Mass reopenings worldwide have accelerated the coronavirus pandemic

Bryan Dyne

The mass economic re-openings in the Americas, Europe and Asia that began in May have paved the way for a massive spread of the coronavirus pandemic internationally. According to data aggregated by Worldometer, the average number of new cases has been more than 115,000 since May 27, a number which has been steadily rising since May 12.

The accelerating spread is also reflected in the number of new deaths each day. Starting in April, the number of new deaths had begun to decrease, a result of the physical distancing taken up by hundreds of millions of workers, toilers and youth around the world. The rate of new deaths, however, has now stabilized at an average of 3,770, as those people have been steadily forced back to work, and it is poised to climb in the wake of the hundreds of thousands of new infections.

As of this writing, there have been nearly 6.7 million officially confirmed cases and more than 390,000 deaths caused by COVID-19 worldwide. A plurality of cases are in the US and Brazil, which have totals of 1.9 million and 610,000 cases, respectively, along with 110,000 and 33,000 deaths.

Health workers from Doctors Without Borders visit a squatters camp to conduct medical examinations and avoid the spread of the COVID-19 in Sao Bernardo do Campo, greater Sao Paulo area, Brazil, Wednesday, June 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

The governments of both countries have also whipped workers back into factories and plants under threat of economic destitution if they don’t return. In Brazil, meatpacking plants were opened on May 20, while auto production started resuming the previous week. Hundreds of workers in these facilities have already become infected, spreading it to their homes and their communities. Despite this, President Jair Bolsonaro is storming ahead with the full reopening of the country, overseen by local mayors and regional governors.

Factories in the United States began opening even earlier. Some states, including Oklahoma, North Dakota and Nebraska, never had stay-at-home orders, while states such as Georgia began reopening the last week of April. Certain industries, such as auto, waited until the second or third week in May to fully resume manufacturing their products, but these were only ever shut down in the first place as a result of wildcat strikes that erupted in early April, after reports emerged of infections spreading in the auto plants.

The spread is in every state. While states such as New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Connecticut report a 14-day decrease in the number of new daily cases, nearly half of states have an increase in new cases, particularly in areas where the pandemic did not initially widely infect. Florida, for example, yesterday saw its highest new case count yet, bringing its total cases above 60,000. The state’s death toll stands at more than 2,600.

Mexico has also emerged as a new hotspot for outbreaks of the pandemic. It is now on par with the United States and Brazil for the number of new deaths each day, and is the fourteenth country to exceed 100,000 cases and the seventh to breach 10,000 deaths. Hundreds of these were caused by the premature reopening of the country’s maquiladora sweatshops, which are used by US auto and other manufacturing companies to produce cheap parts.

Similarly in India, large sections of industry were ordered to resume production in mid-May, particularly parts and car companies. Even then, the number of cases in the country were still increasing, largely a result of the haphazard lockdown implemented by the Modi government in April that trapped millions of migrant workers in the already crowded and unsanitary slums of Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and other cities. The Modi government’s actions have caused India’s official case and death counts to soar. They currently stand at 226,000 and 6,309, respectively, and are increasing exponentially.

The outbreaks in these countries and many others underscore the warnings that have been repeatedly issued by the World Health Organization against reopening without having a system of mass testing, contact tracing and isolation in place to fight the coronavirus. Hans Kluge, the European director for the WHO, recently noted, “The second wave is not inevitable. But an increasing number of nations are lifting restrictions, and there is a definite threat of a repeat outbreak of the COVID-19 infection. If those outbreaks are not isolated, a second wave may come and it may be very destructive.”

Even this statement is behind the times. The first wave of the pandemic, in global terms, never actually abated, and is now cutting a bloody swathe through some of the poorest regions of the world. South Asia, as well as Africa, have not only been devastated by the coronavirus, but also from powerful typhoons and massive locust swarms.

Kluge also noted, “We still have neither a vaccine nor a cure for COVID-19.” Similar statements were issued on Wednesday by Anthony Fauci, the director the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US. He warned that, while it is possible that there will be a vaccine available sometime next year, there is no evidence that any immunity will last.

“When you look at the history of coronaviruses, the common coronaviruses that cause the common cold, the reports in the literature are that the durability of immunity that’s protective ranges from three to six months to almost always less than a year,” Fauci said during an interview with Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Editor Howard Bauchner. “That’s not a lot of durability and protection.”

The re-openings are also occurring alongside the mass protests in the US and internationally against the police murder of George Floyd and the dictatorial actions taken by President Donald Trump. While many protesters are wearing masks in an attempt to protect themselves from the disease, the large crowds, chanting and holding hands are ideal for the contagion to rapidly spread. George Floyd himself was infected when he was killed, his autopsy showed.

The protests are also becoming an excuse for areas to close testing sites in California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Testing for the disease is a crucial step in containing outbreaks and is the only way to objectively know how far the pandemic has spread.

Less testing also artificially deflates the case counts, which can in turn be utilized to justify further re-openings. In a story virtually ignored by the national media, the worker who developed Florida’s coronavirus database was fired last month for refusing to manipulate the data in order make it seem as though the state had reached the threshold to safely reopen. As testing becomes less common, it becomes easier for false data to be presented as legitimate.

Trump intensifies campaign to brand domestic opposition as terrorism

Patrick Martin

The Trump administration is continuing its campaign for military intervention against the mass protests over police brutality that have swept the United States since the police killing of 46-year-old African American George Floyd on May 25. Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray held a press conference Thursday afternoon to voice lying claims that left-wing groups bent on violence had “hijacked” the protests, in an effort to manufacture a pretext for repression.

Barr advocated the use of anti-terrorism units to apprehend “agitators” whom he accused of “hijacking” demonstrations. The branding of domestic political opposition as terrorism is aimed at delegitimizing and criminalizing all opposition to police violence and the policies of the oligarchy.

The level of lying in the Barr press conference would be admired by Nazi spokesman Josef Goebbels, the propaganda chief for Hitler’s “big lie.” Barr conjured up an invented world in which demonstrations involving millions of people in hundreds of cities, large, medium and small, are being manipulated by Antifa, an “organization” that has not a single identified member. He also claimed that “foreign actors” were intervening in the protests, adding the specter of a Russian, Chinese, Iranian or Al Qaeda role.

Utah National Guard soldiers stand on a police line as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd, Thursday, June 4, 2020, near the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Antifa is little more than a label adopted by youth who protest against ultra-right and white supremacist provocations. As an organized group, it exists mainly in the fevered imaginations of FBI informers and agents—who likely comprise most of its “membership.” If Antifa did not exist (and it may not), Trump, Barr & Co. would be compelled to invent it, as a pretext for the mass repression that they are carrying out against the American working class.

Barr advocated the use of existing Joint Terrorist Task Forces against the supposed Antifa threat. The JTTF unite federal and state police agents in a common effort, initially directed against the Islamic fundamentalists who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington, but now to be turned against all left-wing opposition to the policies of the Trump administration and its collaborators at the state level.

FBI agents working through the JTTF will go out to question people about their political views, in gross violation of the First Amendment, and seek to criminalize their participation in protests. A Department of Homeland Security memorandum, obtained by Politico, cited the need for intelligence agents to be “vigilant in looking for any kind of emerging threat to the homeland,” while making the revealing admission that “some of the observed suspicious behaviors include constitutionally protected activities…”

Barr has emerged as one of the principal agents of Trump in preparing a presidential dictatorship. The “chief law enforcement officer,” as the attorney general is described, is actually a full-fledged co-conspirator in the assault of the US Constitution and democratic rights.

Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, but unlike 1992 in California, no state governor has requested federal military assistance. So, the White House aims to use the District of Columbia, which is federal territory and not part of any state, as a demonstration of the use of overwhelming military force to crush protests and intimidate the largely African American population.

As press reports have begun to show, it was Barr who played the main role in the police-military attack on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, on Monday night. The anti-riot force of the federal Bureau of Prisons, under Barr’s direct authority since it is part of the Department of Justice, was the spearhead of the effort to clear the park, using tear gas, pepper balls, and other riot gear, so that Trump could take his massively publicized walk across the park and pose, holding a Bible, in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had suffered minor fire damage over the weekend.

At the press conference, Barr hailed the role of myriad federal agencies in the DC repression, declaring, “We have deployed all the major law-enforcement components of the department in this mission, including the FBI, ATF, DEA, Bureau of Prisons, and U.S. Marshals Service.”

He recalled his own role in 1992, during his previous term as attorney general in the administration of George H. W. Bush, the last time that a president invoked the Insurrection Act, during the upheaval in Los Angeles that followed the acquittal of the police thugs who beat Rodney King—an earlier racist atrocity by police that, like the killing of George Floyd, became a national scandal because it was filmed by bystanders and the whole country was able to witness the true nature of American “law and order.”

Vice President Pence, who was absent during the Lafayette Square provocation, has resurfaced as a fervent advocate of the Insurrection Act and the use of federal troops. In an interview with a Pittsburgh television station, Pence condemned the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania for only calling out 500-600 National Guard troops and threatened to send in the US Army instead.

“The president and I will continue to urge the governors, like Governor Wolf, to call up the National Guard, deploy them to the streets and in a strong and decisive manner to restore order. The American people expect nothing less,” said Pence.

While lies on the scale of those advanced by Barr may seem demented and unbelievable, there is a definite logic at work. It is part of a game plan to justify a military coup d’état that would place unchallenged power in the hands of the president. The gangster language of Trump and his accomplices, including aides like Stephen Miller and advisers like Steven Bannon, demonstrates that they are not playing by any sort of constitutional-democratic rulebook. They will do and say anything to carry out their plans to establish an authoritarian regime based on the military and the police.

The greatest danger for working people and youth would be to underestimate the dangers and believe—as the corporate media and the Democratic Party would suggest—that Trump has given up his plans for military rule because of opposition from within the political and national-security establishment. Spreading this poisonous complacency was the main function of the sermon delivered by Democratic Party operative Al Sharpton to the memorial service held for George Floyd Thursday in Minneapolis.

Sharpton was compelled to admit that the massive turnout at nationwide protests, with large numbers of young whites comprising a clear majority of those outraged and angry over the murder of George Floyd, marked something new in American political and social life. But he quickly turned to his real purpose: portraying the attack on Floyd as purely racial, thus concealing its class character as an attack on the working class, and the role of the police, whether white or black, as the repressive arm of the capitalist state.

Making light of Trump’s threat to use military force against the protesters, Sharpton called the president “all bark and no bite.” This under conditions where at least a dozen people have already been killed by police and National Guard since the protests began, and where Trump and his co-conspirators are actively preparing an intervention by the military on the streets of America that would mean a terrible bloodbath.

Not one prominent Democrat has denounced Trump for threatening a military takeover or demanded that he be removed from office. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has been virtually invisible. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democratic in Washington, merely sent a letter to the White House Thursday, requesting it to supply Congress with a list of the military and police agencies involved at Lafayette Park, as though there were not an ongoing effort to overthrow the constitutional structure of the United States.

The Socialist Equality Party has issued a call for workers and youth to oppose the White House plans to suppress democratic rights and impose a police-military regime. We said:

The working class must intervene in this unprecedented crisis as an independent social and political force. It must oppose the conspiracy in the White House through the methods of class struggle and socialist revolution.

The millions of workers and youth taking part in mass protests against police violence must begin to raise political demands against the gangster methods of the Trump administration, calling for the removal of Trump, Pence and their conspirators from office.

Japanese Government MEXT Scholarships 2021

Application Deadline: 31st July, 2020

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Japan

About the Award: The Embassy of Japan is pleased to inform you that the Government of Japan will provide scholarship for Primary/Secondary school teachers who desire to take teacher training course and Japanese language training in Japan.
The scholarship is open to graduates of universities and teachers training colleges no more than thirty-four (34) years of age who have worked as teachers at primary/secondary schools or teacher training college for at least five years in their home countries at the time of application.
Beneficiaries shall upon their return, help to promote Japanese Language education in Nigeria.

Type: Training

Eligibility: 
(1) Nationality: Applicants must have the nationality of a country that has diplomatic relations with Japanese government. An applicant who has Japanese nationality at the time of application is not eligible.However, persons with dual nationality who hold Japanese nationality and whose place of residence at the time of application is outside of Japan are eligible to apply as long as they give up their Japanese nationality and choose the nationality of the foreign country by the date of their arrival in Japan. Applicant screening will be conducted at the Japanese Embassy orConsulate (hereinafter referred to “Japanese diplomatic mission”)in the country of applicant’s nationality.

(2)　Age：Applicants, in principle,must be born on or after April 2, 1986.

(3)　Academic and Career Background：Applicants must be graduates of universities or teacher training schools and have worked as teachers at primary/secondary educational institutions or teacher training schools (excluding universities)in their home countries for five years in total as of April 1, 2019.In-service university faculty members are not eligible.

(4)　Japanese Language Ability：Applicants must be keen to learn Japanese. Applicants must be interested in Japan and be keen to deepen their understanding of Japan after arriving in Japan.Applicants must also have the ability to do research and adapt to living in Japan.

(5)　Health：Applicants must be judged that they are medically adequate to pursue study in Japan by an examining physician on a prescribed certificate of health.

(6)　Arrival in Japan：　Applicants must be able to arrive in Japan by the designated period(usually October) between the day two weeks before the course starts and the first day of the course. (If the applicant arrives in Japan before this period for personal reasons, travel expenses to Japan will not be paid. Excluding cases of unavoidable circumstances, if the applicant cannot arrive in Japan by the end of the designated period the applicant must withdraw the offer.)

(7)　Visa acquisition：Applicants should,in principle,acquire “Student” visas before entering Japan and enter Japan with “Student” residence status. The visas should be issued at the Japanese diplomatic missions located in the country of applicants’ nationality. Those who change their visa status to one other than “Student” after arrival in Japan will lose their qualification to be Japanese Government Scholarship recipients from the date when their visa status changes.

(8)　Applicants must return to their home country and resume their work immediately after the end of the scholarship period.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship:

• Allowance：143,000 yen per month. (In case that the recipient researches in a designated region, 2,000 or 3,000 yen per month will be added. The monetary amount each year may be subject to change due to budgetary reasons.)
• Transportation to Japan：The recipient will be provided an economy-class airplane ticket, according to his/her itinerary and route as designated by MEXT,from the international airport nearest to his/her home country residence,where in principle is in the country of nationality, to the Narita International Airport or any other international airport that the appointed university usually uses when they enter to Japan.
• Expenses such as inland transportation from his/her home address to the international airport, airport tax, airport usage fees, special taxes on travel, or inland transportation within Japan including a connecting flight will NOT be covered. (*Although the address in the home country stated in the application form is in principle regarded as the recipient’s “home country residence,” if it will be changed at the time of leaving from his/her home country the changed address will be regarded as “home country residence.”)
• Transportation from Japan：The recipient who returns to his/her home country within the fixed period after the expiration of his/her scholarship will be provided, upon application, with an economy-class airplane ticket for travel from the Narita International Airport or any other international airport that the appointed university usually uses to the international airport nearest to his/her home address, wherein principle is in the country of nationality.
  • (Note 1) Any aviation and accident insurance to and from Japan shall be borne by the recipient.
  • (Note 2) Should the recipient not return to his/her home country soon after the end of the scholarship period to resume his/her duties, the transportation fee for the return to the home country will not be provided.
• Tuition and Other Fees：Fees for the entrance examination, matriculation and tuition at universities will be paid by the Japanese Government.

Duration of Scholarship: The term is the period necessary to complete each university’s training course and should be between October 2021 (or the starting month of the course) and March 2023. Extension of the term is not permitted

How to Apply: 

• Applicants must submit all required documents to the Japanese diplomatic mission in the applicant’s country. The submitted documents will not be returned.
• For Nigerian teachers: Completed MEXT scholarship application forms (find in link below) can be submitted by hand or by post to this address below:
  Embassy of Japan – Culture & Information Section
  No. 9 Bobo Street (Off Gana Street),
  Maitama District,
  Abuja 

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Important Notes: 

• (1)The recipient is advised to learn, before departing for Japan, the Japanese language and to acquire some information about Japanese weather, climate, customs, and university education in Japan, as well as about the difference between the Japanese legal system and that of his/her home country.
• (2)As the first installment of the scholarship payment cannot be provided immediately upon the recipient’s arrival, the recipient should bring at least approximately US $2,000 or the equivalent thereof to cover immediate needs after arrival in Japan.

YMCA Ireland: Youth Work Project 2020 for Young Leaders

Application Deadline: 30th June 2020

About the Award: The YMCA Family and Youth work project wants to achieve better outcomes for children, young people and families who are experiencing fewer opportunities. We want to achieve safe spaces where everyone can feel a part of a welcoming community and reach their full potential. Our mission is to work with the whole family to support young people to gain the assets they need to be resilient in the face of life’s challenges. We intentionally work to build this resilience by supporting the development of social competence, active citizenship, physical well-being, spirituality, and positive relationships. The YMCA Family and Youth Work project works with 90 children/young people and their families across three communities who are experiencing fewer opportunities and are at risk of social exclusion. The participants are mostly from economically disadvantaged areas and include children and young people with special needs.

Type: Training

Eligibility: The volunteer must have an interest in working with children, and teenagers, Be motivated by the principles of the European solidarity corp, including a desire to support people who are on the margins of society, and an interest in developing an inclusive sense of European identity and belonging. , Demonstrate dependability and the ability to work to their own initiative. Skills in at least one of the following areas is an asset: Arts and Crafts, Exercise/movement/sports, Drama, Music, STEM activities, and/ or Cooking. Ability to get along with others and work as part of a team.

Eligible Countries: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Bulgaria, Belarus, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Algeria, Estonia, Egypt, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Georgia, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Iceland, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Libya, Morocco, Moldova (Republic of), Montenegro, North Macedonia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Russian Federation, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Kosovo * UN resolution, British Antarctic Territory, Anguilla, Aruba, Bermuda, Bonaire Sint Eustatius and Saba, Canary Islands, Curaçao, Falkland Islands, French Guiana, Greenland, British Indian Ocean Territory, Cayman Islands, Saint Martin (french part), Montserrat, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, St Pierre and Miquelon, Pitcairn, Turks and Caicos Islands, French Southern and Antarctic Territories, Virgin Islands (British), Wallis and Futuna

To be Taken at (Country): Ireland

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The volunteer will receive a weekly allowance in line with the ESC requirements. They can either stay with a host family who provides meals and accommodation, or we can give them towards these costs if they would like to find their own accommodation. Transportation costs are covered and the volunteer will have access to a Leap card and a bicycle.
The volunteer will have access to an on arrival and mid-way training along with other international volunteers. The YMCA provides induction, child protection training as well as conferences on topics key to youth workers.

Duration of Award: A total of 44 week(s) during the period 15/09/2020 to 31/07/2021

How to Apply: Apply

Visit Award Webpage for Details

The UN’s Anti-Poverty Proposal for Latin America: a “Basic Emergency Income”

Brett Heinz

The economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Latin America could be potentially devastating, according to a new Special Report by the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The report, based on the available data in mid-April, has estimated a -5.3 percent drop for the region’s GDP growth in 2020 — the largest in the region’s history. If this is the case, ECLAC calculates, 29 million more people would be pushed into poverty and 16 million more into extreme poverty, alongside a dramatic increase in inequality in what is already the most unequal region in the world.

In the face of this potential disaster, the authors of the ECLAC report recommend a “basic emergency income” as an anti-poverty measure. The proposal could be a powerful tool for economic empowerment that can help millions survive the recession if paired with other measures, the paper argues.

The damage of the COVID-19 crisis won’t just come from labor disruptions caused by social distancing and lockdowns, but from a number of other Covid-related factors as well. ECLAC estimates that low global demand and crashing commodity prices could reduce the value of exports from Latin America by 15 percent this year. Tourism could drop by 20–30 percent. Declining incomes throughout the world means that remittances from immigrants, a source of $96 billion dollars for the region last year, will shrink 19.3 percent this year, according to World Bank estimates.

To prevent a depression and reduce the economic damage, a response to the COVID-19 crisis requires distributing money to large groups of people experiencing a drop in income as quickly and efficiently as possible. In addition, because the Americas lead the world in the percentage of workers who are in “at-risk” informal sectors of the economy, the region’s response can’t exclusively work through employment-based stimulus policies targeted at formal businesses, as these will be less effective at reaching everyone.

The ECLAC report, released May 12, calls on nations in the region to “provid[e] a basic emergency income … equivalent to one poverty line (the per capita cost of acquiring a basic food basket and meeting other basic needs) over the course of six months to the entire population living in poverty in 2020.” ECLAC estimates that direct cash transfers to 215 million people (a bit over a third of Latin America’s population) would cost 2.1 percent of regional GDP.

The idea of directly and unconditionally transferring money with few restrictions to large swathes of the population runs contrary to popular conservative attitudes toward welfare, but various forms of this policy exist worldwide, and the sheer scale of the COVID-19 crisis has driven policymakers around the world to embrace the idea. While the US has distributed stimulus checks, spending on various cash transfers has already increased in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Peru, and Uruguay.

ECLAC’s proposal goes further. First, the announced expansions of cash transfers in Latin America are far smaller than the 2.1 percent of regional GDP that the proposal calls for; for example, Guatemala is seeking an expansion equal to 1.2 percent of its GDP, while Peru and Honduras are only aiming for an expansion of 0.4 percent of their GDP. Additionally, ECLAC recommends that countries consider keeping the basic income policy in place even after COVID-19, in order to tackle endemic poverty.

Though basic income isn’t a substitute for a well-funded welfare state, it may serve as a promising supplement to one. Research on unconditional cash transfers in Zambia not only found that they were highly effective anti-poverty measures, but that they also had positive spillover effects on local economies. Additional research also casts doubt on common criticisms of the idea: that it will decrease labor participation, increase drug and alcohol consumption, etc.

By quickly distributing cash without hassle to impoverished populations, a targeted basic income for the poor could serve as a vital part of Latin America’s policy response to COVID-19. The international community should act to assist the region in making such a program possible, including through a new issuance of Special Drawing Rights.

With USA in Retreat, China Reassesses Its Options

Tom Clifford

Beijing.

Beijing is looking at the world today through a prism where the United States can be accounted for. The US is too weak, it believes, except in purely military terms, to counter China’s interests.  The image has been seen the world over. A black man dies after a US policeman kneels on his neck. Civil strife ensues. America is in retreat, and without firing a shot, China has more global influence than any time since the 16^th century.

Even before this shocking event, the Sino-US relationship was for the history books. Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stupidly said in March that COVID-19 was released by the American military. He would not have said it or got clearance, a nod from above, to say it had the trust not gone? There was little trust even when the relationship was financially beneficial to both countries but at least there was a feeling that the two could profit from closer ties. That has evaporated.

Call it what you will. Chimerica, US-hina, Chiam. The China-America relationship is holed beneath the waterline. There will be a relationship, of sorts, but it will be based now on competition not cooperation. For the first time since Richard Nixon was testing recording equipment in the White House, China is not a potential ally but a clear and present danger. Or at least that is how the Trump election campaign will describe it.

From Beijing’s viewpoint, they can barely believe their luck. Not at the decline of the relationship but rather that the US is in a place where any criticism of China’s rights record looks, at least Beijing will say, hypocritical and be easy to counter. Beijing is about to introduce a draconian security law in Hong Kong that all but upends the one country two systems formula. They are doing it under Covid-19 cover, while the world is largely distracted. It’s working. No real objections. Sure, a few voices raised, the US may even impose some sanctions. But, let’s just wait and see. The US after all is convulsed after the George Floyd killing. Trump, the president from Beijing’s point of view that keeps on giving, is threatening to send in the military onto the streets of US cities. Trump talks of security forces “dominating” the streets. Just like, Beijing will claim, security forces are doing in Hong Kong.

The territory’s former imperial masters? Britain. Busted flush. Its prime minister is seeping authority in the wake of the Cummings affair and besides a Brexited Britain is not something to unduly concern those who stride Beijing’s corridors of power.

The European Union? Stagnant, especially as Angela Merkel prepares to depart the scene. China’s borders are secure, and there is no clear and present danger internationally.

They are not, though, celebrating in Beijing at these turns of events. The world, or at least the West, is decoupling from China or attempting to. Beijing realizes there is an undercurrent of deep mistrust about its motives. Their own economy has been battered, its export markets greatly reduced and post-Covid hostility will linger long after the virus.

Beijing knows it will be blamed for the initial delayed response to the outbreak in Wuhan.

Lawsuits have been filed in the US against the Chinese government over its mishandling of the outbreak. These may not see damages awarded but they will do nothing to improve ties.

Multi-national companies will look for ways to get out of China.  Supply chains will move elsewhere.

There is talk of a new cold war. Much of the international goodwill that greeted China’s rise and its spending power in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis has vanished. There are many in the West who view China more in terms of an enemy than a friend. Beijing’s much touted Belt and Road Initiative has hit potholes and while still being pursued there is less fanfare attached to it than before. China faces major problems from within its own borders. Xinjiang province in the west of the country is seething with resentment. Its largely Muslim population feels alienated and discriminated against.

Domestic employment is taking a hit. In July nearly 9 million graduates will hit the job market. An educated dynamic young population will be denied the opportunities their parents had.  This will come at a price. Disillusionment can lead to anger.

Time for a distraction? An international crisis, say in the South China Sea? Or a financial crisis?

Beijing has achieved a prized political goal, it has seen American global influence diminish. Sooner, much sooner, than it thought possible. But China also faces a struggling economy. In some countries politics underpins a stable economy. In China, the economy underpins stable politics.

Economic instability occurred sooner, much sooner, than Beijing thought it would. Those who pace up and down Beijing’s corridors of power know that a stagnant economy threatens more than GDP growth.

How Immunity for Cops and Facebook Kills Americans

Thom Hartmann

When you tell people they won’t be held accountable for their actions, it almost always ends badly. That’s what’s happened with our police and our social media, two institutional pillars of personal and political society in America today. Removing those dual immunities could dramatically change—for the better—the lives of millions of Americans.

For police, the doctrine of “qualified immunity” first took hold in 1967 in the Supreme Court case Pierson v. Ray, when it was used “to shield white police officers from a lawsuit they faced for enforcing segregation,” as the Princetonian editorial board wrote recently.

In Pierson v. Ray, a group of black and white clergymen who supported racial integration sued the police for arresting their members for violating segregation rules and sitting in a “white[s] only” part of a bus station in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1961.

The Supreme Court concluded that the police largely had immunity from being sued because the arrests were made in “good faith.” (The Supreme Court also said in Pierson v. Ray that those officers were not expected to predict that the Supreme Court would decide in the 1965 case of Thomas v. Mississippi that whites-only areas were unconstitutional.)

The Reagan Revolution brought a huge expansion of the doctrine when, in 1982, the Supreme Court in Harlow v. Fitzgerald redefined and expanded the immunity granted to any government employee, in a case involving former members of the Nixon administration.

While the Supreme Court never mentioned police in that decision, as government employees the police gained the same immunity given by the court to members of the executive and legislative branches of government.

The result of these decisions—examples of the Supreme Court essentially making law, as Congress has only occasionally weighed in on any of these issues—is that police in America routinely get away with murder and egregious violence.

The Supreme Court may, in the next week or two, take up a case that will examine this doctrine as it specifically applies to police; they have several such cases before them, and will probably choose at least one of them to base their ruling on.

Meanwhile, immunity is also helping out the internet oligarchs.

At the same time cops are flashing white power signs and killing black people at a rate 3.5 times greater than they are killing white people, Facebook and other social media sites are providing a safe haven for killer cops and white supremacists to hang out and promote violence.

They can do this because Congress, trying to jumpstart the internet, gave immunity to the owners and operators of websites where other people could post their own opinions, comments and rants.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, essentially says that the owners of services like Facebook and Twitter have very, very little responsibility for what people say—or what they do as the result of what they or others say—on their message boards or systems.

As a result, social media has become a sewer of lies, propaganda and the incitement of violence. (Although they do generally moderate and block copyright violations; protecting property rights is a far higher priority for these companies and the law than protecting personal rights, group safety, or democracy.)

It wasn’t always this way.

Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, I ran a small business that provided “moderating” services to CompuServe, which at first, along with AOL, pretty much was the internet.

We oversaw nearly 30 message boards devoted to a variety of topics from tech support for desktop publishing, Macs and PCs to ADHD, UFOs and the Kennedy assassination. A compilation of one of our message boards, published as the book Think Fast!, even won a national tech award and was put into an exhibition at the Smithsonian celebrating the emerging internet.

We had more than 40 people working from home all around the world, and CompuServe paid our company well for our work. We didn’t get rich from doing this as we were paying most of our employees (there were a few volunteers), but for about a decade we made a very comfortable middle-class living.

The reason CompuServe paid us to do this—and AOL was paying their own group of subcontractors to moderate their boards—was that CompuServe didn’t want to get sued if somebody posted something slanderous, obscene, or inciting violence on their platform.

Additionally, there was no anonymity: everybody who posted had to have verified their identity with a credit card (CompuServe charged a small monthly membership fee), and people who broke those rules were quarantined or outright banned from our boards. (Today this could be done via IP addresses or other means that don’t require money.)

Section 230, however, gave the owners and managers of CompuServe and AOL, and later Facebook, Twitter, 4Chan and pretty much every other site on the web, immunity from lawsuit. It was, for Zuckerberg et al., the equivalent of the Harlow v. Fitzgerald decision’s immunity grant to police.

Thus, today social media companies are spending millions of dollars a week to keep Section 230 in place so they won’t have to hire people like me and my old colleagues to keep their message boards clean and honest.

This is not an issue of censorship, by the way—Facebook and Twitter are already censoring posts on their platforms daily, based not on federal law or what’s best for democracy, but on their own internal rules, referred to as their “terms of service.” Facebook, for example, has given Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller (among others)—a site that publishes people who traffic in climate denial and anti-Semitism and is notoriously pro-Trump—the power to decide which posts are fact and which are fiction, which will be taken down and which will persist.

Instead, it’s an issue of money. If Facebook, Twitter et al. were held responsible for what people post on their sites, it would cost them a fair amount of money to hire thousands of people to keep their boards clean.

Instead of being worth $85 billion, Zuckerberg may end up only being worth $80 billion, no doubt a crushing blow.

The internet has changed a lot since 1996, when CompuServe pretty much quit paying our company to moderate their boards because they no longer had liability for things said there.

Holding companies like Twitter and Facebook to the same liability standards that every newspaper or radio and TV station in America today faces will not end their business model or wipe out their profitability.

Similarly, holding police to the standards of responsibility and decency they faced at law (although often unenforced) prior to 1982 won’t end policing or wipe out their ability to keep our communities safe.

But both will go a long way toward improving Americans’ quality of life and saving our republic.

NATO Returns to Libya to Challenge Russia

M.K. Bhadrakumar

The great game in Libya has begun surging with the United States shedding its strategic ambivalence and resorting to a proactive role. At the end of May, the Pentagon marked a dramatic escalation by accusing Moscow of bolstering “Kremlin-linked mercenaries” who are allegedly helping Khalifa Haftar, the eastern warlord in Libya.

In an extraordinary statement on May 29, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) said that jets were flown earlier that week from Russia to eastern Libya to a base controlled by Haftar, in the wake of his offensive to capture power in Tripoli, after suffering a major reverse recently due to Turkey’s military help to the UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord.

AFRICOM claimed that the Russian jets are “likely to provide close air support and offensive fires” for Russian mercenaries working for Haftar—the Wagner Group, a shadowy private army that Western experts link to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Russia is clearly trying to tip the scales in its favor in Libya,” said U.S. Army Gen. Stephen Townsend in the statement. “Just like I saw them doing in Syria, they are expanding their military footprint in Africa using government-supported mercenary groups like Wagner.” He added, “For too long, Russia has denied the full extent of its involvement in the ongoing Libyan conflict. Well, there is no denying it now.”

AFRICOM has since published additional details and satellite images across its social network channels. A Twitter post by AFRICOM on May 27 states:

“Over multiple days in May, Russian MiG 29s and SU-24 fighters departed Russia. At that time, all the aircraft had Russian Federation Air Force markings. After they land at Khmeimim Air Base in Syria, the MiG 29s are repainted and emerge with no national markings. They are flown by Russian military members & escorted by Russian fighters based in Syria to Libya, landing in Eastern Libya near Tobruk for fuel. At least 14 newly unmarked Russian aircraft are then delivered to Al Jufra Air Base in Libya.”

Oil-rich Libya is in the grip of its worst bloodshed since the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi during the 2011 NATO intervention. The war that followed is being fueled by regional and European powers, which have backed the warring sides for a variety of interests. But Washington has pointedly singled out Russia for its verbal fusillade.

Indeed, there has been a steady buildup leading to this point. On May 7, U.S. State Department officials raised the ante by holding a special “Briefing on Russian Engagement in the Middle East” with a focus on accusing Russia of worsening the situation in Libya by funneling Syrian mercenaries.

This briefing came a day after a confidential UN report on Libya sanctions said the Wagner Group has “‘acted as an effective force multiplier’ for Haftar’s command,” which “has led to a significant escalation of the conflict and a worsening of the humanitarian situation in Libya,’ … [according to] Chris Robinson, a State Department official who focuses on Russia.”

Seizing upon the UN report, Robinson told reporters that the Wagner Group is “often misleadingly referred to as a Russian private security company, but in fact it’s an instrument of the Russian government which the Kremlin uses as a low-cost and low-risk instrument to advance its goals.” He claimed that the “‘very heavy and advanced weapons’ the [W]agner Group wields in Libya indicate… it is not a private company.”

James F. Jeffrey, special representative for Syria engagement, who also took part in the briefing, said that Washington believes Russia is working with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to transfer militia fighters and equipment to Libya. He said, “We know that certainly the Russians are working with Assad to transfer militia fighters, possibly [a] third country, possibly Syrian, to Libya, as well as equipment.”

In essence, the senior U.S. diplomats kick-started a new U.S. policy trajectory. This became clear on May 14, when in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg disclosed that the alliance is ready to support the official Tripoli government.

As he put it, “In Libya there is an arms embargo that needs to be respected by all sides. However, this doesn’t mean to put on the same level the forces led by [Khalifa] Haftar and the government of Fayez al-Sarraj, the only one recognized by the UN. For this reason, NATO is ready to give its support to the government of Tripoli.”

Soon after Stoltenberg’s interview appeared, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan telephoned him to discuss Libya on May 14. According to NATO, Stoltenberg told Erdogan:

“NATO is prepared to help Libya in the area of defence and security institution building, in response to the request by the Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord to assist the GNA to strengthen its security institutions. Any NATO assistance to Libya would take account of political and security conditions, and would be provided in full complementarity and in close coordination with other international efforts, including those of the UN and the EU.”

Two days later, on May 16, Stoltenberg held a phone conversation with the Prime Minister of Libya, Fayez al-Sarraj. Stoltenberg is not a free agent. NATO takes its cue from Washington. Clearly, Washington is inserting NATO into the Libyan conflict as a new strategy. Of course, any such NATO intervention in Libya also implies that the Western alliance is moving into Africa.

In the Western assessment, any Russian consolidation in Libya would weaken NATO’s dominance of the Mediterranean. On May 26, the Al-Monitor reports, “the commander of U.S. air forces in Europe and Africa said that if Russia obtains permanent coastal bases in Libya, its ‘next logical step’ will be to introduce long-range air defense systems, which… [could pose] a threat to NATO’s access to its southern flank.”

There are incipient signs that the United Arab Emirates, which has been a key provider of weaponry and funds to Haftar, is having a rethink, presumably due to pressure from Washington, whose game plan is to isolate Russia. But this can be a tactical shift, considering the acuteness of the UAE-Turkey rivalries currently.

Egypt, another supporter of Haftar, continues to support him politically, diplomatically, logistically and security-wise against terrorist groups in Libya. While Egypt will not intervene militarily in Libya, strong coordination continues between the Egyptian leadership and Haftar on one side and between Cairo and Moscow on the other.

Cairo appears to estimate that Haftar’s recent withdrawals from the frontline are a tactical move to protect the remaining military equipment and weapons that were not destroyed in Turkey’s airstrikes.

To be sure, the NATO intervention in Libya cannot be to Russia’s liking. Russia has strong political and economic interests in Libya. The Pentagon accusation regarding Russia providing jets to Libya suggests that Moscow is stepping up too.

The U.S. (and NATO) strategy will be to evict Russia from the eastern Mediterranean, including from its bases in Syria. Unsurprisingly, Washington and Ankara are cozying up to each other lately. NATO’s intervention in Libya is heartily welcomed by Turkey.

Suffice it to say, the U.S. and Turkey find themselves today on the same side over Libya. Russia, therefore, has reasons to be anxious about the future of its relations with Turkey and its overall standing in Syria. Interestingly, Russia and Syria held a joint exercise at the end of May to strengthen the security of the naval base in Tartus on the eastern Mediterranean.

All in all, the U.S. moves over Syria only underscore that Washington’s containment strategy against Moscow continues to be in full cry, notwithstanding the rising U.S.-China tensions. Russia’s introduction of fourth-generation fighter aircraft in Libya suggests that Moscow will push back against NATO’s intervention.

The gathering storms over Libya prompted the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to raise the warning on May 27 while addressing a French Senate panel: “The crisis is deepening. We are facing a ‘Syrianization’ of Libya.”

One major objective of NATO in Libya will be to curb the refugee flow into Europe. Put differently, the European Union becomes a stakeholder in the U.S. strategy to insert NATO into Libya. This will significantly dampen the prospects for any rapprochement between Moscow and the West in the conceivable future.

On the other hand, the transatlantic partnership that has been showing wear and tear lately gets a much-needed fillip, which of course will be to the U.S.’s advantage and would have wider ramifications. The Trump administration has mooted the idea of hosting a G-7 summit in the U.S., which has been postponed from June to September, to pick all the low-hanging fruit. Libya will be one of them.