Federal authorities announced an investigation of the Seattle-area nursing home at the center of an outbreak of the new coronavirus as the U.S. death toll climbed to 11, including the first fatality outside Washington state.
Officials in California’s Placer County, near Sacramento, said Wednesday an elderly person who tested positive after returning from a San Francisco-to-Mexico cruise had died. The victim had underlying health problems, authorities said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom late Wednesday declared a statewide emergency due to coronavirus. Washington and Florida had already declared emergencies, and Hawaii also joined them Wednesday.A worker at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., near Seattle, wears a mask as she leaves the building, March 2, 2020.Washington also announced another death, bringing its total to 10. Most of those who died were residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, a suburb east of Seattle. At least 39 cases have been reported in the Seattle area, where researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks. Vice President Mike Pence was expected to meet with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee near Olympia on Thursday.
Seema Verma, head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency is sending inspectors to Life Care along with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to figure out what happened and determine whether the nursing home followed guidelines for preventing infections.
Last April, the state fined Life Care $67,000 over infection-control deficiencies following two flu outbreaks that affected 17 patients and staff. An unannounced follow-up inspection in June determined that Life Care had corrected the problems, Verma said.Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, left, talks with with Nathan Weed, incident commander for the coronavirus response team at Department of Health, outside a recreation vehicle at a potential coronavirus isolation and quarantine site, March 4, 2020.Meanwhile, public officials in Washington came under pressure to take more aggressive steps against the outbreak, including closing schools and canceling large events. While the state and Seattle have declared emergencies, giving leaders broad powers to suspend activities, they have not issued any orders to do so.
“We have encouraged people who are responsible for large gatherings to give consideration whether it really makes sense to carry those on right now,” Gov. Jay Inslee said. “Right now, we are deferring to the judgment … of these organizations.”
While some individual schools and businesses have shut down, the governor said large-scale school closings have not been ordered because “there are so many ramifications for families and businesses,” especially for health care workers who might not be able to go to work because of child care responsibilities.
Local and state health officials have not recommended school closings unless the schools have had a confirmed case of the disease.
“School closures have been part of the pandemic response kit for a long time,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for Seattle and King County. “We don’t have strong evidence about how important school closures are.”
Jennifer Hayles, 41, of Kirkland, said she was appalled that Inslee and health officials haven’t canceled next week’s Emerald City Comic Con. The four-day cosplay and pop-culture event draws close to 100,000 people each year, and some participants, including D.C. Comics and Penguin Random House, have pulled out over the virus.
Hayles said she spent hundreds of dollars on tickets and other items related to the event but will have to skip it because she has a compromised immune system.
“There’s a lot of people who are talking about the economic cost of people forced to pull out of Comic Con, but if we have an explosion of cases of coronavirus, the economic cost is going to be much higher,” Hayles said.Comic Con’s organizer, Reedpop, announced Wednesday that it would make an exception to its no-refunds policy for those who want their money back, but said it remained committed to holding the event unless local, state or federal officials change their guidance.
Lakshmi Unni said that she was keeping her son, an eighth-grader at Redmond Middle School in Seattle’s eastern suburbs, home on Wednesday and that she had urged the school board and principal to close.
“Yesterday at least three kids were coughing,” Unni said. “We don’t know if they were sick with the virus, but if they do become sick, the chances of spreading are very, very high.”
Some schools, businesses and other employers aren’t waiting.
Seattle and King County public health officials urged businesses to allow employees to work remotely if possible, and the county said it will allow telecommuting for some of its workers for the next three weeks.
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle announced it is canceling events at the complex and requiring nonessential staff to work remotely at least through the end of the month to lessen the chance of infection among patients with weakened immune systems.
School officials in Renton, south of Seattle, announced that Hazen High School will close for the rest of the week after a student tested positive for the coronavirus. Online petitions urged officials to close other schools on Seattle’s east side.
The F5 technology company closed its 44-story tower in downtown Seattle after learning an employee had been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus. Outdoor recreation giant REI shut down its Seattle-area operations for two days as a precaution.
Health officials in North Carolina reported that a person from Wake County tested positive for the illness after visiting the nursing home. The patient’s flight from the Seattle area to the Raleigh-Durham airport raised fears other passengers were exposed to the virus.
“My understanding is we have the manifest. Now the trick is to go find them,” said Robert Redfield of the CDC.
Life Care Center said on its website that it is screening employees for symptoms before they start work and as they leave. The nursing home is prohibiting visits from residents’ family members.FILE – An ambulance waits at a dock upon the arrival of the cruise ship ‘Grand Princess’ as it arrives in the port of Mahaual, Mexico, March 26, 2007.Shortly before the California death was announced, Princess Cruise Lines notified passengers of its Grand Princess that federal health officials are investigating a “small cluster” of coronavirus cases connected to the ship’s mid-February voyage. It asked current passengers to stay in their cabins until they were cleared by medical staff and said those who had been on the previous voyage should contact their doctor if they develop fever or other symptoms.
The Grand Princess is at sea off Mexico and will return early to San Francisco, where CDC and company officials will meet to determine the course of action, the cruise line said. California planned to fly COVID-19 testing kits out to the ship, which won’t be allowed to dock until the test results are completed, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.
In Los Angeles, a contract medical worker who was conducting screenings at the city’s main airport has tested positive for the virus. The person wore protective equipment while on the job so it was unclear how the worker contracted the virus, Homeland Security officials said.
In New York, health officials put hundreds of residents in self-quarantine after members of two families in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle were diagnosed with the virus. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the disease appeared to have spread from a lawyer to his wife, two children, a neighbor and two others.
The new results brought the number of confirmed cases in the state to 11.
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Month: March 2020
Australia Confirms 2nd Coronavirus Death
Australia has confirmed its second death from the coronavirus. The latest victim is a 95-year-old woman who died at a nursing home in Sydney. Australia now has more than 40 confirmed COVID-19 cases. The woman, Australia’s second coronavirus victim, died Tuesday at a facility in Sydney. Another elderly resident at the aged care center has also tested positive for the virus.FILE – A photographer takes photos near the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship anchored at a port in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Feb. 21, 2020.A 78-year-old man died in Perth over the weekend. He was a passenger onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was on lockdown in the Japanese port of Yokohama before being flown home.The number of COVID-19 infections in Australia has risen sharply in recent days.But Australia’s chief medical officer, Professor Brendan Murphy, has told a parliamentary hearing in Canberra that 80 percent of people infected with the coronavirus show “such mild symptoms they barely notice it and that is particularly the case in children.”Australians are being urged to stop the panic buying of household essentials in fear over the spread of the disease. Supermarket shelves have been emptied of toilet paper, tissues and hand sanitizers despite government pleas for calm.There has been high demand, too, for rice, frozen meals and pet food.Psychologists call it “herd behavior” and it has prompted shops to ration certain products as customers scramble to get what they want, or believe they will need, to outlast the crisis.Empty shelves are pictured at Coles Supermarket following reports of coronavirus in the Canberra suburb of Manuka, Australia, March 2, 2020 in this picture obtained by Reuters from social media. (Adam Spence via Reuters)“Everything was gone,” said a women.“Well, there are signs inside with limits of how much bread, milk and toilet paper you can buy, which I have never seen before,” said another shopper. “The teller actually mentioned people are maybe stocking up, panic buying.”Is it panic-buying, or simply being well-prepared for potential shortages? Either way, the authorities in Australia say stock-piling is not necessary as many manufacturers of toilet paper, for example, are increasing production.Australia has more than 40 confirmed coronavirus cases. Medical officials have warned that it is no longer possible to stop the disease entering the country despite a ban on foreign nationals traveling from China and Iran. Those restrictions now apply to travelers arriving in Australia from South Korea.
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Flybe 2nd British Airline to Fail, Stranding Travelers
British regional airline Flybe collapsed Thursday after a plunge in travel demand, making the long-struggling carrier one of the first big corporate casualties of the coronavirus outbreak.The failure of an airline that connects all corners of the United Kingdom with major European destinations not only puts around 2,400 jobs at risk but could also see some airports struggle and regional economies hit.“All flights have been grounded and the UK business has ceased trading with immediate effect,” Flybe said after the government walked away from a rescue package agreed to in January.Virus hits airlines’ bottom linesAirlines around the world have been canceling flights and warning of a hit to profitability after coronavirus first emerged in China, hitting flights across Asia, before it spread to Europe and beyond.British Airways, easyJet, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Norwegian Air and United Airlines are among those warning about the impact of a virus that looks set to hit the industry harder than the 2003 SARS outbreak.Flybe’s collapse will also cause more problems for Prime Minister Boris Johnson who had promised to “level up” Britain by investing in regional transport links.His government had agreed a rescue deal for the 41-year-old airline in January, saying it was important to maintain connections across the country for its 8 million passengers.It said on Thursday there was nothing more it could do.“We are also urgently working with industry to identify how key routes can be re-established by other airlines as soon as possible,” Transport Minister Grant Shapps said.Rescue deal unravelsFlybe, the largest independent regional airline in Europe, operated between 81 airports and was owned by Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital.The owners said they had plowed more than 135 million pounds ($174 million) into the business in the last 14 months, including around 25 million pounds pledged in January.January’s rescue deal had seen the government agree to match the owners’ support for Flybe with a potential loan, a deferral of taxes and a review of local flight tax rules.That briefly formed part of Johnson’s plan to try to boost the regions of Britain beyond London. Without Flybe though, some regional airports like Exeter, Birmingham and Southampton will have much poorer connections.However, rival airlines complained that the state should not prop up failing companies and environmental campaigners argued any move to reduce the cost of flying did not fit with the government’s aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions.Regional airportsFlybe’s 68 aircraft flew to airports including Belfast City in Northern Ireland, Jersey in the Channel Islands, Birmingham in central England and Scotland’s Inverness and provided more than half of UK domestic flights outside London.The pilot’s union said airline staff had been betrayed by the owners and the government.In a sign of the ripple effect the virus can have, Britain’s biggest commercial free-to-air broadcaster ITV warned Thursday its advertising revenue had been hit by travel companies pulling spending.Stobart and Virgin Atlantic said they were deeply disappointed with the outcome.“Sadly, despite the efforts of all involved to turn the airline around, not least the people of Flybe, the impact of COVID-19 on Flybe’s trading means that the consortium can no longer commit to continued financial support,” they said.It is the second major British airline to go bust in six months after the world’s oldest travel firm Thomas Cook collapsed in September, stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers and sparking the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history.The country’s broader airline strategy was also thrown into disarray last week when a court ruled a plan to expand Europe’s biggest airport Heathrow was unlawful.
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Somali Therapist Sees Mental Health as Key to Rebuilding the Country
After nearly three decades of war, many Somalis carry invisible scars from exposure to violence.According to the World Health Organization, FILE – A man walks past a body and destroyed buildings at the scene of a blast in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia, Oct 14, 2017.‘A nation that needs healing’Working with political leaders, aid organizations and civil society groups, Olad holds training events to educate the public about the problem and its treatments.“Most of my work relates to how I can tell the international community and people who work in the humanitarian sector and development and Somali government to understand this is a nation that needs healing,” she said. “This is a nation that has experienced more than what a human mental capacity can take.”Olad also believes progress on issues like reconciliation and peace-building cannot occur without including mental health services. Many of the people entrusted with playing roles in healing the country need to be healed themselves, she said.“What I have seen is people who are in a conflict reconciliation setting or negotiation setting, you can see people are so traumatized, and you can feel their interactions daily,” she said. “You can see the clinical and psychosocial healing needs on the ground.”Stigma of mental illnessOlad’s organization is working to erase the stigma around mental health in Somalia. People suffering from mental illness are often shunned by society and even their families. Harmful practices, including using chains to restrain patients, are still used in the country.“There is a stigma because [people believe] either you are crazy or you’re not crazy. You are insane or you’re not, there’s nothing in between,” she said. “And people don’t see mental health as something that’s curable or sometimes it can go severe that a person experiences schizophrenia or bipolar, that you need to have medication.”Olad also wants to use the lessons learned from Somalia to help post-conflict countries around the world. She is hoping to pursue a fellowship at the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at George Mason University to develop a guidebook on how mental health can be used for peace-building in post-conflict societies.“This guide will be used by all the countries that have experienced war,” she said. “So I’m hoping if we get academic institutions supporting this [it can] have an influence on the policy level of the organizations and the government institutions.”
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US Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Part in Fake Islamic State Plot
A U.S. federal court has sentenced a man from the Midwestern state of Missouri to nearly 20 years in prison for participating in what he thought were preparations for a terror attack with members of the Islamic State group.Robert Lorenzo Hester pleaded guilty in September to charges of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist group.The Justice Department said Hester discussed a potential attack involving bombs and guns with an undercover FBI employee who was pretending to be an Islamic State member. Prosecutors said he went as far as purchasing supplies he was told would be used to make a bomb.Authorities began investigating Hester after tips from multiple confidential sources about his social media activity and posts the Justice Department says showed ill will toward the United States and included photos of weapons and the Islamic State flag.
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US Senator Proposes TikTok Ban for Government Workers
A U.S. senator is introducing legislation that would ban government employees from using the social media app TikTok on their government devices.Josh Hawley, a Republican representing the state of Missouri, said at a hearing Wednesday the data the Chinese-owned app collects and the potential for it to be shared with China’s government represent a “majority security risk for the American people.”He said similar bans are in place at some of the biggest federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and the State Department.Hawley did not say exactly when he would introduce the bill.The effort is the latest security scrutiny of TikTok, which allows users to post and view short videos.The company has said any data from U.S. users is stored in the United States and not subject to any Chinese government jurisdiction.It says it understands the safety concerns, but thinks they are unfounded, and that it has reached out to lawmakers in order to explain its policies.
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Appeal Upheld: ICC Allows Opening of Afghan War Investigation
Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court gave the green light Thursday for prosecutors to open an investigation targeting the Taliban, Afghan forces and U.S. military and intelligence personnel for war crimes and crimes against humanity.The global court upheld an appeal by prosecutors against a pretrial chamber’s rejection last April of Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s request to open a probe in Afghanistan.Pretrial judges last year acknowledged that widespread crimes have been committed in Afghanistan, but rejected the investigation saying it wouldn’t be in the interests of justice because the likely lack of cooperation meant convictions would ultimately be unlikely.FILE – Public prosecutor Fatou Bensouda attends a trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the Netherlands, July 8, 2019.That decision drew fierce criticism from human rights organizations who said it neglected the desire of victims to seek justice in Afghanistan and effectively rewarded states that refused to cooperate with the Hague-based court.On Thursday, rights groups swiftly hailed ICC for upholding victims’ right to accountability, and paving the way for the United States to be held to account for the first time for actions.“Today, the International Criminal Court breathed new life into the mantra that ‘no one is above the law’ and restored some hope that justice can be available — and applied — to all,” said Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and ICC Victims Legal Representative, told VOA News.“In authorizing this critical and much-delayed investigation into crimes in and related to Afghanistan, the Court made clear that political interference in judicial proceedings will not be tolerated,” she said.Even though an investigation has now been authorized, it remains to be seen if any suspects eventually indicted by prosecutors will appear in court in The Hague — both Afghanistan and the United States have strongly opposed the investigation and the U.S. government refuses to cooperate with the global court.At a hearing in December, prosecutors argued that pretrial judges at the global court overstepped their powers last April when they refused to authorize an investigation. The appeals judges agreed.“The Appeals Chamber considers it appropriate to amend the appealed decision to the effect that the prosecutor is authorized to commence an investigation into alleged crimes committed on the territory of Afghanistan since May 1, 2003, as well as other alleged crimes that have a nexus to the armed conflict in Afghanistan,” Presiding Judge Piotr Hofmanski said.After a preliminary probe in Afghanistan that lasted more than a decade, Bensouda asked judges in November 2017 to authorize a far-reaching investigation.She said there is information that members of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies “committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence against conflict-related detainees in Afghanistan and other locations, principally in the 2003-2004 period.”FILE – Personal attorney to President Donald Trump, Jay Sekulow, speaks to reporters during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Jan. 23, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington.She also said the Taliban and other insurgent groups have killed more than 17,000 Afghan civilians since 2009, including some 7,000 targeted killings, and that Afghan security forces are suspected of torturing prisoners at government detention centers.At a December hearing, the government of Afghanistan said it objected to the investigation and has set up a special unit to investigate war crimes. The ICC is a court of last resort that only takes on cases if domestic jurisdictions are unable or unwilling to prosecute.There was no official U.S. delegation at December’s appeal hearing, but President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, appeared on behalf of the European branch of the American Center for Law and Justice and told judges that the U.S. position wouldn’t change.He told appeals judges that “it is not in the interests of justice to waste the court’s resources while ignoring the reality of principled non-cooperation.”
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Trump Ramps Up Attacks on Biden After Super Tuesday Surge
After Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden dominated in Super Tuesday contests, President Donald Trump and his allies are intensifying their attacks on the former vice president and ramping up efforts to convince Bernie Sanders’ supporters that he’s being robbed of the nomination. The story from White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara.
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12 Women Honored With US Courage Award
The United States on Wednesday recognized 12 women from around the globe with International Women of Courage awards for their leadership in advocating for human rights, democracy, gender equality and women’s empowerment. One of the honorees is Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh, who exposed the existence of a Muslim detention camp in China’s Xinjiang region. VOA’s State Department correspondent Nike Ching has the report.
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Erdogan, Putin to Seek to Avoid Clash Over Syria’s Idlib
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads to Moscow on Thursday for a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at de-escalating tensions between the armies of Turkey, a NATO member, and Russia, a nuclear superpower, in Syria’s war-torn Idlib province. While nominally partners in a fight against terrorism in the region, Moscow and Ankara have been cast on a seemingly unavoidable collision course in Idlib — the territory in northwest Syria where Russia is helping its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, wipe out one of the last bastions of opposition to his rule. Turkey, along with Western governments, accuses the Syrian government of carrying out a bombing campaign with Russian support that has provoked a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a million civilians fleeing the fighting for the Syria-Turkey border. The siege has also met with forceful pushback from Ankara because it opposes Assad’s rule. In response, Turkey has launched a military campaign intended to protect what it says are largely anti-Assad rebels, not terrorists, in the Idlib stronghold. During his briefing with reporters Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia hoped for a compromise with Erdogan, despite those differences. “We expect to reach a common understanding on the crisis, the cause of the crisis, the harmful effects of the crisis, and arrive at a set of necessary joint measures,” Peskov said. FILE – Syrian army soldiers fire a weapon as they advance on the town of Kfar Nabl, Syria, March 2, 2020.In turn, Erdogan has indicated he expects to negotiate a cease-fire with Putin over Idlib, despite vowing that a recent spate of Turkish attacks against Syrian government targets were “only the beginning” of revenge for the deaths of several dozen Turkish soldiers in Syrian bombing raids last week. Injecting more uncertainty ahead of the talks was Assad. In an interview with the Kremlin-backed Rossiya-24 channel, the Syrian leader said his forces would finish the operation in Idlib before moving on to mop up remaining pockets of resistance. “I’ve said many times that Idlib, from a military point of view, is a steppingstone, and they put all their forces to stop its liberation so we can’t proceed to the east,” Assad said, accusing Turkey and its NATO alliance partner, the United States, of trying to thwart his inevitable military progress. The art of diplomacy On the eve of the Putin-Erdogan summit, events surrounding the Idlib battlefield continued to churn unpredictably, a sign that all sides were trying to increase bargaining positions ahead of the talks. On Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Turkey had violated earlier negotiated agreements with Moscow, accusing Ankara of providing direct military aid to terrorist groups in Idlib who routinely fire on Russia’s main base in the region. Russia also seized the strategic town of Saraqeb from Turkish-backed rebels, a move that according to Russian media reports put Russian soldiers in the immediate line of fire from Turkish forces. No injuries were reported. Multiple reports also suggested Russia had beefed up its naval presence by dispatching a fourth warship to the region. Meanwhile, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov insisted that Western reports of mass refugee flows and a humanitarian crisis along the Turkey-Syria border were overblown and reflected “fake concern” over the issue. Turkey, Konashenkov argued, had instead been intentionally pushing refugees from other countries toward Europe to try to gain concessions and backing from the European Union in Ankara’s standoff with Moscow. FILE – Turkish soldiers hold their positions with their tanks on a hilltop on the outskirts of Suruc, at the Turkey-Syria border, overlooking Kobani, Syria, during fighting between Syrian Kurds and Islamic State militants, Oct. 12, 2014.’Tsar vs. sultan’ Russia entered the Syrian civil war in 2015, aiding Assad in what the Kremlin insisted was an anti-terrorist campaign against Islamic State, and what Western powers have billed as a ruthless effort to root out opposition to Assad’s rule. For a time, Moscow and Ankara papered over those differences, choosing to focus on a common enemy in Islamic State, which had carried out terrorist attacks in both countries, killing scores of people. Later deals involving trade, energy and oil also helped their alliance. Yet the standoff over Assad has always been at the core of the relationship between Putin and Erdogan, which Russian media have billed as ‘”the tsar vs. the sultan.” Analysts in Moscow see a dangerous game in which Russia’s ambitions to become a Middle East power broker through Syria have bumped into Turkey’s ascension as a key regional player. “For Turkey, it’s about its own internal stability, and of course, huge ambitions,” Alexey Malashenko, chief researcher at the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute, told VOA in an interview. “But the presence of Russia in the south of Syria proves once again that Russia is still a power. If there’s no Assad, Russia’s not in Syria, and we’re not in the Middle East.” The facts of war Despite its role as a Middle East powerbroker, Russia’s presence has struggled to stem recent fighting between Damascus and Ankara. FILE – Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the funeralof Turkish soldier Emre Baysal, killed in Syria’s Idlib region, in Istanbul, Turkey, Feb. 29, 2020.Turkey said Syrian government airstrikes killed 54 Turkish soldiers in February alone, including 33 airstrikes in Idlib last week. Turkish forces responded by shooting down three Syrian government warplanes and striking a military airport deep inside Syrian territory, which killed what Turkey said were over 100 Assad regime loyalists. “We said that we would avenge the death of our martyrs,” Erdogan said this week. “By destroying the regime’s warplanes and tanks, we are making it pay a very heavy price.” As casualties mounted on both sides, analysts in Moscow openly questioned whether Russia could assert pressure to stop the fighting, even if it wanted to. “Of course, Russia has a certain degree of influence on Damascus. But you could also look it at from another angle — that it’s Russia who is trapped,” Alexey Khlebnikov, a Middle East and North Africa expert at the Russian International Affairs Council, said in an interview. “It cannot say to Damascus, ‘If you don’t do this, we’ll withdraw our forces and leave.’ It won’t happen.” The implication? Despite any agreements between Putin and Erdogan in Thursday’s meeting, Assad may not follow the script.
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Titanic’s Wireless Telegraph Could Be Brought to Surface
Its doomed maiden voyage happened more than a century ago, but the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 remains the stuff of popular culture and the object of deep-sea salvage. A firm has recovered more than 5,000 of its artifacts, but as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, time may be running out to raise the ship’s Holy Grail.
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COVID-19 Causes Global Exports to Plunge by Billions of Dollars
A U.N. analysis of the global trade impact of the coronavirus epidemic finds nations have been hit with export losses of $50 billion in February, and the world should brace itself for worse to come the longer the epidemic lasts.Over the past two decades, China has become the world’s largest exporter and supplier of key components for various products manufactured in many parts of the world. For example, automobiles, cellphones, and medical equipment depend upon the export of intermediate parts from China.The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports China provides 20 percent of overall global production and trade in the manufacture of intermediate goods, making China a critical, integral part of the economies and global value chain across the world. FILE – A cargo truck drives amid stacked shipping containers at the Yangshan port in Shanghai, China, March 29, 2018.Pamela Coke-Hamilton is UNCTAD’s director of the Division on International Trade and Commodities. She says there was a dramatic reduction in output in China last month as a direct consequence of the spread of the coronavirus. This amounts to a two-percent contraction in output on an annual basis.“This will show that there is a ripple effect throughout the global economy and to the tune of $50 billion fall in exports across the world,” she said. “If we look at what is occurring across the world now, and even with respect to China, we will no doubt realize that the fall may be continuing and this actually may be a conservative estimate.” Coke-Hamiton says this also is likely to trigger a fall in the world’s gross domestic product. UNCTAD reports the economies that will be most affected by Chinese supply disruptions are the European Union, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam.UNCTAD economists say the estimated global effects from a disruption to China’s value supply chain are dependent on the containment of the coronavirus in China and the rest of the world. If the COVID-19 epidemic persists for any length of time, UNCTAD says it is likely to result in a significant downturn in the global economy.
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US Lawmakers Told of Security Risks From China-owned TikTok
US officials on Wednesday stepped up warnings about the potential security risks from the fast-growing, Chinese-owned TikTok as a lawmaker unveiled legislation to ban the social media app from government devices.At a Senate hearing, officials from the FBI, the Justice Department and Homeland Security said the video-sharing app could become another tool exploited by Chinese intelligence services.Sen. Josh Hawley R-Missouri, walks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 22, 2020.Senator Josh Hawley, who convened the hearing, said he was introducing a bill to ban TikTok from all US government devices, calling it “a major security risk for the American people.”TikTok, which is especially popular with teens, is believed to have been the most downloaded app worldwide last year, but US officials have expressed concern over its connections with the government in Beijing.”TikTok is one example of an application where the average citizen doesn’t understand the implications of what’s behind it,” Clyde Wallace, an official in the FBI’s cyber division, told the hearing.”It’s basically controlled by a state-sponsored actor.”While the various data points collected by TikTok may not seem sensitive, Wallace said the information may be aggregated and “used for many purposes.”‘Any and all data can be transferred’In his written testimony, Wallace said Chinese-owned social media applications may collect personal data including biometrics, contact lists, location data and bank and credit card details.”Any and all data can be transferred to other locations and associated entities to include the Chinese parent company,” he said.Bryan Ware, a cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security, echoed those fears, saying that TikTok data could become part of a large database exploited by China.”China has amazing programs in collection of data and developing artificial intelligence and analytics against that data for purposes that we don’t fully know… and that should give us great concern,” Ware said.”There’s certainly no place for applications like TikTok on government devices and government networks.”Experts voice concernsAdam Hickey, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s security division, said the aggregation of data from TikTok “makes it easier for intelligence services to either recruit or hack into systems used by government employees.”Samm Sacks, a cybersecurity fellow at the New America Foundation specializing in China, said Chinese regulations may enable the government to “essentially require anything that they want of these companies” even if some privately push back at the requests.TikTok has said its operations were not influenced by the Beijing authorities.
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Coronavirus Reveals Weakness in US Military Supply Chain, Officials Say
A top U.S. military official and some members of Congress are raising concerns that the United States is too dependent on pharmaceutical products made in China as the spread of the coronavirus highlights supply chain weaknesses. This issue arose as the U.S. government reported the nation’s first drug shortage related to the outbreak. “We have got a military medical system, and we have the same access to all the drugs that are available in the commercial system, et cetera,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley said at a congressional hearing last week. “You rightly pointed out that it is a vulnerability to have a country such as China manufacturing high percentages — I don’t know if it is 97%, 98% or 80%, whatever it is, but I do know it is high percentages of the ingredients to [the] American pharmaceutical industry across the country, both military and civilian. “So it is a vulnerability. In a time of armed conflict — if that were ever to happen, hopefully it will never happen — that would obviously be a significant vulnerability to the U.S.” Milley added that the United States needed a national strategy to address the issue. Beijing’s responseResponding to the outbreak, which was first reported in Wuhan, China, the government in Beijing has dramatically FILE – Stephen Hahn, commissioner for food and drugs in the Food and Drug Administration, testifies before a House subcommittee hearing on Health and Human Services oversight of the coronavirus outbreak, in Washington, Feb. 26, 2020.Illustrating that the coronavirus outbreak in China has weakened the global supply chain, U.S. Commissioner of Food and Drugs Dr. Stephen Hahn said last week in a FILE – Rep. Vicky Hartzler speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 25, 2014.“Most of the United States military receives their vaccines, their antibiotics and their medicines from either China directly or through companies here in America that receive their base components of the medicine from China,” said Hartzler, whose district includes Fort Leonard Wood, a U.S. Army training station, and Whiteman Air Force Base. “If we were to go into a conflict with China,” she said, “it raises the question if this is something perhaps China could use against us — to either withhold the needed medicines, vaccines, or to potentially put inert ingredients in them or just to put something harmful in them.”
The current National Defense Strategy says the United States is engaged in a great-power competition with China and Russia, and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper often names China as the United States’ main long-term competitor. The U.S. and China are the world’s biggest economies. Hartzler said the Pentagon can play a leading role, noting that she and California Democrat John Garamendi have sponsored legislation that would require the Department of Defense to review its vulnerability. The Pharmaceutical Independent Long-Term Readiness Reform Act was introduced in October 2019 and requires the Pentagon to support U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers. Hartzler and other lawmakers say they hope the heightened attention to the pharmaceutical supply chain triggered by COVID-19 will generate support for the bill and address what they argue is a key vulnerability, not only for the military but also for the nation as a whole.
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Defectors: North Korea Military May Become Hotbed of Coronavirus Infections
With a million personnel, the Korean People’s Army is among the largest in the world.It’s also cited as one of the most vulnerable groups of people to a possible coronavirus outbreak in North Korea.”A coronavirus outbreak in the military will be Kim Jong Un’s biggest fear,” said Lee Unggil, former member of North Korea’s special forces “Storm Corps” or the 11th Corps.During a forum Wednesday at Washington’s Hudson Institute about the lives of North Korean soldiers, Lee explained that the military’s conditions are prone to a massive outbreak.Crowded barracksLee explained the North Korean soldiers live in crowded barracks with poor living conditions so diseases spread fast.”In early 2000s, there was SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] outbreak in the military. North Korean soldiers are very malnourished and their immune system is weak, so many people died. But we didn’t even know whether it was because of SARS or other diseases. There aren’t any testing kits. If someone dies with fever, we presumed it was an epidemic,” Lee said.Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute (L) is seen with ex-North Korean soldiers in Washington, March 4, 2020. From right to left, Colonel Steve Lee, Henry Song, and Lee Unggil. One man’s face is blurred to protect his identity. (Eunjung Cho/VOA)Lee was in North Korea’s “Storm Corps” from 1998 to 2003, and he defected to South Korea in 2007.Some 43% of the North Korean population, or 11 million people, are suffering from malnourishment, making them highly susceptible to infectious diseases.Jung Haneul, who defected to South Korea by crossing over the Military Demarcation Line a few years ago, told VOA that living conditions in the military improved somewhat after Kim Jong Un assumed power but medical conditions remain dire.”If there’s coronavirus outbreak in North Korea, the military will be on the highest alert,” Jung noted. “The soldiers will be barred from contact with civilians. There’s no way masks will be distributed. Whenever there’s an epidemic, people resort to gargling with salt water.”Jung said while he was in the military, there was scabies infestation, but the soldiers didn’t have the proper medication so they burned sulfur.Regime threatJohn Everard, former British ambassador to Pyongyang, told VOA a COVID-19 outbreak in the North Korean military could threaten Kim’s totalitarian rule.”Should this happen, the regime would face not only the weakening of its defenses caused by sickness amongst its soldiers, but also the political dangers of widespread military discontent. This could pose a serious threat to it,” Everard said.”The word is spreading that many North Koreans died in the border area with China infected by the coronavirus,” Lee added, citing his sources in North Korea.VOA’s William Kim and Ji Da-gyum contributed to this report.
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Tanzanian Health Authorities on High Alert to Stop COVID-19
Tanzania is said to be one of the African countries most at risk of importing the coronavirus because of its high trade volume with China. At Tanzania’s biggest market, traders are feeling the crunch as the availability of Chinese-made goods shrinks. Meanwhile, authorities are preparing to prevent further transmission with intensified surveillance at the country’s ports of entry. Charles Kombe reports from Dar es Salaam.
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Uganda Jails Filmmaker Doing Documentary on Opposition Hopeful
A Ugandan court sent an independent filmmaker to jail on Wednesday after he was accused of singing subversive songs while producing a documentary about a pop star seeking to unseat the long-serving president, his attorney said.
The jailing of Moses Bwayo is part of what government critics call an escalating clampdown on independent media and the opposition ahead of a presidential election in the east African country early next year.
Bwayo was first arrested on Feb. 24 as he filmed a documentary about Bobi Wine, the pop star-turned-legislator who wants to wrest power from 75-year-old President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled for more than three decades.
After several days, he was freed on a police bond and ordered to report back on Wednesday. When he did, he was taken to court, charged and remanded, his lawyer Caleb Alaka said.
“I applied for bail … but the magistrate decided to give a deaf ear to that and remanded him,” Alaka told Reuters.
According to a charge sheet seen by Reuters, Bwayo and eight others were accused of assembling unlawfully near a police barracks in the capital Kampala and singing songs “subverting or promoting subversion of the government of Uganda.”
He is due to return to court for a bail application on Friday. The eight others were also remanded in jail.
Wine has emerged as a strong challenger to the veteran president, often using his music to criticize the government and woo supporters.
Rattled by Wine’s good connection with youth, authorities have used security forces to crack down on supporters through arrests plus the use of teargas and beatings to disperse rallies.
In 2018, Wine and other opposition lawmakers were beaten by security forces after attending a political rally and he had to seek treatment abroad.
Joel Ssenyonyi, a spokesman for Wine, confirmed Bwayo had been sent back to jail, after following the politician for a documentary on behalf of a foreign media company.
There was no immediate word from the court or government.
Officials deny targeting political foes or the media.
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Melania Trump Helps Honor Women From 12 Countries for Courage
U.S. first lady Melania Trump drew parallels Wednesday between her youth welfare initiative and a group of women from around the world whom the State Department has recognized for acts of courage in their countries.
Although the “Be Best” initiative was designed for children, the first lady said the program “ties nicely into the accomplishments of the women who share the stage with me.”
“Without positive support, guidance and well-being, which are just some of the attributes today’s children need, they will not enter adulthood with the empathy and strength needed to help others as selflessly as the women here today,” Mrs. Trump said at the annual State Department ceremony.
A dozen women from Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, an autonomous prefecture in China, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and Zimbabwe received the 2020 International Women of Courage Award on Wednesday from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
One recipient was imprisoned in Syria and now helps families of forcibly disappeared Syrians. Another is the mayor of Maidan Shar, a town in Afghanistan’s conservative Wardak province, who has faced death threats and angry male mobs. Other recipients are journalists and human rights advocates.
Mrs. Trump noted that Wednesday was her fourth year attending the ceremony. She said she is inspired by the personal stories of each of the women, noting that they often risk their safety to help others.
“These are the faces of true heroism,” she said.
International Women’s Day is Sunday.
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Food Stamp Change Fuels Anxiety as States Try to Curb Impact
Having food stamps offers Richard Butler a stability he’s rarely known in his 25 years. He was in state custody at age 2, spent his teen years at a Chicago boys’ home and jail for burglary, and has since struggled to find a permanent home.The $194 deposited monthly on his benefits card buys fresh produce and meat.“It means the world to me,” said Butler, who shares a one-bedroom apartment with two others. “We can go without a lot of things, like phones and music. We can’t go without eating.”But that stability is being threatened for people like Butler, who are able-bodied, without dependents and between the ages 18 and 49. New Trump administration rules taking effect April 1 put hundreds of thousands of people in his situation at risk of losing their benefits. They hit particularly hard in places like Illinois, which also is dealing with a separate, similar change in the nation’s third-largest city.From Hawaii to Pennsylvania, states are scrambling to blunt the impact of the new rules, with roughly 700,000 people at risk of losing benefits unless they meet certain work, training or school requirements. They’ve filed a multi-state lawsuit, expanded publicly funded job training, developed pilot programs and doubled down efforts to reach vulnerable communities, including the homeless, rural residents and people of color.Social service agencies say they won’t be able to fill the gap, making increased homelessness and more hospital visits among the biggest concerns. Experts say they’ve already seen troubling signs in some states.“This is a cascading effect,” said Robert Campbell, managing director at Feeding America, a network of hundreds of food banks nationwide. “It will increase demands on the emergency food system, food banks and pantries.”Currently, work-eligible, able-bodied adults without dependents under 50 can receive monthly benefits if they meet a 20-hour weekly work, job training or school requirement. Those who don’t are are limited to three months of food stamps over three years.However, states with high unemployment or few jobs have been able to waive time limits. Every state except Delaware has sought a waiver at some point, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.The new rules make it harder to get waivers. They’re the first of three changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which feeds 36 million people nationwide.The Trump administration has touted the change as a way to get people working and save $5.5 billion over five years. Able-bodied adults without dependents are 7% of SNAP recipients.But states fighting the change say that argument is misguided.“Not everyone is in a position to get a job tomorrow, and taking away access to food is only going to make that more difficult,” said Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Teresa Miller. “We’re going to have more hungry people in the state.”Pennsylvania — where as many as 100,000 people could be affected — is working with social services groups to create 30 job training programs for SNAP recipients.However, experts say work opportunities are limited.More than half of SNAP recipients have a high school diploma, but about one-quarter have less, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Available jobs are more likely to have low pay, shifting schedules that might not offer enough qualifying hours and few benefits like paid sick leave.“Work requirements really don’t really do much to affect the rate at which people are working,” said Elaine Waxman at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization. “If people can work and consistently, they pretty much are.”Some states are focusing on rural areas, which have less access to transportation and services.Hawaii, for instance, wants to develop a pilot program to help 400 Molokai residents keep benefits. The rural island once had a waiver because of high unemployment, but the new rules assign Molokai to the same job market as nearby, more prosperous Maui, even though a 30-minute plane ride is the only way to travel between the islands.The program would use education, training and volunteering to fulfill the work requirement. It’s modeled after similar programs used in remote Alaska, which is seeking waivers for less-populated areas. Roughly 5,000 in Alaska could lose benefits.Attorneys general in nearly 20 states and Washington, D.C., have sued to block the rules. They argue the changes will force people to divert their limited funds, leading to homelessness and health problems.People with food insecurity spend 45% more on medical care annually than those who are food secure, according to a 2018 report by the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.Experts say critics’ worries are founded and point to Kentucky as a case study.Like a handful of states, Kentucky has voluntarily instated time limits for SNAP benefits since 2017. More than 13,000 people in Kentucky lost benefits because they reached the three-month limit, according to a 2019 Urban Institute report.Anecdotally, there’s been an increase in food pantry visits.In Fayette County, which lost its waiver in 2018, the average number of monthly household visits to food pantries jumped from 1,800 to 2,000, according Michael Halligan, CEO of God’s Pantry Food Bank in Lexington.“Starving people does not help them get employment,” said Mary Frances Charlton, a Chicago Coalition for the Homeless attorney.It’s a double whammy for Illinois as Cook County lost its waiver this year because of low unemployment, something that has happened in other states as economic conditions improve. Roughly 90,000 statewide will be affected by the Trump rule change at the same time another approximately 58,000 will risk losing benefits in the Chicago area.For Charlton, it’s been worrisome as many of her clients lack access to mail and internet, and they might not find out until they go grocery shopping and discover a $0 balance on their Illinois Link cards. She’s working to get exemptions for as many as possible.For instance, Butler may qualify because of mental health issues that have made it difficult for him to keep a job. He’s among the residents affected by the county change, but would have faced the same fate under the Trump administration rules.In trying to deal with the volume of questions about the issue, Illinois has dedicated an email address just for the food stamps changes and hopes to add more job training.Inspiration Corporation, a nonprofit, runs a training kitchen and restaurant out of a converted Chicago warehouse. It has proposed increasing its number of spots for SNAP participants from 35 to 45.On a recent day, fractions used in measuring were scrawled on a white board near the kitchen, which serves Southern-inspired fare like grits.Trainee Anthony Redmond, 44, started receiving food stamps when he was released from prison last summer. With the help, he was able to leave a halfway house and find his own place. After the training, he hopes to find employment and keep his benefits.He dreams of opening a fleet of food trucks.“If you take something that a person really needs and depends on and they don’t have any other life skills to get a job, to benefit their family,” he said, “it’s just going to cause trouble.”
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Ukraine’s Parliament Approves Shmyhal as PM Amid Government Reshuffle
Ukraine’s parliament voted in favor of appointing the president’s choice for a new prime minister, 44-year-old Denys Shmyhal, after overwhelmingly accepting the resignation of his predecessor, Oleksiy Honcharuk.In all, 291 members of the Verkhovna Rada voted for Shmyhal’s appointment on Wednesday with 59 opposing, 46 abstaining, and nine not voting.Earlier, 353 lawmakers voted to accept Honcharuk’s resignation, paving the way for Shmyhal to take over the post as part of a reshuffle of the government by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.A total of 49 deputies abstained, while nine did not vote.Ukrainian sources have told RFE/RL that other cabinet members will likely also lose their positions in the shake-up.In a speech before parliament ahead of the votes, Zelenskiy blamed Honcharuk for failing to halt an industrial slump and for not meeting tax collection targets.“We need new brains and new hearts in the government,” said the president, whose approval ratings have been dipping lately.The reshuffling comes less than a year after Zelenskiy ushered in the youngest and freshest government to reduce the influence of oligarchs and eliminate opportunities for corruption — two aspects that have dominated Ukrainian life since the country gained independence in 1991.However, public trust in Zelenskiy has slid from nearly 80 percent in September to around 50 percent last month, polling figures from Kyiv-based policy center Razumkov Center show.The shake-up also comes days after a mission from the International Monetary Fund visited Kyiv to discuss a long-delayed $5.5 billion loan that Ukraine has failed to unlock over policy and legislative disagreements.Shmyhal was named deputy prime minister in February. He previously served as head of the regional administration in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region, where he made a name for himself as a business-friendly governor.In 2017-2019, Shmyhal worked as an executive at DTEK, an energy holding owned by Ukraine’s richest billionaire, Rinat Akhmetov. Shmyhal has rejected allegations that he was close to Akhmetov, saying he never met him and was hired to work for DTEK through a competitive process.A native of Lviv, he headed several business enterprises for most of the previous decade before entering the civil service at the Lviv regional administration. He has studied abroad, including in Belgium, Canada, Georgia, and Finland.A 35-year-old former lawyer and a political newcomer, Honcharuk was named prime minister in August 2019.He previously submitted his resignation on January 17, amid a scandal surrounding an audio recording in which he allegedly disparages the economic knowledge and competence of both himself and Zelenskiy.Zelenskiy at the time declined to accept it.
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No Money for Masterpieces: Louvre Bans Cash Over Virus Fears
The Louvre is no longer taking cash, because of the coronavirus outbreak. The world’s most-visited museum is shifting to card-only payments as part of new measures that helped persuade employees worried about getting sick to return to work Wednesday. Louvre workers who guard Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and other masterpieces walked off the job on Sunday, fearful of being contaminated by the museum’s flow of tourists from around the world.
The Louvre’s move could bring it into conflict with the Bank of France, which said refusing cash is illegal and unnecessary.
Fears that banknotes might be vectors of disease aren’t restricted to the Louvre. Visitors stand in line to enter the Chateau de Versailles, west of Paris, March 3, 2020.At the Versailles Palace, another huge tourist draw on the outskirts of Paris, employees also are worrying about handling banknotes and tickets during the virus epidemic, although the former residence of French royalty still takes cash for now.
Public health historian Patrick Zylberman says the fear of getting diseases from money is age-old. In the Middle Ages, banknotes were cleansed with smoke because it was thought their use contributed to the spread of plague, Zylberman said. Egypt also smoked banknotes during a 1940s cholera epidemic, he said.
Zylberman laughed when told of the Louvre’s new refusal of cash payments from the museum’s tens of thousands of daily visitors.
“It’s a bit risible to go backwards by several centuries and act as our predecessors did in the 17th century,” he said. “That shows how nervous people are during an epidemic.”
But the Bank of France said said vendors aren’t allowed to refuse cash payments because banknotes are legal tender and because banks from the 19-country eurozone regularly test them to see if they present a danger to public health.
“There is no proof that the coronavirus has been spread by euro banknotes,” the bank said in a statement to The Associated Press.
FILE – The Louvre museum is pictured in Paris, March 2, 2020.The Louvre’s decision to only accept bank cards for payments was among the anti-virus measures laid out in detail in a document sent to staff Tuesday and seen by the AP.
The Louvre confirmed Wednesday that the museum will no longer accept cash, although it also noted that half of its tickets sales already take place online.
“Cash is finished,” said Andre Sacristin, a union representative at the Louvre. “It is a temporary measure during the epidemic.”
“Money is very dirty and a vector of bacteria,” Sacristin added. “It’s hand-to-hand and there are direct physical contacts.”
Louvre employees will also be distanced from the snaking line of visitors in the room where the “Mona Lisa” is displayed. Instead of rubbing shoulders with visitors in the room itself, workers will be posted at entrances and on the edges of the habitually large crowds waiting to see the iconic portrait.
There have also been discussions between Eiffel Tower workers and managers over the use of banknotes, but no decision has been made.
At the Versailles Palace, union representative Damien Bodereau said staff members also are worried about handling cash and “worried about checking tickets.”
But refusing cash might not be practical, because “some people don’t have bank cards,” he said. “It could be complicated.”
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Freedom & Democracy Eroding Globally, Annual Report Finds
Wednesday, the nonprofit group, Freedom House, releases its annual report on freedom and the state of democracy around the world. Continuing a 14-year trend, some of the findings are discouraging. As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, the group says individual freedoms and democratic systems are under attack.
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Soldiers Occupy Guinea-Bissau Supreme Court Grounds, Judges Say
A dozen soldiers have occupied the grounds of Guinea-Bissau’s Supreme Court, the court said Tuesday, deepening a post-election crisis that has resulted in the appointment of rival presidents and the silencing of state media. The West African country’s military, which has regularly intervened in politics in recent decades, vowed to remain neutral ahead of the December election. But the presence last week of senior army officials at the contentious inauguration of Umaro Cissoko Embalo as president appeared to signal it had picked a side. The electoral commission has repeatedly confirmed Embalo as the winner of the December 29 runoff despite complaints by the Supreme Court and the declared runner-up that the commission had not respected the court’s orders to conduct a full audit of the vote. On Monday, soldiers occupied the Supreme Court’s grounds in Bissau, the capital, blocking entry to judges and officials, court spokesman Salimo Vieira told Reuters. “The soldiers are still refusing entry to the Supreme Court, which cannot function,” he said, adding that other courts had also been occupied by the military. State media silentState radio has been silent and the state television channel has shown only a blank screen since Saturday. Streets in Bissau have remained quiet. An Embalo representative, Bamba Cote, said Embalo had asked the army chief of staff for troops to occupy “public institutions as well as radio and TV stations in order to enable the formation of the new cabinet and its installation in the state institutions.” The soldiers will return to their barracks on Wednesday or Thursday, Cote told Reuters. Domingos Simoes Pereira, candidate of the majority party in parliament and shown by the official results as losing the runoff to Embalo, has denounced his rival’s inauguration as a coup. In the ongoing standoff, Pereira’s allies in parliament had appointed the speaker as a rival interim president after Embalo’s inauguration. The speaker, Cipriano Cassama, withdrew his claim to the presidency on Sunday, citing the risk of civil war. Multiple coupsGuinea-Bissau has witnessed nine coups or attempted coups since independence from Portugal in 1974, most recently in 2012 when an election was abandoned after soldiers stormed the presidential palace. In a statement Sunday, West African regional bloc ECOWAS said Embalo’s inauguration had taken place “outside legal and constitutional frameworks” and warned about “the interference of the defense and security forces in the political sphere.” The December election was meant to end five years of institutional chaos in which then-President Jose Mario Vaz cycled through seven different prime ministers during a series of political disputes. “The military seem to be trying to give the final word on things,” said analyst Vincent Foucher of the French National Centre for Scientific Research. “It’s clear whose side the army is on.”
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Congressional Primaries: Sessions in Alabama Senate Runoff
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ bid for redemption evolved into a struggle for political survival as he was forced into a runoff for the Republican Senate nomination from Alabama, a seat he owned for 20 years before his rocky stay in the Trump administration.In all, Super Tuesday voters in four states — including North Carolina, Texas and California — picked dozens of candidates for Election Day’s contest for control of Congress. The races were giving party leaders an initial look at whether 2020 voters were reacting to the combative era of President Donald Trump by showing a preference for centrist or ideological candidates.
North Carolina Democrats chose establishment-backed moderate Cal Cunningham over a progressive challenger to battle incumbent GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, who was easily renominated. That set the stage for a pivotal November showdown that will help decide which party runs the Senate next year.
And in Texas, MJ Hegar, backed by national Democrats, was advancing to a runoff for her party’s nod to oppose GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who cruised to renomination. Hegar’s runoff rival was unclear in incomplete returns early Wednesday.
Sessions was hoping the sour relationship he endured with Trump as his first attorney general wouldn’t derail his Alabama comeback bid. He faces a March 31 runoff against Tommy Tuberville, a political novice and former Auburn football coach.
In incomplete results, Sessions trailed Tuberville slightly and lagged behind the combined total for Tuberville and Rep. Bradley Byrne, his next nearest rival, by nearly 2-1, a clear danger sign for a household name like Sessions. Alabama requires a runoff if no candidate receives more than half the primary’s votes.
Sessions was one of the most conservative senators when he became Trump’s first attorney general in 2017. Their relationship crumbled, and Sessions resigned the next year after he enraged Trump by recusing himself from the Justice Department’s probe of Russian assistance to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Sessions cast himself as a Trump loyalist anyway. Trump remained virtually silent, which didn’t help Sessions. But the president had plenty to say Wednesday when he tweeted: “This is what happens to someone who loyally gets appointed Attorney General of the United States & then doesn’t have the wisdom or courage to stare down & end the phony Russia Witch Hunt.”
Sessions’ rivals touted their own fealty to Trump, with Tuberville saying in an ad, “God sent us Donald Trump.”
The GOP primary winner will be favored in November’s election in the deep-red state against Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat. Jones defeated former Alabama state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore in a 2017 special election after Moore was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with teenagers decades ago when he was in his 30s. Moore limped this time to a weak fourth-place finish.
The congressional contests were undercards to the day’s Democratic presidential primaries in 14 states and one territory. Moderate former Vice President Joe Biden was waging a reinvigorated fight against avowed democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, all but winnowing the field to a two-candidate competition over confronting Trump in November.
Still, Tuesday’s races marked the start of months of congressional primaries.
North Carolina’s Tillis is one of the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbents as it defends its 53-47 Senate majority. He alienated conservatives by briefly opposing Trump’s move to defy Congress and channel federal funds to building a wall along the Mexican border. Tillis’ fate will hinge on how Trump, who’s since endorsed him, fares in the swing state come November.
Cunningham is a former state senator who served as an Army lawyer in Iraq and Afghanistan and whose centrist stances were attractive to party leaders.
His closest competitor was liberal state Sen. Erica Smith, who waged a long-shot effort to become the first African American woman elected to the Senate from the South. She was badly outspent, despite $3 million disbursed on her behalf by allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who’d hoped to undermine Cunningham.
In Texas, Cornyn was nominated for a fourth term and seems difficult for Democrats to dislodge in November.
Hegar, the Democrat, lost a surprisingly close 2018 House race and was backed by her party’s hierarchy after former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke declined to challenge Cornyn. She was an Air Force helicopter pilot who was wounded in Afghanistan.
Her challengers included longtime state Sen. Royce West and Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, a liberal political organizer endorsed by progressive luminaries like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
In a district wriggling from the Mexican border to San Antonio, eight-term Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, one of the House’s most conservative Democrats, was trying to hold his sprawling South Texas district against liberal challenger Jessica Cisneros.
Around Fort Worth, 12-term GOP Rep. Kay Granger foiled a challenge from conservative Chris Putnam. Granger, who has helped cut budget compromises as top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, was criticized as too moderate by Putnam, who drew support from the anti-spending Club for Growth.
Conservative Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy will defend his district, which stretches west from Austin and San Antonio, against Democrat Wendy Davis. He will be favored against Davis, who is best known for her 13-hour 2013 filibuster against an anti-abortion bill in the state Senate.
Former Rep. Pete Sessions, defeated in his Dallas district in 2018 after 11 terms, made a GOP runoff for a more Republican-leaning open seat around Waco. And former Trump White House physician Ronny Jackson reached a Republican runoff for a North Texas district.
California, whose heavily Democratic 53-seat delegation is Congress’ largest, featured all-party primaries Tuesday. Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles might face a liberal challenger when each contest’s top two finishers meet in November.
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