas launch two standalone apps geared to an Israeli audience. The first was for real-time soccer updates from the ongoing World Cup; the second, ironically, was a rocket alert app meant to warn Israelis of incoming fire from Gaza. Both operated similarly to the other fake apps as "Trojan Horses" to implant spyware and take control of smartphones. A separate jogging app also reportedly was utilized by Hamas attackers to identify the phone numbers of Israeli soldiers serving near the Gaza frontier, allowing the group to bombard them with malware phishing requests.To be sure, Israel hasn't been Hamas' only cyber target. For the last few years, Hamas's (now) bitter rivals in the Palestinian Authority and Fatah party, who control the West Bank, also have fallen prey. In one case Fatah's homepage was hacked, with the attackers embedding a "mirrored" link for the party's app that downloaded the spyware (again allowing remote control over the entire phone).Other phishing attacks targeting Palestinian Authority officials via email used official-looking Word documents as the entry vehicle for the malware. Earlier this year, an Israeli cybersecurity firm revealed new attacks against the PA—likely perpetrated by Hamas—that used email attachments purportedly relating to current events (the death of Qassem Soleimani, Jared Kushner) as the bait."I'm not going to say [these campaigns] are not powerful or weak," Lt. Col. A, a senior officer in the IDF's Cyber Directorate, told The Daily Beast as this phenomenon was developing in recent years. "They are interesting." The IDF maintains that the tangible damage in all these cases was limited and that the speed with which the attacks were identified and stopped shows the strength of Israel's own capabilities. Moreover, both IDF and private cyber experts stress that Hamas's cyber unit is nowhere near the level of state actors like, say, Iran, Russia or China.Yet even Lt. Col. A, whose full name is being withheld per military protocol, allowed that the creation of these fake apps, and the social engineering behind them, "exhibits a sophistication way above the average." The question, though, is how difficult all of this is, actually, to pull off. In the murky world of online warfare, drawing clear conclusions often is difficult. The easy proliferation of offensive cyber weapons in recent years has created a crowded battlefield where states, criminals, and non-state actors—like terror groups—meld together."The arms race is changing," Lt. Col. A said. "Kinetic weapons cost a lot of money and are visible, unlike cyber-kinetic weapons. A small amount of money [in this space] in a short period of time" can have a major impact. It's difficult to overstate the low barrier to entry in cyber warfare. Fake Facebook accounts with a fleshed out history can run just a few dollars on the Dark Web. "Spoofed" phone numbers, to make it seem like a call is coming from, say, Israel, can run a few hundred dollars. Cyber tools are available for purchase, too, as are the services of freelance hackers. But this may not even be necessary, according to Ohad Zaidenberg, a researcher at ClearSky Cyber Security, an Israeli firm, who told The Daily Beast that some software can be found easily via a simple Google search. "It's not only an issue of pure technical sophistication that dictates effectiveness, there are multiple parameters," Zaidenberg added, referring to Hamas's cyber campaigns against Israel. While one group within the wider umbrella of Hamas's cyber-unit is known to develop its own viruses, another group uses generic tools that can be found on the internet. The bottom line for any such "political attacker" (as opposed to simple criminals) is, according to Zaidenberg, "the need to understand the target, otherwise there would be no reason to go after it." Clearly Hamas views young (male) IDF conscripts as the soft underbelly of the IDF's defenses, and has therefore poured time, resources, and energy into multiple "honeypot" efforts. To do this effectively, however, Hamas needed to develop operatives with good Hebrew language skills and Israeli cultural awareness. A fake rocket alert app could be technically perfect, but the timing of its launch into the world is arguably more crucial. It's not a coincidence that Hamas chose an escalation in rocket fire from Gaza in mid-2018 as the moment to deploy it, knowing full well nervous Israelis would flock to the Google Store looking for such a product. Hamas Started a War Over Eurovision, the Song Contest That Gave Us ABBAWhile it's difficult to estimate how many personnel Hamas would need for these various cyber operations, it's almost a certainty they didn't all materialize from Gaza. "You can send someone to study basic computing skills at, for example, the American University of Beirut or a Western university, and they can work from there. This is the huge difference with cyber, you don't need to sit in Gaza," Lt. Col. A said. Referring to your faithful correspondent, he observed: "You sit in Tel Aviv and write for the U.S., right?" As if to prove this last point regarding the diffusion of the cyber threat, last May the IDF for the first time used jet fighters to attack the Hamas cyber headquarters in Gaza after an attempted cyber attack on what Israel said was part of its "civilian infrastructure." "Hamas no longer has cyber capabilities after our strike," IDF spokesperson Ronen Manelis told reporters. Yet the latest Hamas cyber campaign revealed by the IDF last week is known to have started only a few months later. "There will be no immunity," said Lt. Col. Conricus, the IDF spokesman. "Hostile actions by Hamas in the virtual world will have consequences in the real world." The cat and mouse game between Hamas and Israel in the cyber realm undoubtedly will continue—and escalate. Cyberwarfare "is easy, available and cheap. Not for nothing is Hamas investing so many resources into it," Lt. Col. A told The Daily Beast. "The threat is growing. We won't be going back."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| AP Interview: Qatar says Gulf snub in Afghan signing unwise Posted: 01 Mar 2020 02:22 AM PST  The tiny nation of Qatar expressed disappointment Sunday that nearly all of its Gulf neighbors snubbed invitations to attend the weekend peace signing ceremony between the U.S. and the Taliban. Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told The Associated Press in an interview that the presence of Saudi, Bahraini and Emirati officials at Saturday's event in Doha could have been an opportunity to signal unity amid a festering, nearly three-year-old crisis among the Gulf Cooperation Council members that has left Qatar isolated.
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| Amid Syrian Carnage, Everybody’s Back is to the Wall Posted: 01 Mar 2020 02:08 AM PST  GAZIANTEP, Turkey—His back against the wall, over the last several days Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pulled out all the stops with regards to Syria in a campaign to exert maximum pressure on his two purported, albeit rival allies, Russia and the United States, and by extension via the latter, NATO and the European Union (EU). On Sunday afternoon, Turkish air defense systems shot down two Syrian regime Sukhoi Su-24 fighter jets that had been bombing Turkish and Free Syrian Army (FSA) positions in the Idlib province—Syria's last rebel holdout that straddles the country's northwest border with Turkey. Syria Hears the Death Rattle of the Arab Spring as Assad and Putin Forces AdvanceThis follows an intense bombing campaign carried out Saturday—the day after the 28 February 2020 Russian airstrikes that killed 33 Turkish soldiers—in which Turkish drones launch devastating strikes against Russian-backed Syrian regime forces at the sprawling Abu Dhuhur and Kweiris military bases, in addition to a chemical weapons production site south of Aleppo city, all deep in Assad controlled territory. By Sunday evening, Turkish backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel forces recaptured 30 villages lost the previous week to a Russian-backed Assad regime advance in the southern Idlib countryside. In order to protect themselves from the prospect of further Turkish strikes, Syrian regime soldiers on the ground began burning tires Sunday to hide their location from the ever present Turkish drones circling the skies.This string of Turkish gais began on morning of the 27th, hours before the 28 February strikes, when Turkish and FSA forces in the east Idlib countryside recaptured the strategic town of Saraqib. Located along the M5 highway linking Syria's capital Damascus to the country's commercial hub of Aleppo, the town fell just three weeks prior to pro-Assad forces on 06 February 2020. The recapture of Saraqib represented the first significant victory for Turkey and it's FSA proxies since August 2019 when Russian-backed pro-Assad forces launched a campaign that has since succeeded in taking control of more than one third of former rebel held territory in Idlib province. The temporary momentum created by the liberation of Saraqib and other towns in Idlib has since created breathing room for Turkey and it's proxies as the former continues to solicit aid abroad for its campaign to hold off Russian backed aggression. However such aid may not be forthcoming, and, following an initial lull in pro-Assad attacks amidst a renewed wave of talks, the Russian led advance will likely resume soon. By Saturday evening after the killing of the Turkish soldiers, Russia had moved two warships equipped with cruise missiles towards the Syrian coast as part of the ongoing escalation. Part of the US' unwillingness to military aid the Turksih campaign can be attributed to rumors that the United States' has made its support contingent on guarantees that Ankara renege it's 2019 purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile defense system in exchange for an American variant, the Patriot Air Defense system. Such a move from the American perspective would serve as a gesture of good will indicating Turkey's willingness to end its much-touted rapprochement with Russia in favor of a closer relationship with the United States. Turkish media reported that as recently as 21 February 2020 US officials had confirmed that Turkey had requested that the Patriot Air Defense system be deployed to its border with Syria in order to guard against Russian air strikes in Idlib. Nevertheless, in perhaps an indication of the extent of Russia's leverage over Ankara, despite the ongoing conflict in Idlib and Turkey's recent request to the United States, Ankara has repeatedly rejected American demands to renege on its purchase of the Russian S-400 system. Doing so would anger Moscow and potentially jeopardize Turkey's economic ties to Russia, in particular in the energy sector, where last January Putin and Erdoğan met in Istanbul to celebrate the inauguration of the TurkStream pipeline. Capable of transporting 31.5bn cubic meters of Russian gas to eastern Europe via Turkey annually, completion of the pipeline took 5 years and represents both a major boon to Turkey's economy and an indication of closer ties between Ankara and Moscow. Ankara and Washington, meanwhile, remain at an impasse. * * *REFUGEES* * *Perhaps for this reason, as Turkish drones combed the skies in Idlib and Aleppo on Saturday, back in Istanbul President Erdoğan resorted to more sordid means of generating leverage among western countries. On Friday, Turkish officials announced the temporary opening of Turkey's border with Bulgaria and Greece for as many as 25,000 Syrian refugees in a last ditch attempt to force the EU, NATO and the U.S. to contribute more tangible military support for it's campaign in Idlib. On Saturday, Erdoğan called the decision a logical Turkish response to the EU's failure to live up to its promises to help Turkey bear the financial burden of hosting refugees both within its borders and in Idlib. "I want to say something a little strange here", Erdoğan said, "I told [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel recently: take a good look at these refugees…you've promised us billions [of dollars] over the years to help us build a safe zone in Syria, but at the end of the day you've given us nothing…So I told her, if you don't give us the money, we'll send the refugees your way." The line met with widespread applause from those in the audience. "So what did we do yesterday?" he concluded. "We opened the gates." The prospect of a new wave of refugees arriving at the EU's frontiers has already jolted right-wing sentiment in Europe, with new hashtags such as Nexit and Italexist emerging in recent days calling for the renewed withdrawal of the Netherlands and Italy from the European Union. Combined with fears over the unchecked spread of novel coronavirus across the Schengen zone, millions more refugees could be the spark needed to smash what remains of the EU. Coincidentally this also happens to be a Russian objective. Turkey's campaign of maximum pressure also comes as Erdoğan faces immense domestic strain to successfully balance competing, often contradictory priorities. These include both stemming the flow of Syrian refugees into the country amidst a widespread xenophobic backlash and guarding against the threat of cross-border attacks from Syrian Kurdish militants all the while reducing Turkey's military footprint inside Syria itself. Backed into a corner and terrified of the prospect of returning to government held territory in the event of a Russian-Assad takeover, as many as 4 million Syrian rebels and the civilians they live among in Idlib would have nowhere to flee except to Turkey. But Turkey's overstretched bureaucracy is incapable of welcoming any new waves of displaced people, while Erdoğan himself lacks the political capital to do so. Erdoğan noted that "3.4 million Syrians live within our borders, and we can't handle another wave," but added, "we also can't leave these people at the mercy of the Syrian regime." It's fair to say that until recently, Erdoğan pursued a balancing act between Russia and the western powers: growing closer to Moscow via expanded cooperation in the energy and defense sectors while adhering to the terms of a 2016 agreement with the EU to host those 3.4 million Syrian refugees who would otherwise flood western Europe. However Russia's campaign in Idlib appears to have successfully begun to tip that balance by significantly raising the cost to Turkey of stemming the flow of refugees into Europe. The United States' and NATO's failure to share some of the burden in stemming Russian aggression against Turkish assets in Idlib may be remembered as the final straw that forced Turkey to begrudgingly surrender to Moscow's advance and effectively ditch its alliance with the west. By threatening to empty out its refugee population, Erdoğan seeks both to appease his domestic critics and exploit Europe and the west's deepest fears of instability and destabilization in a counterintuitive attempt to salvage it's relationship with countries of the NATO alliance. * * *DOMESTIC POLITICS* * *Erdoğan's failure to thread the needle on these issues may mean the eventual unseating of the President's long ruling AK Party, which has dominated Turkish politics in one form or another since 2002. Turkey's opposition, in particular the Kemalist CHP, which dealt a stunning defeat to Erdoğan's AK Party via it's victory in Istanbul's June 2019 local elections, has been extremely critical of Turkey's current strategy of backing the FSA in Idlib, which they claim has come at too high of a cost. Opposition parties in general have portrayed Syria's refugee crisis largely as the result of Erdoğan's adventurism abroad, wielding the presence of Syrians in Turkey as a club against the President, claiming the former are to blame for the country's recent economic downturn. Many in Erdoğan's own AK Party, otherwise supportive on other issues, have also begun to agree, calling for refugees to be deported back to Syria. Turkish opposition parties have unsurprisingly also been amongst the most vocal to condemn the 28 February 2020 killing of 33 Turkish soldiers, attributing blame to Erdoğan and his policy of intervention. They have instead largely called for Ankara to abandon its support for the anti-Assad FSA rebels, withdraw Turkish troops from the country and normalize relations with the regime in Damascus, the latter of which in theory could secure the border against future outpouring of migrants. However ceding to the opposition's demands and pursuing rapprochement with Assad flies in the face of Erdoğan's Islamist AK Party base, which remains supportive of Syria's fledgling rebel movement. Furthermore, entrusting the Assad regime with border security carries with it additional risks: both Russia and the regime in Damascus are largely understood to be silent partners if not open allies of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, an offshoot of the PKK, a Kurdish separatist militia in Turkey that has been recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States and UN. Any partnership with Assad that indirectly strengthened the YPG-PKK and led to an uptick in attacks inside Turkey would spell political ruin for Erdoğan or any other Turkish official. And so, Turkey's military remains in Syria, propping up the FSA along its border as the best defense against both armed Kurdish groups and a new waves of refugees.* * *GOING FORWARD* * *On Feb. 3, several days after the regime's capture of Ma'arat al-Nu'aman, another strategic town located along the M5 highway, President Erdoğan announced that Turkey would grant Russian and pro-Assad forces until the end of February to withdraw to their positions before the launch of the most recent round of hostilities in August. Many derided the announcement as wishful thinking, and as of now any hope that either Russian or pro-Assad forces will comply with the demand remains far off. However as the Daily Beast went to press Turkish military forces continued to expand their bombing campaign of Syrian regime infrastructure, extending their scope to include bases located in the immediate suburbs of Aleppo city itself. Nevertheless, increasingly weak at home, it's unclear the extent to which Turkey will be able to maintain its pressure on Russia and Assad in the event Ankara fails to secure tangible western military assistance for it's campaign. If such aid remains unforthcoming, Turkey's President will find himself in a particular bind. Unable to engage Russian and pro-Assad forces long term due to domestic opposition, Turkey will also be unable to absorb the new wave of refugees that would almost certainly pour across its border were Russia and Assad to continue their advance. The only third option for Turkey would be to both surrender before the Russian advance while allowing those Syrians that do arrive to move freely to Turkey's border with the EU and attempt to cross into Europe, a reasonable prospect from the Turkish perspective considering the US and Europe's failure to help prevent their displacement to begin with.The Final Battle for Syria Has BegunIt was this prospect in particular that Turkey sought to give Europeans a taste of 28 February 2020, when hundreds of Syrian refugees were filmed by state media being transported for free from Istanbul's Fatih neighborhood to the Turkish border town of Edirne, in a highly publicized media stunt that many viewed as a direct message to EU nations. A regional Arabic broadcast journalist reporting from Edirne, when asked about the role of Turkish police or border security in dealing with the situation, would describe the following, "the Syrians here are being transferred across the border illegally by smugglers, however it's all under the watchful eye of Turkish security services".Though loathe to be coaxed into propping up Turkey's pro-Russian government under duress, many western nations may not have a choice. Should Turkey on it's own be unable to hold off Russia's assault going forward, a pipeline of people heading towards Greece and Bulgaria will likely begin to emerge in the coming months. Attempting to contain or prevent their arrival and create a backlog at the border will likely require draconian measures and violence. Whether the EU can stomach that, is anyone's guess. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Afghan peace deal hits first snag over prisoner releases Posted: 01 Mar 2020 01:12 AM PST  Afghanistan's president said Sunday that he will not free thousands of Taliban prisoners ahead of all-Afghan power-sharing talks set for next week, publicly disagreeing with a timetable for a speedy prisoner release laid out just a day earlier in a U.S.-Taliban peace agreement. President Ashraf Ghani's comments pointed to the first hitch in implementing the fragile deal, which is aimed at ending America's longest war after more than 18 years and getting rival Afghan factions to agree on their country's future. Washington's Peace Envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as America's first ambassador to Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion, spent the past 17 months running on-again, off-again talks with the Taliban to hammer out the agreement.
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| Take 3: The main actors in Israel's re-do contested election Posted: 29 Feb 2020 11:42 PM PST  Twenty-nine parties are running, but no more than eight are likely to break the 3.25% electoral threshold needed to enter the Knesset, Israel's parliament. No party has ever won an absolute majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Typically, larger parties have to make alliances with smaller groups to create a governing coalition with a majority in parliament.
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| Turkey, Syria fighting escalates; refugees mass at EU border Posted: 29 Feb 2020 11:26 PM PST  Thousands of migrants and refugees massed at Turkey's western frontier Sunday, trying to enter Greece by land and sea after Turkey said its borders were open to those hoping to head to Europe. In Syria, Turkish troops shot down two Syrian warplanes after the Syrian military downed a Turkish drone, a major escalation in the direct conflict between Syrian and Turkish forces. Turkey's decision to ease border restrictions came amid a Russia-backed Syrian government offensive into Syria's northwestern Idlib province.
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| A $30 Oil Price Is the Real Virus Threat to OPEC Posted: 29 Feb 2020 11:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- It's finally upon us. The week when ministers from the oil producing countries of OPEC and their allies meet to decide on the future of their latest round of output cuts. Having failed to persuade Russia to bring the meeting forward, Saudi Arabia will now hope to convince its biggest non-OPEC ally of the need to make deeper cuts in the face of a demand slump triggered by the Covid-19 virus. Success is not a foregone conclusion and failure will be costly.The looming pandemic has already made its mark on oil markets. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude is now firmly below $50 a barrel and global benchmark Brent briefly followed it on Friday. That is uncomfortable territory for producers everywhere and, without a clear indication of deeper output cuts from this week's meetings, prices will fall further.As the virus spreads, locking down Italy's industrial heartland and prompting Switzerland to ban large gatherings, producers appear to be clinging to overly optimistic demand assessments. OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo, speaking at a conference in Saudi Arabia last week, said that in spite of the new coronavirus, the world's "thirst for energy will continue to grow." While that may be true for energy as a whole, it may not be for oil demand this year if there isn't a quick rebound.Assessments from the three main forecasting agencies still show 2020 oil demand growth running close to a million barrels a day, but that now looks very optimistic. By contrast, veteran energy consultants FGE cut their forecast for growth this year to "almost zero."They base their pessimism on the ripple effects of the virus beyond China, where traffic volumes in affected cities have already slumped, according to data from the TomTom Traffic Index. Measured in terms of how much longer journeys take than they would on empty roads, live data show that traffic volumes in Beijing are still well below normal levels, even as the city is reportedly returning to work.In Wuhan, center of the epidemic in China, there is no such uptick; economic activity remains severely curtailed.But this is no longer just a Chinese problem. The economic impact of the spread of the virus to other parts of the world is clear. Four-week average jet fuel demand in the U.S. has dropped by 18% in the past 10 weeks. Airlines are cutting flight schedules and passenger numbers have collapsed. An acquaintance of mine flew back from Australia last weekend on a plane he reckons was only about one-third full. As people have second thoughts about getting on flights if there's no guarantee those around them aren't infected, flight schedules will almost certainly be cut further, with obvious implications for fuel demand. Consultants JBC Energy have cut global demand growth for the fuel to just 50,000 barrels a day this year, little more than a third of what they saw a month ago.And those TomTom figures show the impact of the virus on traffic in Milan after its discovery in northern Italy. Morning rush-hour journey times have been cut by a quarter, as fewer cars clog the roads.A similar pattern is emerging in OPEC nation Kuwait, where the virus has spread from neighboring Iran.Any hopes that demand will rebound last this year in a robust enough way to offset the first-half slump are built on shaky foundations. The flights that have been cancelled are gone, not postponed. The road trips not made this week won't be made up in future weeks. Traffic may return to normal levels once the virus is brought under control, but there won't be a surge beyond that from pent-up demand.This is the situation that will face the oil ministers of the 23 nations in OPEC+ later this week. They need a credible plan that will take actual barrels off the market, even if Russia balks at making further cuts. Its compliance has been poor, but Saudi Arabia seems willing to accept that in return for the perception of added clout that it thinks Russia's presence at the table brings.I have no doubt that an agreement will be hammered out in Vienna — or via a virtual meeting if the gathering is cancelled. (There are no signs yet that it will be, though OPEC continues to monitor the situation in Vienna). The cost of failure is too great. It "would leave the market vulnerable to a short-term swing below $30 a barrel," analysts Emily Ashford and Paul Horsnell from Standard Chartered said in a report.Oil traders will remain hard to convince that producers are doing enough, or reacting quickly enough. Saudi Arabia's oil supplies to China are set to fall by a third in March as demand withers. The kingdom is pressing OPEC+ producers to agree to collective production cut of an additional 1 million barrels a day — even that may no longer be enough.To contact the author of this story: Julian Lee at jlee1627@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Melissa Pozsgay at mpozsgay@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Julian Lee is an oil strategist for Bloomberg. Previously he worked as a senior analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Revolution review: KT McFarland's problematic paean to Trump Posted: 29 Feb 2020 10:00 PM PST  The longtime Republican aide seems to want back in – she might want to rethink her ideas on the civil war and slavery firstKathleen Troia McFarland, better known as KT, was a deputy national security adviser to Donald Trump between January and May 2017. After she was shoved out the door by HR McMaster, Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus, McFarland expected to relocate to Singapore as US ambassador. After all, the president nominated her.Instead, McFarland became enmeshed in the whirlwind cast by the Russia investigation and Michael Flynn, her former boss. Although McFarland was initially approved by the Senate foreign relations committee, in February 2018 she withdrew from consideration. The torture of an endless confirmation wasn't worth the prize. Falling under Robert Mueller's microscope was bad enough.McFarland's book, Revolution: Trump, Washington and We the People, is a multi-purpose missive. It is an exercise in clearing the author's name, a demonstration of loyalty to Trump and a chance to settle a few old scores.Surprisingly, McFarland also reveals her agnosticism in discussions of the civil war and slavery. The war, she posits, was a "revolt against the governing class out of right, as well as necessity". A reader might counter that the slaves were not the folks doing the revolting. Unfortunately, she doesn't end it there.She brands Abraham Lincoln as an "almost" accidental president and characterizes the war as "as a grass roots national movement to replace the political establishment". With what? A two-state solution? McFarland keeps mum about southern secession as rebellion or slavery as stain.Good people on both sides. Again.> Think of McFarland's book as paean to populism written from the HamptonsThankfully, we are spared an attack on the legal underpinnings of Brown v Board of Education, the landmark ruling that state-imposed school segregation is unconstitutional, that there is no such thing as a "separate but equal school". That is for others to do.In other words, Revolution reads like a new job application from an Oxonian with a degree in PP&E to an administration brimming with "acting" appointments and a tolerance for racially tinged politics.As the US grapples with a lethal virus that is on the brink of becoming a pandemic, an ailing stock market stuck in a steep swoon, a president who has a soft spot for anti-vaxxers and a vice president allergic to science, McFarland's timing couldn't be better. Indeed, unlike other White House staffers she possesses actual government experience, having served under Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan – even if she forgot to vote for Reagan in 1984.As is to be expected, in her book McFarland repeatedly and conveniently bashes liberals and elites, denounces congressional oversight and special prosecutors and pays tribute to Trump and the "average" American. Omitted is the road traveled to reach this point.In 2006, after Jeanine Pirro backed out of running against Hillary Clinton for the Republican nomination for Senate in New York, McFarland threw her hat in the ring. Her opponent repeatedly tagged her as a "liberal elitist" and she acknowledged being a liberal on social issues, including admitting to being a pro-choice moderate.McFarland also claimed she was being surveilled by the Clinton campaign. As Rupert Murdoch's New York Post reported it, the candidate told a group of Long Island Republicans: "Hillary Clinton is really worried about me and is so worried, in fact, that she had helicopters flying over my house in Southampton today, taking pictures."McFarland appeared serious and the episode helped sink her candidacy. She lost by more than three-to-two.> McFarland refers to the 'will of the people' but fails to mention that Trump lost the popular voteFast forward to January 2014, and the long aftermath of the deadly attack on a US facility in Benghazi in September 2012. McFarland told Fox: "The only way the American people will get to the bottom of this … is if there is a special prosecutor who has the ability to subpoena witnesses and grant whistleblower protection to them … otherwise the cover-up will continue."Bob Mueller, are you listening?McFarland also lacks credibility when it comes to her belated denunciation of the war in Iraq and her rejection of "forever wars". As a Senate candidate, she refused to criticize the war even as she declined to say if she would have voted for it.Beyond that, according to federal campaign finance records McFarland donated more than $10,000 to the 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain, and helped bundle six figures in campaign donations for the Arizona senator. In life, McCain was an ardent supporter of the Iraq war. Now, he haunts Trump from the grave.McFarland does have her moments. In addition to dumping on those who sought her removal from the West Wing, she describes how Robert Gates, defense secretary under George W Bush and Barack Obama, angled to be Trump's secretary of state.Writing of a meeting during the transition – already reported by Peter Bergen of CNN – McFarland dishes that Gates told Trump that if he wanted the "person with the most experience", it would have been Gates. McFarland adds that Gates gave no hint he was joking and offered Exxon's Rex Tillerson as an "outside the box" choice.Revolution also addresses the challenge that China and Huawei pose to the US, and mentions the administration's willingness to engage the UK in trade talks after Brexit. Left unsaid and probably unconsidered is the possibility Boris Johnson would embrace Huawei as an insurance policy. There is no indication anyone in Trump's orbit gave thought to that as they cradled Johnson and Nigel Farage.Think of McFarland's book as paean to populism written from the Hamptons. She refers to the "will of the people" but fails to mention that Trump lost the popular vote. There is a legitimacy problem with populism that pays greater heed to the voice of the minority. Likewise, she takes note of "Republican 'birthers'" who slandered Obama with racist attacks, but ignores the fact Trump was the birther-in-chief.Said differently, Revolution is a book written for the president and those who have his ear.
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| A look at how Israel's 3rd election in a year could play out Posted: 29 Feb 2020 09:49 PM PST  Israel heads into its unprecedented third election in less than a year Monday after a tumultuous campaign that saw the prime minister indicted on corruption charges, President Donald Trump release his much-anticipated Mideast plan and various mergers and machinations that reshuffled Israel's fragmented political world. Netanyahu's ruling hard-line Likud party and Gantz's centrist Blue and White faction are running neck and neck in the polls seeking to become the largest party in hopes of being tapped to form the next coalition.
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| Weary and divided, Israel goes back to the polls Posted: 29 Feb 2020 09:43 PM PST  For the third time in under a year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking re-election, and once again the Israeli leader is on the ropes. After two inconclusive elections last year, opinion polls forecast another stalemate — a troubling scenario for Netanyahu, who will go on trial on corruption charges just two weeks after Monday's vote. This election campaign has been especially tumultuous.
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| Biden fights for momentum in Democrats' shifting primary Posted: 29 Feb 2020 09:35 PM PST  An emboldened Joe Biden tried to cast himself as the clear moderate alternative to progressive Bernie Sanders on Sunday as the Democrats' shrinking presidential field raced toward Super Tuesday. One of Biden's leading moderate rivals, former small-city mayor Pete Buttigieg, began informing campaign staff Sunday that he would exit the race, according to three people who requested anonymity to speak publicly. The departure came just 24 hours after Biden scored a resounding victory in South Carolina, his first of the 2020 rollercoaster nomination fight.
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| Vladimir Putin Bets His Political Legacy on a Tax Whiz Posted: 29 Feb 2020 09:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Vladimir Putin's political legacy may hinge on the technocratic skills of a little-known tax whiz who revolutionized Russian revenue collection and now aims to bring the same efficiency to the Kremlin's ambitious spending plans.With parliamentary elections a year away and Putin preparing the public for constitutional changes the would allow him to retain some power after his term ends, Russia's president surprised the country by replacing long-serving Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in January with Federal Tax Service chief Mikhail Mishustin, a career bureaucrat who's never held a political post.Over the past several years, as Medvedev failed to implement the big-ticket infrastructure projects Putin says are needed to revive a moribund economy, Mishustin helped return the budget to surplus by doubling revenue from value-added taxes to about a fifth of all state income, behind only the extraction and profit taxes.In a rush to get results in his new job, Mishustin, 53, is wasting no time reshaping the bureaucracy to his liking."He's a good practitioner who understands what needs to be done, knows how to do it, and does it," Putin, 67, said on Feb. 20.Breaking with tradition, Mishustin convenes his first weekday meeting with subordinates at 9 a.m. sharp - practically the crack of dawn by Moscow standards – and then meets with his own staff on Saturdays and Sundays, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.A look at Mishustin's decade-long tenure as the country's top taxman may offer some indications about how he intends to govern. His streamlining of the tax regime won praise from international bodies like the World Bank, which cited those improvements as it gradually raised Russia's ranking in its annual Ease of Doing Business survey to No. 28 last year from 120th in 2012.His signature achievement was overseeing the nationwide installation of more than 3.5 million internet-connected cash registers at retail outlets and restaurants -- all of which feed into two giant server farms, a main one near Moscow and an identical backup near Nizhny Novgorod. The system enables anyone with clearance and a laptop to sift through millions of transactions in real time."We even have import-export data, so we can surf through the entire economy to track the value-added chain from origination to final sale," Mishustin's successor and longtime deputy, Danill Egorov, said in an interview at the service's headquarters in downtown Moscow.Sitting at a table in front of a wall-sized monitor, Egorov was able to pull up a list of all the most recent transactions at a luxury department store nearby with just a few clicks of a mouse."Look, someone just bought a pair of jeans for 67,000 rubles ($1,000)," he said. "That's a crazy price to pay for jeans!" Like all receipts in Russia, the one for designer denim noted that the price included a 20% surcharge for VAT, resulting in the ruble equivalent of a $200 windfall for the government.Egorov, 44, then pulled up a map of Russia on his giant screen, clicked at random on the southern region of Krasnodar and drilled into one of the thousands of local companies that popped up. From there, he could find all the dates and amounts of VAT payments made by that company, as well as all of its suppliers and even the contractors of those suppliers.Another innovation Mishustin introduced is the mandatory printing of a unique QR (quick response) code on every receipt. This allows consumers to log into the Tax Service's portal, upload a photo of their code and verify that the store or restaurant they just paid money to is operating legally. It also helps authorities root out black-market activity."Mishustin created a nationwide information service, merging all available data together to enable analysis and management," Egorov said. "His data-centric platform laid the foundation and we've been working step-by-step to build different solutions around it."The system's algorithms are now able to identify discrepancies and instances of potential cheating in each step of the manufacturing process. Once spotted, suspect transactions generate automatic alerts that are forwarded to both the companies involved and the local inspectors who oversee them.The trove of information is so valuable that the Tax Service decided to open its interface to third parties, creating an incentive for both companies and consumers to help make sure retail outlets run each purchase through official registers.Some 150 companies are already working to capitalize on the information. These include Edadeal, a marketing company that partners with product makers like Coca-Cola to offer cash-back rewards through a special app that scans QR codes and wires money directly to a consumer's bank account.With Mishustin now busy running the whole government, it's up to his protege to finish the work they started in trying to conquer the final frontier in the hunt for new tax revenue: the self-employed.An estimated 25 million Russians, a third of the country's workforce, has some form of income that isn't taxed -- from taxi drivers and handymen to landlords and tutors. Always mindful of Putin's diktat that the state should serve the people and not the other way around, Egorov said he's approaching these people gingerly.The Tax Service started a pilot program last year to help people legalize their "gray" incomes by paying a flat 4% tax through a special entrepreneur app -- but not before gauging public reaction.At the service's request, Russia's biggest online platforms asked their self-employed users how much they'd be willing to pay, and, to Egorov's surprise, 60% said from 2% to 5% would be fair."I though everyone would say zero," Egorov said. "I could easily find these people and urge them to pay, but such a Soviet-style approach would be too harsh and unproductive," he said. "To paraphrase Adam Smith, a tax should be levied in the manner that's most convenient for the contributor to pay."\--With assistance from Anya Andrianova.To contact the reporters on this story: Evgenia Pismennaya in Moscow at epismennaya@bloomberg.net;Ilya Khrennikov in Moscow at ikhrennikov@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Sillitoe at psillitoe@bloomberg.net, Brad CookFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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