In the pubs of Dunmore in the west of Ireland, the Guinness glasses gather dust and the kegs are stacked dormant. Among the locals, a sober mood has taken hold.The lengthy coronavirus shutdown of pubs in Ireland has hit the 3,000 or so people in the village and surrounding area particularly hard.Five out of its six village pubs have been shut since March, depriving the community of institutions that act as pillars of rural life.Publican Joe Sheridan unbolts the door of Walsh’s Bar in the County Galway village.”They drink their pints along counters like that with their peers to discuss politics, to discuss the news of the day, to understand what’s going on in their own life,” he told AFP.”I have people that would confide in me here in the bar that may not necessarily say to their GP [doctor] what’s going on with them,” he said.With bars shut, “you can see the people carrying the woes of life on their faces,” said Sheridan, a seventh-generation publican.Inside his wood-paneled pub, he finds a pile of unopened mail and the musty smell of inactivity.Walls are jammed with group photos, sports memorabilia and dusty bottles.It is testament to the pub’s fluid role as community hall, museum and an understated sort of group catharsis in the village.”The lights are going out in rural Ireland,” he said.Publican Joe Sheridan is pictured at his closed pub, Walsh’s Bar, in the rural village of Dunmore, Ireland, Sept. 3, 2020.Dry spellIrish pubs shut on March 16 as the nation braced for the coronavirus, which has so far claimed 1,777 lives.After a 15-week hibernation, those serving food were permitted to reopen.But so-called “wet pubs” serving drink only remained shut, with the government repeatedly pushing back reopening.Restrictions are to expire on September 13 in what the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland has called the “longest lockdown in the EU.”Industry bodies estimate that around half of the republic’s 7,000 pubs are still shuttered.”The vast majority of these pubs are small rural outlets run by families who are on first-name terms with their customers,” said Vintners Federation of Ireland chief Padraig Cribben in July.In rural Ireland, pubs have a particular character. They are modestly sized, humbly decorated and staffed by friends and family.Many are not equipped for restaurant food service.One Dunmore pub has reopened under government guidelines by pairing with a local takeaway to provide sit-in meals.The closed Thomas Byrne bar is pictured in the rural village of Dunmore, Ireland, Sept. 3, 2020.’Meitheal’With population flight, a declining agriculture industry and scant alternative social outlets, pubs in rural Ireland play a role that is hard to overstate.Many people in the countryside still eat their main daily meal at lunchtime, reserving a stretch of uninterrupted evening for the pub.Historically, pubs have acted as hardware stores, grocery shops and drapers, filling the void of state infrastructure with small business and mutual aid.In Dunmore, three pubs still act as undertakers when regulars die, organizing the funeral and arranging for fellow drinkers to dig the grave.”It’s the thing of a ‘meitheal,’ ” Sheridan said. “It’s an Irish word for a group coming together to work voluntarily.”But the lockdown is “messing with traditions that have been built up over generations,” he said.Dunmore village, nested in improbably green fields laced by gray stone walls, is home to just 600.An outsider may think its six pubs existed in fierce competition. But Sheridan views them each as nodes in an ecosystem of support with subtly different vibes and navigated by locals according to need and preference.Alcohol seems almost besides the point.”It’s nearly like the jungle grapevine,” said the 49-year-old, who also serves as a councilor for the center-right Fianna Fail party currently in government.”The public house acts as a conduit for communities.”While rural decline is nothing new, coronavirus closures are “throwing petrol on the fire,” he said.An estate agent’s board reads “Public House For Sale” above the closed-down Tery’s bar in the rural village of Dunmore, Ireland, Sept. 3, 2020.Moths and light bulbsHomes scattered outside Dunmore are now where Sheridan’s customers, many of them older, single men, spend time siloed alone.Days are broken up by sprawling countryside walks — with slim chance of social interaction — and the clockwork visit of the postman.”Here you have nothing to look at but the light bulb, like a moth,” said Brendan Jordan, 51.His three or four weekly visits to the pub gave respite from the care he gives his disabled sister.”They are segregating us out here in the countryside and nobody cares,” said bachelor farmer John Hussey, 52.”They have everything killed in the rural areas.”
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Month: September 2020
Регіонали та зрадники: з ким живе зелений карлик
Регіонали та зрадники: з ким живе зелений карлик.
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На державні дачі в Конча-Заспі, де мали б “жити діти”, заселився зелений карлик з родиною. А в сусідах цілий набір: регіонали, схематозники дегенерата януковича, зрадники та фігуранти розслідувань. Від крадунів кучми та литвина до зрадників фокіна та богатирьової. Хтось з них отримав тут маєток в довічне користування, а хтось платить 11 тисяч грн за оренду будинка на 1000 кв.м
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80% холопов стали бедными при обиженном карлике пукине!
80% холопов стали бедными при обиженном карлике пукине!
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Амбициозный план властей путляндии по двукратному снижению уровня бедности к 2024 году провалился
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Лучшие предложения товаров и услуг в Сети SeLLines
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Просто ужас: просроченная ракета застряла в шахте пукинского атомохода “Омск”
Просто ужас: просроченная ракета застряла в шахте пукинского атомохода “Омск”.
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Вот вам и “океанский щит” путляндии: военный эксперт Вадим Лукашевич сообщил, что в ходе учений Тихоокеанского флота “Океанский щит–2020” 27 августа, при попытке запуска ракеты из подводного положения ракета застряла в пусковом контейнере, из-за чего лодке пришлось экстренно всплыть, на виду у американцев
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Українців роздягають на 10 млрд, або покірний вовк суркісів і зеленого карлика
Українців роздягають на 10 млрд, або покірний вовк суркісів і зеленого карлика
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Слуга зеленого карлика хоче, аби ЦВК проводила соцопитування у день виборів!?
Слуга зеленого карлика хоче, аби ЦВК проводила соцопитування у день виборів!?
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У Верховній Раді зареєстрували законопроєкт, яким пропонується дозволити ЦВК проводити соцопитування громадської думки у день виборів. Авторами документу є так звані депутати від фракції «слуга зеленого карлика». Чи готові підтримати таку ініціативу інші фракції і в чому може бути проблема?
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Child Care Crisis Pushes US Mothers Out of Labor Force
Angela Wynn had just launched her own project management business, hitting a career stride after years of struggle that began with earning an undergraduate degree as a single mother.Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, forcing many schools to shift online. The now-married mother of five saw little choice but to give up her newly minted business to help three of her children cope with remote learning while her husband, the primary breadwinner, kept his job at a senior living center.”To see all that come to fruition, I did it, but now it’s gone,” said Wynn, who has always been the main caretaker for her children, ages 1, 5, 11, 12 and 18. “But my priority is my kids and their education is everything.”Wynn’s story is becoming distressingly common. Research is increasingly pointing to a retreat of working mothers from the U.S. labor force as the pandemic leaves parents with few child care options and the added burden of navigating distance learning.The trend threatens the financial stability of families in the near term. In the long term, the crisis could stall — if not reverse — decades of hard-fought gains by working women who are still far from achieving labor force parity with men.Thousands of school districts are starting the school year with remote instruction, including most of the largest ones. At least half the country’s child care providers are closed and may not survive the crisis without financial help to cope with implementing safety standards and reduced enrollment. Negotiations for a bailout of the industry have stalled in Congress.In August, the federal jobs reports showed that women in their prime-earning years — 25 to 54 — were dropping out of the work force more than other age groups. About 77% of women in that age group were working or looking for work in February, compared with 74.9% in August. The decline is most pronounced among Black women of that age range, whose participation rate is down 5 percentage points since February, compared with 4 percentage points for Hispanic women and 2 percentage points for white women.More than 1 million outOverall, the drop translates into 1.3 million women exiting the labor force since February.”We think this reflects the growing child care crisis,” BNP Paribas economists Daniel Ahn and Steven Weinberg wrote in recent report. “It is hard to see this abating soon, and if anything could become worse as we move into fall.”Few families can afford having mothers out of work indefinitely: Mothers are now are the equal, primary or sole earners in 40% of U.S. families, up from 11% in 1960, according to federal labor figures. Women also make up nearly half the U.S. labor force, making their inability to work a significant drag on the economy and hindering any recovery from the pandemic’s impact.In Wynn’s case, she is working a part-time job to help pay the bills. Even so, the family is taking a financial hit, refinancing their home outside Nashville and starting a garden in their backyard to cut down on grocery bills.Despite the leaps over the past decades, working women still entered the pandemic at a disadvantage. They are typically paid 82 cents for every dollar men earn, according to research by the National Women’s Law Center.Among working mothers and fathers, the wage gap is even worse at 70 cents. The median household earnings for mothers in the U.S. is $42,000, compared with $60,000 for fathers. When left with no choice but to give up one income as child care options collapse, that wage gap incentivizes fathers to stay in the workforce and mothers to leave, or at least scale back.”There is already a motherhood wage gap. In times of uncertainty and recession, you protect the primary earner,” said Liana Christin Landivar, a sociologist at the Maryland Population Research Center and author of the book Mothers at Work: Who Opts Out?More moms affectedThat is bearing out in the numbers. More mothers than fathers have exited the labor force since the pandemic began, according to research published in August by Sage Journals, which analyzed data from the Current Population Survey. Between February and April, labor force participation fell 3.2% among mothers with children younger than 6, and 4.3% for those with children 6 to 12. Fathers of children under 12 also left the workforce, but at lower rates, said Landivar, who co-authored the report. In a separate study, the same researchers found mothers are cutting back on working hours more than fathers. Mothers of children younger than 12 were working more than six hours a week less than fathers in April, compared with under five hours less in February, according to the study, which looked at a subsample of heterosexual married men and women from the CPS, a monthly survey of 60,000 households sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”We already knew there was a large gender inequality in the labor force, and the pandemic just makes this worse,” Landivar said.For Anna Hamilton and her husband, juggling two careers while raising two children was always a bit of house of cards. The pandemic knocked it down, at least for now.Hamilton, who lives in the Atlanta area, is taking indefinite leave from her job at a small investment firm, a job she stuck with for 12 years in part because it allowed her family to move twice so her husband could pursue his career as a cancer surgeon.She has mixed feelings but one thing she knows is that working full time while handling remote schooling last spring was unbearable.”There was a lot of yelling. I thought, ‘Let’s just admit what’s happening and maybe everyone will be happier,’ ” said Hamilton, 43, whose sons are 6 and 7. “I hope it’s not a career-ender.”Concerned about attrition and loss of productivity, some companies are now rolling out generous benefits to help working parents cope with school and child care closures because of the pandemic. Microsoft is offering an extra 12 weeks of paid family leave for employees struggling with child care issues. Google added 14 more weeks.’Let’s not lose any parents’Duolingo, the foreign language-learning app, is allowing parents to request reduced working hours with full pay and benefits.”Our CEO has talked to other tech CEOs who said they’re starting to see attrition tick up, especially with female employees. They thought it had to do with the parenting load,” said Christine Rogers-Raetsch, vice president of people at Duolingo. “We set a directional goal for ourselves: Let’s not lose any parents during this.”But most women don’t work for tech companies, and instead make up a majority of the country’s teachers, nurses, child care workers, social workers, librarians, bookkeepers, waitresses, cashiers and housekeepers, according to federal labor figures.Mothers in particular are the majority of the country’s teachers, nurses and child care workers. Despite the progress over the past two years, 80% of U.S. private sector workers have no access to paid family leave, which is not mandated by federal law.”When we leave it to employers, the vast majority of higher-income workers get more coverage and low-income workers just don’t. This disproportionately affects women,” Landivar said.The pandemic has particularly affected women who put their careers on the back burner with the expectation of ramping back up once their children reached school age.With the youngest of her three children now 6 years old, Kate Albrecht Fidler had begun studying for certification as a human resources professional, hoping to jump-start a career she had largely put on hold.But in April, the 49-year-old was furloughed from her part-time job at a hospital and now she’s again looking for any flexible job she can get because she’ll have to shepherd her children through remote schooling in her rural town of Adams, New York.”For women in their prime earning years, this is a complete disaster,” Albrecht Fidler said. “There’s no way to catch up.”
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No Sign of End to Far East Anti-Kremlin Rallies After Nearly Two Months
Weekly rallies against the Kremlin in Russia’s Far East showed no sign of ending after nearly two months, with around 10,000 people taking to the streets on Saturday in one of the longest-lasting movements of provincial discontent of the Putin era.Though mainly focused on a provincial political crisis in the Khabarovsk region more than 6,000 km (3,700 miles) east of Moscow, demonstrations have also seen support for suspected poison victim Alexei Navalny and opposition protests in Belarus.Residents of Khabarovsk started holding weekly rallies after the July 9 detention of Sergei Furgal, the region’s popular governor, on murder charges he denies. His supporters say the detention is politically motivated.The Khabarovsk demonstrations are one of the longest sustained expressions of discontent with the Kremlin, outside Moscow, during President Vladimir Putin’s 21 years in power.One protester on Sunday carried a placard accusing Putin of “coming to Furgal with handcuffs, to Navalny with poison.” Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner, is being treated in Germany for what medics there say was poisoning with a nerve agent in Russia. Moscow says it has seen no evidence he was poisoned.Some of the protesters in Khabarovsk carried the red-and-white flag that protesters in Belarus are using to signal their opposition to Moscow-backed leader Alexander Lukashenko.
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AP Explains: US Debt Will Soon Exceed Size of Entire Economy
The U.S. government’s war against the coronavirus is imposing the heaviest strain on the Treasury since America’s drive to defeat Nazi Germany and imperial Japan three-quarters of a century ago.The Congressional Budget Office has warned that the government this year will run the largest budget deficit, as a share of the economy, since 1945, when World War II ended. Next year, the federal debt — the sum of year-after-year annual deficits — is forecast to exceed the size of the entire American economy for the first time since 1946. Within a few years, it’s on track to set a new high.Most economists consider the money well-spent, or at least necessary. Few think it’s wise to quibble with the amount of borrowing deemed necessary to sustain American households and businesses through the gravest public health crisis in more than 100 years. That’s especially true, economists say, when the government’s borrowing costs are very low and investors still seem eager to buy its debt as fast as the Treasury issues it.Here’s a closer look at the federal debt and the government’s use of it to combat the pandemic and the economic pain it’s inflicted.Just how much money are we talking about?The annual deficit — the gap between what the government spends and what it collects in taxes — will hit $3.3 trillion in the budget year that ends September 30, the CBO projects. That amounts to 16% of America’s gross domestic product, which is the broadest measure of economic output. Not in 75 years has a deficit been that wide.The federal debt, reflecting the accumulated deficits and the occasional surplus, is forecast to reach 100% of GDP next year. Then it is predicted to keep climbing to $24.5 trillion — 107% of GDP — in 2023. That would snap the record of 106% of GDP set in 1946. (The percentage does not include debts that the government agencies owe one another, including the Social Security trust fund.)Why is the budget so lopsided?The U.S. government was already deeply in debt even before the virus struck in March. The budget had absorbed the expenses of the 2007-09 Great Recession, the federal benefits for the retirements of the vast baby boom generation and the cost of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut. Last year, the debt burden reached 79% of GDP, the highest share since 1948.Then came the pandemic. The economy tumbled into a sickening free fall as businesses shut down and millions of Americans hunkered down at home to avoid infection. GDP collapsed at a 31.7% annual rate from April through June, the worst three months on records dating to 1947. In March and April combined, employers slashed a record 22 million jobs.FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive measures for economic relief during a news conference amid the spread of the coronavirus disease, at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., Aug. 8, 2020.To help Americans to endure the crisis, Congress passed a $2 trillion relief bill in March. Among other things, the package sent Americans one-time checks of up to $1,200 and temporarily offered the unemployed $600 a week on top of their state jobless benefits.Economists say that the rescue probably helped keep the economy from sinking into a depression but also that much more assistance is needed.Can the U.S. repay all that money?After World War II, the United States paid down the federal debt with surprising speed. By 1961, the debt had dropped to 44% of GDP, the same level as in the prewar year of 1940.Behind that success was a fast-growing economy that delivered rising revenue to the government and erased the debt. From 1947 through 1961 the economy grew at a 3.3% annual rate. The financial system was tightly regulated by the government. This allowed policymakers to keep interest rates artificially low and minimize the cost of repaying the debt.Circumstances are somewhat different now. The economy doesn’t grow as fast as it did in the postwar boom years. Since 2010, GDP growth has averaged 2.3%, even excluding this year’s economic implosion. And the government doesn’t control interest rates as it used to, not after the financial deregulation of the 1980s.Still, the Federal Reserve is helping keep government borrowing rates ultra-low by buying up huge volumes of Treasury debt.Does the debt carry economic consequences?Economists have long warned that too much government borrowing risks hobbling the economy. When the government takes on excessive debt, the argument goes, it competes with businesses and consumers for loans, thereby forcing borrowing rates prohibitively high and imperiling growth.Another concern is that investors will demand ever-higher interest rates for accepting the risk that governments could default on their debts.Some economists and budget watchers still warn that a day of reckoning will come and that the United States will have to curb spending, raise taxes or both.But after the Great Recession, many economists began to rethink their view of debt. The recovery in the United States and especially in Europe was sluggish in part because policymakers were too reluctant to stimulate growth with debt.In the United States, rates didn’t rise even though government debts were high. Investors, it turned out, had a near-insatiable appetite for U.S. Treasurys, still considered the world’s safest investment. Their rush to buy federal debt helped keep rates low and limited the government’s borrowing costs. So did persistently low inflation.In such a low-rate, low-inflation environment, the risk of piling on more debt seems more manageable, at least for countries like the United States and Japan that borrow in their own currencies.In a speech last year, Olivier Blanchard, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, declared:”Put bluntly, public debt may have no fiscal cost. … The probability that the U.S. government can do a debt rollover, that it can issue debt and achieve a decreasing debt-to-GDP ratio without ever having to raise taxes later, is high.”
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Group: Egypt Arrests 2 Journalists, One Sick With COVID-19
Egyptian security forces have arrested two journalists, including one sick with COVID-19, the latest step in a sweeping crackdown on news media during the pandemic, an international press watchdog reported Friday.On separate days in late August, officers burst into the homes of Hany Greisha and El-Sayed Shehta without warning, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. Both work as editors for Al-Youm Al-Sabae, or Seventh Day, a prominent pro-government news outlet.Greisha was ordered detained for 15 days on charges of spreading false news and joining a terrorist group, CPJ said, citing his family’s official complaint to the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate.FILE – Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi delivers an address at the Ittihadiya presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, May 26, 2017.Under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Egyptian prosecutors have frequently brought vague terrorism-related charges against reporters, secular activists and online critics, in addition to Islamist political opponents, drawing widespread scorn from human rights monitors.Earlier this week, security forces raided Shehta’s home in northern Egypt, confiscating his laptop, cellphone, money and IDs, CPJ said, adding that it remained unclear whether he faces any charges. The deputy managing editor had been in quarantine after testing positive for the coronavirus a few days earlier, according to a statement from his wife.Officers took Shehta to a police station in the Nile Delta city of Zagazig, where he collapsed and lost consciousness, CPJ reported. He remained shackled to a hospital bed in the city.The Interior Ministry did not respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press, and a government media officer did not answer calls seeking comment.It was not immediately clear why security forces targeted the two editors. Egypt’s counterterrorism legislation broadly empowers authorities to exert tight controls over traditional media and crack down on all kinds of dissent. Amnesty International released a report earlier this year detailing how a growing number of journalists at state-owned media outlets have landed in jail for expressing their private views on social media.The coronavirus pandemic has presented new challenges for the government. When infections surged this summer, threatening to overwhelm hospitals, authorities arrested journalists who questioned official virus statistics and doctors who complained about their working conditions. As of Friday, the country had reported more than 99,000 cases, including 5,479 deaths, one of the highest death tolls in the region.Outbreaks in prisonAlthough Egypt’s daily virus case count has declined in recent weeks, reports of suspected coronavirus outbreaks in the country’s crowded prisons have increasingly come to light. In July, a prominent Egyptian journalist who had been jailed on charges of broadcasting false news died of COVID-19 just days after his release, stoking fears of unchecked contagion in what rights groups describe as packed and dirty cells.”Egyptian authorities should be urgently releasing journalists from its prisons because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s regional program coordinator. “Instead, [Egypt] is diligently rounding up more to throw in jail — including now one who was sick and in quarantine.”
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Biden Slams Trump for Appearing to Urge Voters to Vote Twice
President Donald Trump created controversy this week by appearing to urge his supporters to vote twice, through mail and in person, to test the election system and ensure their votes count. Voting more than once is illegal, and the president’s comments have been slammed by critics, including Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this story from Biden’s home state of Delaware.Producers: Bakhtiyar Zamanov, Bronwyn Benito.
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Belarusian Journalists Sentenced to 3-Day Jail Terms Amid Crackdown on Post-Election Protests
Six Belarusian journalists detained earlier this week while covering an anti-government protest in Minsk were sentenced to three days in jail, as authorities continued their crackdown on dissent and media freedom following a disputed election that gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth-straight term.
The verdicts came just ahead of a scheduled address by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the self-exiled presidential candidate who has become a leader of the Belarusian opposition, to the U.N. Security Council later on September 4.
The journalists were covering a student rally demanding the resignation of Lukashenko on September 1 when they were detained by police near the Dinamo district stadium.
A district court in the capital sentenced the journalists to three days’ administrative arrest after finding them guilty of participating in an illegal rally, an accusation they denied.
They were later released having already served their terms while in pretrial detention.
The reporters work for the Belarusian independent news website Tut.by, the local Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi daily, and the independent news agency BelaPAN.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets across Belarus to protest the “rigged” results of the August 9 vote.Belarus Opposition Leader Appeals to UN to Stop Human Rights Abuses in Her CountrySviatlana Tsikhanouskaya tells UN that ‘a nation cannot and should not be a hostage to one man’s thirst for power’The protesters are calling on the 66-year-old Belarusian leader to step down after 26 years in power, release all political prisoners, and hold free and fair elections.
The authorities have tried to halt the protest movement with threats and the prosecution of protesters, political activists, and journalists covering the demonstrations.
On September 4, police detained several student protesters gathered inside the Minsk State Linguistic Institute. A witness said the students started singing the French national anthem La Marseillaise, which contains words about the fight against tyranny, when riot police entered the building and dragged the students away.
Officials at the institute had warned students it would call in the police unless they halted their protests.
Those detained were later released from police custody after reportedly being charged with taking part in illegal rallies.
The Interior Ministry earlier said that a total of 26 people were detained during protests in Minsk on September 3 for violating the law on public events, adding that seven of them will remain in pretrial detention.
A photographer working for the news outlet Tut.by., Zmitser Brushko, was detained for a few hours and charged with petty hooliganism for allegedly pushing a police officer.
The crackdown on protests, strikes, and the media has drawn condemnation from human rights groups, media freedom watchdogs, and the international community.
On September 3, Britain and Canada said in a joint statement to the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that they were “extremely concerned” by the treatment of journalists and independent media in Belarus.
“Though the strain faced by independent media has been made evident before, during, and after the presidential elections, in the past week Belarusian authorities have made greater moves to hinder the free press,” the statement said, adding that more than 70 independent news websites had been blocked.
About 50 journalists were detained on August 27-28 for accreditation checks and some foreign reporters were subsequently deported and banned from Belarus for five years, it also noted.
At least 17 journalists, including four from RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, had their accreditations revoked.
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Portland Police Arrest 27 as US City Nears 100 Days of Protests
Portland police made multiple arrests overnight on Friday as the Oregon city nears 100 days of demonstrations against U.S. racism and police brutality, which have at times turned violent.
Police arrested 27 people, mostly on charges of interfering with law enforcement or disorderly conduct after not complying with orders to clear the area where they assembled and throwing items at officers.
“Officers began to make targeted arrests and in some cases moved the crowd back and kept them out of the street,” according to a press release issued on Saturday.
One arrested protester was injured with a “bleeding abrasion” on her head, police said.
Demonstrations against racism and police brutality have swept the United States since the death in May of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
In Rochester, New York on Friday night nearly 1,000 demonstrators marched downtown to protest the March death of black man Daniel Prude in police custody. Police used pepper balls to clear protesters during protests the night before, according to local news reports.
Portland has become the epicenter of demonstrations, with protests taking place nightly over the last three months calling for policing and social justice reforms. These have at times turned into clashes between demonstrators and officers, as well as between right- and left-wing groups.
Police shot and killed a self-declared anti-fascist activist in Washington state on Thursday night as they moved in to arrest him on suspicion he fatally shot a right-wing counterprotester last weekend in Portland.
The administration of President Donald Trump deployed federal forces to Portland in July to crack down on the protests. Trump signed a memo on Wednesday that threatens to cut federal funding to “lawless” cities, including Portland.
His Democratic challenger in the Nov. 3 presidential election, Joe Biden, has accused Trump of stoking violence with his rhetoric.
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Erdogan Raises Rhetoric in Greece Standoff in Mediterranean
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned Greece to enter talks over disputed eastern Mediterranean territorial claims or face the consequences.
“They’re either going to understand the language of politics and diplomacy, or in the field with painful experiences,” he said at a hospital’s opening ceremony in Istanbul.
Ankara is currently facing off against Greece and Cyprus over oil and gas exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean. All sides have deployed naval and air forces to assert their competing claims in the region.
“They are going to understand that Turkey has the political, economic and military power to tear up the immoral maps and documents imposed,” Erdogan added, referring to areas marked by Greece and Cyprus as their economic maritime zones.
He stressed that Turkey was “ready for every eventuality and result.”
Meanwhile, Turkish media reported that tanks were being moved towards the Greek border. The Cumhuriyet newspaper said 40 tanks were being transported from the Syrian border to Edirne in northwest Turkey and carried photographs of armored vehicles loaded on trucks.
There was no immediate official confirmation of the deployment.
The president’s comments come after NATO said military officers from Greece and Turkey had begun technical discussions to reduce the risk of armed conflict or accidents.
The two NATO allies have been locked for weeks in a tense standoff in the eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey is prospecting the seabed for energy reserves in an area Greece claims as its own continental shelf.
Ankara says it has every right to prospect there and accuses Athens of trying to grab an unfair share of maritime resources.
Simulated dogfights between Greek and Turkish fighter pilots have multiplied over the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. A Turkish and a Greek frigate collided last month, reportedly causing minor damage to the Turkish frigate but no injuries.
Erdogan said Turkey had repeatedly expressed its willingness to come to a just agreement.
“Our word is sincere,” he said. “The problem is those before us disregard our rights and try to situate themselves above us.”
Turkey faces a wide range of opponents in the eastern Mediterranean. France, Italy and the United Arab Emirates have all sent forces to join war games with either Greece or Cyprus in recent weeks. Egypt has signed an energy exploration deal with Athens for the Mediterranean.
The EU, which numbers Greece and Cyprus as members, has also threatened possible sanctions against Ankara over its “illegal” actions.
This week, the U.S. announced it was easing a 33-year-old arms embargo against ethnically divided Cyprus.
The island split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of a union with Greece. Turkey is the only nation to recognize a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence and it maintains more than 35,000 troops in northern Cyprus.
The recent crisis is the most serious in Turkish-Greek relations in decades. The neighbors have come to the brink of war three times since the mid-1970s, including once over maritime resources in the Aegean.
Earlier, Ankara announced joint military exercises with northern Cypriot forces from Sunday to Sept. 10. The air, land and sea drills are held every year.
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Daughter of Rwandan ‘Genocide Hero’ Pleads for His Release
On Monday morning, Carine Kanimba, the daughter of Rwandan activist Paul Rusesabagina knew something was wrong. Her phone had been buzzing with questions from friends who were alarmed by what they had seen in the news. She turned on the television and found out why. “We saw that he was in the hands of the Rwandan government and in handcuffs. That’s how we found out.”The 66-year-old who was depicted in the film “Paul Rusesabagina is pictured with his daughter, Carine Kanimba, left, and her sister. (Carine Kanimba/Facebook)The last time Kanimba, who spoke to VOA from Washington, said she spoke to her father was before he flew to Dubai on August 27.“I knew he was going to meet some people and just for a few meetings and then he was supposed to come back on Tuesday. The first of September,” she said speaking via Skype.“It was my nephew and his grandson’s birthday … and he sent … a very sweet message to his grandson, wishing him and happy birthday.” He was communicating via the messaging platform WhatsApp. When the family tried to check if he had arrived safely, the messages weren’t delivered, she said. “We never got two bar signs that we usually get when we communicate.”The platform has been vulnerable to hacks in which dissidents and journalists have claimed they were tracked and targeted, according to FILE – U.S. President George W. Bush presents a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Paul Rusesabagina, who sheltered people at a hotel he managed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, at a ceremony at the White House in Washington, Nov. 9, 2005.‘I never felt safe’Rusesabagina is best known as the manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali during the 1994 genocide. He used the building to hide over 1,000 people during the 100-day mass killings. Former U.S. President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.In recent years he has become an outspoken critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. In his 2006 autobiography, Rusesabagina wrote, “Rwanda is today a nation governed by and for the benefit of a small group of elite Tutsis.”Family members have long believed Rusesabagina was being closely tracked by Rwandan operatives during his travels.In 2016 he told VOA’s Africa 54, “I can tell you that I never felt safe since 2000. When I started the struggle moving around the world talking about what was going around in Rwanda when everybody else was kind of silenced. So, I was the only one … standing and getting into different offices, getting into the international community talking about what was going on in Rwanda.”Numerous Rwandan dissidents, opposition leaders and former high-ranking officials have been killed at home and abroad.In a 2019 report, Human Rights Watch called for independent investigations into the killings and asked international partners to put pressure on the Kagame government to respect human rights.“On the international stage, Rwanda is a model of law and order, yet we are seeing a spate of violent and brazen attacks against opposition members go unpunished,” said Lewis Mudge, Human Rights Watch Central Africa director.“The contrast is jarring,” he said.’Help us bring him home’Now Kanimba fears for her father’s safety.“Honestly from the bottom of my heart, I am in so much fear for his life. He had survived cancer a few years ago. He has hypertension and needs medication … that has to be taken with food.”She is pleading for help from the U.S. and other international powers.“We do not know what condition he is in now,” she said. “So we’re pleading and begging the international community to help us see him and to help us bring him home.”VOA’s Vincent Makori and James Butty contributed to this report.
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Masked Men Drag Protesting Belarusian Students Off the Streets
Masked security agents dragged students off the streets and bundled them into vans as new protests broke out against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday on the fourth weekend since his disputed re-election.
Up to 30 people were detained for taking part in unsanctioned protests, Russian news agency TASS quoted the Minsk police as saying. Draped in red-and-white opposition flags, students staged protests in several places in the capital, including outside the Minsk State Linguistic Institute where police had arrested five people on Friday, local media footage showed.
Elsewhere masked men dragged away students who had gathered at an eatery in Karl Marx Street in the center of Minsk, while some of the protesters shouted “tribunal!,” according to footage shown by news outlet TUT.BY.
Thousands of women later held a separate march through Minsk in the afternoon, shouting “hands off the children” as one of their slogans.
A former Soviet collective farm manager, Lukashenko has struggled to contain a wave of mass protests and strikes since he won a sixth term at an election last month that opponents say was rigged. He denies electoral fraud.
Lukashenko has previously dismissed the coronavirus pandemic as a “psychosis” that could be tackled by drinking vodka and taking saunas.
But on Saturday he appeared to chide the protesters for spreading the disease.
“We stagger through the streets, rubbing against each other,” he said at a televised government meeting. “Where’s the social distancing and so on in that? We’re doing everything we can to delay the moment when we say goodbye to this disease. That’s unacceptable.”
Thousands took part in protests that coincided with the start of the school year on Tuesday. At the Minsk State Linguistic Institute, students sang “Do you hear the people sing,” a protest anthem from the musical “Les Miserables.”
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СБУ jewelry. Завжди в достатку
СБУ jewelry. Завжди в достатку
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Декларації керівних СБУшників довгий час були засекречені. Але їх стиль життя майже завжди розкішний. Тепер більшість очільників СБУ відкрили декларації і ми їх проаналізували: хто найбагатший, в кого найбільша квартира та хто уникнув відкриття декларацій
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Найкращі пропозиції товарів і послуг в Мережі Купуй!
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О красных и зелёных: абсолютное мировое зло или коммунизм под микроскопом
О красных и зелёных: абсолютное мировое зло или коммунизм под микроскопом.
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Учителя разные бывают, иногда – очень разные. Тем не менее, даже самые отъявленные из них все равно – учат, хотя и такими способами, которые трудно себе представить, находясь в здравом уме и твердой памяти
Для распространения вашего видео или сообщения в Сети Правды пишите сюда, или на email: pravdaua@email.cz
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Обиженный карлик пукин перешёл черту. Реакция Запада на попытку убить Навального
Обиженный карлик пукин перешёл черту. Реакция Запада на попытку убить Навального.
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Теперь официально: Алексей Навальный был отравлен ядом типа «Новичок». Германия призывает расследовать данное покушение, как и требуют этого ЕС и НАТО, но обиженный карлик пукин занял предполагаемую позицию – мол ничего не знаю, никакие данные не получал и вообще, в путляндии у Навального было нарушение обмена веществ, а если и нашли яд, то это уже сами немцы и подсыпали. Казалось бы, полный идиотизм, но для нас к сожалению это не удивительно
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Старый-новый Ил-114: “импортозамещение” по-российски, но что-то пошло не так…
Старый-новый Ил-114: “импортозамещение” по-российски, но что-то пошло не так…
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В путляндии хвалятся тем, что возобновляют производство самолета, который был задуман в 80-х годах прошлого века…
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Крах пукинского «костыля»: у газпрома разорвало кассу
Крах пукинского «костыля»: у газпрома разорвало кассу.
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Для того, чтобы примерно себе представить, почему такое случилось с компанией, некогда имевшей репутацию на бирже из разряда «голубые фишки» (не путать с «голубой устрицей»), стоит посмотреть на то, как эту тему отрабатывает местная пресса, рассказывая о «костыле №2» российской экономики
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Trump Targets ‘White Privilege’ Training as ‘Anti-American’
President Donald Trump has directed the Office of Management and Budget to crack down on federal agencies’ anti-racism training sessions, calling them “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”OMB director Russell Vought, in a letter Friday to executive branch agencies, directed them to identify spending related to any training on “critical race theory,” “white privilege” or any other material that teaches or suggests that the United States or any race or ethnicity is “inherently racist or evil.”The memo comes as the nation has faced a reckoning this summer over racial injustice in policing and other spheres of American life. Trump has spent much of the summer defending the display of the Confederate battle flag and monuments of Civil War rebels from protesters seeking their removal, in what he has called a “culture war” ahead of the November 3 election.Meanwhile, he has rejected comments from Democratic nominee Joe Biden and others that there is “systemic racism” in policing and American culture that must be addressed.Vought’s memo cites “press reports” as contributing to Trump’s decision, apparently referring to segments on Fox News and other outlets that have stoked conservative outrage about the federal training.Vought’s memo says additional federal guidance on training sessions is forthcoming, maintaining that “The President, and his Administration, are fully committed to the fair and equal treatment of all individuals in the United States.”“The President has a proven track record of standing for those whose voice has long been ignored and who have failed to benefit from all our country has to offer, and he intends to continue to support all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed,” he added. “The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government.”
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European Attitudes Harden as Czech Visit to Taiwan Triggers Chinese Fury
A bitter dispute between China and the Czech Republic threatens to affect relations between Europe and Beijing. A delegation from the Czech senate visited Taiwan this week – which China claims as part of its territory. Strongly worded threats from Beijing against the delegation have prompted criticism from EU leaders. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the dispute comes as Europe hardens its language towards China.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Hurricane Laura Victims Have Few Good Options for Housing
More than a week after Category 4 Hurricane Laura ripped through the southwestern corner of Louisiana, state officials report more than 230,000 residents remain without power Friday. Another 175,000 are without water.“People around the country don’t realize how bad it is here,” Michelle Lee of Lake Charles, Louisiana, told VOA. “Entergy says we won’t have power for four or five weeks. Some people say they don’t think it’ll be until November.”Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday that power has been restored for nearly 400,000 people, but that the remaining outages would likely be the hardest ones to fix. The reason for this, he said, was that thousands of miles of electrical wires, thousands of utility poles and many hundreds of transmission towers were damaged by the storm.Lake Charles officials said this is a main reason residents have been unable to return to the city of 80,000, which was hit early August 27 with winds of more than 240 kph — the most powerful hurricane to reach Louisiana since 1856.“Why come back right now if you don’t have to?” Lee said. “I have friends who are in hotel rooms in New Orleans and Texas, and why not? A hot shower is a lot better than what we’ve got here. There are people in Lake Charles living in homes with a tree through the roof and with no water or power. I know people who are sleeping in cots on their porch or in tents in their backyard.”Edwards estimated that more than 11,000 people are being sheltered by the state, some in large emergency shelters, but the majority in hotel rooms in cities around Louisiana.Lee said she tried to find a place for herself and her two dogs but didn’t have any luck.“At first I was told I could find a place to stay in Baton Rouge, so I drove there, but then they said, ‘No, go to Metairie.’ So I drove to Metairie and they said, ‘No, go to Alexandria.’ It was a mess,” Lee said.The lucky oneAfter driving more than 800 miles during the evacuation, Lee was afraid her old car might die, stranding her and her dogs. She was also worried about missing work at an auto repair shop if she couldn’t return to Lake Charles.“I don’t have a lot of great options,” she said. “I didn’t want to go into one of the big shelters, because I didn’t think it was safe with COVID. Even if I managed to find an open hotel room, as far as I can tell, the emergency vouchers are gone, and that would be a lot of money for me to pay out of pocket.”Michelle Lee says the RV park she calls home looked ‘like a war zone’ after Hurricane Laura tore through. (Courtesy Michelle Lee)She decided to try her luck back home.Just three days after the hurricane, Lee and her dogs returned to the RV park they’d lived in since Lee’s daughter left for college. (Lee playfully calls it “the cheap life.”) She was horrified by what she saw.“When I left before the storm on Wednesday, there were 20 RVs in the lot,” she said. “When I got back, there were only two that were livable. The rest were tipped over on their sides, or had been split completely in half. It looks like a war zone.”Fortunately for Lee, one of the RVs still habitable was her own. She is now living in her wind-damaged motorhome with her two dogs, as well as a couple and their dog whose RV was destroyed. Lee doesn’t have running water, and the only electricity they have is when they run the generator, which Lee says is getting expensive.“It’s another $150 a week to run the generator, the RV is kind of crowded and I’d really like a warm shower, but I still think I’m one of the lucky ones,” she said. “At least I’m home and I can go to work.”Far from homeOlivia Dean also evacuated the day before the storm. She and the nearly 15 family members and friends she’s traveling with, including her grandparents and several uncles, have yet to make it home, though.She said they have been unable to get an emergency voucher to cover their housing costs. This has forced them to move from one hotel to another across Texas as they search for more affordable options.“I can’t believe how much these hotels are costing us,” Dean said. “But, stuck between a pandemic and a disaster, we don’t really have a better option.”Dean said the group is eager to return home so they can go to work and check on their property. They are finding it difficult, however, to get information that would tell them if it’s safe to return.“I was able to find one stranger on Facebook to go by the property and take a picture so we knew what the damage was like,” she said, referring to the social media groups that pop up in the wake of disasters to help get information and assistance to victims.Olivia Dean hasn’t been able to go home. She knows her apartment house lacks water, and she says she doubts the building has power. (Courtesy Olivia Dean)She said she knows her building lacks water, either because it has been turned off or it is contaminated. She also doubts her apartment building has power because no one in that area has electricity unless they use a generator.“One of the buildings looks like the roof and side were torn off, but ours looks like it might be OK. We can’t really tell,” Dean said.For natural disaster victims like Dean and Lee, the lack of information causes the most frustration, they said.“The governor said the disaster wasn’t as bad as expected, but that’s tough to hear when you know so many people who have lost everything,” Dean said. “Nobody wants to hear how bad it isn’t right now. It’s bad enough.”Lee agreed, adding she worries that statements like that from local officials will lead to less urgency for the rest of the country to help rebuild the region.“We might not be as well-known as New Orleans or New York or Miami, but we have 78,000 people here and most don’t have power,” Lee said. “I’m worried people will hear what the governor says and think maybe we don’t need the help. But, trust me, we do.”In a press conference Thursday, Gov. Edwards acknowledged the progress that has been made clearing debris, but noted that the storm “left a long trail of devastation and just catastrophic damage.”Olivia Dean hasn’t been able to go home. She knows her apartment house lacks water, and she says she doubts the building has power. (Courtesy Olivia Dean)“We clearly have a very, very long way to go,” he said, adding that “this is very much going to be a marathon, not a sprint.”For residents like Lee and Dean, the marathon has just begun.“It’s going to be weeks until I see any sort of assistance from FEMA,” Lee said. “An inspector hasn’t even made it to our RV park, so my application is still pending. I’m just hanging on the best I can until I get some help — that’s all I can do.”
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