Thursday, June 3, 2021

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Faster, higher, sicker: Japan’s Olympic fears



 
POLITICO Nightly logo

BY RYAN HEATH

With help from Michael Grunwald

Morning Consult graphic on Japanese adult support for still holding the Summer Olympics as scheduled

FIVE-RING CIRCUS — Seven weeks before the start of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, organizers insist the games are “100 percent” going ahead. The venues and medal podiums are ready, the official costumes and theme music have been launched. But a lot of Covid caveats remain.

As America gets ready for a summer of vaccinated partying, Japanese officials face a different, more daunting set of numbers.

Tokyo is experiencing around 500 new Covid cases per day this week, roughly double the number in New York, and with the added problem that only 3 percent of the Japanese population is vaccinated.

With Japan still likely to be completing vaccination of its over-65s as the curtain rises for the Olympic opening ceremony on July 23, Tokyo remains under an extended state of emergency. The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association has called for the Games to be canceled.

Only 17 percent of Japanese adults want the Olympics to go ahead in July, according to a poll completed this week by Morning Consult. Ten thousand volunteers have quit, and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s approval rating is down to 27 percent approval versus 62 percent disapproval.

The Olympic Rings are displayed by the Odaiba Marine Park Olympic venue on June 03, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo 2020 president Seiko Hashimoto has stated that she is 100 percent certain that the Olympics will go ahead despite widespread public opposition as Japan grapples with a fourth wave of coronavirus.

The Olympic Rings are displayed by the Odaiba Marine Park Olympic venue in Tokyo. | Getty Images

The International Olympic Committee rarely reacts to short-term or political considerations. The 1972 Munich Olympics continued even as two Israeli athletes lay dead in the Olympic village and barely paused as others were held hostage by Palestinian terrorists. When nine athletes were killed during a botched rescue operation, the Games resumed within 24 hours.

Olympic heavyweight Dick Pound, a former IOC vice chair, told Nightly in an interview that he’s used to the host country’s public and news media getting nervous in the run-up to the Olympics. “Remember in 1984 in L.A., the media were speculating on how many Olympic athletes are going to die during the games because of the smog,” Pound said.

Recent test events in Tokyo had “gone swimmingly,” he said, and “everyone thinks the necessary level of interaction with the Japanese public can be limited.” The IOC accepted Japanese requests to cut down the size of support teams coming into Japan for the Games, which will take place during school and summer holidays, meaning a less crowded Tokyo.

But Games organizers are attempting a logistical feat far beyond what professional sports leagues like the NBA have attempted. Altogether they expect 250,000 athletes, support staff, officials, contractors and volunteers from around the world to be mingling in Olympic venues and accommodation. NBC paid $2.38 billion for the rights to air this global competition, which is still being called Tokyo 2020.

Whether anyone will be able to watch the Games in person and not on NBC has yet to be determined. Tokyo 2020 president Seiko Hashimoto told the BBC today that she believes “we must be prepared to have these Games without any spectators.” Pound says a final decision on that may be weeks away.

Athletes and other Olympic visitors would be “out of their mind” to travel without being vaccinated, Pound said, yet IOC still expects around 3,000 unvaccinated athletes and support staff to arrive in Japan. Many local volunteers will also be unvaccinated.

Don’t worry about the Covid risks for healthy young Olympic athletes, said Kentaro Iwata, an infectious disease specialist at Kobe University Hospital. The problem will be the other 240,000 people mixing in Olympic venues and accommodation, he said. Most won’t be vaccinated, and many will be older.

Despite those concerns, the Japanese government feels locked into going ahead. It was Japan who insisted on a maximum 12-month delay to the Games, Pound said. A successful Games would be a boost to Japan’s ruling party heading into an October national election.

Tomita Koji, Japan’s ambassador to the U.S., declined to comment on the situation.

A last-minute cancellation would carry its own political and patriotic risks: national humiliation just months before neighboring China hosts the Winter Olympics in Beijing. And there’s the $25 billion investment in the Games that Japan would like a return on.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at rheath@politico.com, or on Twitter at @PoliticoRyan.

 

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FIRST IN NIGHTLY

Illustration of Caitlyn Jenner

Illustration by Arn0

An excerpt from “What Makes Caitlyn Jenner Run?” by Michael Kruse, coming Friday in POLITICO Magazine:

“I have no more secrets,” she said. “And for the first time in my life, I can be honest.”

But she, of course, or anybody else, can be simultaneously honest and unprepared. Why in this “next chapter,” as she called it, at this stage of her life when she’s truly and finally herself, does she want to re-rev attention, prompting scrutiny of a more concerted, more serious sort? Why politics? Why now?

“Why not,” I asked, “be authentically yourself, honestly and authentically Caitlyn, and recede from the public eye?”

“I don’t quite understand what the question is,” she said.

WHAT'D I MISS?

— DOJ investigating DeJoy over campaign contributions from former employees: The Department of Justice is investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in relation to campaign contributions from his former private employees , a spokesperson for DeJoy told POLITICO. DeJoy denies that he ever “knowingly violated” campaign contribution laws, spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement.

— GOP mulls throwing Biden more infrastructure money: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), her party’s lead infrastructure negotiator, is preparing to come back to the table with Biden on Friday in the latest round of high-stakes talks that have frozen the White House’s initial $4 trillion proposal on Capitol Hill. The gap between the two sides is massive at the moment — Biden and Republicans aren’t even counting the size of the bill the same way and are approximately $750 billion apart. Their differences appear nearly impossible to bridge right now, according to two GOP sources familiar with the negotiations.

— Biden broadens Trump policy restricting investment in Chinese firms: The new policy expands an executive order that former President Donald Trump imposed in November prohibiting U.S. investors from trading stock in companies linked to the Chinese military . Biden’s executive order would extend the restrictions to additional firms that operate in China’s defense or surveillance technology sectors, bringing the total number of targeted companies to 59 from 48.

— Yang chased by angry protesters during Brooklyn campaign stop: New York mayoral candidate Andrew Yang was headed to the Park Slope YMCA — a spot notorious for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s workouts, for a stop many expected would bring some criticism of the mayor. Instead, Yang was met by a dozen members of New York Communities for Change, a social justice organization, who shouted down the candidate and ultimately scuttled the event.

— Biden directs federal agencies to up their anti-corruption game: The president is formally directing federal departments and agencies to make fighting global corruption a priority. Biden issued a “national security study memorandum” today that directs the U.S. government to send to him in 200 days a report and recommendations on how the United States can better use its resources and partner with other countries to battle corruption.

 

SUBSCRIBE TO WEST WING PLAYBOOK: Add West Wing Playbook to keep up with the power players, latest policy developments and intriguing whispers percolating inside the West Wing and across the highest levels of the Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

 
 
AROUND THE WORLD

‘YOU SHOULD NOT SPY ON YOUR NEIGHBORS’ — European Commission Executive Vice President and former Danish Interior Minister Margethe Vestager said today that European countries “should not spy on your neighbors,” in the wake of allegations that Denmark’s intelligence services helped the U.S. spy on top European politicians.

Denmark’s public broadcaster DR reported Sunday that Danish services assisted the U.S. National Security Agency to tap communications and data of politicians in Germany, France, Sweden, Norway and other countries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Vestager — now one of the EU’s most prominent politicians — was national economy and interior minister at the time. The Danish politician dismissed suggestions that she may have had knowledge or responsibility for the spying scandal, saying that “being minister in the Interior in Denmark is having the responsibility for elections and referendums, and the workings of municipalities and regions from an economic and from a legal perspective. There is no intelligence services inside” this portfolio.

AROUND THE NATION

HAIR OF THE DOG WHILE DOGWALKING? The pandemic sucked. But to-go cocktails? Not too bad. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, health care reporter Dan Goldberg looks at whether pandemic perks, from liquor laws to telehealth regulations, will stick around after emergency orders are lifted.

Play audio

Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast

NIGHTLY NUMBER

19 million

The number of Covid-19 vaccine doses the U.S. will route through the global vaccine aid program COVAX, the White House said today . The Biden administration will send the remaining 25 percent of the first 25 million doses donated by the U.S. to help low- and middle-income nations to specific countries.

Nightly video player on Covid-19 vaccine donations

PARTING WORDS

MIRROR UNIVERSE — Senior writer Michael Grunwald emails Nightly about NASA’s new plans to explore the second planet from the sun:

Venus is often described as Earth’s twin, because it’s got similar size, density, composition and gravity. It resides in the so-called Goldilocks Zone, the potentially habitable precincts of space where water can remain liquid, and scientists believe it may have had oceans for billions of years. But it doesn’t now, because it’s a scorching hellscape with surface temperatures that can melt lead, which is why it’s also often described as Earth’s evil twin.

This week, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced two new missions to explore Venus, not only to try to understand how the planet became such a nasty inferno, but why the Earth has avoided a similar fate. One mission called DAVINCI will investigate the atmosphere of Venus, while another called VERITAS will study its geology for clues about its ancient history. As one agency official put it: “We want to know what the heck went on.”

It’s an exciting scientific undertaking, but in one sense we already know what the heck went on: Climate change. Venus is an unbearable hothouse because its atmosphere is almost entirely carbon dioxide, the same heat-trapping greenhouse gas that humans have been pumping into Earth’s atmosphere for the last two centuries. Yes, Venus is also closer to the sun than Earth, but Mercury is closer to the sun than Venus, and Venus is still way hotter than Mercury because of the greenhouse effect. CO2 happens to be a remarkably efficient planet-warmer.

Obviously, Venus has a heck of a lot more of it than we do, which is why temperatures on Earth don’t reach 860 degrees Fahrenheit, even in Florida in August. And it will be extremely interesting to know how Venus ended up that way; one of the mission’s principal investigators called Venus “a Rosetta stone for reading the record books of climate change.”

But we already know what we need to know about climate change on Earth, which is that burning more fossil fuels and clearing more forests will increase global temperatures, which will produce nastier droughts, more intense storms, mass migrations, mass extinctions and all kinds of other unpleasant outcomes. We’re currently on track for about 5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming in this century, which wouldn't melt lead, but could transform the world's jungles into savannas, cripple agricultural yields, wipe out the polar ice caps, and create 50 meters of sea-level rise.

You don’t have to be an astronomer to understand that space is very big, we are very small, and life is a blow-your-mind miracle. Maybe it once flourished on Venus. Maybe NASA’s geniuses will figure out what the heck went wrong there. But regardless of what they discover in the heavens, we’re making the earth a bit more like Venus every day. We’ve lucked into the ultimate Goldilocks planet, an improbably awesome refuge in a relentlessly inhospitable universe. The lesson of its evil twin is that we should probably stop setting it on fire.

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RSN: Mort Rosenblum | Sh'ma Yisrael

 

 

Reader Supported News
03 June 21

We Took a Beating in May

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Great donors, large and small, did come through for RSN. They make possible everything we do, and we do not forget that.

For the month May, we served nearly half a million readers, but managed only 445 donations. In April, 612 people donated. While that may not seem like a huge difference, it represents a nearly one-third decline in overall funding for the organization in a 30-day period. That’s huge.

This is June, we are going to need your participation at the level you can afford. With that RSN is strong, always.

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Reader Supported News
03 June 21

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

RSN: Mort Rosenblum | Sh'ma Yisrael
'Israel and Palestine need to find the common ground.' (photo: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)
Mort Rosenblum, Reader Supported News
Rosenblum writes: "Israel is only peripherally part of the deal. It is just a country; we don't have a Vatican. If we had a pope, it would hardly be Bibi Netanyahu."

hen young toughs beat the crap out of a random passerby in Times Square while shouting, “Fuck Jews, fuck Israel,” or some fool heaves concrete through a synagogue window in a Mister Rogers neighborhood in Tucson, it is time for some calm reflection on the call to prayer that has kept Judaism together for 5,000 years: Sh’ma Yisrael. Hear, O Israel.

Jews have come a long way. Had a Supreme Being not eased our forbears’ Red Sea border crossing out of Egypt to escape slavery, they’d have drowned. Forty years in the desert must have been tough. Matzo is no match for thin-crust pizza. Finally, they arrived uninvited into occupied land, followed by Romans, Crusaders, Ottomans, the British and a lot of others.

I am leery of uncheckable sources chipped into stone, scratched onto parchment or one-sided accounts from conquerors and the vanquished. Let’s fast forward to today.

I grimace when someone calls me a landzman. The Yiddish term suggests Jews are a tightly knit tribe of chosen people, especially the Ashkenazi who repeatedly fled European ghettos a few steps ahead of murderous mobs. True, we share that Shylock taint. Barred from owning land, narrowed options included lending money to rich goyim. But it is a bit more complex.

Jews come in three flavors. The Orthodox live their faith as devout Muslims do, with strict dietary laws, and quibble at length over ancient texts. Conservatives are Orthodox-lite. Reform Jews are relaxed about it all. Those like me were bar mitzvahed to keep mothers happy, are fine with meatball milkshakes, and say, “Oh, right,” if wished a happy new year when it’s not January. But we all share a heritage and culture. We mourn family lost in the Holocaust. And when applying for visas in Muslim countries, we’re all the same.

Israel is only peripherally part of the deal. It is just a country; we don’t have a Vatican. If we had a pope, it would hardly be Bibi Netanyahu. Still, I can think of no Jew, however lapsed, who isn’t happy there is a homeland for those who want it, meant to be a showcase of the do-unto-others creed that defines Judaic morality and a bulwark of democratic stability in the world’s roughest neighborhood.

As kids, we dropped lunch-money quarters into little blue boxes to plant trees in a holy land. They were not meant to buy bulldozers to uproot centuries-old olive trees when frustrated Palestinian kids lobbed rocks.

The 1947 deal gave Israel 460 square miles carved out of British Palestine. Both sides claimed Jerusalem, holy also to Christians; it was left up for grabs. Arab armies attacked the day after independence in 1948. Ten months later, Israel controlled 60 percent of land attributed to Palestinians, including those oft-lamented orange trees in Jaffa.

In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, owned by Britain and France. More war. He invaded in 1967, the Six-Day War. Remember those Egyptian boots in the Sinai sand, abandoned by troops fleeing for their lives? But yet again, Egypt, Syria and others attacked in 1973, the Yom Kippur War. Indisputably, Israel had to protect itself.

David and Goliath switched roles in 1982. Guerrillas in southern Lebanon lobbed noisy random rockets into Israel — Katyushas — from the Soviet Union’s World War II stockpile. Israeli tanks supported by aircraft poured across the border, headed for Beirut. I hurried to the beach town of Nahariya, up north, for the Associated Press.

One young woman chilled my blood. She told me how worried she was for the Israeli Defense Forces. “The Arabs aren’t like us,” she said. “We love our brothers and sons.” Palestinians, she added, are animals.

I had just toured Gaza and the West Bank. Decent people lived under the thumb of Palestinian faction leaders they did not elect, who condoned the terrorism that most reviled. Though bitter at being dispossessed — wouldn’t you be? — most wanted negotiated peace.

In Lebanon, I got a hard look at what I call the subway solution. Picture rush hour under Times Square. A SWAT team spots wanted terrorists boarding a train among office workers, moms with kids, tourists and hapless others. The easy option is to blow up the platform.

I saw 500-pound bombs drop on Ain-al-Hilweh refugee camp near Saida. Terrorists had dug in next to it, expecting what might happen. Like Hamas today, they knew footage of mangled infants and wailing survivors would further their cause. Israeli censors killed my dispatch for “security reasons,” as if refugees might learn from AP they were being bombed.

Later, I watched artillery obliterate Damour, a rich Christians’ seaside playground near Beirut. The PLO’s headquarters was destroyed. And the town was reduced to heaps of twisted iron and slabs of formerly ornate homes.

“Collateral damage” is a scourge of war. To our lasting shame, Americans have killed countless non-combatants, from Indochina to Iraq, with much in between. But at least wars are different from rooting out entrenched terrorists.

The official policy I saw in 1982 has evolved into collective punishment, which smacks of what the Nazis did by razing whole villages because of a resistance fighter in their midst.

Spare me lectures about Hitler. My name is Rosenblum. Jews must be better than that. Israel can pinpoint perpetrators without massive firepower designed to show strength and, as Netanyahu put it, to teach Palestinians a lesson they won’t forget.

Remember that Entebbe raid in 1976? Israelis stormed Idi Amin’s Uganda to free Air France passengers held hostage by Palestinian militants. Their only fatality was a commando leader: Yonatan Netanyahu, Benjamin’s brother.

In any case, the subway solution creates a visceral lust for vengeance that lasts for generations along with international contempt. It is a war crime. So are Hamas’ terror assaults. Israel must answer to a higher standard.

Hamas killed 12 people last month in a country of 8.7 million with rockets that got through the Iron Dome. That is no small number. Families huddled indoors for days, fearful of sudden death from an unlucky hit.

Israel responded with fire on 2 million people trapped in Gaza. Hamas, hardly a reliable source, said they killed 240 Palestinians, including 66 children. For a clear picture, we need credible reporters on the ground. But the first missiles leveled the building that housed AP and Al Jazeera. For 11 days, foreign reporters were kept out of Gaza.

Yet The Times of Israel, Haaretz, and others reported hard facts with damning video. U.N. officials, diplomats and aid agencies gave horrifying details — body counts; destroyed hospitals, schools, power plants, water and sewer mains; blocked streets — in an impoverished enclave still battered from a worse onslaught in 2014.

To understand the realities, and for improbable comic relief, watch a 2011 French-German-Belgian film, “When Pigs Have Wings.” A fisherman, forced to troll a narrow coastal strip, polluted and nearly fishless, pulls up discarded shoes and garbage until he nets a live pig that fell off a ship.

A Muslim, he is repulsed. But his family is hungry. He tries with no luck to sell it to a German U.N. official. Finally, he finds a young Russian kibbutznik, who raises pigs to sniff out terrorist bombs. But she only wants sperm. He tapes up a sexy Miss Piggy pinup to set the mood and eventually fills a vial.

Near the kibbutz, a bullying PLO sentry stops him and, thinking it is some helpful tonic, quaffs the porcine sperm. He extracts another. Much follows, and the message is clear. People are people. Palestinian and Jews end up, literally, in the same boat.

Then watch “Oslo,” just out, a docudrama with Steven Spielberg money that shows how secret face-to-face meetings brought Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat into Bill Clinton’s White House, beaming and shaking hands. That 1993 accord recognized Israel’s legitimacy, put a negotiated status for Jerusalem on the table and drew clear lines in the West Bank.

Two years later, a Netanyahu supporter assassinated Rabin, and peace talks stalled. Three years after that, Arafat yielded to extremist factions and backed away from earlier compromise.

Shimon Peres, as foreign minister, helped negotiate the Oslo Accords. As Israeli president, he insisted on a two-state solution. But Reuven Rivlin took over in 2014 and declared, “I wholeheartedly believe that the land of Israel is ours in its entirety.”

Then Gaza exploded. Hamas murdered three young Israelis. Netanyahu hit back hard. Hamas unleashed rockets, provoking the subway solution: swatting a wasp with a sledge hammer. At least 2,000 Palestinians died. Israel won a battle in a war it well may eventually lose.

This time around, Wallace Shawn, the actor, drilled down to the crux: “The anger of the Palestinians cannot be ended by killing their children.”

No one has an excuse for ignorance of the facts. Yet in a lifetime of reporting, I’ve never seen so many intelligent people, having never been to the Middle East, consistently blot out observable fact. Or so many others incited to violent attacks by obvious distortions, now riled up an internet that spews anti-Semitic hatred.

The latest spark comes down to a desperate politician, fighting to retain power and stay out of jail, sparring with an unpopular terrorist group eager to increase its clout in Palestine’s leadership vacuum. If embers burst into flame, the potential conflagration is unthinkable.

If Netanyahu goes, his tapped replacement espouses an even harder line. If Hamas is crippled, Iran can channel its aid elsewhere. Each year, weapons of gruesome destruction get smaller and deadlier, and more desperate people are prepared to use them. In the meantime, international support for Israel wanes.

For the first time, tough Israelis – Yudonazis – fought with Arabs within Israel. Rightwing politicians hurl death threats as parties seek a workable coalition.

Donald Trump abandoned America’s role as a good-faith mediator to satisfy Republican funders and Christian evangelicals. He turned Iran into a bitter foe, eager to exact payback.

Joe Biden, wisely, is keeping his diplomacy secret. But politics at home limit his options.

As all of this plays out, here are some thoughts:

  • We need to do what many of us have trouble doing – look at distant conflicts from other sides. In the end, it is less about land or religion than simple dignity. We can lecture Palestinians until we’re purple. They live what they live and feel what they feel.

  • Imposed solutions from outsiders won’t work, certainly not dictates from ultra-Zionist American Jews, Christian radicals, or the money-minded First Son-in-Law of a past president whose “Abraham Accords” heaped aviation fuel on those embers.

  • A two-state accord seems beyond reach with more than 600,000 Israelis now in West Bank settlements. But what else could work in the long term? In theory, Palestinians could have equal rights as citizens in Israel. In theory.

In Jerusalem, I once met an Orthodox black hat with all the trimmings, who launched into a tirade. In a mocking, wheedling tone, he dismissed all Palestinians as fractious murderous children in need of a once-and-for-all lesson.

When I disagreed, he spat out that epithet, which boils my blood: “You’re a self-hating Jew.” I glared at him, prominent nose to prominent nose, before replying: “No, I’m not the Jew I hate, motherfucker.”

Yet there is plenty of humanity on both sides. On a Thursday night in Tel Aviv, the bars are alive with young couples eager for peace, side-by-side with a Palestine open to the world. Plenty of elders agree, fed up with endless escalating confrontation.

In 2001, a suicide bomber killed 20 kids in a Tel Aviv disco, and I found understandable outrage. But an AP colleague talked to Mazan Julani. After a settler killed his son, Julani saved a Jewish stranger’s life. “I donated his organs to save lives,” he said, “no matter whether they were Muslims, Jews or Christians.”

This time, CNN reported a similar case in reverse. Yigal Yehoshua, a Jew who died days after Arab Israelis beat him in Lod, left a kidney to Randa Aweis, a Palestinian woman who had waited years for a transplant. In thanking the family, she said: “We should live together. We should have peace. We should be happy.”

Israel and Palestine need to find the common ground that negotiators discovered while drinking Johnny Walker Black together by a fire in Norway. Unless reasonable people come to terms, there may not be an Israel for anyone.


Mort Rosenblum has reported from seven continents as Associated Press special correspondent, edited the International Herald Tribune in Paris, and written 14 books on subjects ranging from global geopolitics to chocolate. He now runs MortReport.org.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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CC News Letter 03 June - They fear vaccines more than Covid

 


Dear Friend,

In rural Maharashtra when a vaccination camp was organized in Girgiti village near Chikhaldara in the first week of May, hardly two persons could be vaccinated there, while the population of this village is about one and a half thousand. The same situation prevails in many nearby villages like Varud, Anjangaon, Paratwada and Achalpur

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In Solidarity

Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org



They fear vaccines more than Covid
by Shirish Khare


In rural Maharashtra when a vaccination
camp was organized in Girgiti village near Chikhaldara in the first week of May, hardly two persons could be vaccinated there, while the population of this village is about one and a half thousand. The same situation prevails in many nearby villages like Varud, Anjangaon, Paratwada and Achalpur



Spend $50bn to end COVID, suggest IMF, World Bank, WHO and WTO
by Countercurrents Collective


The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Health Organization (WHO) and World Trade Organization (WTO) on Tuesday made a rare and what they called “extraordinary” plea for international cooperation and investment. A roadmap created by the coalition aims to accelerate and fairly distribute health tools around the world. The groups said a $50bn finance package could drive $9trn in additional global output by 2025. A failure to invest will mean continued waves and explosive outbreaks of
COVID19, the groups warned, as well as more transmissible and deadly virus variants.



Swept into a Covid Hell of Profits-The Great Forgetting, Part 2
by Nina Burleigh


My sense is that the emergency created by the insurrection at the Capitol last January and the desperate need of the new Biden administration to have palpable policy achievements in order to do well in election 2022 has taken the steam out of any inclination to dig deeper into the profiteering, cronyism, political scheming, and chaos with which the Trump administration met the Covid-19 virus. It went far deeper than an article like this can possibly indicate, leaving so many hundreds of thousands of potentially unnecessary deaths in its wake. Think of it as a memory hole, still brimming with schemes and money.



Ivermectin: WHO’s Chief Scientist Served with Legal Notice for Disinformation and Suppression of
Evidence
by Colin Todhunter


On 25 May 2021, the Indian Bar Association (IBA) served a 51-page legal notice on Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation (WHO), for “her act of spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfil her agenda.” The legal notice says Dr Swaminathan has been: “Running a disinformation campaign against Ivermectin by deliberate suppression of effectiveness of drug Ivermectin as prophylaxis and for treatment of COVID-19, despite the existence of large amounts of clinical data compiled and presented by esteemed, highly qualified, experienced medical doctors and scientists”



A Syria-story: Limit of the Empire’s power
by Farooque Chowdhury


Changes are appearing.
Russia’s role in Syria has torpedoed the empire’s initial plan – install a lackey in Damascus. Russia forcefully stood against the empire’s intervention in Syria. The proxies the empire mobilized found their guns and dynamites turning ineffective. The proxies’ “democracy” slogan and the MSM’s “poison” story couldn’t be successfully marketed. In contrast, the proxies, their slogan, and the toxic stories were exposed. Now, with developments in the eastern Mediterranean coast country, the empire’s limit of power is getting exposed.



US has been Spying on Major European Powers
by Naveed Qazi


There have been reports that Denmark’s military agency has helped the United States to spy, on leading European politicians, including Angela Merkel. The European Union is now demanding answers. Danmarks Radio, a Danish public broadcaster, said that US National Security Agency (NSA), whose
alleged tapping of Merkel’s phone was made known by Edward Snowden in 2013, also used Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE) to spy on officials in Sweden, France and Norway



Backward ClassReservation after Supreme Court judgement on Maratha case: who is to gain or lose?
by Mubashir VP


On May 5 Supreme Court quashed Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act (SEBC Act) of 2018, providing reservation to Maratha community in public services and educational institutions. This judgement is significant in multiple ways thanks to the increasing lobbying power of reservation politics, both at centre and state



The BJP government is incapable of governance
by Javed Iqbal Wani


The onslaught of the pandemic and its consistent
mismanagement by the government have created multiple emergencies in quick succession. The rising number of deaths due to Covid19, followed by the unavailability of hospital beds, ventilators, oxygen cylinders and essential drugs, led to national anxiety created by the lackadaisical attitude of the government. The second wave of the pandemic hit so bad that many on the side of the ruling party had to concede that the water had gone way over the head.



Saving Water, Ensuring Its Reach to the Poorest
by Bharat Dogra 


In conditions of high land inequalities, how can benefits of irrigation be taken to weaker sections? Generally the biggest, more powerful and resourceful landowners also try to grab more water. Even if due care is taken to ensure that the smaller farmers are not left out, not much can be done if most of the village households are landless workers



Zionist-Subverted Australian ABC Bans
Use Of Term “Apartheid” To Describe Israel
by Dr Gideon Polya


Orwellian domination by Zionists and the Zionist-beholden US means that the Mainstream media of the so-called “Free World” of Western US Alliance countries (the Anglosphere and the EU NATO countries) are not so free when it comes to reportage on Apartheid Israel. By way of example, the Zionist-subverted Australian ABC (the Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) has recently officially banned use of the term “Apartheid” in relation to Israel, the world’s most egregious Apartheid rogue state.



Circa,modern day thoughtfulness
by Daibee Das


A feminist musing by a young student



The Tragedy of Thousands of Migrant Workers Dying on Railway Tracks
by Bharat Dogra


It has been revealed in recently released statistics that over 8700 persons died on railway tracks during 2020. Officials have also stated that most of them are likely to be migrant workers walking along railway tracks while returning home.



Suicidal Games: Tokyo’s Coronavirus Olympics
by Dr Binoy Kampmark


A pandemic crisis.  A state of emergency.  Overwhelming public opinion bristling with alarm.  Notwithstanding these factors, Tokyo is still on track to host the Olympics that was cancelled last year in response to the global pandemic.  The first sports team – Australia’s softball crew – has touched down.  Is all this folly, bravery or self-interest?



The Fumbling King of Palestine: Palestinians are Defeating the Oslo Culture
by Dr Ramzy Baroud


The political discourse of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is similar to that of an ineffectual king who has been isolated in his palace for far too long. The king speaks of prosperity and peace, and tirelessly counts his innumerable achievements, while his people are dying of starvation outside and pointlessly begging for his attention.



The Mission of Poetry
by Moin Qazi


This is Sanjiv Bhatla’s maiden collection of poems. He has several authoritative and scholarly works on religious and spiritual subjects also to his credit. His poems are equally brilliant and bear out the finer sensibilities in him.



Suez Canal Blockade & Global Trade Troubles
by Naveed Qazi


Global economy was on its
knees, as trade ramifications from Suez Canal started to appear when the trade artery in Egypt was blocked, almost for a week, after a giant container ship, called Evergreen, owned by the Taiwanese company, Evergreen Marine ran around on the bank, of the canal, after apparently being deviated by high winds, on 23 March 2021. This scenario reflected the many vulnerabilities of global shipping.





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BREAKING: Plastic disaster in Sri Lanka

 

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The Singapore-registered X Press Pearl container ship was traveling from India to Singapore when it caught fire after a chemical leak triggered a reaction in the ship’s cargo.

When the ship exploded, its cargo of highly toxic contents was released into the ocean. The ship spilled billions of polyethylene and polypropylene pellets, 25 tons of nitric acid, and a variety of other chemicals and lubricants. Now, Sri Lanka’s shores are being flooded with hundreds of tons of plastic pellets, the type used as raw materials in the production of various plastic items including single-use plastic packaging.

As if the plastic pollution crisis wasn’t dire enough, these tiny pellets are causing devastation to the sea, the coastline, and the people and animals who call it home. Greenpeace is working day in and day out to expose corporations for their exploitation of our planet. Your gift today will help us investigate and report on their role in the plastic pollution crisis, put a stop to the flow of single-use plastics into our oceans and our communities, and push for systemic change that protects our planet.

While soldiers and volunteers are working around the clock to clean up the plastic pellets, it's not happening fast enough. Due to the scale of the disaster and restrictions imposed by the current COVID-19 lockdown, it’s a near-impossible task.

This is a tragic disaster. Plastic is not just an ocean and waste problem, it is a climate, health and social justice problem too — that’s why Greenpeace is pushing back against corporations pushing the plastics addiction. Make a gift right now to send a clear message to corporate polluters that it’s time they clean up their act and to support all we do for the planet.

Put a stop to the plastic pollution crisis

Want to know the most frustrating part? This disaster was preventable. To stop this from happening again, Greenpeace is demanding:

  • The U.S. Congress should pass the Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act, introduced in May 2021.
  • All cargo ships should use mandatory location systems for containers carrying dangerous goods. Fewer containers per ship should be used if the security of the transport is not guaranteed.
  • All cargo ships should be required to inform authorities (and the public) about lost or damaged cargo containers.
  • All cargo ships should be required to provide information about the cargo in any damaged containers (at the moment, this information is required only when claiming insurance money).
  • Plastic should be classified as an environmentally hazardous material and allocated appropriate IMFG codes.

And the most important demand: consumer goods companies MUST stop propping up the fossil fuel industry by using single-use plastics. Enough is enough.

This crisis is just another example of the implications of our single-use plastic addiction and the billion-dollar ad budgets of corporate polluters that feed it. Maybe this time can be different, if we get loud enough, we can show the world that we can’t go on like this. But we can’t do it without you.

If you make a gift today, you will say “no” to single-use plastics and “yes” to the peaceful and sustainable future we all deserve. There is no planet B. Now is our time to act.

Thanks for being a part of the solution,

Greenpeace USA






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Trump plots delusional return to power this summer

 

Today's Top Stories:

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Trump tells associates he will be back in White House by August
The twice-impeached, two-time popular vote loser is reportedly telling confidants he expects to be "reinstated" as president by August as a result of the ongoing election "audits."

Take Action: Restore voting rights with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act!

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VIDEO OF THE DAY: Fed up Joe Biden finally takes swipe at Senators Manchin & Sinema on stage
It's about damn time.

Take Action: Add your name to support Katie Porter's movement to elect more progressive leaders!

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Republicans take DANGEROUS step for 2024
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: This is a 5-alarm fire.

RNC threatens to advise candidates against future presidential debates unless commission makes significant changes to benefit Republicans
For a party so fearful of change, the GOP sure is eager to move the goal posts in every conceivable way for its own benefit.

Biden decries "horrific" Tulsa massacre in historic, emotional speech
"Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they cannot be buried, no matter how hard people try," the president said. "Only with truth can come healing." Yesterday marked the first time a sitting president commemorated the atrocious Tulsa race massacre of 1921.

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Biden suspends oil-drilling leases in Alaska's Arctic refuge
Republicans and the energy industry have long sought to open the remote area, as Democrats, environmental groups and some Alaska tribes have worked to keep it off-limits.

Take Action: Eliminate tax breaks and legal loopholes for big oil and gas!

Kayleigh McEnany complains that Kamala Harris is getting more credit than Ivanka Trump
The ex-president's former press secretary made an absurd comparison between the former first daughter and America's first female vice president.

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ICYMI: Watch Democrat Richard Ojeda's inspirational Memorial Day message
No Dem Left Behind: The veteran and progressive star has a plan for saving the country from conservatives' assault on democracy.

Democrats allay fears, notch easy House win in New Mexico special election
Melanie Stansbury comfortably held a deep-blue congressional seat, easing Democrats' fears that the post-2020 environment had turned against them.

Illinois OKs bill banning police from lying to young suspects
You may be asking yourself why police are allowed to lie to ANY person in custody during an interrogation, and you would be right to do so.

Guns, trucks and trips: West Virginia expands prizes for vaccinated residents
We're living in an episode of South Park.

Florida Gov. DeSantis signs anti-trans sports bill into law
Florida, where solutions in search of problems go to thrive in the sun!

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Seriously?

Meanwhile...

Hope...

Today’s Action: Kill the filibuster, save democracy!

Last week, Republicans abandoned the previously-bipartisan independent commission on Trump’s January 6th insurrection and blocked what should have been a thorough examination of the extreme-right’s deadly attempt to overturn our federal election. After empty promises to stand against violence and stand for the truth, the GOP has once again turned away from transparency to protect their own guilty members.

And despite Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, the GOP was able to do so because the filibuster continues to allow minority rule.

Call or email your Senators and demand an end to the minority rule that blocked the January 6th independent commission from passing: eliminate the filibuster to restore actual democracy in the Senate!

What’s the filibuster? It’s an exploitation of the Founders’ vision of unlimited debate in the Senate. By the 20th century, rules were implemented to call a vote if 60 Senators voted to cut off debate. But in recent decades, the minority party has only threatened debate and 60 votes are now needed to hold any vote. So, yes, the idea of unlimited debate has been twisted to mean a small minority of Senators can stop ANYTHING from happening. Not exactly what the founders of American democracy intended.

Every Democratic Senator needs to hear about the urgency of passing the Democratic agenda without letting the filibuster get in the way, even if they’ve already stated their support – and every Republican Senator needs to know you support these important policies and you won’t be forgetting their vote come election year.

Call (202.224.3121) or email your Senators and demand they eliminate the filibuster, to allow the majority of Americans to finally rule in the United States!





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BREAKING: Elon Musk’s gamble BLOWS UP in his face PAY ATTENTION! ELECT CLOWNS EXPECT A CIRCUS!

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