| Egypt arrests local journalist in accelerating crackdown Posted: 14 May 2020 04:36 PM PDT |
| Africa's week in pictures: 8 - 14 May 2020 Posted: 14 May 2020 04:08 PM PDT  A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.
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| U.S., China deadlock over U.N. coronavirus action deepens Posted: 14 May 2020 03:11 PM PDT |
| Will 51 Mothers Ever See Their Babies Trapped in Ukraine? Posted: 14 May 2020 02:28 PM PDT  MOSCOW—The babies are adorable, all pink and polished in white t-shirts with their names emblazoned on them, but more than 50 infants arrayed in row upon row of cribs in a Kyiv hotel are at the center of a huge scandal in Ukraine.They were born to surrogate mothers, and the parents who arranged for their births cannot get to them because of the global COVID-19 lockdown, according to a video originally posted in late April by a Kyiv-based company called BioTexCom. It has made a business—what looks almost like an industry—out of surrogacy. Unsurprisingly, Ukrainian bloggers have mocked it as "a baby factory," and called the hotel a warehouse for "the goods." The situation is a source of enormous frustration and pain for parents scattered around the world. Couples from the United States, Mexico, Great Britain, China and many other countries are trying to get to Ukraine to see their newly born children, only to face the trauma of cancelled flights or refused visa requests.BioTexCom, based in Kyiv, is one of several clinics providing hundreds of Ukrainian surrogate mothers for foreign parents for $20,000-$30,000, which is a fraction of the cost American parents might pay for surrogacy at home, and which bypasses laws in many countries that make surrogacy illegal.In the video a BioTexCom administrator assures parents and the public around the world that the company's babysitters take good care of the babies 24/7: "Every day they spend some time with the children in the open air and bathe them." One of the BioTexCom babysitters adds cheerily, "We have 46 babies in our hotel. It is difficult for us but we handle it well." And there are more on the way, we're told. In the slickly produced video, the babysitters are feeding some babies, while others are screaming, of course, and despite the pastel palette, it could be a typical scene from a Soviet or post-Soviet era Labor Home. Typically those had wards for 30 to 40 mothers and baby rooms where mothers could not go and where dozens of infants were kept for the first three to six days of their lives. Ukraine Is America's New Adoption MeccaUkraine's Ombudswoman for Human Rights, Lyudmila Denisova, said at a news briefing on Thursday, that as many as 51 babies are now staying without their parents at the Venice Hotel in Kyiv, all of them born at BioTexCom. "Talking with this clinic I found out that there are 100 babies waiting for their parents in various centers of reproductive medicine," Denisova said. "They say that by the end of the quarantine we won't have hundreds but thousands of such babies." To solve the issue for the parents of the Venice Hotel babies and the hundreds more due to be born in Ukraine in coming months, Denisova said she has reached out to Ukraine's National Police, the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Policy. The necessary arrangements are being done to protect the babies' rights, she said, but the parents' rights are not so clear. For years, Ukraine has been known as Europe's surrogacy capital. For thousands of young Ukrainian women who may be living on $200 to $300 a month, carrying someone else's baby for nine months seems a good way to earn from $13,000 to $20,000.But even before the pandemic, some foreign parents were left in limbo, complaining about corruption, issues with citizenship, and poor management. "Surrogacy is not illegal in Ukraine but it is not guided by any law or state regulation either, which is a problem," says Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Action Center. "Many poor young women who try to get paid for bearing a baby are treated terribly, and may undergo labor in the worst conditions." The BioTexCom video is explicitly intended to pressure the Ukrainian government and the governments of the parents' country to reach an agreement allowing them to pick up their babies. But the publicity may have backfired."We see many people calling to ban commercial surrogacy and international adoption altogether," Katerina Sergatskova, the founder of Zaborona media project told The Daily Beast. "That would be a sad solution for thousands of children." Their future would almost certainly be bleak. According to the latest report by UNICEF, the pandemic may push an additional 6.3 million Ukrainians below the poverty line, including 1.4 million children. An example of what happens when foreign adoptions are banned has been given by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who barred them in 2012 to retaliate against the United States for legislation he didn't like. Today, more than 40,000 Russian children live in orphanages. It appears a few parents have managed to get through all the obstacles erected by Europe and Ukraine during the pandemic. In a video posted by BioTexCom on May 6, a couple identified as Maria and Andreas describe their ordeal of getting all the necessary documents under "horrific circumstances." After the news about their situation was aired on Swedish television, they say, an "enormous sponsor" called offering to help pay for a private jet so they could make it to Kyiv before their twin babies were born. As of last week they were still in quarantine in a Kyiv hotel, feeling totally exhausted by the stress: "We've been so tired, it's been such a hard fight to find a way to get here, with a lot of anxiety, search for information, contacts, our brains are really tired," said Maria. "Hopefully we will get through this quarantine before the babies are born."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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| 'Obamagate': Donald Trump calls for Barack Obama to testify, officials to be 'jailed for 50 years' Posted: 14 May 2020 01:57 PM PDT  Donald Trump has called for Barack Obama to be hauled before Congress, and for his predecessor's officials to be "jailed for 50 years". The US president has defined as "Obamagate" an episode involving the "unmasking" of his first national security adviser Michael Flynn after his name appeared in redacted form in intelligence reports related to Russia. He claims that, during the presidential transition period at the end of 2016, the Obama administration abused its power for political reasons in targeting Mr Flynn. Mr Trump appeared set to make it an issue in the upcoming election campaign. He told Fox Business that senior Obama officials should "have been in jail a long time ago, and I'm talking with 50-year sentences. It is a disgrace what's happened. This is the greatest political scam, hoax in the history of our country." The president added: "People should be going to jail for this stuff and hopefully, a lot of people are going to have to pay." Mr Trump also urged Lindsey Graham, the Republican chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, with whom he plays golf, to call Mr Obama to give evidence. He told Fox Business: "The president knew everything.President Obama and Vice President Biden, they knew everything." Names of Americans picked up in Us surveillance of foreign individuals are routinely hidden in intelligence reports that describe. US officials must make a specific request if they want to know the American person's identity, a process known as "unmasking". A list of the Obama officials who asked for the unmasking of an individual, who turned out to be Mr Flynn, was recently declassified by Richard Grenell, Mr Trump's acting national intelligence director. The list included Joe Biden, who was Mr Obama's vice president, the FBI Director James Comey, and Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the United Nations. "He was one of the unmaskers," Mr Trump said, referring to Mr Biden. Mr Flynn had been picked up in surveillance of the Russian ambassador,and was later prosecuted for lying to the FBI over his connections to the ambassador. He pleaded guilty. In recent days the justice department dropped the case against Mr Flynn. Mr Obama said that decision showed the "rule of law is at risk". Supporters of Mr Trump have embraced the "Obamagate" theory as a rallying cry. Retired Admiral Ronny Jackson, who served as White House doctor for both Mr Obama and Mr Trump,said: "President Obama weaponised the highest levels of our government to spy on President Trump. "Every Deep State traitor deserves to be brought to justice for their heinous actions." A spokesman for the Biden campaign said: "All normal procedures were followed. Any suggestion otherwise is a flat out lie." Mr Biden and the other Obama administration officials had the authority to seek the unmasking of an unidentified American in intelligence reports, and it turned out to be Mr Flynn. Critics have accused Mr Trump of trying to distract from the coronavirus crisis, and spiraling unemployment. But Mr Trump wrote on Twitter: "If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!" Mr Graham said he would not be calling Mr Obama. He said: "I don't think now's the time for me to do that. I don't know if that's even possible.I understand President Trump's frustration, but be careful what you wish for." Mr Graham said both Mr Trump and Mr Obama were "welcome to come before the committee and share their concerns about each other. If nothing else it would make for great TV."
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| 'It's impossible': NY nursing homes fret about testing order Posted: 14 May 2020 01:44 PM PDT  As calls grow nationwide for mandatory coronavirus testing in nursing homes, New York facilities are sounding alarms about the state's ambitious new demand to test roughly 185,000 workers twice a week. Administrators worry there won't be enough kits for an estimated 370,000 tests a week on workers at nursing homes and other adult care facilities, nearly double the total of tests done statewide now on people in all walks of life. The homes also have questioned who will cover an expense estimated around $100 to $150 per test, though the state suggested Thursday the homes could send workers to free state testing sites.
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| UN warns about ‘already extremely concerning’ impact of coronavirus on mental health Posted: 14 May 2020 01:37 PM PDT  Health officials are sounding the alarm on the "already extremely concerning" impact of the coronavirus pandemic on mental health around the world. In a news statement released Thursday, the United Nations and the World Health Organization warned nations that without an urgent increase in investment in mental health services, they risk "a massive increase in mental health conditions in the coming months." "The impact of the pandemic on people's mental health is already extremely concerning," said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of WHO.
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| UN reports Yemen cease-fire progress, COVID-19 cases rising Posted: 14 May 2020 01:32 PM PDT  The U.N. envoy for Yemen reported "significant progress" in negotiations toward a nationwide cease-fire in the war-torn country on Thursday, but warned of stark challenges as coronavirus spreads at an unknown rate across the Arab nation. Martin Griffiths urged Yemen's warring sides — the internationally recognized government and Houthi rebels who control the capital and most of the country's north — to quickly resolve their differences over humanitarian and economic measures needed to move peace efforts forward and help the country counter the virus. Griffiths spoke to the U.N. Security Council in a video briefing, saying that steps to allow medical supplies and personnel to reach vulnerable people are "now a very, very urgent priority."
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| Trump is blaming China for coronavirus even as he employs the same authoritarian tactics as Xi Jinping Posted: 14 May 2020 01:25 PM PDT  "Trump is borrowing from an autocrats' playbook used not only by Xi but by Bolsonaro, Putin, and others too," an authoritarianism expert said.
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| NYC health chief under fire for alleged remark about police Posted: 14 May 2020 12:34 PM PDT  New York City's mayor expressed concern Thursday over a heated phone call in March between his health commissioner and a top police commander over what was then a dangerously thin stockpile of face masks. During the call, which took place as health care workers were desperate to obtain more protective gear to treat thousands of coronavirus patients streaming into hospitals, Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot clashed with NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan, who wanted more masks for officers. The New York Post, citing an anonymous source, reported late Wednesday that Barbot retorted, "I don't give two rats' asses about your cops," during the call.
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| UMD Researchers Seek to Reduce Food Waste and Establish the Science behind Date Labeling on Food Products Posted: 14 May 2020 12:15 PM PDT |
| Trump threatens China ties, says in no mood for Xi talks Posted: 14 May 2020 11:54 AM PDT  US President Donald Trump further hardened his rhetoric towards China on Thursday, saying he no longer wishes to speak with Xi Jinping and warning darkly he might cut ties over the rival superpower's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Tensions have ratcheted up between Washington and Beijing as they trade barbs over the origin of the pandemic -- which first appeared in late 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and which Trump has dubbed the "Plague from China." "I have a very good relationship (with Xi), but I just -- right now I don't want to speak to him," Trump said of the Chinese president on Fox Business.
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| Should runners wear a face mask outdoors? Posted: 14 May 2020 11:19 AM PDT  You won't always need a face covering while jogging or riding a bike if you're exercising with no one around, but it's good to carry one just in case. If it's difficult to breathe through a mask when running or doing other strenuous physical activity, find uncrowded trails or times to exercise when you won't encounter others, says Mark Cameron, an infectious disease expert at Case Western Reserve University.
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| Putin says virus crisis easing as new cases fall below 10,000 Posted: 14 May 2020 11:07 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said the coronavirus crisis was easing in Russia as the number of new daily cases fell below 10,000 for the first time in nearly two weeks. Health officials said they had registered 9,974 new infections in the last 24 hours, bringing Russia's tally to 252,245, the second-highest in the world after the United States, with a total of 2,305 deaths. "Over the past weeks, all our efforts have been aimed first and foremost at pushing back against the coronavirus epidemic," Putin said in a televised video-conference with scientists and officials.
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| Graham to probe Russia investigation; won't call Obama Posted: 14 May 2020 11:03 AM PDT  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said Thursday his committee is opening a wide-ranging inquiry into the Russia investigation, but rejected President Donald Trump's call to bring in former President Barack Obama to testify. "We have the former president suggesting the current president is destroying the rule of law" by dismissing a case against Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
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| What will Jersey Shore beaches be like in the Summer of Bug? Posted: 14 May 2020 10:37 AM PDT  Joanna Eichert longs for the summer days of years gone by at the Jersey Shore, which she recalls as "very crowded and very relaxing." Thursday afternoon, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy issued long-awaited guidance to officials in shore towns on reopening beaches, directing them to set occupancy limits, require six feet (2 meters) of space between beachgoers except family members or couples, and prohibit groups of 10 or more from congregating on the beach.
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| Privacy groups: TikTok app violating children's privacy Posted: 14 May 2020 10:30 AM PDT |
| Public officials cite virus while limiting access to records Posted: 14 May 2020 09:42 AM PDT  Many state and local governments across the country have suspended public records requirements amid the coronavirus pandemic, denying or delaying access to information that could shed light on key government decisions. Public officials have said employees either don't have the time or ability to compile the requested documents or data because they are too busy responding to the outbreak or are working from home instead of at government offices. "It's just essential that the press and the public be able to dig in and see records that relate to how the government has responded to the crisis," said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a California-based nonprofit.
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| Rohingya refugees being sent to 'prison island' Posted: 14 May 2020 09:42 AM PDT  A British civil engineering company is facing criticism as the Telegraph can reveal the Bangladeshi Navy is sending Rohingya refugees to a "prison island" in the Bay of Bengal as punishment for escaping the world's largest refugee camp, Kutupalong in Cox's Bazar. Human rights groups have long opposed the resettlement on Bhasan Char, arguing that the island is unfit for human habitation because it lies less than than three metres above sea level and its inhabitants risk being submerged during next month's monsoon. Powerful cyclones over the past half a century have killed hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis living in the Meghna River estuary. Flood defences on the island are incomplete. HR Wallingford, based in Oxfordshire, was paid up to £1.9 million to work on an interim flood embankment on Bhasan Char, according to a senior official in the Bangladeshi Navy. Mark Farmaner, director of the Burma Campaign UK, said: "Without the expertise of HR Wallingford, Bangladesh would have been unable to prepare the island and imprison Rohingya on it against their will." Meenakshi Ganguly, the head of South Asia at Human Rights Watch, said: "There are serious concerns about the safety of Bhasan Char which is at extreme risk of flooding. As the monsoon season begins, there will be serious challenges in delivering food, health, and other essential services. "Many refugees fear that their relatives will not be allowed to return and that Bangladesh might turn Bhasan Char into a de facto prison island." HR Wallingford acted as consultants to the Bangladeshi Navy in 2018 over the construction of a 12km interim flood defence embankment. The company was paid up to £1.9 million. It has continued to work with the Bangladeshi Navy this year, providing consultative services for work to protect against extreme cyclones and sea-level rise. Activists have criticised the firm's work and said it had effectively facilitated the movement of Rohingya to the island before flood defences were complete. HR Wallingford rejected the criticism and told the Telegraph it was committed to providing flood defences to protect the Rohingya. Bruce Tomlinson, the executive director of HR Wallingford, said: "We have worked closely with the Bangladeshi authorities at Bhasan Char and have seen first-hand their proactive and committed approach to creating world-class coastal defences on the island," he said. "Our role is to help safeguard anyone who chooses to live on the island by providing the best possible advice for the flood defences there. "We know that the Rohingya are living through desperate times and working on the coastal protection at Bhasan Char has really brought home their plight to us," he added. HR Wallingford also said all profits from its work on Bhasan Char would be reinvested in research programmes to help "solve some of the world's most complex water-related challenges". More than 860,000 Rohingya live in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar after fleeing a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in neighbouring Myanmar. They have tried to flee the densely-populated camp by paying smugglers to take them by boat to Southeast Asia. Malaysia and Thailand have refused to accept boats because of the coronavirus pandemic and at least 70 Rohingya died in April after one vessel was left adrift at sea for two months before coming ashore again in Bangladesh. The first two cases of coronavirus have been detected in the camp, prompting fears of a huge outbreak of the disease among the refugees. The Bangladeshi government has long sought to transfer Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, building 100,000 homes there, to reduce pressure on living conditions in the Kutupalong camp. After pressure from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). It had halted the plan, but it has now transferred around 300 Rohingya rescued from boats adrift in the Bay of Bengal under the official premise of quarantining them. A senior official in the Bangladeshi Navy said he didn't know how long the Rohingya would be forced to stay on the island and said the policy aimed to dissuade others from leaving the Kutupalong camp by boat. "It is an indication to the others that they should not try to leave," he told the Telegraph.
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| Burr steps aside as Senate intelligence chair amid FBI probe Posted: 14 May 2020 09:27 AM PDT  A Republican senator with access to some of the nation's top secrets became further entangled in a deepening FBI investigation as agents examining a well-timed sale of stocks during the coronavirus outbreak showed up at his home with a warrant to search his cellphone. Hours later, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina stepped aside Thursday as chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, calling it the "best thing to do." Burr has denied wrongdoing.
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| The reality of modern slavery Posted: 14 May 2020 09:19 AM PDT  The eyes of the American people seldom stray beyond these borders, and when they do, it tends to be in the direction of others who live lives very much like their own in places within the NATO sphere of influence. This is true even of the most cosmopolitan observers.This is why, even if we were not in the middle of a pandemic, I would not expect much of anything to be made of a recent lawsuit filed in the Netherlands on behalf of a group of expatriate Eritreans. The suit alleges — I almost hesitate to employ the standard journalese here because the facts do not seem to be at issue — that forced labor is being used in the construction of roads and other infrastructure projects in the east African nation that are financed by the European Union.There is certainly no dispute about the presence of forced labor in Eritrea. With the exception of North Korea, one of only two countries it ranks ahead of in the World Press Freedom Index, it has the highest rate of forced labor in the entire world. Estimates suggest that nearly one in ten Eritreans are subject to unpaid state-mandated labor. This takes a variety of forms. In some cases military conscripts are required to perform non-military labor on behalf of the state; in others, it is a more direct process of enlisting civilians to do construction and other work. A sizable number of Eritreans in both groups are taken by the government directly from the country's public schools, where attendance is compulsory. This includes both teachers and children.These practices are not new. They have been denounced by human rights observers around the world, including the United Nations, which has called the program "tantamount to slavery."At the risk of quibbling unnecessarily, I would like to suggest that the qualifier here is unnecessary, as are common designations such as "modern slavery." There is nothing especially contemporary about slavery in Eritrea today. Like the chattel slavery practiced in this country in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is the direct result of globalized free trade. Just as the Whig magnates of Manchester and Birmingham and the financiers of London made possible the spoliation carried out by South Carolina planters, so too does investment from Europe, the Middle East, and, especially, China allow the dictatorial regime in Eritrea to enslave its own citizens. So far from being a horrifying aberration, slavery was and remains an essential part of the borderless capitalism that many economists consider the greatest liberating force in the history of mankind.There is only one hope for the slaves of Eritrea: international institutions whose organizing principle is not the facilitation of economic growth for its own sake but the peace and security of persons in all countries. Whatever the results of the recent E.U. lawsuit, we should not expect the Gulf States and the Chinese to cease taking advantage of what they consider a mere investment opportunity. As I write this, Chinese state media unabashedly boasts that Beijing (which is no stranger to the enslavement of peoples within its own borders) is "Eritrea's largest trading partner, source of foreign investment and project contractor." I wonder why. In comparison with the Arab and Chinese spending in Eritrea, the 80 million euros dispensed by Brussels (seemingly with the best of intentions) are a drop in the bucket.This should not be allowed to continue. The development of modern infrastructure in Eritrea and elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa should not come at the expense of those whom it is ostensibly meant to benefit. But until the UN and the IMF and the WTO and all those other dreary acronyms are replaced by what Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once famously referred to as international governing bodies "with teeth," one despairs of any other outcome.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com The conservative victimhood complex has made America impossible to govern 5 hilarious cartoons about Trump's vague 'Obamagate' allegations The strange conflation of masks and masculinity
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| U.S. and Iran Need a Coronavirus Peace Plan Posted: 14 May 2020 09:00 AM PDT |
| The Covid-19 Vaccine Fight Is Getting Ugly Posted: 14 May 2020 08:43 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- An effective Covid-19 vaccine, if it ever arrives, should be treated as a public good for the whole of society. Every continent has been struck by the virus bar Antarctica.But the combination of national self-interest and pressure for the pharmaceutical industry to turn a profit is already triggering a geopolitical bust up over who actually gets access to the vaccine first. It's a reminder that the spoils of drug research aren't equally divided. The system is ripe for a rethink.Already, the French government is hauling its national drug-making champion Sanofi over hot coals after the company suggested that the U.S. — and not Europe — would be first in line to get access to its proposed vaccine if it works out. The reason, according to Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson, is that the U.S. was first to contribute funding to the project. "Unacceptable," came the reply from French Junior Economy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher. The head of Sanofi's French business quickly sought to defuse the tension by promising that an effective vaccine would be "available to all." But this debate isn't going away. French President Emmanuel Macron plans to meet with Sanofi officials next week to discuss the issue. Elsewhere, AstraZeneca Plc is prioritizing the U.K. in its own vaccine project.On the surface, Sanofi's stance seems logical enough. The cost of researching a vaccine is between $500 million and $1 billion, according to a 2015 paper by physician and consultant Stanley Plotkin. If the U.S. taxpayer is willing to foot the bill, shouldn't they reap some of the reward? Drugmakers know this is a vaccine that will have to be sold in bulk, and not at an eye-wateringly expensive price — Johnson & Johnson, for example, says its own plan is to produce the one it's working on at cost, or about 10 euros ($10.81). Given some kind of prioritization is going to be necessary as production ramps up to millions of doses, it may as well start with those that funded the project, according to Sam Fazeli, senior pharmaceutical analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.But Paris has a point, too. Sanofi's vaccine is not produced in a vacuum. The company benefits from European shareholders, employees, factories — and tax credits. It's worth noting that research and development funding in France is the second-most generous as a share of GDP among countries tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, at 0.4%. (The U.S. comes in tenth.) That's largely thanks to tax-incentive schemes awarded to companies like Sanofi to the tune of 150 million euros every year. French taxpayers might wonder why that shouldn't be taken into account.Simply rapping Sanofi on the knuckles isn't going to be a durable solution, though. The risk is that, if countries take turns in shoving their way to the front of the line, the result will be a kind of vaccine trade war along national lines. That would make a mockery of the World Health Organization's plea to view vaccines as a common public good, and would also echo the damaging scramble for masks and medical equipment that set European countries against each other. If France were to get hold of a vaccine first, would Italy or Greece get the same access?It would be more productive if European countries backed up their indignation by working together more to take on the financial risk of vaccines. Then they could divide the spoils more equally. There is no reason why the European Union's 27 countries couldn't come up with their own version of the U.S.'s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and match the Trump administration's deep pockets. The EU's recent $8 billion vaccine fundraising is one good example, and its joint procurement vehicle for medical equipment and vaccines another.The broader the cooperation, the more chance countries have to level the playing field with big pharmaceutical companies. Drugmakers have for decades focused on lucrative new treatments protected by patents, often putting them out of reach of people in developing countries. New organizations are fighting this: The United Nations-backed Medicine Patent Pool, for example, has licensed patented HIV drugs for manufacture by generics companies at lower cost. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations has also brought together countries to fund vaccine research. The pandemic has revealed a lot of problems in the pharmaceutical supply chain, from a dependence on emerging markets for vital drug supplies to a lack of interest in potentially unprofitable vaccine research. If the opportunity here is to ensure life-saving drugs get the funding they need, taxpayers around the world — not just in France or the U.S. — should also get better access to them.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Brussels. He previously worked at Reuters and Forbes.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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| Cassandra Callender, forced to undergo chemo, dies at 22 Posted: 14 May 2020 08:41 AM PDT |
| Israeli troops kill Palestinian driver who hit soldier Posted: 14 May 2020 07:53 AM PDT  Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man who allegedly rammed his car into a soldier in the southern West Bank on Thursday, the army said, the latest in a string of violence in recent days. The military said the Palestinian driver struck an Israeli soldier near the West Bank settlement of Negohot, south of Hebron. Paramedics said the Israeli soldier suffered moderate injuries and was hospitalized.
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| VIRUS DIARY: Lockdown, loneliness and a difficult goodbye Posted: 14 May 2020 07:47 AM PDT  On the last night of her life, my cat watched fireworks and flaming paper lanterns illuminate the dark New Delhi skies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked India's 1.3 billion people, living under the world's largest lockdown, to turn lights off and place earthen lamps — the Hindu symbol of good over evil — on window ledges and balconies in solidarity against coronavirus. In India, where holidays and festivals are marked by an excess of color and light and sound, more is always better.
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| Some US schools are pulling the plug on distance learning Posted: 14 May 2020 07:46 AM PDT  After the Chattahoochee County school district called an early end to the school year, seniors lined up one day last week to complete their graduation paperwork. Students who hadn't seen each other since in-person classes ended abruptly in March amid the coronavirus outbreak commiserated over all they've missed out on, including the prom and a senior class trip. "Honestly, remote learning, I don't think was my favorite thing," said 18-year-old Isabella Branson.
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| EU launches legal action against UK over free movement ‘failure’ Posted: 14 May 2020 07:40 AM PDT  Brussels officials have started legal action against Britain for ignoring freedom of movement rules during the Brexit transition period - on the same day as the European Union's top court found the UK had handed City traders an illegal tax break. The European Commission claims that the country has failed to continue following movement rules as if it is a full EU member. It has now taken the first step in a process that could ultimately trigger large large daily fines imposed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The claims are understood to relate to charges that the UK limited the rights of first-time jobseekers and their families, imposed unjustified lifetime re-entry bans and limited possibilities for appeal. The commission said: "EU law on free movement of persons continues to apply to and in the United Kingdom as if it were still an EU Member State during the transition period." A UK government spokesman said the matter is being considered, as the EU and UK near the end of the third round of negotiations for a post-Brexit trade deal. Separately, judges in Luxembourg ruled the Government broke the law by exempting commodity trades from VAT without notifying the commission first. A Treasury spokesman said the ECJ decision does not require businesses to pay back VAT on historic derivatives trades. It is being reviewed by UK officials.
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| Hundreds protest stay-at-home order outside Michigan Capitol Posted: 14 May 2020 07:17 AM PDT  Hundreds of people angry or frustrated over Michigan's coronavirus stay-at-home order protested again outside the state Capitol on Thursday, standing in the rain to call for a loosening of restrictions and for business owners to reopen in defiance of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The Senate canceled session so the Capitol could be closed Thursday. The latest protest was led by Michigan United for Liberty, a conservative activist group that has sued Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and organized or participated in several rallies since early April.
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| ICAO Calls For Sanitary Sky Corridors To Expedite Critical Cargo Flights Posted: 14 May 2020 06:36 AM PDT  Governments should follow harmonized hygiene standards for crews, aircraft and airport facilities so authorities have the confidence to freely allow passage of air cargo flights with essential medical supplies and food, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said Wednesday. Currently such flights face severe delays because of inconsistent border restrictions.The United Nations agency, with responsibility for managing the administration of international aviation law, is publishing guidelines to ensure COVID-free aircraft, crews, passengers and airports, saying widespread adoption would create sanitary corridors for essential trade and travel. The first set of "clean" standards addresses flight crews for cargo aircraft.A group of public health and aviation officials convened by ICAO also developed a COVID status card for crew members that can help in getting through customs and immigration checkpoints.Officials said the objective of so-called "public health corridors" is to ensure continued flight operations with minimal restrictions on aircraft operations, prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and protect the health and safety of crews. The risk-management approach relies on multiple layers of sanitary and hygiene protocols.The best practices cover disinfection, personnel screening, dealing with those who have come in contact with a suspected or confirmed COVID-positive person, availability of face masks, and crew distancing and hygiene, before, during and after flights, including layovers.According to the ICAO recommendations, for example, crew members should not use common facilities when staying at a hotel and use room service to eat.The Air Line Pilots Association and flight attendants in the U.S. have complained that not all airlines are rigorously following public health guidelines. ALPA has been unsuccessful so far in getting the Federal Aviation Administration to make the guidelines mandatory and enforce them.ICAO also said air carriers should just fly between city pairs and avoid long layovers and transits for crews, to the extent possible. For turnarounds, crew are advised to stay in the aircraft, except for walk-around checks. Carriers should also plan for unforeseen delays, such as for unplanned testing of crew members.Aggressive testing and quarantine requirements for disembarking crews in China have led airlines such as Delta Air Lines, which is deploying passenger planes as auxiliary freighters during the pandemic, and United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS) to use Seoul, South Korea, or Tokyo as operation centers for shuttling in and out of Chinese cities. Full freighter operators that go directly to the U.S. have short windows to load in China so their crews don't time out their on-duty clocks and violate fatigue-prevention rules. As previously reported, some flights are leaving Shanghai partially full because crews can't wait until the rest of the load gets through unprecedented warehouse backlogs. In order to maximize their payload, most U.S.-bound freighters make a technical stop to refuel in Anchorage, but airlines can't afford to install double crews because they are operating at the edge of their crew availability, industry experts say.In some countries, pilots that have to stay onboard aren't even allowed on the tarmac to conduct pre-flight safety checks, said Dr. Ansa Jordan, the chief of ICAO's medical aviation section, in a recent webinar describing the public health corridors.The ICAO document said cockpits and cabin areas should be disinfected, but that "current evidence doesn't support the application of additional disinfection procedures for cargo being transported on aircraft during the COVID-19 pandemic."ICAO, as well as airfreight industry groups, have previously urged governments to relax quarantines and other rules affecting crews so cargo and rescue flights for stranded travelers can operate without disruption. They have also asked civil aviation authorities to move faster issuing overflight and landing rights for such flights, especially since many flights are operating on irregular, new routes that weren't approved as part of the normal route structure of recently dismantled passenger networks.In late April, the International Air Transport Association reiterated its desire for nations to implement temporary measures to ensure that licenses and certificates are extended to remain valid because aviation regulators aren't able to administer those licenses under local social-distancing mandates. It also asked nations to file those measures with ICAO and mutually recognize them so aircraft can operate without limitations. Without mutual recognition, it said, airlines are faced with uncertainty over whether they might be restricted by countries whose territory they enter.Many aviation regulators have already provided airlines and licensed crews with extensions for licenses, ratings and certificates. Photo Credit: FEMA/Alexis HallSee more from Benzinga * Mexico Aims To Restart Critical Factories And Supply Chains By Monday * Ports Laying Groundwork For Post-Coronavirus Business * Stranded Crew Crisis Is Ticking Time Bomb For Global Trade(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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| What you need to know today about the virus outbreak Posted: 14 May 2020 06:02 AM PDT  A congressional watchdog agency has agreed to investigate the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' oversight of homes for aging veterans following a surge of coronavirus deaths at the state-run facilities. The Government Accountability Office said in a letter Thursday that it will conduct a review into the VA's oversight of care at state veterans homes after a request by a group of Democratic U.S. senators. Here are some of AP's top stories Thursday on the world's coronavirus pandemic.
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| Calgary Zoo returning pandas to China due to bamboo barriers Posted: 14 May 2020 05:23 AM PDT  The Calgary Zoo will be returning two giant pandas on loan from China because a scarcity of flights due to COVID-19 has caused problems with getting enough fresh and tasty bamboo to feed them. Er Shun and Da Mao arrived in Calgary in 2018 after spending five years at the Toronto Zoo and were to remain in the Alberta city until 2023. The zoo's president, Clement Lanthier, said Thursday the facility spent months trying to overcome transportation barriers in acquiring fresh bamboo and decided it's best for the animals to be in China, where their main food source is abundant.
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| Trump White House Rewrites History, This Time About Flynn Posted: 14 May 2020 05:18 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- After announcing that the Justice Department was dropping the criminal case against Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, Attorney General William Barr was presented with a crucial question: Was Flynn guilty of lying to the FBI about the nature of phone calls he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States?After all, Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to lying about them."Well, you know, people sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes," Barr said in an interview with CBS News. Then he went even further and described the infamous calls during the Trump presidential transition as "laudable."President Donald Trump and his allies now accuse the FBI of framing Flynn, which is part of the president's broader campaign to tarnish the Russia investigation and settle scores against perceived enemies before the November election.Their revisionist narrative is in stark contrast to the view held three years ago not only by top FBI management but also by senior White House officials. Flynn, the officials said then, had lied to Vice President Mike Pence and other aides about the nature of his calls to the ambassador, had lied repeatedly to FBI agents about the calls, and might have made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.Revisiting the chaotic weeks surrounding Flynn's ouster -- based on recently disclosed government documents, public statements, court records and interviews -- show how much the original Trump administration concerns about him have been buried under the president's cause of portraying the Russia investigation as a "witch hunt."Barr, for example, has recently argued that the FBI interview of Flynn was not justified because agents who had been investigating him had not found any wrongdoing and were on the verge of closing the case. When agents found out about the call with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, they concocted a reason to keep the case open for "the express purpose of trying to catch, lay a perjury trap for Gen. Flynn," Barr said in the CBS interview.A broad array of legal experts disagree."This case reeks of political influence," said Marshall L. Miller, a former top prosecutor in New York City and the principal deputy of the Justice Department's criminal division. "Mr. Flynn admitted twice under oath that he lied to the FBI. Political appointees at DOJ are now trying to rewrite the law to erase the crime."Flynn's troubles began with a phone call.It was Dec. 29, 2016, the day the outgoing Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia for the country's widespread effort to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. Flynn, who was Trump's incoming national security adviser, urged Kislyak in a phone call not to escalate tensions with a retaliatory move against the United States -- perhaps by kicking U.S. diplomats and spies out of Russia.Given the circumstances, the call was remarkable. The U.S. government had just determined that its longtime adversary had launched a concerted effort to sabotage a presidential election and the incoming national security adviser was having a back-channel discussion with a top Russian official that might lead to the new Trump administration gutting the sanctions its predecessor put in place to punish the Russians.Flynn chose not to document the calls with the ambassador, a decision that records from the investigation of special counsel, Robert Mueller show was based on his concern that he might be interfering with the Obama administration's foreign policy weeks before Trump took office. His concerns were well founded. When President Vladimir Putin of Russia did not retaliate after the Obama administration's sanctions, President Barack Obama was perplexed and asked spy agencies to figure out why.The FBI unearthed the discussions between Flynn and Kislyak when reviewing transcripts of the ambassador's intercepted calls. FBI officials discussed interviewing Flynn, whom agents had been investigating as part of the bureau's inquiry into whether any Trump campaign associates had conspired with Russia during the presidential election.The matter took on greater urgency when Flynn's discussions with Kislyak were revealed publicly by David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist.Top Trump transition officials -- including Pence as well as Reince Priebus, who was to be White House chief of staff, and Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary -- questioned Flynn about The Washington Post column. Flynn denied that he spoke about sanctions with Kislyak and Spicer repeated those claims to members of the news media.Days later, on Jan. 15, 2017, Pence was asked about the column during an interview on the CBS News program "Face the Nation." The incoming vice president said that he had talked with Flynn about his calls with Kislyak and he said that Flynn was unequivocal. "They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia," the vice president said.Pence's interview set off alarms at the FBI and the Justice Department. If Flynn had lied to the vice president, the Russians knew that and could use it as leverage over Flynn. Newly disclosed documents made public in Flynn's criminal case show officials were also concerned that Pence might have been lying, as well."The implications of that were that the Russians believed one of two things -- either that the vice president was in on it with Flynn, or that Flynn was clearly willing to lie to the vice president," Mary B. McCord, a former top national security at the time, said in an interview with the special counsel's office.The FBI decided to try to find out who was lying to whom. James Comey, the bureau's director at the time, sent a pair of agents to the White House to speak with Flynn, who by then was only a few days into his job as national security adviser. But Comey made the unusual decision to not notify senior Justice Department officials about the interview until the agents were already on their way to the White House -- blindsiding and infuriating the officials who oversee the FBI about a highly sensitive session.During the interview, Flynn was asked about sanctions and other topics. He denied talking about Russian sanctions, according to documents, even as agents used his own words from the highly classified transcripts to refresh his memory. Flynn seemed relaxed, agents would note, and did not betray any signs of deception.But the FBI reports from the interview did not square with the transcripts of the phone calls and soon Trump administration lawyers were discussing whether Flynn might have committed a felony by making false statements during the interrogation.Priebus later recounted to Mueller's investigators a meeting with Trump in which he told the president about the concerns that Flynn had lied during his FBI interview. Trump was angry, Priebus recalled, and said, "Not again, this guy, this stuff."Within days, White House lawyers -- including the White House counsel, Don McGahn -- had concluded, after reviewing the transcripts of the calls, that Flynn had repeatedly lied about his discussions with Kislyak. According to the findings by the special counsel, "McGahn and Priebus concluded that Flynn could not have forgotten the details of the discussions of sanctions and had instead been lying about what he discussed with Kislyak."McGahn and Priebus decided that Flynn needed to go and made that recommendation to Trump.On Feb. 13, after Priebus told Flynn that he must resign, he brought him into the Oval Office. There, Flynn and the president hugged, and Trump said he would give Flynn a good recommendation. "You're a good guy," the president said, according to the account Priebus gave to the Mueller team. "We'll take care of you."Ten months later, after Flynn had pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI agents and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation, Pence said that removing him from the White House was the right move."What I can tell you is that I knew that he lied to me," the vice president told CBS News, "and I know the president made the right decision with regard to him."Pence no longer holds that view, and his change over time reflects the far more combative position among Trump administration officials toward the various investigations into Trump and his advisers.As this shift was occurring, Flynn jettisoned the legal team that had advised him to cut a deal with the Mueller prosecutors and hired a new lawyer, Sidney Powell, who launched a frontal attack on the forces that she believed led her client into wrongfully admitting to a felony offense.In a letter to Barr last June, days before officially becoming Flynn's lawyer, Powell wrote that "it is increasingly apparent that Gen. Flynn was targeted and taken out of the Trump administration for concocted and political purposes." The letter was disclosed last year by federal prosecutors in the Flynn case.After Barr announced his decision last week to drop criminal charges in the Flynn case, top Trump administration officials -- including those who three years ago believed most vehemently that he should be fired -- said that he would be welcomed back at the White House."I think Gen. Michael Flynn is an American patriot; he served this country with great distinction," Pence said last week in an interview with Axios. "And for my part, I'd be happy to see Michael Flynn again."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Swearing-in of new Israeli government delayed by infighting Posted: 14 May 2020 04:42 AM PDT  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival-turned-partner, Benny Gantz, on Thursday postponed the swearing-in of their controversial new government as the Israeli leader rushed to quell infighting within his Likud party. In a joint announcement, the two men said they would hold a swearing-in ceremony on Sunday to give Netanyahu more time to hand out coveted Cabinet appointments to members of his party. After three deadlocked and divisive elections, and a year and a half of political paralysis, Israel had hoped to swear in the new government on Thursday.
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| Iran warns of virus cluster spread, says 71 more dead Posted: 14 May 2020 04:40 AM PDT  Iran warned of a possible coronavirus cluster hitting another province on Thursday as it announced 71 new deaths and more than 1,800 infections nationwide. "We are in situation similar to previous days (in most provinces) save for Khuzestan, which is still in a critical condition, and it seems that North Khorasan may be critical as well," said health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour. "If this trend continues, North Khorasan will require more serious measures, too," he added in televised remarks.
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| Young priest loses mentor, then his father -- both to virus Posted: 14 May 2020 04:15 AM PDT  The Rev. Joseph Dutan recalls how he lifted the chalice in the empty church and felt a flood of emotions: grief, the pain of isolation, even doubt. Ortiz was his close friend -- Batman to Dutan's Robin, said Robert Velez, a parishioner who was married by Dutan.
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| Iran dismisses U.S. threat to trigger return of UN sanctions Posted: 14 May 2020 03:53 AM PDT |
| Disagree with the rules if you like, but let's not pretend they are baffling Posted: 14 May 2020 02:37 AM PDT  We have been spoilt in recent years. Hugely complex issues, with persuasive arguments on both sides, have been reduced to simple slogans. "Take Back Control" and "Get Brexit Done" both tapped into the dominant psychological dynamic of our age to outmanoeuvre facts, experts and reason. Whether you agreed or not, they worked. "Stay Home" was equally compelling, an invitation to indulge in the terror posed by a rampant pandemic and confront it with blanket bans, mass restrictions and universal prescriptions. We never tried a scalpel - this was sledgehammer time. Yet even within the comparatively clear parameters of the Government's original advice, in the process of passing the policy on we ended up with police drones, and local coppers curating our weekly shop.
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| Donald Trump extends executive order aimed at Huawei to guard US telecoms supply chain Posted: 14 May 2020 02:30 AM PDT |
| Domestic Violence in Lockdown Could Be the Worst Plague of All Posted: 14 May 2020 01:10 AM PDT  MOSCOW—When she finally managed to get through to the busy helpline at the ANNA center for victims of domestic violence, the young woman was hurt so badly she could not even cry: "My husband has beaten me severely," she said, her voice blank. "I have a child with me and no place to go," she said, and she was eight months pregnant.Such calls have become increasingly common all across Russia during the COVID-19 lockdowns. "Most phone calls the center receives are from beaten women who have no shelter to run to," Marina Pisklakova-Parker, the center's director, told The Daily Beast. In this case, when the woman arrived she had a laceration on her temple where her husband had hit her on the head. She had a concussion. She was holding tight to the hand of her 3-year-old daughter.Today, more than two months into the coronavirus shutdowns around the world, relationships are deteriorating and abuses intensifying in millions of households. Often left without any defense, people suffer from physical and sexual violence and various forms of psychological aggression. In Russia the number of domestic violence cases has increased by at least 250 percent since April 10, the Kremlin's human rights commissioner, Tatiana Moskalkova, reports.MeToo Makes It To Moscow at Last—And the Kremlin Adds Insult to InjuryHans Kluge, European regional director for the World Health Organization, recently told the press that in April, compared to last year, the organization's member states were reporting up to a 60 percent increase in emergency calls by "women subjected to violence by their intimate partners." Online enquiries to violence prevention support hotlines have increased fivefold in some regions. The United Nations Population Fund "has sounded the alarm loud and clear," said Kluge. "If lockdowns were to continue for six months, we would expect an extra 31 million cases of gender-based violence globally. Beyond the figures, only a fraction of cases is ever reported."No nation or society is immune, and none have truly accurate records because so much goes unreported. In the United States, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence estimates "an average of 20 people experience intimate partner physical violence every minute," which is to say about 10 million a year—and that was before the lockdown.Kluge was trying to make the point that such violence is not inevitable; it is preventable if governments make sure services are available for the victims and if neighbors support each other. "If you see something, say something," he said, echoing a slogan used in the fight against terrorism. Addressing the victims themselves, Kluge said, "Violence against you is never your fault. It is never your fault. Your home should be a secure place. Get in touch—safely—with family, friends, shelters or community groups that have your safety and security at heart."But Pisklakova-Parker, who founded ANNA (Association No To Violence) in 1993 as Russia's first domestic violence hotline, knows how rare it is that governments and neighbors follow that advice, and how hard it is for women to act on it.Last year ANNA registered about 34,000 calls, mostly from women with three or more years living with their abusers; in the past two months the number of calls has increased by more than 30 percent. The center also gives shelter to about 20 women. The wounded pregnant woman who escaped from home with her child knew her husband could be abusive, but once they were locked down in the house by the COVID quarantine, she experienced violence for the first time and realized she was quite literally trapped.The current self-isolation regime "is a gift for an aggressor to take full control over his victim," Pisklakova-Parker told The Daily Beast. "Abusers often take phones away from women, so no information would leak out of the house.""Most Russian families are under economic stress," says Pisklakova-Parker. "Phases of peace get shorter and phases of violence longer—I have never seen so many victims in my 30 years of experience." Russian legislators actually decriminalized domestic violence two years ago, and the country's rating on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index dropped to 81st in the world, between El Salvador and Ethiopia. Even in Western Europe, Hans Kluge noted, "Out of school, at-risk children are off the radar of education and social sectors." Nobody sees their pain, and in many places prevention and protection services are on hold. "In lockdown, women and children are out of society's sight, but more exposed to perpetrators at home.""The measures required to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 have challenged our ability to prevent and respond to violence when and where it occurs," said Kluge. Trying to strike a more positive note, he noted that in Italy there's "an app to ask for help without a phone call," while in Spain and France pharmacists "can be alerted through codewords." But that is very thin consolation even in those countries, and certainly not in Russia.In Great Britain, for instance, charity groups registered a 65 percent rise in domestic abuse complaints on helplines in the first few weeks of the quarantine. But as Pisklakova-Parker points out, "Unlike in the UK, where police actually help, our women are reluctant to call, since they see no examples of a real solution from the state." Russian military officers like to say that a soldier risks his life to defend three mothers: Mother Russia, his own mother, and the mother of his children. But Russian women of all ages continue to suffer from violence.A few celebrities appear inclined to help. The pop singer Valeria founded the Strong Women Party last November to lobby for the law to defend victims of domestic violence. But so far, at a time when the need is much more desperate than six months ago, no law has been issued, no new shelters can be found. "Due to the self-isolation regime declared by President Putin last month, most permanent shelters for victims of domestic violence have closed down, so we, the network of women's organizations around the country, find hotel rooms or rent apartments for dozens of women calling us," Pisklakova-Parker explained. In the very wide and dangerous world of domestic violence, Russia is particularly notorious. In recent years Russian elites, especially in Moscow, have grown less tolerant. When a television host, Regina Todorenko, described women revealing their stories of beatings as "psychologically sick," Glamour magazine deprived her of the Woman of the Year title. A top manager at Alfa-capital, Yevgeny Zhizhov, was fired after his wife published photographs of her and her daughter's bruised bodies.There are only a handful of organizations that can provide immediate help for women in this vast country. Earlier this week The Daily Beast called the first 25 helplines listed on ANNA's website. Only one "phone line of trust" was ready to provide help for women in trouble, the Nadezhda center in Arkhangelsk region. As for ANNA's own helpline, it was constantly busy. One more victim has recently managed to reach Pisklakova-Parker's shelter. A mother of two boys, a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old, ran out of her house to the street without any luggage, with her face bleeding badly. Luckily a woman driving by stopped to help, and had ANNA's phone number. "Men feel entitled to hurt women in Russia, our situation is very different from what European or American social workers, psychologists and police deal with," says Pisklakova-Parker. "Traditionally, Russian women tolerate violence longer even than other nationalities, forgiving their abusers. An ugly proverb advises, "If he beats you, it means he loves you." Heavy drinking is commonplace, and drunk husbands often batter or murder their wives. Women get stabbed, burned, or thrown out of windows. Even before the pandemic, thousands of Russian women died annually from domestic violence, and what are certainly much higher numbers dying now are as yet uncounted."The legacy of this pandemic could haunt us for years," warned the WHO's Kluge. Indeed, the haunting already has begun.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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| Thomas Piketty on Why Capitalism Isn’t Evil and Billionaires Can Still Exist Posted: 14 May 2020 12:47 AM PDT  You may not be familiar with the name Thomas Piketty but you've surely heard his economic theories, which have been co-opted by the likes of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. The Gallic Paul Krugman burst onto the scene with his 2013 book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, arguing that in order to tackle the growing issue of economic inequality, there must be massive redistribution via a progressive wealth tax of 2%, combined with a progressive income tax of 75-80%. Back in 2014, when Piketty first met with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), he says she was "skeptical" about his wealth tax plan; four years later, it became the cornerstone of her presidential campaign. And Sanders followed suit. With the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the global economy, and 22 million Americans out of work, there's no better time to revisit Piketty's opus—this time in documentary-feature form with Capital in the Twenty-First Century, now playing in Film Forum's virtual cinema and on-demand. Directed by Justin Pemberton (with an assist from Piketty), the film explores the history of economic inequality from past to present, and how the reckless pursuit of capital has led to some of society's biggest scourges, from colonialism to slavery to the current scapegoating of immigrants. The Daily Beast spoke with Piketty about what the current novel coronavirus crisis has exposed about the economy, how we can fix it, and why Trump is a "perversion" of capitalism.This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.Capital in the Twenty-First Century is certainly a timely film given the current pandemic. What do you think the COVID-19 crisis has really exposed about our capitalist free-market system?It has exposed how much inequality we have. We see today that there are very different consequences for people who have very small apartments, or very large apartments, or people who are homeless, or people that don't have any savings and need to go out and work to pay their rent. It raises huge questions about access to health, access to housing, access to income support, access to property. You see all the discussion right now in the U.S. about a rent freeze, and whether we should ask people and small businesses to keep paying their rent even though they don't have income because they're not allowed to go and work. It questions all sorts of things about how we organize economic creation, how we organize society. This is something I've seen in history all the time: deep crises like this one challenge existing ideology and existing views about how we should regulate the economy, and they can lead to pretty big change. It's too early to say, in this case, how far it will go. The 'Trump Death Clock' Shows the Toll of Coronavirus Inaction. And It May Be Coming to a City Near You.Rosie O'Donnell on Defeating Trump, the End of 'SMILF,' and Why She Can't Watch 'The View'The general feeling I stress in my latest book, Capital and Ideology, is that the real determinant of inequality across society and history is politics and ideology—much more than economic factors and technological factors. So, the change in ideology and how we organize property relations, labor-market relations, the tax system, the educational system, this is really the driver of most historical changes that I've observed in history across societies. What do you think the appropriate government response should be to this pandemic? Many voices on the left, like Bernie Sanders, have floated $2,000 a month to people to keep them afloat as well as a rent freeze. Universal healthcare should be the first response. I don't know how much time it will take for the U.S. as a country to realize universal healthcare is more efficient than the current way the U.S. healthcare system is organized. Maybe it will take a very long time. I don't know. But we know from the experiences of other countries that we've studied that universal healthcare insurance should be something that the U.S. should do. Now, a rent freeze and income support is going to be important. In the immediate future, these can all be paid for by increased debt and monetary creation, and I think it's important, given all the money creation that's been used to support the banking system and avoid financial collapse after the 2008 financial crisis, that it can be used today to confront this kind of crisis—a monetary policy that's more for the people, and addressing normal concerns, not just the banking and financial system. That being said, we are not going to finance everything in the long run just through debt and money creation, so we also have to rebalance the tax system, and I think the proposal of creating a billionaire tax that was made by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the campaign should come back to the center of the discussion. Remember, opinion polls were very supportive of the billionaire tax—not just from Democratic voters but Republican voters. And the problem is that billionaires don't make most of their money through taxable income. We know that an income tax is not enough because, look at the famous example of Warren Buffett showing his tax return and revealing that he was paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. But it's more general than Warren Buffett. The fact of the matter is, when you have very, very high wealth your income is not necessarily in line with your wealth, because you can accumulate the return to your wealth in some specific companies or holding structures, so that in the end, your fiscal income is not that high—and this is why people like Buffett pay income tax that is very small compared to their real economic income and as compared to their wealth. The wealth tax is a commonsense, equal way to ask billionaires to contribute in proportion to their means. It's not saying that wealth is bad; wealth is an indicator of how much you can contribute to the public finances of your country. That's true in general but it's particularly true when you see health care workers and minimum-wage workers taking big risks and being paid very little. I'm not sure Trump is going to go in this direction but I think Joe Biden would be smart to borrow this [wealth tax] idea from Sanders and Warren. You said wealth isn't inherently "bad," so do you not subscribe to the famous Balzac quote: "Behind every great fortune there is a crime?" [Laughs] No. That would be an exaggeration. What I believe is that wealth is always connected in its origin. If I sell two million copies of my book, it's not just because of me—it's also because I've benefited from a public school system, all of the scholars who gave me good ideas. Bill Gates did not invent computers by himself. He benefited from the innovation and contribution of computer scientists, a lot of public investment in basic research, and public infrastructure in school. Wealth is always connected to its origin, and private property and private wealth and ownership is something that we in society invent because we think it can be a useful way to coordinate individual behavior, and indeed it can be a useful way to coordinate individual behavior provided we put limits on how much wealth and how much economic power one individual can accumulate, and provided we have a system of taxation and a system of public education which allows everybody to access wealth and property. I believe a lot in private wealth-holding, and want everyone to be able to access wealth—which is not the case today. In the U.S., the bottom fifty percent of the population owns less than two percent of total wealth. Is this the best we can do? I don't think so. We can do better than that. Is capitalism—and the pursuit of capital—inherently evil? Because the film draws a pretty direct line between the capitalist system and institutions like slavery and colonialism. That was in the 19th century, so this was a long time ago. I certainly don't think private property is evil; private property is part of the solution, but I think private property has to come with a set of institutions that allow for more equal access to property. The bottom fifty percent of the U.S., I would like them to be private property owners. In Capital and Ideology, I talk about a system of participatory socialism—and many people may not like the word "socialism," so you can replace it with "social democracy," if you prefer—but what I mean by this is certainly not state ownership. I mean private property but more equal access to private property, in that everyone can inherit a small amount of national wealth. We're all supposed to have equal opportunity but the bottom two-thirds of Americans don't inherit anything, while others inherit millions, sometimes billions. This has little to do with equal opportunity. And I think we need to have more worker participation in companies, which is similar to other countries in Germany and Sweden, where you have more worker involvement in the long-term strategy of companies, and more prosperity. When you talk about worker involvement—or lack thereof—in companies, one of the biggest companies in the world has come under fire during the pandemic: Amazon. In recent weeks, they've fired workers who've attempted to organize in their factories against what they say are unsafe working conditions. And Amazon's owner, Jeff Bezos, is making billions a day. At this rate, he'll be the first trillionaire, which is pretty obscene when so many people are struggling. I think they've benefited a lot from their quasi-monopoly position and market power, and I don't think they're treating their workers very well. The model of workers' rights and worker participation that I had in mind was more along the lines of what you get in Northern Europe. In Germany, you have fifty percent of the voting rights on boards of larger companies that come from elected worker-representatives, and you give them shares of the company. Back in the 1950s, shareholders in Germany didn't like that at all, but seventy years later, there's a consensus that this has been pretty good—it has increased productivity and led to greater worker involvement. The sharing of information and power in companies is actually good for productivity in the long run. Bernie Sanders famously said that billionaires should not exist. Do you share that view?Well, in the system that I propose in my book, Capital and Ideology, if someone is very successful and sells a product that billions of people buy, they can become a billionaire—at least for a few years. But with the system I propose, a progressive wealth tax, you would return to a more reasonable level of wealth—like maybe $10 million or $20 million rather than billions. In a society where everyone would have access to a few hundred thousand dollars, some people would have access to a few million, some people would have access to a few dozen million. But people with a few dozen billion would return very quickly to a few dozen million, which is still a lot of wealth. The idea that we need a much bigger accumulation of wealth at the top to get more efficiency doesn't stand historical scrutiny. But if you cap wealth at "a few dozen million" dollars, as you propose, once an "innovator" reaches that threshold, what will then continue to motivate them to innovate and produce at the level that they were producing before?In the system I propose, there is no cap—just a tax. If you are a billionaire, there is a 90 percent tax, so you will return quickly to $100 million. But you can always earn more. After some level of wealth, I think what you care about is not adding another billion. Because, what are you going to do with it? It's more about, can you do something helpful for society? And this is what billionaires claim—they claim they don't want the money for themselves, and want to be useful. So let's take them at their word. But you can't possibly believe that to be true, that they don't want to accumulate more wealth and are more interested in helping others. You don't really believe that, do you? Well, I think that they believe they don't really need the money, because in fact they don't really need the money. So, I think that they are sincere. Really? I disagree.The point where they're not completely sincere is, although they don't need the money, they want to keep the power. They would like the rest of the planet to keep asking them, until their last days, "Oh Mr. Gates, can you give me some money to do this or that?" So, they want to keep power. Look, I understand their viewpoint: everybody likes to have some attention, and that's the highest level of attention you can get. But, is it useful? That is the question. If it was useful, we would have seen a bigger growth of the economic pie in the U.S. in the past thirty years. But you know, the story according to which you just need more accumulation at the top and growth will follow just didn't work, so I think people don't believe in it, and I think that is the reason the Republican Party with Donald Trump had to move to a different narrative—much more nationalist and anti-migrant—because the sort of pure open-market, trickle-down narrative did not deliver the growth that middle-class America was expecting. In a way, everybody knows that this didn't work. So where do we go from there? Do you see Trump as a perversion of capitalism? I think it's a perversion of rising inequality, and it's not a coincidence that with Trump in the U.S. and Brexit in Britain, these are the two countries with the biggest rise in inequality. When I wrote my book Capital in the Twenty-First Century in 2014, of course I could not forecast the election of Trump and Brexit, but in a way I was already saying that the risk with rising inequality is, if we don't find a peaceful and democratic solution to reduce inequality, you will always have some politicians who will use the frustration coming from rising inequality to find other people—foreign workers—to blame. You can always find other people to blame for your problems. Nationalism is not going to solve the rise of inequality, is not going to solve the epidemic we have right now, is not going to solve global warming. These problems will require more internationalist and egalitarian solutions. I'm reasonably optimistic that we will get there in the end. Inside the Corporate Media's 'Blackout' of Bernie Sanders' 2020 Presidential CampaignI'm more cynical than you when it comes to billionaires and how "philanthropic" they are. When it comes to Bernie Sanders, and I read your essay about the biased treatment he received in the media, and many billionaires mobilized against Bernie Sanders precisely because they did not want to sacrifice their wealth, and wielded that wealth to back other politicians running messaging against Sanders because they wanted to protect their wealth. So I question whether billionaires would ever buy in to this system you propose. Oh no, I'm not expecting them to vote for the new system. I'm just saying, in the end, this will not hurt the economy. You know, if we had told Bill Gates when he was young and much poorer than today, if we had told him: Look, you're not going to be able to accumulate $100 billion, you will only be able to accumulate $1 billion. Will he have said, it's not worth it? I think it's completely crazy, the idea that when people start a business, the idea of accumulating a few dozen million [is not enough], and I think this drives the economy, so this is all I was saying. The fact that they are going to protect their wealth because they want to protect their power, I'm not very surprised. What time is it now?We'll wrap this up in a sec. Just back to the billionaire question, because you wrote that the media treated Sanders unfairly, and the media is owned by the billionaire class. So what do you think it will take for a Bernie Sanders to break through all that noise?I'm pretty optimistic in the end because, you know, things are already moving very fast. I had a public meeting with Elizabeth Warren in 2014, and at the time, she was very skeptical about the wealth tax—and Bernie Sanders was not proposing it. And now, I see that they're proposing it, and those in Germany are talking a lot about it too, so I see an evolution of the conversation that's been very fast. It was not enough for this primary election in the Democratic Party in the U.S., but things are going to continue to change, and I'm optimistic that in the end, people will learn from history, and learn from the fact that new challenges like rising inequality, global warming or the pandemic today require new solutions. My latest book, Capital and Ideology, is very much an optimistic book in that I describe a long-run process in reduction of inequality, which I think will continue. It could take a long time. Bernie Sanders maybe could have been more convincing, could have been younger, so in the future maybe we'll have a more convincing candidate taking a younger face, or who's more diverse. We'll see. History is full of surprises and this is not the end of the story. Well, the thing history has really taught us is that there have been moments where the disparity in wealth got so great that the poor rose up and killed all the rich people. But that can't happen anymore. So it's about instituting this huge corrective without full-scale revolution, which is incredibly difficult. But this is not the way it's worked in recent history. It's happened through the rise of social security, education, etc. It's arrived in a relatively peaceful manner. Big events like World War I and World War II certainly contributed to accelerate some of this evolution but I think it's much deeper than that, and you see other countries where wars did not play a big role or you did not have a big revolution and you still had a huge reduction in inequality. For instance, Sweden used to be one of the most unequal countries at the beginning of the 20th century, and then, through social mobilization and change in policy, became more equal. There are lots of experiments in history that have led to more optimistic views than the one you just described. But thank you for the discussion. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet 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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| Burkina Faso: Twelve terror suspects 'found dead in their cells' Posted: 14 May 2020 12:28 AM PDT  An investigation is launched after 12 people die in police cells overnight in Burkina Faso.
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| Uplifting idea: Cranes reunite families in corona crisis Posted: 14 May 2020 12:18 AM PDT  WATERMAEL-BOITSFORT, Belgium (AP) — Something he saw as he drove to work one morning gave Tristan Van den Bosch an uplifting idea. "I saw a man shouting at his mother," said Van den Bosch. "We can help this man!" Van den Bosch thought.
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| Among the mainstays of 2020 claimed by the pandemic: Spring Posted: 14 May 2020 12:05 AM PDT  The vernal equinox arrived March 19, the day California handed down the first statewide stay-at-home order in the United States. The word itself is shorthand for revolutionary movements — the Springtime of Nations (1848), the Prague Spring (1968), the Arab Spring (2010-2012). Igor Stravinsky chose "The Rite of Spring" in 1913 to chart new musical frontiers.
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| Dentists carefully reopen in France after 2-month lockdown Posted: 13 May 2020 11:33 PM PDT  Anyone who suffered through France's two-month lockdown with a toothache or other oral affliction of a non-emergency nature has a hope of licking the pain. Dental practices around the country are cautiously reopening and accepting appointments after the French government eased restrictions on some businesses, services and public activity. The World Health Organization has recommended specialized face masks for health care providers performing medical procedures such as ventilation and intubation that produce fine, airborne particles, which might transmit the coronavirus.
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| US military offers condolences over Iran accident killing 19 Posted: 13 May 2020 10:40 PM PDT  The U.S. military offered condolences Thursday to Iran over a friendly fire incident in the Islamic Republic that saw an Iranian missile kill 19 Iranian troops, identifying the weapon that detonated as an anti-ship cruise missile. Iranian authorities on Monday said that the missile struck the Iranian navy vessel Konarak near the port of Jask, some 1,270 kilometers (790 miles) southeast of Tehran in the Gulf of Oman.
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| UN chief warns psychological suffering from virus is growing Posted: 13 May 2020 10:30 PM PDT |
| Lives Lost: Brothers who survived Holocaust die weeks apart Posted: 13 May 2020 10:10 PM PDT  The other endured cold and hunger in a Siberian labor camp, then nearly died in a pogrom back in Poland. Alexander and Joseph Feingold chose New York City as the place to start over. Joe, 97, died April 15 of complications of COVID-19 at the same hospital where Alex, 95, succumbed to pneumonia on March 17.
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