Nigeria is reopening schools for the graduating class on the advice of a task force that students get help in preparing for examinations. The chairman of the presidential task force on COVID-19 Boss Mustapha said, the federal government also lifted the ban on interstate movement outside curfew hours and reopened airports for domestic flights. Mustapha also said, President Muhammadu Bihari approved the extension of the phased lockdown for four weeks, meaning the 10 pm – 4 am nationwide curfew, restrictions on mass gatherings and sporting activities will continue. Nigeria’s mandate for face masks in public places remains in effect. So far, Nigeria has confirmed more than 25,100 COVID-19 cases and more than 570 deaths.
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Month: June 2020
COVID-19 Spreading in US Too Fast to Control, CDC Expert Says
The novel coronavirus is spreading too fast and across too many places in the United States to bring it under control, a top expert said Monday as some states set records for new cases every day. “We have way too much virus across the country for that right now, so it’s very discouraging,” Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told The Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Schuchat called the surge in new cases just “the beginning,” and said new cases are not being rapidly identified and isolated with proper contact tracing. “I think there was a lot of wishful thinking around the country that, hey it’s summer. Everything’s going to be fine. We’re over this and we are not even beginning to be over this. There are a lot of worrisome factors about the last week or so,” she said. A patient returns his testing sample at a self-collection COVID-19 testing site, Monday, June 29, 2020, in Houston. COVID-19 cases continue to surge across Texas.Dr. Schuchat appealed to people to wear masks, practice social distancing and not to expect any kind of relief until there’s a vaccine. The city of Jacksonville, Florida, where the Republican Party will hold its convention in August, said Monday it will require masks for all public locations. State officials have also halted alcohol consumption at bars because of what Governor Ron DeSantis called “widespread noncompliance.” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday that indoor dining will not resume as planned this week because of the threat of the virus. The Trump administration has said only 4% of U.S. counties has seen a jump in new coronavirus cases. But according to the Associated Press, more than 20% of the U.S. population lives in those counties. Arizona, California, Florida and Texas are among the states that have seen the biggest spike in new cases. President Donald Trump, with members of the president’s coronavirus task force, listens as Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC at the White House, Feb. 26, 2020The United States is expected to be on the European Union’s list of countries whose citizens are barred from traveling there because of COVID-19. Diplomats say Brazil, India and Russia are also expected to be on the list because of their high number of cases. “This is not an exercise to be nice or unfriendly to other countries, this is an exercise of self-responsibility,” Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, told Spanish radio. EU diplomats say the list will be revised every 14 days. President Donald Trump suspended most European travelers from entering the United States in March. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the worst of the coronavirus outbreak is over in Canada but urged citizens to stay alert. “After a very challenging spring things are continuing to move in the right direction,” Trudeau said Monday. “What the situation we’re seeing in the United States and elsewhere highlights for us is that even as our economy is reopening, we need to make sure we are continuing to remain vigilant.” Non-essential border crossings between the United States and Canada are set to expire on July 21. But it is unclear how Canada will react if the surge in cases in the United States continues. Canadian-based Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group filed for bankruptcy protection Monday after the coronavirus pandemic forced it to cancel shows and lay off about 95% of its performers and staff. In New York, Broadway theaters that first closed in March because of the coronavirus outbreak will now remain shut through the end of the year. The shutdown has meant temporarily closing 31 plays and musicals, and putting as many as 100,000 actors, musicians, dancers, stagehands, and other theater professionals out of work.
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Nigeria’s Slave Descendants Hope Race Protests Help End Discrimination
Nigeria’s slave descendants hope race protests help end discrimination”>When Barack Obama was elected the first Black U.S. president in 2008, Anthony Uzoije noticed less contempt towards descendants of slaves like him in his south-eastern Nigeria community.Uzoije, from Ogbaru in Anambra state, now hopes Black Lives Matter protests globally will inspire similar change for him and the Igbo people, one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa and principal group enslaved during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.It is estimated that between 10 and 20% of Igbos – amounting to many millions of people – are descendants of slaves and still face significant discrimination, which has sparked unrest and violence in recent years in some areas.Slave descendants are banned by traditional law and custom from traditional leadership positions and belonging to prestigious local groups. So-called “freeborn” people are forbidden from marrying them, according to the culture in many communities.”People began to see that if the white man can allow Obama to be president, why can’t you allow your fellow black to occupy whatever position. People began to realize that what they were doing is nonsense,” said Uzoije, 67, who is the chairman of the Ogbaru People’s Convention, an association of slave descendants.”When people here see that there is more equality between the black and the white people in America, it will affect the way they treat their fellow black brother,” Uzoije told the Thomson Reuters Foundation via phone from his home in Onitsha.The British colonial administration officially abolished slavery in Nigeria in the early 20th century and finally eradicated it in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but the descendants of slaves retained the stigma of their ancestors.The discrimination continues and not just against descendants of slaves in south-eastern Nigeria, with similar reports from countries across Africa, including Ghana, Senegal, and Benin Republic.For while no data exists on the number of slave descendants in Nigeria or in Africa, communities know about every family’s history and lineage so it is impossible to hide.Laws against such discrimination exist in the Nigerian constitution and, in 1956, legislators in what was then the Eastern Nigeria house of assembly, voted overwhelmingly for a law banning the discrimination against slave descendants.But these laws are difficult to enforce, especially at the grassroots level where people pay more attention to traditional beliefs than to the country’s constitution, and where there are social implications of violating local laws.For the past three years, 44-year-old Oge Maduagwu has been traveling to different communities in south-eastern Nigeria to advocate for equal rights for descendants of slaves.With the recent BLM protests, she hopes those responsible for the ongoing discrimination in Nigeria and across Africa will re-examine their attitudes, and that more Africans globally join the fight against the inequality in their own homelands.”They should realize what the black people in America are going through is exactly what the slave descendants here are going through,” said Maduagwu, founder of the Initiative for the Eradication of Traditional and Cultural Stigmatisation in our Society (IFETACSIOUS).”(They must) find a way to abolish it here before they raise their voices against what the whites are doing over there.Maduagwu’s activism was inspired by the widespread opposition to marriage with slave descendants.She is not a slave descendant herself but witnessed the discrimination while growing up in Oguta in Imo State of south-eastern Nigeria.She finally decided to do something to bring it to an end after a close friend was prevented from marrying someone she loved because he was descended from a slave.”She was devastated and moved in with me for two weeks and we inconsolably cried together,” Maduagwu said from her home in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.”Her pain became my pain. The humanity and activism in me came alive.”Maduagwu founded the charity IFETACSIOUS in 2017 to facilitate dialog between traditional leaders and descendants of slaves, providing a forum where they can address the laws and customs that promote discrimination.Her work has taken her to about five of Nigeria’s 36 states, including Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo.She has achieved some success, with a handful of traditional leaders openly declaring an end to all discrimination against slave descendants.For Maduagwu it is vital this is a peaceful process. She is concerned that the agitation for equality has turned violent in the past, as has been the case in some parts of the United States.”Healing will not come through fighting,” she said.While there are hundreds of slave descendants in Uzoije’s community, the Ogbaru People’s Convention has 40 registered members whose activism has prompted some changes.For example by pressuring religious leaders to intervene in cases where romance with slave descendants was opposed by families, some of their children have gone on to marry so-called “freeborn” citizens.”When a young man sees a lady he wants to marry, they should allow them. That is the important thing,” Uzoije said.He noted, however, that the change in attitudes following Obama’s election was not necessarily accompanied by a change in laws. Descendants of slaves in Ogbaru are still not allowed to run for local leadership positions.”Change is gradual. It’s not automatic,” he said.
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China Passes Controversial Hong Kong Security Law
China’s parliament passed national security legislation for Hong Kong on Tuesday, setting the stage for the most radical changes to the former British colony’s way of life since it returned to Chinese rule almost exactly 23 years ago.Cable TV, citing an unidentified source, said the law was passed unanimously by the Chinese parliament’s top decision-making body.The legislation pushes Beijing further along a collision course with the United States, Britain and other Western governments, which have said it erodes the high degree of autonomy the global financial hub was granted at its July 1, 1997 handover.The United States began eliminating Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law on Monday, halting defense exports and restricting the territory’s access to high technology products.Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, speaking at her regular weekly news conference, said it was not appropriate for her to comment on the legislation as the meeting in Beijing was still ongoing, but threw a jibe at Washington.”No sort of sanctioning action will ever scare us,” Lam said.A draft of the law has yet to be published. Beijing says the law, which comes in response to last year’s often-violent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, aims to tackle subversion, terrorism, separatism and collusion with foreign forces.This month, China’s official state agency Xinhua unveiled some of its provisions, including that it would supersede existing Hong Kong legislation and that the power of interpretation belongs to China’s parliament top committee.Beijing is expected to set up a national security office in Hong Kong to “supervise, guide and support” the city government. Beijing could also exercise jurisdiction on certain cases.Judges for security cases are expected to be appointed by the city’s chief executive. Senior judges now allocate rosters up through Hong Kong’s independent judicial system.It is still unclear which specific activities are to be made illegal, how precisely they are defined or what punishment they carry.The South China Morning Post (SCMP), quoting an unnamed source, said Xinhua will publish details of the law on Tuesday afternoon and Hong Kong officials will gather at Beijing’s top representative office in the city later in the day for a meeting on the legislation.Authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong have repeatedly said the legislation is aimed at a few “troublemakers” and will not affect rights and freedoms, nor investor interests.The law comes into force as soon as it is gazetted in Hong Kong, which is seen as imminent.Police have banned this year’s July 1 rally on the anniversary of the 1997 handover, citing coronavirus restrictions. It is unclear if attending the rally would constitute a national security crime if the law came into force by Wednesday.The SCMP, citing “police insiders,” said about 4,000 officers will be on stand by on Wednesday to handle any unrest if people defy the ban.Hong Kong is one of many developing conflicts between Beijing and Washington, on top of trade issues, the South China Sea and the coronavirus pandemic.Britain has said the security law would violate China’s international obligations and its handover agreement, which promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for 50 years under a “one country, two systems” formula.Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Tuesday that if China had passed the security law for Hong Kong, it was “extremely regrettable.”The European Parliament earlier in June passed a resolution saying the European Union should take China to the International Court of Justice in The Hague if Beijing imposed the law.Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries have called on China not to push the legislation.China has hit back at the outcry from the West, denouncing what it called interference in its internal affairs.Hong Kong stocks were up 0.9% on Tuesday, in line with Asian markets.
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New Swine Flu Found in China Has Pandemic Potential
Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the U.S. science journal PNAS. Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009. It possesses “all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans,” say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. From 2011 to 2018, researchers took 30,000 nasal swabs from pigs in slaughterhouses in 10 Chinese provinces and in a veterinary hospital, allowing them to isolate 179 swine flu viruses. The majority were of a new kind, which has been dominant among pigs since 2016. The researchers then carried out various experiments including on ferrets, which are widely used in flu studies because they experience similar symptoms to humans, principally fever, coughing and sneezing. G4 was observed to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses. Tests also showed that any immunity humans gain from exposure to seasonal flu does not provide protection from G4. According to blood tests, which showed antibodies created by exposure to the virus, 10.4% of swine workers had already been infected. The tests showed that as many as 4.4% of the general population also appeared to have been exposed. The virus has therefore already passed from animals to humans but there is no evidence yet that it can be passed from human to human, the scientists’ main worry. “It is of concern that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic,” the researchers wrote. The authors called for urgent measures to monitor people working with pigs. “The work comes as a salutary reminder that we are constantly at risk of new emergence of zoonotic pathogens and that farmed animals, with which humans have greater contact than with wildlife, may act as the source for important pandemic viruses,” said James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University. A zoonotic infection is caused by a pathogen that has jumped from a non-human animal into a human.
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US Procures Almost Entire Supply of COVID-19 Drug
The Trump administration says it has locked down nearly the entire supply of one of the only available anti-COVID-19 drugs from the manufacturer for the next several months. That raises questions about access to one of the few treatments available for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, for much of the rest of the world. Remdesivir is the first drug shown to help patients with COVID-19, though its impact is modest. Hospitalized patients given the drug recovered four days faster than those given a placebo. FILE – Vials of the drug remdesivir are seen at a hospital in Germany, April 8, 2020.FILE – Gilead Sciences pharmaceutical company is seen during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in La Verne, California.The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, the drug pricing watchdog, said Gilead’s price is “reasonable,” provided the drug ultimately shows it can save lives.Gilead donated the first 1.5 million doses worldwide. The United States received more than 900,000, according to health news website Stat. “The U.S. was certainly at the front of the line for the donated remdesivir,” said Brook Baker, professor of law at Northeastern University and a senior policy analyst for Health Global Access Project. “Now, we find out that the U.S. is wholly at the front of the line for all the additional half-million doses to be produced between now and basically the end of September.” “There’s no way to explain this than to say, well, somehow between the U.S. government and Gilead, they have collusively agreed that for whatever reason, Americans come first,” he added. Gilead says it is ramping up production and aims to have 2 million treatment courses available by December, up from 190,000 at the end of June. “We are doing everything we can to accelerate manufacturing timelines and quantities of remdesivir to meet the growing demand for emergency use of the medicine from around the world,” the company said in a statement. The company said it has “multiple manufacturing partners in North America, Europe and Asia” that are “capable of producing large volumes of remdesivir at the fastest pace feasible,” but did not provide details or answer requests for comment.The global pandemic so far has claimed more than 500,000 lives and infected more than 10 million people worldwide, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. The World Health Organization and a number of public-private partnerships are aiming to make access to COVID-19 countermeasures equitable around the world.The U.S. government has put billions of dollars into research and development of COVID-19 treatments, vaccines and diagnostics. “Rich countries have more money to spend on research and development,” Baker said. “Does that mean that only rich people get medicine? That’s highly problematic in a moral, ethical sense.”
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Former French PM Fillon Guilty of Fraud
A Parisian court Monday found former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon guilty of using public money to pay his wife more than $1 million for work she never performed.Fillon was sentenced to five years in prison — three years suspended — and fined more than $423,000. He is also barred from running for public office for 10 years. His wife, Penelope, was convicted as an accomplice. She was given a three-year suspended sentence and was also fined more than $423,000. Both are free pending appeal, which their lawyers say they will do. ”Naturally, this decision, which is not fair, is going to be appealed. … The ludicrous conditions under which this investigation was triggered, the scandalous conditions in which the discovery was opened, the surprising conditions in which the investigation was then run,” Fillion’s attorney Antonin Levy said. Penelope Fillion’s attorney, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, says prosecutors failed to determine whether her activities were simply traditional help and support a politician’s wife gives her husband. She said her duties included writing reports about local issues, reading mail, preparing speeches and meeting with voters — work she said allowed her to have a flexible schedule and still raise her children. Prosecutors argued that there was little evidence that Penelope Fillion ever worked and said her salary was excessive. Fillion’s lawyers argued that the state cannot interfere with how a politician sets up his office. The scandal broke shortly before the 2017 French presidential election where Fillon went from being the front-runner to finishing in third place.
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Abortion Foes Vent Disappointment After Supreme Court Ruling
Abortion opponents vented their disappointment and fury on Monday after the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision to strike down a Louisiana law that would have curbed abortion access. The ruling delivered a defeat to anti-abortion activists but could intensify interest in the November election among religious conservatives who are a key part of Trump’s base. Some top religious conservative backers of President Donald Trump noted pointedly that both justices he named to the high court dissented from Monday’s decision, portraying it as an argument to ensure Trump has another term in office to potentially tap more conservative nominees. The Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life and a member of Trump’s Catholic voter outreach effort, said the president’s “two appointees voted the right way” in supporting Louisiana’s ability to require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. “Once again this ruling underscores the importance of elections,” Pavone said in a statement. “We need a solid pro-life majority on the Supreme Court to uphold the rights of women and the unborn.” Johnnie Moore, an evangelical adviser to the Trump administration, said the decision could help motivate anti-abortion activists to vote to reelect the president to give him a third chance to put a nominee on the Supreme Court. “Conservatives know they are on the 1-yard line,” Moore tweeted. “Enthusiasm is already unprecedented, evangelical turnout will be too.” FILE – U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts listens as President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address, January 30, 2018. Roberts sided with the majority in Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on abortion but did not sign onto their opinion.The Trump campaign also invoked the decision to appeal to voters in a statement from deputy communications director Ali Pardo. “This case underscores the importance of re-electing President Trump, who has a record of appointing conservative judges, rather than Joe Biden, who will appoint radical, activist judges who will legislate from the courts,” Pardo said. Some right-leaning abortion foes — including at least three congressional Republicans — responded to the decision by criticizing Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by President George W. Bush. Roberts concurred with the court’s four more liberal justices while not signing onto their opinion in the case. “Chief Justice Roberts is at it again with his political gamesmanship,” Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tweeted. “This time he has sided with abortion extremists who care more about providing abortion on demand than protecting women’s health.” “Americans hoping for justice for women and unborn babies were let down again today by John Roberts,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said in a statement. “What’s next, Chief Justice Roberts? Our Second Amendment rights?” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tweeted. But Roberts’ move to stand apart from his more liberal colleagues, contextualizing his vote as one to protect the court’s past precedent, left other religious conservatives vowing to rededicate themselves to their fight to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights. Anti-abortion protesters wait outside the Supreme Court for a decision, June 29, 2020. in Washington.”This case was about whether the state has the right to ensure that abortionists who take women’s money also provide for their safety,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a prominent pro-Trump evangelical ally, said in a statement, adding that “I do look forward to the day when the Supreme Court will correct the gross injustice of the Roe v. Wade decision that has led to the killing of tens of millions of unborn babies.” Russell Moore, president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, defended Louisiana’s abortion law as “placing the most minimal restrictions possible on an abortion industry that insists on laissez-faire for itself and its profits.” “Nonetheless, we will continue to seek an America where vulnerable persons, including unborn children and their mothers, are seen as precious, not disposable,” said Moore, who leads the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. The chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, said in a statement that Catholics would “grieve this decision” but would “continue to pray and fight for justice for mothers and children.” O. Carter Snead, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, said in a statement that Roberts’ positioning in the decision was “cold comfort” on an otherwise “sad day.” Support for rescinding Roe remains strong among evangelical Protestants. Sixty-one percent of them said they wanted to see the court fully overturn the decision in a survey conducted last year by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. That survey found support for overturning Roe at 28% among Catholics and 42% among Protestants generally. The court’s abortion ruling on Monday follows its 6-3 decision earlier this month that found a central provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shields LGBT people from employment discrimination. Religious conservatives also openly lamented that decision, while noting that potential faith-based exemptions could be carved out.
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In France, Police Stage Counter Protests
In the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody in the U.S. city of Minneapolis, the passionate debate has spread to France, sparking protests against alleged police brutality and racism. French policemen rebuke the criticism as unfair.For the past few weeks, protesters in France have been demanding police reforms and the end an alleged police immunity. Their protests have met strong resistance from the security forces and their unions. Officers have been organizing counter-protests, throwing their handcuffs on the ground as a sign of anger and what they see as a lack of support by the government.At one of those demonstrations – on the Champs-Elysées in Paris – a French police officer declined to give his name.He believes police officers are stigmatized in France and he feels the need to speak out because, he says, the police are not racist. He says the other big issues that should be addressed are the chokehold technique and what he says is the lack of consideration of police officers. He says that five years ago (during the 2015 Paris attacks) French policemen were considered as heroes and now – he says – they would be nobody.Chokehold banThe chokehold is a controversial technique that the French government wanted to ban in order to show it has zero tolerance for racism and violence among its security forces. Facing a backlash from policemen and women, the authorities have backtracked. Instead, the government has ruled this technique will no longer be taught to police officers and prison staff, but the leadership stopped short of imposing a total ban.Besides this important victory for them, policemen argue that they are being abandoned by the state. Police unions have been organizing frequent rallies to pressure the government.The protests show how difficult it is to carry out a thorough reform of the police sector.But Human rights advocates say the protests show France, and the world, have no choice. Cecile Coudriou, is president of Amnesty International in France. “We think it is a sign that what we really need in France is a global reform, not only one measure or the other but a true revision of the doctrine itself, based on de-escalation because law and enforcement is too often based on repression, use of force before trying to rely on dialogue, communication and de-escalation,” said Coudriou.In a further attempt to quell police officers’ discontent, France said it was widening the testing of tasers. French Interior minister Christophe Castaner pledged unconditional support for the rank and file.He explains that only security forces have the authority to use legitimate force, that it is only they who defend democratic order. That, he says, is the core of their missions and they need to accomplish it with restraint and exemplarity. Castaner says French policemen should work without fear when they perform their duty according to the rules.A police watchdog in France says it received almost 1,500 complaints against officers last year – half of them for alleged violence.
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Ugandan Creates COVID Shield for Motorcycles
As part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, a Ugandan innovator has come up with a plastic shield for motorcycles to protect both driver and passenger. The shield is seen as not just reducing body contact, which could spread the virus, but also adding security for motorcycle taxi drivers.Uganda has hundreds of thousands of motorcycles on its roads, and most of them work as taxis known as boda-bodas.But since April with the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has banned motorcycle taxis because of the close proximity between the driver and passengers.To solve that problem, Dickson Ngirani created a plastic shield to mount between them.“We believe the shield is entirely going to protect the passenger from getting contaminations on the road in the process of moving. No. 2, he will not get in direct contact with the rider,” said Ngirani.Four months into Uganda’s lockdown, boda-boda drivers — currently allowed only to deliver goods — are struggling to make a living.Drivers such as Fred Luwaga are urging authorities to let them take passengers if they use the shield.”He says, this shield, we all as boda-boda riders should use it, because I see there’s a distance. He says, if I am seated here, and the passenger is at the back, I don’t see how we are going to get infected by COVID-19,” he said.Uganda’s Ministry of Works and Transport says it is investigating the effectiveness of the shield.The ministry’s chief engineer, Tony Kavuma, says one concern is that passengers will wrongly believe the shield is all they need for protection.“That is the use of the masks and the helmet. A fully covered helmet. Because that one. One, it shields the rider. In case he or she is infected, they will be able to contain the droplets. That’s No. 1. Two, in case of a fall, it will also protect the head,” he said.It’s not clear when Ugandan authorities will allow passengers back onto boda-bodas.Meanwhile, Ngirani said they are manufacturing more shields in anticipation of high demand.
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White House Defends Trump Not Being Briefed on Russia ‘Bounty’ for US Soldiers
The White House is on the defensive about President Donald Trump not being briefed on reports that a Russian military intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. soldiers. “It was not verified,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday when reporters asked why the president was not told of the information. “There were dissenting opinions within the intelligence community,” she added. The White House did conduct a Monday afternoon briefing for eight House Republicans about the matter amid bipartisan calls by members of Congress for transparency. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to give the full 435-member House of Representatives a briefing on the issue. “Congress needs to know what the intelligence community knows about this significant threat to American troops and our allies and what options are available to hold Russia accountable,” Pelosi said in a statement.
FILE – House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill, April 12, 2018.In the Senate, the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said he wants all 100 senators briefed by the heads of the CIA and the director of national intelligence. “We need to know whether or not President Trump was told this information, and if so, when,” Schumer said in a statement. Trump tweeted Sunday he was not briefed. FILE – U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks in Washington, March 22, 2020.”Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP,” the president said on Twitter, referencing Vice President Mike Pence. The New York Times was the first to report that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and covert operations in Europe aimed at destabilizing the West, had carried out the mission in Afghanistan last year and that he had been briefed about it in late March. According to The Washington Post, U.S. forces suffered 28 deaths from 2018 to 2020. An additional number of service members also died in attacks by members of the Afghan security forces, which may have been infiltrated by the Taliban, the newspaper reported. The intelligence originated with U.S. Special Operations forces in Afghanistan and was verified by the CIA, the Post said. According to a former National Security Council spokesman, Ned Price, “Only infrequently would the president be briefed on raw, uncorroborated intelligence” but according to the reports that is not the case with this information “gleaned from site exploration in Afghanistan, corroborated by detainee briefings and further corroborated by broader all-source collection and analysis.” Price was among those who provided then-President Barack Obama with his daily intelligence briefing. Price also noted to VOA that various senior administration officials, including Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, “had staked out positions on how to respond to Russia. If this truly were raw, uncorroborated reporting, there wouldn’t have been high-level policy discussions regarding a response.” Both Russia and the Taliban deny the reports of the bounties, with the Kremlin calling them “baseless and anonymous accusations.”Reaction from TalibanA spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, rejected the report that the insurgents have “any such relations with any intelligence agency” and called the newspaper report an attempt to defame them. FILE – Members of a Taliban negotiating team enter the venue hosting U.S.-Taliban talks in the Qatari capital Doha, Aug. 29, 2019.”These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless — our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources,” he said. “That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure, and we don’t attack them.” Earlier this year, the United States and Taliban signed an “agreement for bringing peace” to Afghanistan after more than 18 years of conflict. The U.S. and NATO allies have agreed to withdraw all troops by next year if the militants uphold the deal. A former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, Mick Mulroy, terms as disturbing the reports about Moscow paying a bounty to the Taliban, noting Russia is deemed an enemy of the United States in the U.S. national security strategy. “We do not want a war with Russia and we do not want to start killing each other’s soldier, but there are some actions you can’t accept,” Mulroy, also a former CIA paramilitary officer, and currently an ABC News national security analyst, told VOA. “If we have solid evidence that this is being done and our forces are being killed, the gloves should be hitting the floor.” VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Green Party Surges in France’s Local Elections
Some are calling it an historic moment for France’s Greens party, others for the environmental movement in general. The Greens went from controlling just one major French city — Grenoble — to capturing a string of other large and mid-sized towns, including Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg and Besançon. “What changed this election, the most important idea is ecology,” said Maud Lelievre a spokeswoman for Les Eco Maires, a group of environmentally minded local officials across France. She believes coronavirus and the lockdown helped reshape people’s priorities. Lelievre said it’s more important for people, for climate, for biodiversity, for food. But turnout was low, with just 40% of France’s electorate casting ballots. Greens party lawmaker Yannick Jadot hailed the victory, saying the environment and solidarity drove the vote. He said he hoped President Emmanuel Macron got the message. The vote was indeed a blow for President Macron, who faces re-election in two years. His young, centrist Republic on the Move party has yet to gain a strong local foothold. Critics say Macron has failed to deliver on his environmental promises, including fighting climate change. On Monday, Macron promised nearly $17 billion in new climate-related financing. He is also expected to reshuffle his cabinet in the coming days. That might include ousting his popular prime minister, Edouard Philippe, who scored one of the government’s rare victories in being elected mayor of the northern city of Le Havre. In Paris, Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo won by a wide margin, with support from the Greens. Hidalgo’s push to make the capital bike and pedestrian friendly has been divisive — but it seems to have paid off. France’s far right National Rally party scored one major victory, winning control of the southern city of Perpignan.
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Man Killed, Teen Wounded in Seattle Protest Zone Shooting
Police in Seattle say a shooting early Monday in Seattle’s self-declared occupied protest zone in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood has left one man dead and a 14-year-old boy wounded. The Seattle Police Department responded to multiple reports of shots fired at about 3 a.m. near 12th Avenue and Pike Street. Police said callers reported several unidentified people had fired shots into a white Jeep that had been at or near one of the barriers of the protest zone. Susan Gregg, a spokeswoman at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, reported that one man who was admitted following the shooting had died. Police said the second victim, a 14-year-old male, was hospitalized with gunshot injuries. No suspects have been publicly identified. Police said they were investigating the incident, but while searching the Jeep for evidence discovered that the crime scene had been “disturbed.” Police say this is the second fatal shooting in the area, which has come to be known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone, or CHOP. It was established June 8 by demonstrators protesting police brutality and the killing of George Floyd after the Seattle Police Department vacated the East Precinct there. Speaking to reporters at the scene Monday, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said, “Enough is enough,” and said it was time for the protesters to leave the area for the sake of public safety. She said the two fatal shootings and multiple injuries over the past week and a half demonstrate the situation is “dangerous and unacceptable.”
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Experts: New National Security Law Likely to Expand China’s Control Over Hong Kong
China’s top law-making body is expected to pass a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong on Tuesday – a move that many critics and ordinary Hong Kongers fear will empower the Communist Party to tighten its control and threaten the unique status of the freest city on Chinese soil. In the wake of the yearlong protests in Hong Kong sparked by a controversial extradition bill that could see individuals sent to China for trials, China has repeatedly told Hong Kong leaders to enact legislation to plug the “loophole” of national security. In October, China’s Communist Party leaders unveiled steps to “safeguard national security” in Hong Kong.In late May, China shocked many by announcing it would impose a sweeping national security law through an annex of the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law. China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, has been holding a three-day deliberation on the security law since Sunday. The law is expected to pass on Tuesday. Although Hong Kong reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997, its post-handover mini-constitution, the Basic Law, safeguards the city’s basic freedoms and civil liberties, as well as the rule of law, according to the common law tradition. A government-sponsored advertisement promoting the new national security law is seen at Eastern Harbour Crossing ahead of national security legislation, in Hong Kong, June 29, 2020.Human rights and legal experts say the details of the national security law released so far by the Chinese state media contain a series of draconian measures that allow the Chinese authorities the right to exercise jurisdiction “under special circumstances” over what they call “a minority” of national security cases, as well as the power to detain and try suspects.The national security law, according to the draft law, is also supposed to override Hong Kong legislation “should conflicts arise,” while the power of interpreting the new law is vested in the National People’s Congress Standing Committee. “The authorities’ assertion that the national security law will only affect a tiny minority is hardly reassuring when the law includes repressive measures that could be used to target literally anyone the government chooses,” said Joshua Rosenzweig, head of Amnesty International’s China section. Critics say the law would quickly sabotage Hong Kong’s rule of law and its safeguards of civil liberties and human rights — the cornerstones of its success as a bustling Asian financial hub. Some predict this will trigger the city’s quick demise. They also decry the lack of clear definition over what activities constitute national security crimes and say the power granted to the Chinese security authorities would essentially enable them to take over any case they wish. Police officers stand guard as people gather during a pro-democracy rally supporting human rights and to protest against Beijing’s national security law in Hong Kong, June 28, 2020.According to a summary of the draft, punishment would be handed down for offenses relating to secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, but no further details have been given so far. On the eve of the law’s expected passage, Hong Kong’s NOW TV reported that the maximum penalty for secession and subversion would be a life sentence. Ching Cheong, a veteran Hong Kong journalist and political commentator who had been jailed for three years in China, said the national security law is foisting upon Hong Kong the ideology, thinking and behavior patterns of the Communist Party. “The four crimes — secession, subversion, terrorism, collusion with foreign powers — that the law punishes are determined purely on the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “Under the ‘one-party dictatorship,’ the party and the state are integrated, so criticizing the Communist Party is tantamount to subverting state power. “But in any normal society, criticizing the ruling party or requesting it to step down should not constitute a crime,” he said. Also, according to the draft law, Hong Kong will set up a new national security commission headed by its Beijing-appointed top leader, which will be supervised by the Chinese government. China will also establish an agency to analyze the national security situation in Hong Kong and “monitor, supervise, coordinate and support” the local government’s efforts, collect intelligence and handle relevant cases. FILE – Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong poses for a photo with supporters, June 20, 2020. Wong said that opposing a draft national security law for Hong Kong “could be my last testimony (while) I am still free.”Chinese security agents, which it says are required to follow Hong Kong laws, also will be stationed in the city to deal directly with some cases there. The new law would also grant power to Hong Kong’s top leader to choose judges to handle national security cases in the city — a move criticized by legal experts and rights groups as undermining the principle of the rule of law and impeding the independence of the judiciary. Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing media has also reported the law would include the establishment of special detention centers where suspects in national security cases can be held indefinitely. Pro-Beijing politicians said individuals who breach the security law could also be extradited to China — where courts have a conviction rate of over 99%. Other details known so far include the creation of a special police unit to enforce the national security law and a special prosecution unit created by the city’s department of justice for national security crimes. The law also would require the Hong Kong government to strengthen supervision and management of schools and other organizations on matters relating to national security. Martin Flaherty, a visiting law professor at Princeton University who specializes in human rights issues in China, said he was concerned that the China-designed law would threaten Hong Kong’s judicial independence, traditionally a pride of the former British colony. “The transferring from one jurisdiction to the other means precisely moving from an independent judiciary to one that is constructed to carry out the wishes of the Party and the government,” he said. Flaherty, who has researched China, Northern Ireland and Turkey, believes that Beijing “is perhaps ironically imitating the very bad precedent of many Western nations of setting up a separate and draconian judicial system.” But he stressed that such a law would be “much worse” under the Chinese regime because “it lacks the basic forms of constitutional limits, separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and the basic idea that the rule of law should constrain government and the party.” “The results are there for all to see: the crushing of dissent of any sort, incarceration, torture, trials with preordained results, and the brutal intimidation of lawyers who seek to defend those accused of amorphous laws,” he said of China. “This type of system is established for the ostensible purpose of national security, but is really designed to get easy convictions,” he said, adding that it would undermine due process protections, target the political opposition, and often end up radicalizing the population.
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Реакция Китая на парад и типа новую технику путляндии! Унылая декорация!
Реакция Китая на парад и типа новую технику путляндии! Унылая декорация!
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Последние новости путляндии и мира, экономика, бизнес, культура, технологии, спорт
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Придурок потанин сделал еще хуже. Катастрофа в Норильске
Придурок потанин сделал еще хуже. Катастрофа в Норильске.
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Катастрофа в Норильске не заканчивается, ведь за ее устранение взялся друг опущенного карлика пукина и глава «Норникеля» потанин и они просто сливают отходы в другое озеро. А чего нет то, просто журналисты это засняли, а так они и решают проблемы, создавая еще больше их. А людям по всей стране вешают лапшу на уши, якобы после принятия поправок к Конституции мы заживем и поэтому ходят по квартирам, ведь с явкой большие проблемы
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Крым вскрыл всю подноготную опущенного карлика пукина
Крым вскрыл всю подноготную опущенного карлика пукина
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French President Macron Pledges Nearly $17B for Environmental Programs
French President Emmanuel Macron Monday pledged nearly $17 billion in new funding for environmental programs one day after his party was soundly defeated in local elections across France. At a news conference with Citizens’ Climate Council in Paris, Macron said he would move faster on environment-friendly policymaking and that he was ready to call a referendum on revising the constitution to include climate aims if parliament allowed it. Macron was responding to the climate council’s environmental propositions as France’s Green party — officially known as Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV) — stunned Macron and France in Sunday’s vote when it won control of large cities including Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, often in alliance with leftist allies. The Greens’ victories in towns and cities put Macron under pressure to act on the environment. While supporting many of their proposals, Macron told the climate council he disagreed with its call for a four percent tax on dividends to help finance new greener policies, saying such a levy would discourage investments. He said a bill will be drafted and presented to lawmakers by the end of the summer to advance France’s ecological transition goals. Macron’s ruling party emerged from Sunday’s elections without a single victory in a big city, an outcome that leaves the president without a local power base as he eyes a re-election bid in 2022. Macron set up the Citizens’ Climate Council in the wake of “yellow vest” protests, which erupted over an increase in diesel taxes but turned into a wider rebellion against the president and his pro-business reform agenda.
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EU Finalizing Virus ‘Safe List,’ US Unlikely to Make The Cut
The European Union is edging toward finalizing a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter Europe again in coming days, with Americans almost certain to be excluded in the short term due to the number of U.S. coronavirus cases.
Spain’s foreign minister said that the list — which is likely to be made public Tuesday — could contain 15 countries that are not EU members and whose citizens would be allowed to visit from July 1.
EU envoys in Brussels worked over the weekend to narrow down the exact criteria for countries to be included, mostly centered on their ability to manage the spread of the disease. Importantly, the countries are also expected to drop any travel restrictions they have imposed on European citizens.
The number of confirmed cases in the United States has surged over the past week, and President Donald Trump also suspended the entry of all people from Europe’s ID check-free travel zone in a decree in March, making it highly unlikely that U.S. citizens would qualify.
Infection rates in Brazil, Russia and India are high, too, and their nationals are also unlikely to make the cut.
Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya said the EU is considering whether to accept travelers from China if Beijing lifts restrictions on European citizens. Morocco is another possibility, although its government doesn’t plan to open borders until July 10.
She said she wasn’t aware of pressure from the United States for the EU to reopen travel to its nationals, adding that countries have been chosen according to their coronavirus statistics — whether similar or not to that in the EU — trends of contagion and how reliable their data is.
“This is not an exercise to be nice or unfriendly to other countries, this is an exercise of self-responsibility,” she told Spain’s Cadena SER radio on Monday.
The safe country list would be reviewed every 14 days, with new countries being added and some possibly dropping off, depending on how the spread of the disease is being managed.
More than 15 million Americans are estimated to travel to Europe annually, and any delay would be a further blow to virus-ravaged economies and tourism sectors on both sides of the Atlantic.
Around 10 million Europeans are thought to cross the Atlantic for vacations and business each year.
The 27 EU nations and four other countries that are part of Europe’s “Schengen area” — a 26-nation bloc where goods and people move freely without document checks — appear on track to reopen borders between each other from Wednesday.
Once that happens and the green light is given, restrictions on nonessential travel to Europe from the outside world, which were imposed in March to halt new virus cases from entering, would gradually be lifted.
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Черский детектив: опущенный карлик пукин опять попался из-за собственной тупости
Черский детектив: опущенный карлик пукин опять попался из-за собственной тупости
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Опущенный карлик пукин превращает путляндию в обезьянье царство
Опущенный карлик пукин превращает путляндию в обезьянье царство.
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Пукинский “поправочный” прорыв – решающий шаг на пути превращения путляндии в обезьянье царство. Он оставит единственный и легитимнейший способ смены власти: сбросить обезьяньего царя и “обнулить” выстроенное им обезьянье царство
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Коктейль против серпа и молота
Коктейль против серпа и молота
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Удары по базе пукина в Сирии и угрозы Туркам от Египта с провалом С-400 при атаках F-16 ЦАХАЛА!
Удары по базе пукина в Сирии и угрозы Туркам от Египта с провалом С-400 при атаках F-16 ЦАХАЛА!
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Удары по базе путляндии в Сирии и угрозы Туркам от Египта с провалом С-400 при атаках F-16 ЦАХАЛА по САА и при этом ликвидирован целый ангар с большим количеством танков Т-90. Правда о бесполезном металоломе Т-14 армата, разгром хафтара в Ливии, а также спроба покупки новых истребителей для Ирана
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Опущенный карлик пукин умоляет Китай спасти «газпром» и «роснефть»
Опущенный карлик пукин умоляет Китай спасти «газпром» и «роснефть».
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Алкаш алексей миллер уже заявил, что газпром мечтает увеличить объемы поставок в эту страну до 130 млрд кубометров в год. Правда, сейчас путляндия перекачивает к соседям в 26 раз меньше. Для увеличения поставок необходимо построить еще две трубы. Речь идет о «силе сибири 2» и дальневосточном маршруте. Но дело в том, что строить придется за свои кровные, поскольку даже сейчас Китай покупает в путляндии лишний газ, который восточной стране попросту не нужен
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