World news headlines on A Socialist In Canada, August 2020

The war against journalism: The case of Julian Assange, a film by Juan Passarelli (38 minutes), released on Aug 29, 2020 by EmergeHeart

Four Chinese COVID-19 vaccines undergoing phase-3 clinical trials, Xinhua news service, Aug 29, 2020 …With the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic under control in China, the country no longer has conditions for large-scale clinical trials. So all the phase-3 trials are being carried out overseas…

Police break up rally of several tens of thousands in Berlin against Covid-19 safety measures, Deutsche Welle, Aug 29,2020 [New Covid-19 cases in Germany have been trending at or above 1,500 for the past two weeks.].
Related:
* Extreme-right vigilantes in Berlin storm German parliament during day of protest against Covid-19 safety measures, Deutsche Welle, Aug 29, 2020
* Meet Germany’s bizarre anti-lockdown protesters, New York Times, Aug 31, 2020
* Twitter removes QAnon supporter’s false claim about low coronavirus deaths that Trump had retweeted, CNN, Aug 31, 2020

New Covid-19 cases in France (chart in New York Times)

France reports 7,379 new Covid-19 cases on Aug 28 in ‘exponential’ daily rise, France 24, Aug 28, 2020

Shinzo Abe is quitting as prime minister of Japan and is leaving a trail of scandals behind, by Koichi Nakano, New York Times, Aug 30, 2020
Related:  Abenomics: A review, by Michael Roberts (Marxist economist in the UK), published on his website, Aug 31, 2020

Densely populated Dakar, Sengal is rushing to move out of its port the ammonium nitrate, equal to the amounts to Beirut, that imperialist mining companies have been storing there for use in operations in Mali. Report in New York Times, Aug 30, 2020

Breonna Taylor’s life was changing, then the police came and broke down her door, New York Times, Aug 28, 2020 [Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old African-American emergency medical technician. She was fatally shot five times by Louisville Metro Police Department officers in a ‘drug raid’ against her male partner on March 13, 2020. Wikipedia.] …In Louisville, demonstrators have led nightly protests downtown, where most government buildings and many businesses are now boarded up. As outrage mounted, the city fired one of the three officers involed in the raid, pushed out the police chief and passed ‘Breonna’s Law’, banning ‘no-knock warrants which allow the police to burst into people’s homes without warning. Protesters say that is not enough…
Postscript: Following the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, plea offer by prosecutors to an accused drug dealer sought to link her to drug ring, Associated Press, Sep 2, 2020

India records highest-ever number of new, daily Covid-19 cases as pandemic spreads to new areas of the country, Washington Post, Aug 28, 2020 [India is on track to surpass Brazil in total Covid-19 cases, in approximately one week. It still has a long way to go to surpass ‘the world’s #1’, the United States. The Indian government continues pressing to ‘reopen’ the country’s economy.]

Change in GDP, second quarter 2020, in leading imperialist countries
Related: Congress left town and let jobless benefits lapse. Unemployed Americans say they won’t forget it, Washington Post, Aug 27, 2020
Previously reported:
* A tsunami of job cuts is about to hit Europe, New York Times, Aug 23, 2020 …The layoffs risk igniting social tensions as Europe endures its worst recession since World War II. The European Commission expects the economy to shrink by 8.3 per cent this year, with declines of more than ten per cent projected for Italy, Spain and France before a revival toward the end of 2021…
* Debt, eviction and hunger: Millions fall back into crisis in U.S. as stimulus and safety nets vanish, Washington Post, Aug 24, 2020

The Republican National Convention weaponized exhaustion, Vox.com, Aug 28, 2020 The sheer volume of lies and illegal behavior from Trump and the Republicans is what allowed them to get away with it
Related: Trump’s traveling, reckless personal conduct takes toll in coronavirus cases among the Secret Service agents assigned to protect him, Washington Post, Aug 28, 2020

Two charts on Venezuela oil production, in million barrels per day

Venezuela’s oil industry, between sanctions and strategic blunders, interview with Carlos Mendoza Potella, Venezuela Analysis, Aug 28, 2020 (Carlos Mendoza Potella is an economics professor at Venezuela’s Central University and advisor to Venezuela’s Central Bank.)

Month by month, new virus clusters have emerged in the U.S. Some drew public attention, others went largely unnoticed, New York Times, Aug 28, 2020
* Large majority of Canadians tell pollsters their national government has done well in pandemic response. Report by Canadian Press, Aug 27, 2020. [The poll by the Pew Research Center (across 14 wealthy countries) confirms that most Canadians lack a scientific understanding of what has taken place since the onset of the pandemic, namely, the criminally negligent response of the federal and provincial governments. No one in corporate media or the opposition political parties and few in alternative media are willing or able to explain this basic truth. No doubt, the ‘satisfaction’ felt by Canadians with their governments’ actions is largely prompted by the billions of dollars spent by governments to attenuate the economic consequences of the pandemic and stave off social and political unrest. This bodes ill for the coming months as a deepening of pandemic conditions (a falsely-named ‘second wave’) is threatened. Right-wing demagogy is on the rise, particularly expressed in racist propaganda against the Chinese government and people for ‘causing’ or covering up’ the pandemic. This, in turn, is feeding the U.S.-led new cold war against China (and Russia). In other words, forget about Western governments ‘learning from’ the pandemic and changing policy accordingly. They have zero interest in same, except to the extent that certain changes are needed in order to stabilize capitalist rule.].
* YouGuv survey across eight Western countries highlights effectiveness of anti-China COVID rhetoric, by Alan MacLeod, Mint Press News, Aug 24, 2020 (Alan MacLeod is a staff writer at Mint Press News and teaches at the University of Glasgow.)

Experts warn six feet [two meters] distancing may not be enough to protect against coronavirus, Washington Post, Aug 27, 2020

In Kenosha, Jacob Blake’s shooting deepens longstanding resentments and fears, Washington Post, Aug 28 , 2020
Related:
* The vigilante killings in Wisconsin tell us more about where the right is headed than did the Republican National Convention, by Jamie Bouie, columnist, New York Times, Aug 27, 2020
* Trump lashes Democratic Party and anti-racism movement, defies pandemic safety measures at partisan election rally on White House lawn. Report in Associated Press, Aug 28, 2020
* Hidden in plain sight: Racism, white supremacy, and far-right militancy in law enforcement, by Michael Brennan, The Brennan Center (NYC), Aug 27, 2020
* Kenosha, Wisconsin sheriff’s racist rant follows pattern of fraternizing with white supremacists, by Alan MacLeod, Mint Press News, Aug 26, 2020
* Police unions: Foot soldiers of the capitalist status quo, by Paul F. Clark (Pennsylvania State University), in The Conversation, April 26, 2020
* America’s brotherhood of police officers, Vanity Fair, Aug 25, 2020 To understand the citadel of law enforcement, we must reckon with its unions—which resemble fraternities more than labor unions

All three NBA (basketball) playoff games on Aug 26 postponed as players protest shooting of Jacob Blake, refuse to take the floor, Variety, Aug 26, 2020
Related:
* Naomi Osaka withdraws from Southern and Western tennis tournament in protest against racist police killings in U.S., Sydney Morning Herald, Aug 27, 2020 ‘Watching the continued genocide of Black people at the hand of the police is honestly making me sick to my stomach.’
* NBA and Major League Baseball players go on strike against racism, forcing U.S. leagues to cancel games, France 24, Aug 27, 2020
* NHL players compel league to postpone the four playoff games scheduled for Aug 27 and 28, Canadian Press, Aug 27, 2020 [The 2020 NHL playoff season is taking place in the ‘bubble’ cities of Edmonton and Toronto.] and read: National Hockey League players call ‘timeout’ on playoffs after league officials and team owners ‘turtle’ in proving Black Lives Matter support, by Ed Willes, sports columnist, Vancouver Sun, Aug 27, 2020

Trump-supporting vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse on killing spree in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Aug 25, 2020

Two anti-racist protesters shot dead, one injured, in Kenosha, Wisconsin by apparent racist paramilitary. Report in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Aug 26, 2020 read also: report by CBS News, Aug 26, 2020 …Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said people who fashion themselves as belonging to a militia have been patrolling Kenosha’s streets in recent nights, but he did not know if the shooter was involved with such a group. “They’re a militia,” Beth said. “They’re like a vigilante group.” On August 25, a group calling itself the Kenosha Guard, asked members and followers on Facebook to come downtown and be prepared to defend the city. One post read: “Any patriots willing to take up arms and defend out (sic) City tonight from the evil thugs? Nondoubt (sic) they are currently planning on the next part of the City to burn tonight!”…
Related:
* 17-year old paramilitary arrested for fatal shooting of two anti-racist protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, CBS News, Aug 26, 2020 [According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse was taken into custody in Illinois. The state of Wisconsin must file documents to extradite him to Kenosha County where he is facing homicide charges.].
* Mass demonstrations and marches erupt nationwide to protest police shooting in the back of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Common Dreams, Aug 25, 2020
* Kenosha shooting strains tie between Black residents, police, Associated Press, Aug 28, 2020

Armed paramilitaries bring threat of violence to anti-racism protests in Kenosha and elsewhere. Report in Washington Post, Aug 26, 2020
[Liberal opinion in the United States is alarmed at the proliferation of armed, right-wing vigilante groups taking violent action against anti-racism protests in cities across the country. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, the paramilitaries were welcomed with open arms by police on the night of August 25 when two protesters were shot dead. The right-wing violence is a case of the chickens coming home to roost. In Ukraine (2014), Haiti (2004), Honduras (2009), Bolivia (2019) Colombia and countless other countries, police and paramilitaries have overthrown elected governments or propped up existing, right-wing regimes with the blessing and support of the U.S. government and its allies in Canada and Europe. One of the strongest backers of the right-wing coup in Ukraine in February 2014… was then-Democratic Party vice-president Joseph Biden; today he is the party’s candidate for U.S. president.].
Related:
* Exploring right-wing extremism in Germany’s police and military, Der Spiegel, Aug 13, 2020 The Hitler salute, threatening emails, weapons staches, terror cells: Numerous police officers and soldiers in Germany have engaged in right-wing extremist activity. But how big is the problem and what can be done about it?
* Containing the Black Lives Matter Movement: Republicans play bad cop, Democrats play good cop, by Roger Harris, CounterPunch, June 19, 2020

Belarus’s options in the face of a color revolution, by Roger Harris, CounterPunch, Aug 27, 2020 (Roger Harris is on the board of the Task Force on the Americas, a 32-year-old anti-imperialist human rights organization.)

U.S. ‘left’ aligns with State Department on China Cold War, interview with Danny Haiphong by Anya Parampil, broadcast on The Grayzone, Aug 24, 2020 ‘Red Lines’ host Anya Parampil talks to Danny Haiphong, a contributor at Black Agenda Report, about why some U.S. leftwing media outlets repeat State Department talking points on China
Related:
* American left silence on China helps lay foundation for the U.S. New Cold War, by Danny Haiphong, Black Agenda Report, Aug 5, 2020
* Qiao Collective speaks to Left Forum (New York City) on Aug 21: Why China is socialist, Why China isn’t imperialist, how to challenge U.S. aggression against China. 85-minute broadcast on YouTube, Aug 21, 2020. Members of the U.S.-based Qiao Collective speak and then answer audience questions. The website of the Qiao Collective is here.
[In his article and his interview on The Grayzone, Danny Haiphong critiques soft-left news outlets such as Jacobin, Democracy Now! and The Nation for echoing the anti-China propaganda of U.S. imperialism, including the pro-Western views of protest leaders in Hong Kong. To the list of anti-China voices can be added the splintered groups of Trotskyist origin. The anti-China stances of such media outlets and failed socialist groupings clutter the political landscape and get in the way of a needed discussion of what, exactly, is the social formation of modern-day China. Is China socialist, as Danny Haiphong, the Qiao Collective and many other left-wing thinkers argue? Or is it a unique form of state-managed capitalism, in which the capitalist law of value plays an outsized role in economic production and related social policy? Another important assertion by Danny Haiphong and the Qiao Collective is that left-wing thinkers and activists in the West have largely failed to recognize and support China’s actions (and those of Russia) in opposing imperialist diktat against the peoples of China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and so many other countries. This left-wing failing goes entirely against the best lessons of the Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions of 1917, 1949 and 1959. It is one of the signals of the sharp decline of left-wing theory in the West–particularly of Marxism–during the past four decades of the rise of globalized capitalism (inaccurately labeled ‘neoliberalism’ by academics). A wholesale renewal and rebirth of left-wing and Marxist theory and practice is desperately required, not only in the realm of imperialist militarism and war but also to advance the ‘degrowth’ (drawdown) imperative in the face of the global warming emergency.]

Coronavirus vaccine tracker, New York Times, Aug 27, 2020
Previously reported: A vaccine that stops Covid-19 won’t be enough, by Adam Finn and Richard Malley, New York Times, Aug 24, 2020 The best vaccines don’t just prevent a disease; they also prevent the pathogen causing the disease from being transmitted. So why aren’t we focusing more on those? (Dr. Finn and Dr. Malley are physicians specializing in infectious diseases and vaccinology.)

Genetic data show how a single superspreading event sent coronavirus across Massachusetts and the country, Washington Post, Aug 25, 2020 The emerging field of genomic sequencing provides critical information into how the virus spreads.

Twilight’s last gleaming: A diary of the last six months when America melted down, by Omar El Akkar, in Globe and Mail, Aug 22, 2020 (Omar El Akkar is an Egyptian-American living in Pitttsburgh. He is the author of American War, published in 2017, a novel set in a near-future United States of America ravaged by climate change and disease.)
[There is much irony in the publication of this essay in the pages of Canada’s Globe and Mail daily. The essay posits the inevitable decline of the U.S. empire, as signaled by the empire’s criminally negligent response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Globe and Mail is utterly aligned with U.S. foreign policy around the world, particularly aligned with the new cold war against China. The newspaper is also a leading voice in support of the fossil fuel death cult that governs Canada.]

With COVID-19 under control, Cuba launches new economic battle, by Helen Yaffe, published in CounterPunch, Aug 25, 2020 (Helen Yaffe is a lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow. Her latest book is We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World, Yale University Press, 2020.)

Meng Wanzhou loses federal court decision as judge sides with Canada’s spy agency CSIS in keeping secret documents related to her Dec 2018 arrest at Vancouver airport and ongoing deportation process. Report by CBC News, Aug 25, 2020 A federal court judge has refused to give Meng Wanzhou access to sensitive information contained in reports about her arrest produced by Canada’s spy agency CSIS. In a 35-page ruling released on August 25, Judge Catherine Kane said the information that Canada’s attorney general is trying to keep from public view [six CSIS documents related to Meng Wanzhou’s arrest on December 1, 2018 and subsequent house arrest]…
[This decision comes as Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes is considering similar questions about details kept from public view in 37 more documents held by the RCMP, Canada Border Services Agency and the Department of Justice. Late last year, Holmes ordered the release of the first batch of documents to Meng Wanzhou’s lawyers. These were censored beyond reading and were the subject of this court challenge. The Huawei chief financial officer is challenging Canada’s close collaboration with the Trump regime in seeking her deportation into the U.S. prison gulag under accusations of violating the illegal sanctions against Iran by successive regimes in Washington.]

The Guardian takes a page from the New York Times with lying report about Covid-19 in Venezuela. [The UK daily The Guardian has long agitated in favour of a violent coup against the elected government in Venezuela. Now it has joined the New York Times in publishing a lying report on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in the country. The report is written by the newspaper’s ‘Latin America correspondent’ and is full of hearsay and second-hand references to the situation in Venezuela’s health care system. Only two sentences offer a glimpse into the real situation: ” Venezuela’s official Covid-19 death toll currently stands at just 329, one of South America’s lowest. By contrast more than 110,000 people have died in neighbouring Brazil and more than 26,000 in Peru, which has a similar-sized population to Venezuela.” But the next sentence then reads: “But the scenes playing out inside the University hospital – where two of nine floors now host coronavirus patients – suggest the true situation may be far worse.” From there, the report continues skipping from one anonymous or second-hand sources to another, all in order to buttress its pre-determined argument that Venezuela’s health care system is falling apart just like the rest of the country. A case of wishful thinking trumping factual reporting. In the real world, the Trump regime is deepening its cruel and crushing sanctions and economic blockade against Venezuela, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, no less. Despite this, Venezuela has, by far, the best record among large Latin American countries in combatting the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic next to Cuba (one third the population of Venezuela, 35 new cases on Aug 24). The wretched Guardian shows, once again, that it stands squarely on the side of the Trump regime.].
Previously reported: Full-on lies and distortions by the New York Times against Venezuela’s successful efforts to combat Covid-19. Report in New York Times, Aug 18, 2020
[The New York Times has published an astonishingly brutal and lying report on Venezuela’s successful effort to stem the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Covid-19 disasters are unfolding in the large, countries that neighbour Venezuela and are governed by pro-U.S. regimes–Brazil, Peru, Colombia and more. In contrast, Venezuela’s case numbers and deaths from Covid-19 are a small fraction. Yet here is an excerpt from the Times article showing how it sneakily evades reporting the facts of the situation: The true scope of the pandemic in Venezuela, a country that stopped releasing health statistics as basic as infant mortality years ago, is nearly impossible to determine. [end citation] Here are other excerpts from the Times report: As the pandemic tore through neighboring countries, overwhelming health care networks far more prepared than Venezuela’s collapsed system, Mr. Maduro took a hard-line approach, treating the coronavirus as a national security threat that could destabilize his bankrupt nation and jeopardize his grip on power… In his seven years in power, Mr. Maduro has overseen the collapse of Venezuela’s health care system, the destruction of the national economy, and a marked increase in the country’s international isolation… With dwindling resources to prepare the nation’s broken hospitals or help its already impoverished population survive the crisis, Mr. Maduro has turned to bare-bones detention facilities, repression and coercion to try to stop the virus… [end citation] If all these accusations against Venezuela were actually true, then its Covid-19 successes would be nothing short of miraculous. As it is, Venezuela’s successes are a result of the public health achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution, begun under the leadership of the late Hugo Chavez in the late 1990s and continuing today.]

The dangerous politicization of the scientific process, by Andre Picard, health reporter and columnist, Globe and Mail, Aug 24, 2020

Major coding error reveals another fatal flaw in OAS analysis of Bolivia’s 2019 elections, press release by the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR.net, Washington), Aug 24, 2020

Rates of new coronavirus case are begining to decrease in U.S., New York Times, Aug 24, 2020
Related: Where coronavirus cases are growing and declining in the U.S., National Geographic, Aug 24, 2020 …While new cases and new hospitalizations are slowly declining, both are still above 40,000 per day, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Daily deaths are hovering nationwide at around 1,200 per day…

Interactive map in Nat’l Geographic, Aug 24, 2020

Chart in Nat’l Geographic, Aug 24, 2020

Chart in Wa Post, Aug 24, 2020

Medical experts and members of Parliament urge Ottawa to green-light speeded up coronavirus vaccine trials, Toronto Star, Aug 24, 2020
Related: It is worth the risk to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine testing, op-ed commentary by Marcus Powlowski, Anand Kumar and Michael Silverman, Toronto Star, Aug. 24, 2020 (Dr. Marcus Powlowski is the MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River and a former ER physician in Thunder Bay. Dr. Anand Kumar is a professor of medicine, medical microbiology and pharmacology, Sections of Infectious Diseases and Critical Care Medicine, at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Michael Silverman is the chair and chief of Adult Infectious Disease at Western University.)

In China, where the pandemic began, life is starting to look… normal, New York Times, Aug 23, 2020
[This informative NYT report breathes the typical cynicism of the Times when reporting on achievements by foreign countries and governments being targetted by U.S. foreign policy. In this sentence, for example, we read: ‘The state news media is pointing to the return of large gatherings and classes as evidence of China’s superior response to the virus, especially compared with the United States and other Western countries whose officials are still struggling with it.’ Nowhere does the article provide actual ‘evidence’, which is highly shaming: the U.S. case rate of Covid-19 (per million population) is 17,600 compared to China’s 59, the death rates are 544 compared to 3, respectively. Meanwhile, note the phrase that the U.S. and other Western countries are “struggling” with the pandemic. That is polite-talk to describe ‘an unmitigated humanitiarian disaster caused by the cruel and criminal negligence of Western governments’.]

Portland police respond to Saturday night demonstration with blockade, force, riot declaration, The Oregonian, Aug 23, 2020
Related:
* Extreme-right vigilantes rally in Portland in support of police, attack Black Lives Matter activists as police watch. Report in The Oregonian, Aug 23, 2020
* Protests after police shoot and kill Black man outside store in Lafayette, Louisiana, Associated Press, Aug 23, 2020
* Protests break out in Wisconsin after police shoot and permanently disable unarmed black man in the back multiple times at point-blank range, Common Dreams, Aug 24, 2020

How U.S. policy turned the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona into a graveyard for migrants, New York Times, Aug 23, 2020 …In the mid-1990s, the federal government (Democratic Party’s Bill Clinton presidency) introduced a policy of pushing undocumented migrants away from border cities and into increasingly remote locations. According to the Border Patrol, just under 8,000 migrants have turned up dead on the Southern border since 1998. Slightly less than half of those deaths occur in southern Arizona, most in the Sonoran Desert… It would be easy to assume the policy of American hostility toward migrants began with President Trump. In fact, it has been in place through four presidential administrations. Barack Obama’s tenure saw more deportations than those of any of his predecessors or of his successor, Trump…

The South’s fight for white supremacy, essay and book survey, by Jon Meacham, in New York Times, Aug 22, 2020
Related book review essays in New York Times:
* The ‘Lost Cause’ that built Jim Crow, by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Nov 8, 2019
* The making and the breaking of the legend of Robert E. Lee, by Eric Foner, Aug 28, 2017
* The South reinterprets its ‘Lost Cause’, by Edward Rothstein, Dec. 5, 2011

Coronavirus on the rise across Europe, dozens of schools in Berlin report infections, The Guardian, Aug 21, 2020 …The disclosure by Berlin city education authorities that hundreds of students and teachers have had to quarantine has underlined once more how little is known about the risk of infection in school settings, despite the insistence of governments and experts, including in the UK, that reopening schools is safe given the right precautions…

Map by European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Aug 21, 2020

Related:
* Coronavirus cases reported at 41 schools in Germany’s capital, Associated Press, Aug 21, 2020
* France won’t shut down as COVID-19 infections surge across Europe, Bloomberg News, Aug 20, 2020 [New, daily Covid-19 cases have surged in France during August, exceeding 4,500 on Aug 20 and 21. New cases have surged in Spain since early July, exceeding 3,500 on each of Aug 19, 20, 21. New daily cases in Germany are exceeding 1,500.] * Coronavirus infections are rising in Europe and vacationers may be partly to blame, Washington Post, Aug 21, 2020

Trump’s attempt to bypass Congress on stimulus spending is offering only limited economic relief, Washington Post, Aug 21, 2020 Two weeks after President Trump approved executive actions on August 8 aimed at bypassing stalled stimulus negotiations with Congress, only one state has said it is paying new jobless benefits, few evictions have been paused, and leading employers have made clear that workers will not benefit from the president’s new payroll tax deferral…

Mali coup leader ‘Colonel Assimi Goita’ was trained by US military, officials say, Washington Post, Aug 21, 2020 [The leader of the 2012 coup in Mali, ‘Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo’, was also U.S. trained. In both cases, coup leaders justified their actions in the name of deepening the war in the north of Mali against non-Black national and tribal minorities seeking political autonomy, notably the Tuareg and Arab Bedouin (‘Azawagh Arabs’). They are app. five per cent of the Mali population of 19 million but the majority in the vast Sahel Desert-region in the north of the country.]

Trump regime to tighten sanctions against Venezuela as gasoline cargo on four ships bound for Venezuela from Iran seized in int’l waters, by Ricardo Vaz, Venezuela Analysis, Aug 20, 2020
Related news:
* Class struggle and human rights in the Bolivarian Revolution: A conversation with Ana Barrios, Venezuela Analysis, Aug 15, 2020
* Venezuela sentences two former U.S. Green Berets to 20 years in jail for bizarre ‘invasion’ and coup attempt in May 2020, Venezuela Analysis, Aug 10, 2020
Related analysis:
*Trump administration to tap into frozen Venezuelan government funds to revive efforts to oust Maduro, Washington Post, Aug 20, 2020
[This article reports on the latest moves in the relentless drive of the Trump regime to isolate, weaken and ultimately overthrow the government of Venezuela. The article writers reflect the views of Washington Post editors that the Trump regime has “failed” in its coup efforts because it has not been harsh enough. As the article explains, this is also the view of Democrtic Party presidential candidate Joseph Biden. The Washington Post shares the pro-coup fanaticism of New York Times editors: see the news headline story immediately below.].
* Full-on lies and distortions by the New York Times against Venezuela’s successful efforts to combat Covid-19. Report in New York Times, Aug 18, 2020
[The New York Times has published an astonishingly brutal and lying report on Venezuela’s successful effort to stem the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Covid-19 disasters are unfolding in the large, countries that neighbour Venezuela and are governed by pro-U.S. regimes–Brazil, Peru, Colombia and more. In contrast, Venezuela’s case numbers and deaths from Covid-19 are a small fraction. Yet here is an excerpt from the Times article showing how it sneakily evades reporting the facts of the situation: The true scope of the pandemic in Venezuela, a country that stopped releasing health statistics as basic as infant mortality years ago, is nearly impossible to determine. [end citation] Here are other excerpts from the Times report: As the pandemic tore through neighboring countries, overwhelming health care networks far more prepared than Venezuela’s collapsed system, Mr. Maduro took a hard-line approach, treating the coronavirus as a national security threat that could destabilize his bankrupt nation and jeopardize his grip on power… In his seven years in power, Mr. Maduro has overseen the collapse of Venezuela’s health care system, the destruction of the national economy, and a marked increase in the country’s international isolation… With dwindling resources to prepare the nation’s broken hospitals or help its already impoverished population survive the crisis, Mr. Maduro has turned to bare-bones detention facilities, repression and coercion to try to stop the virus… [end citation] If all these accusations against Venezuela were actually true, then its Covid-19 successes would be nothing short of miraculous. As it is, Venezuela’s successes are a result of the public health achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution, begun under the leadership of the late Hugo Chavez in the late 1990s and continuing today.]

How Israel wages war on Palestinian history, by Jonathan Cook, published in The National (UAE daily) and also on his website, Aug 2020

How ‘defund the police’ was blocked in Minneapolis, interview with Robin Wonsley, CounterPunch, Aug 21, 2020 (Robin Wonsley is active in ‘Education Minnesota’ and the Democratic Socialists of America in Minneapolis)
Related: At Washington Post, defunding the police is a step too radical, by Olivia Riggio, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, Aug 21, 2020

QAnon is a fake, decoy imitation of a healthy revolutionary impulse, op-ed commentary by Caitlin Johnstone, in RT, Aug 20, 2020

Meatpacking companies in U.S. dismissed years of warnings to prepare for infectious disease pandemics, now they say nobody could have prepared for Covid-19, Pro Publica, Aug 19, 2020
Related: The pandemic is exposing the rotten core of our industrial food system, by Joseph Bullington, In These Times, Aug 14, 2020 While industrial farms have been thrown into chaos, local agriculture has proved to be a more resilient model [In this very informative essay, the writer overlooks any analysis of how the shift to overwhelming meat consumption which the agro-industrial agricultural sytem carried out since the Industrial Revolution has degraded fertile soil, human health and human security.]

There’s enough blame to go around in Belarus, by Joe Lauria, editor, Consortium News, Aug 20, 2020 [The writer compares the current situation in Belarus to that in Ukraine in February 2014 when a right-wing coup, backed by NATO and the West, overthrew that country’s elected president and government. The largest difference in the two situations is the multi-ethnic and multi-national character of Ukraine. This was exploited by the West and by the far-right political movement in Ukraine to divide and demobilize the Ukrainian people. Thanks to prevailing ignorance in the West, including by the political left, editorialists, journalists and other propagandists in corporate and state medias were able to distort and misrepresent the aspirations of the people of Crimea and of eastern Ukraine, both majority Russian in ethnic composition. Crimeans voted by a large majority 0n March 16, 2014 to secede from the new, right-wing Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. This corrected the unilateral decision in 1954 by the then-Soviet Union to join Crimea to Ukraine. The people of eastern Ukraine were violently blocked from voting on their future in 2014. Worse, their land was invaded by far-right Ukrainian paramilitary forces–financed and armed by the West–in a low-intensity war that continues to this day.].
Related:
* The left in Belarus is fighting to put social demands at the heart of the protests, interview with two left-wing thinkers in Belarus, published in Jacobin Magazine, Aug 17, 2020 [The following interview contains valuable insights into the situation in Belarus. The interview is conducted by an academic at Central Europe University in Budapest who has long promoted the idea of a ‘Russian imperialism’ at work in eastern Europe. The interview appears in Jacobin and is being re-published in other such ‘left’ publications that welcomed the right-wing, anti-Russia coup in Ukraine in 2014.].
* Lukashenko may be a dictator, but his departure will mean the end of Belarus as a sovereign state, commentary by Artyom Lukin, RT, Aug 18, 2020 (Artyom Lukin is an associate professor of international relations at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia.)

UN faces potential crisis as U.S. ponders use of little-known procedure for renewal of 2015 sanctions against Iran that the Security Council voted down on Aug 14, Associated Press, Aug 19, 2020
Previously reported:
* UN Security Council soundly defeats U.S. demand to extend arms embargo on Iran, Associated Press, Aug 14, 2020 …The vote in the 15-member council was two in favor (U.S. and Dominican Republic), two against (Russia and China) and 11 abstentions…
* Trump names war criminal Ellliot Abrams as special envoy on Iran, Common Dreams, Aug 7, 2020 read also: CodePink denounces appointment of Elliott Abrams as the next U.S. special representative for Iran, statement by CodePink, Aug 6, 2020

Mali soldiers promise elections after coup d’etat, Al Jazeera, Aug 19, 2020
Related:
* Taking it to the streets of Bamako, Mali, by Bruce Whitehouse, published on his website Bridges from Bamako, Aug 19, 2020
* How Mali’s military has sabotaged prospects for peace, Agence France presse, Aug 14, 2020
[The president, prime minister and government in Mali that were overthrown by a military coup on August 18 were themselves the product of a military coup. It took place in March 2012, soon followed by an effective takeover of the country in January 2013 by the French military. The coup makers of 2012 wanted a war in order to better control the diverse political and ethnic groups in the north of Mali and that is what the French military delivered, with the full backing of France’s NATO allies. Full bckground to the 2012 coup in Mali, the January 2013 invasion by France and the aftermath is here. The political left in France accepted the argument of the French ruling class in 2012-2013 that ‘something’ needed to be done to beat back jihadist rebel forces that had stepped into the political vacuum in northern Mali. That vacuum was created by the Mali military’s refusal to countenance a peace agreement for the north and, more broadly, by the many years of destructive imperialist intervention in western Africa. Mali is currently occupied militarily by two imperialist agencies–the French military, with some 4,500 soldiers; and the ‘MINUSMA’ military force with some 15,000 soldiers cobbled together under the aegis of the UN Security Council (Wikipedia). France does not participate in MINUSMA in order that its military force can act unilaterally and without oversight.].
Background:
* U.S. military says it has a ‘light footprint’ in Africa, but these documents show a vast network of bases, by Nick Turse, The Intercept, Dec 1, 2018 At least 34 U.S. military bases are scattered across Africa, with high concentrations in the north, west, and Horn of Africa
* America’s war-fighting footprint in Africa, by Nick Turse, published in Tom Dispatch, April 27, 2017
* The US military is conducting secret missions all over Africa, by Nick Turse, VICE News, Oct 24, 2017
* Militarized by the West, Mali suffers a coup d’etat, by Roger Annis, A Socialist In Canada, March 31, 2012

WHO warns young people are emerging as main spreaders of the coronavirus, Washington Post, Aug 18, 2020
Related coronavirus news:
* With no end to the pandemic in sight, coronavirus fatigue grips America, Washington Post, Aug 11, 2020 An exhausted, exasperated nation is suffering from the effects of a pandemic that has upended society on a scale and duration without parallel in living memory
* New York City mayor under pressure to delay Sept 10 school startup date, New York Times, Aug 18, 2020 Mayor Bill de Blasio is facing mounting pressure from the city’s teachers, principals and even members of his own administration to delay the start of in-person instruction by several weeks to give educators more time to prepare…
* Is it safe to re-open schools in the U.S.?, New York Times, Aug 14, 2020 (with interactive map) …Using the guidelines of the Harvard Global Health Institute and the World Health Organization, a New York Times analysis finds that most schools across the United States should remain partially or fully closed, including in almost the entire South, where cases are still surging and testing is insufficient. Eighty seven per cent of U.S. counties do not meet the guidelines…
* Schools in New York City are set to open in one month. Principals fear that’s too soon, New York Times, Aug 14, 2020
* University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill moves to remote teaching after coronavirus spreads among students during first week of class, Washington Post, Aug 17, 2020 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the largest schools in the U.S. to bring students to campus for in-person teaching, announced on August 17 that it will pivot to all-remote instruction for undergraduates after testing showed a pattern of rapid spread of the novel coronavirus. Officials announced the abrupt change just one week after classes began at the 30,000-student state flagship university…
* Universities in U.S. scramble to deal with virus outbreaks, Associated Press, Aug 18, 2020
* Nursing homes in the U.S. ‘Sun Belt’ had months to prepare for rising coronavirus cases. They still weren’t ready. Washington Post, Aug 17, 2020
* Hailed as ‘heroes’ at the onset of the pandemic, grocery store workers now say they are again overworked, overwhelmed and feeling expendable, Washington Post, Aug 12, 2020
* The recession is over for the rich, but the working class is far from recovered, Washington Post, Aug 13, 2020 The stock market and home values are back at record levels, while jobs remain scarce for those earning less than $20 an hour …Though recessions almost always hit lower-wage workers the hardest, the pandemic is causing especially large gaps between rich and poor, and between White and minority households… Congress has failed to pass a renewed relief bill while the bulk of the federal stimulus originally passed in March to sustain small businesses and more than 28 million people on unemployment benefits has largely expired…
* Republican majority adjourns Senate through Labor Day without reaching an economic stimulus deal, CNBC, Aug 13, 2020 and read: report in Common Dreams, Aug 14, 2020

U.S. Postal Service halts some service cuts amid outcry, lawsuits, Associated Press, Aug 19, 2020
Related:
* More than 20 states suing U.S. Postal Service over cuts to service, despite backtraking by Trump hack recently appointed to head the agency. Report by Forbes Magazine, Aug 18, 2020
* How Trump was able to shape the Postal Service board to enact a new agenda, Washington Post, Aug 18, 2020
* What the Post Office needs to survive a pandemic election, Pro-Publica, Aug 19, 2020

Coronavirus invaded Washington DC and Maryland multiple times in March, genetic analysis shows, Washington Post, Aug 17, 2020 …The study, from Johns Hopkins University scientists, highlights the challenge in preventing the arrival and spread of the highly contagious virus within a region that anchors the Northeast Corridor and boasts three international airports and a highly mobile population…

Democrats drop demand to end fossil fuel subsidies from party platform, Sanders in agreement, The Independent, Aug 18, 2020 Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris each ran on axing subsidies, but the party said including that in the final draft of the platform was an ‘error’
Related: Biden’s promise of a deportation moratorium is nowhere in his platform, The Intercept, Aug 13, 2020 The danger for Biden isn’t that Latinos swing for Trump, but that they won’t turn out to vote in battleground states

August 12-22, 1945: Washington starts the Korean and Vietnam wars, by H. Bruce Franklin, CounterPunch, Aug 14, 2020

Toronto police at work during June 2010 G20 summit

$16.5M settlement of class action lawsuit against Toronto police over mass arrests during 2010 G20 summit, CBC News, Aug 17, 2020 read also: report in Toronto Star, Aug 17, 2020 An “unprecedented” $16.5 million class-action settlement has been reached between the Toronto police board and more than 1,100 protesters and bystanders boxed-in, arrested and detained during Toronto’s notorious G20 weekend on June 26-27, 2010. The settlement covers individuals at six locations, awarding those arrested between $5,000 and $24,700, depending on their treatment. It was the largest mass arrest in Canadian history… A senior Toronto police officer, Supt. Mark Fenton, was later found guilty of professional misconduct under Ontario’s Police Services Act for his actions at the 2010 summit, which included twice giving the orders to effect mass detentions… The settlement also includes the requirement that Toronto police make a public acknowledgment of the mass arrests and the conditions in which protesters were detained, as well as make a commitment to changing how protests are policed in the future. That includes that containment, such as kettling, “will be avoided unless it is necessary to prevent a substantial and imminent risk of harm to a person” and that all other alternatives have been considered, according to the settlement agreement. Those who were wrongfully arrested will also have their police records expunged…

India’s invisible catastrophe: Fears over spread of Covid-19 into poor rural areas, The Guardian, Aug 17, 2020 …Some 600 million Indians live in in rural areas. Fears are rising that they could be overwhelmed by an invisible catastrophe, in which many will die without testing or treatment. Data from the National Family Health Survey-4 shows that only about 25 per cent of rural Indians have access to public outpatient healthcare…

How the pandemic defeated America, by Ed Yong, published in The Atlantic (conservative monthly), Aug 4, 2020 (Ed Yong is a science writer at The Atlantic, covering the pandemic extensively since March. This essay appears in the magazine’s print edition dated September 2020.) ow did it come to this? A virus a thousand times smaller than a dust mote has humbled and humiliated the planet’s most powerful nation. America has failed to protect its people, leaving them with illness and financial ruin. It has lost its status as a global leader. It has careened between inaction and ineptitude. The breadth and magnitude of its errors are difficult, in the moment, to truly fathom…
[For all its merit and important information, this article nonetheless repeats the Western media trope that China “covered up” telling the world of its early discovery that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was easily transmissible between humans. The writer says: …To avert a pandemic, affected nations must alert their neighbors quickly. In 2003, China covered up the early spread of SARS, allowing the new disease to gain a foothold, and in 2020, history repeated itself. The Chinese government downplayed the possibility that SARS‑CoV‑2 was spreading among humans, and only confirmed as much on January 20, after millions had traveled around the country for the lunar new year. Doctors who tried to raise the alarm were censured and threatened… (end citation). In other words, in a highly dangerous and charged international context–including ongoing military and economic threats against China by the Western imperialist powers–medical officials in China were expected to issue definitive, lightning-fast warnings to the world about a previously-unknown coronavirus. One can only guess at why the writer repeats the worn accusation. Does it have anything to do with the fact that The Atlantic is a conservative and right-wing publication?] Related: How COVID-19 humiliated the planet’s most powerful nation, interview with journalist Ed Yong, Democracy Now!, Aug 11, 2020 (23-minute interview)

Never surrender in Portland, Oregon, by Mike Hastie, CounterPunch, Aug 17, 2020 (Mike Hastie served as an Army Medic in Vietnam.)
Related:
* Portland marks 81st night of protests on August 16 as mother of man shot by police speaks outside Justice Center, The Oregonian, Aug 17, 2020
* Black Portland reflects on role of white allies in movement, Associated Press, Aug. 17, 2020
* National Black Lives Matter organizers throw support behind Portland protests, Portland Mercury, Aug 10, 2020
* Violent clashes erupt between far-right groups and racial justice protesters in Portland and other cities, Washington Post, Aug 16, 2020

Our COVID-19 experience shows that dental clinics are safe, commentary by Dr. Ben Balevi, Vancouver Sun, Aug 17, 2020

South Korea is amassing military power to be ‘a mid-sized shark with sharp teeth’, commentary by Artyom Lukin, RT, Aug 17, 2020 (Artyom Lukin is an associate professor of international relations at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia.)
Related: As tensions rise in Asia Pacific, South Korea is building its first aircraft carrier … complete with U.S.-made fighter jets, CNN, Aug 12, 2020

Columnists in Canadian media demonized China’s Covid-19 response. They were wrong, by Davide Mastracci, published in Passage (Toronto), Aug 10, 2020

Social and union movements suspend rallies in Bolivia after coup gov’t commits to election on Oct 18, Prensa Latina, Aug 15, 2020
Related: Critical hours in Bolivia, by Marco Teruggi, translated into English from the Spanish original in Sputnik, Aug 12, 2020 (Marco Teruggi is a sociologiest and correspondent in Venezuela (in Spanish) for Página 12, Sputnik and Telesur. His Twitter page is here.)

Kamala Harris’s wooing of Black activists paved a path to her vp nomination, Washington Post, Aug 16, 2020

The August 4 blast in the port of Beirut and the failed political system that has shaken Lebanon, by As`ad AbuKhalil, special to Consortium News, Aug 15, 2020
Related: Government of Lebanon Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigns in wake of Aug 4 port explosion, Associated Press, Aug 10, 2020

The ‘basketball cop’ in Gainesville, Florida was a hero in one viral video. Another video told a different story, New York Times, Aug 15, 2020

Canadian support for Ukrainian Nazi collaborators goes beyond statues, by Moss Robeson, published in Passage (Toronto), Aug 11, 2020 [In this informative article, the writer overlooks a large side of the story. Which is the fact that successive Ukrainian governments that came to power following the February 2014 coup in that country have conducted a vast re-writing of Ukrainian history in favour of those who collaborated with Nazi Germany during the WW2 Nazi occupation of Ukraine. This rewriting has included the censorship or banning of newspapers and radio and television stations; the renaming of streets and public squares to eliminate reference to Ukraine’s Soviet history; official idolation of the principal WW2 Nazi collaborator, Stepan Bandera; the demolition of monuments to the victory of Ukraine in World War Two (as part of the defense effort of the Soviet Union); the banning of political parties respectful of the Russian people and their government; and on and on. The Nazi occupation of Ukraine (and Crimea) lasted from 1941 until Ukraine’s liberation in 1944 by the Soviet Red Army (itself composed of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, including top officers.) Worse, even, than the historical revisionism is the fact that the extreme-right governments in post-2014 Ukraine enjoy the political, financial and military support of the Western powers, including through the NATO military alliance. The U.S., Britain and Canada have been actively engaged since 2014 in training and equipping the re-fashioned, post-coup Ukrainian military, incorporating the extreme-right and neo-Nazi paramilitary battalions which conducted the 2014 coup, consolidated its aftermath, and launched war against the people of Donbass (the districts of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine).]

Air pollution is much worse than we thought, feature essay by David Roberts, VOX.com, Aug 13, 2020 Ditching fossil fuels would pay for itself through clean air alone

Dept’t of Homeland Security’s enhanced role under Trump regime has founders dismayed and critics calling for a breakup, Washington Post, Aug 13, 2020 …If elected to the presidency in November, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is likely to face calls to reorganize or even dismantle DHS, the third-largest federal agency after the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, with a $62 billion budget and 240,000 employees…

Japanese government wants to acquire long-range missiles for its military, challenging the country’s pacifist image. Report in New York Times, Aug 16, 2020 [This Times ariticle faithfully asserts the claim of a “rising military aggression” by China. But it is the Western imperialist countries that are sending their navies into the waters surrounding China, not the other way around.] Related:
* Japan marks 75th anniversary of WW2 surrender: No apology by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for colonial and wartime atrocities, four cabinet ministers pay respects at Yasukuni Shrine, Associated Press, Aug 15, 2020 read also: Four Japanese gov’t cabint ministers pay homage to wartime Japan with 75th anniversary visit to Yasukuni Shrine, New York Times, Aug 15, 2020
* Pressure is on Japanese gov’t, in the name of opposing China, to improve relations with S. Korea, including settling issue of Japan’s wartime slave-labour practices. News analysis in The Hankyoreh, Aug 14, 2020
* South Korea to release records showing Japan’s wartime depravities against Korean girls and women, The Hankyoreh, Aug 14, 2020
* Civic groups in South Korea and Japan join forces for inter-Korean peace and against Japan’s militarization, The Hankyoreh, Aug 13, 2020

U.S. and Korean groups are pushing for a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War, by Tim Shorrock, The Nation, July 31, 2020
Related: The U.S. response to the South Korean dictatorship’s repression in Gwangju in May 1980 was even worse than we thought, by Tim Shorrock and Injeong Kim, The Nation, May 28, 2020

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canadian court next week seeking evidence withheld by Canadian gov’t about her arrest in Dec 2018 and threatened extradition at behest of Trump regime. Report by Bloomberg News, Aug 14, 2020
Related:
* In its formal extradition request to Canada, U.S. left out key statements by Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou that disprove U.S. accusation of fraud, Canadian Press, Aug 15, 2020
* U.S. license allowing some trade with Huawei expires, spelling possible trouble for rural telecom companies and Huawei cell phone users, Washington Post, Aug 14, 2020 Expiration means some wireless networks and phones won’t receive software updates

How QAnon rode the pandemic to new heights — and is fueling the viral anti-mask phenomenon, NBC News, Aug 14, 2020
Related:
* The QAnon cult is growing and the media is helping, Columbia Journalism Review, Aug 14, 2020
* Think QAnon is on the fringe? So was the Tea Party, New York Times, Aug 13, 2020

Trump encourages racist conspiracy theory about the U.S. citizenship of Kamala Harris, New York Times, Aug 13, 2020
Related:
* The Trump campaign attack on Kamala Harris’s citizenship is right out of the birther playbook, VOX.com, Aug 13, 2020
* Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2020, VOX.com, Aug 13, 2020

Europe will pay for summer vacations with winter lockdowns, commentary by Devi Sridhar, New York Times, Aug 14, 2020 (Dr. Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh.)
Related: Britain re-imposes 14-day quarantine on people travelling from France, France 24, Aug 13, 2020 France recorded 2,669 new coronavirus infections on August 13, its highest daily number since May. In late July, Britain imposed a similar restriction on travel from Spain.

The true coronavirus toll in the U.S. is in excess of 200,000 as ‘excess deaths’ are calculated across the country, New York Times, Aug 12, 2020
Related:
* Covid-19 death toll in New York City rivals fatality rate during 1918 flu epidemic, researchers say, Washington Post, Aug 13, 2020
* U.S. reports highest number of covid-19 deaths in one day since mid-May, Washington Post, Aug 12, 2020

Chart in Wash. Post, Aug 13, 2020

(Image by Associated Press, Aug 12, 2020)

A growing force in Brazil has taken accusations of crimes against humanity by President Jair Bolsonaro before the International Criminal Court, by Vijay Prashad, in CounterPunch, Aug 13, 2020

Trump opposes election aid for states and emergency Postal Service assistance, threatening Nov. 3 vote, Washington Post, Aug 13, 2020 …With nearly 180 million Americans eligible to vote by mail, the president’s actions could usher in widespread delays, long lines and voter disenfranchisement this fall, voting rights advocates said. Trump said his purpose is to prevent Democrats from expanding mail-balloting, which he has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, would invite widespread fraud…
Related:
* Trump admits he is blocking postal cash to stop mail-in votes, Associated Press, Aug 13, 2020
* Alarms raised over deliberate slowing of postal service to disrupt mail-in voting by Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, Common Dreams, Aug 12, 2020

Some black activists look at Harris vp nomination with skepticism, Washington Post, Aug 14, 2020
Related:
* ‘Top cop’ Kamala Harris’s record of policing the police in California, New York Times, Aug 9, 2020 …As a leading contender to be Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s running mate, Ms. Harris has emerged as a strong voice on issues of police misconduct that seem certain to be central to the campaign. Yet in her own, unsuccessful presidential run, she struggled to reconcile her calls for reform with her record on these same issues during a long career in law enforcement. Indeed, an examination of that record shows how Ms. Harris was far more reticent in another time of ferment a half-decade ago…
* Kamala Harris’s controversial record on criminal justice, explained, VOX.com, Aug 13, 2020
* Kamala Harris? Really? Desperate times, desperate measures, by Riva Enteen, CounterPunch, Aug 12, 2020 (Riva Enteen lives in San Francisco and is a lifelong peace activist, advocate for justice, social worker and lawyer.)
* Joe Biden has found his neoliberal match in Kamala Harris, by Branko Marcetic, Jacobin, Aug 10, 2020
* Kamala Harris has a distinguished career of serving injustice, by Marjorie Cohn, Truthout.org, July 8, 2020

Ilhan Omar fends off challenger in Democratic Party nomination fight in Minnesota, New York Times, Aug 12, 2020 and read: report in Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug 12, 2020 Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota fended off a well-funded primary challenger on Tuesday, ensuring a clean sweep of re-election fights for the group of first-term Democratic congresswomen of color known as the Squad and sending a message to Washington about the staying power of the party’s new progressive voices. Her challenger, Antone Melton-Meaux, raised six times the funding of Omar…

Russian president announces the first Covid-19 vaccine to be registered, says it will be shared with the world. Three reports:
* Report by Bryan MacDonald, in RT, Aug 11, 2020
* Russia is first to register COVID-19 vaccine worldwide, TASS news agency, Aug 11, 2020
* Text of the announcement of Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko to a meeting of the Russian government, published on the website of the President of Russia, Aug 11, 2020 Vladimir Putin, on Aug 11, 2020: ‘We have the first registration. I hope the work of our foreign colleagues will also make progress and there will be a lot of medicines and vaccines on the global market that can be used.’
[Western media is awash in dismissal (disappointment) that Russia may be leading the world in developing a safe and effective vaccine. This report in the Washington Post is no exception, but it does contain some important insight, including the fact that if further tests prove successful, Russia plans to manufacture the vaccine in five countries. The Post reports: …Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund that bankrolled the country’s vaccination eprogram, said, “It is difficult for countries to acknowledge, ‘How is it possible that Russia, which has been always shown as this backward, authoritarian country, can do this?’ ” …Dmitriev said Russia will go ahead with Phase 3, a larger trial involving thousands of participants normally considered an essential precursor to receive regulatory approval. Parallel trials are planned in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and possibly Brazil and the Philippines, he said. The southern Brazilian state of Paraná announced that it will begin producing the possible Russian vaccine in November…]]

Trump considers banning re-entry by citizens who may have contracted coronavirus, New York Times, Aug 10, 2020

Four reasons civilization won’t decline, it will collapse, by Craig Collins, published in CounterPunch, March 13, 2020 (Craig Collins Ph.D. is the author of Toxic Loopholes: Failures and Future Prospects for Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press, 2012). He teaches political science and environmental law at California State University East Bay and was a founding member of the Green Party of California.)
By the same writer: Why did socialism fail?, CounterPunch, Feb 1, 2019

The mystery of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, three days after Hiroshima, by John LaForge, originally published in Consortium News, Aug 9, 2014 On Aug. 9, 1945, as Japan’s high command met on surrender plans, the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki killing 74,000 people instantly, a decision that’s never been adequately explained
By the same author: The enduring myths of the military ‘necessity’ of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by John LaForge, originally published in Consortium News, Aug 6, 2014 [The two articles above are part of a series of articles in Consortium News published under the theme ‘Atomic bombings at 75’.]

More than 97,000 children in U.S. tested positive for Covid-19 in the last two weeks of July, report says, CNN, Aug 10, 2020 …While some U.S. leaders, including Donald Trump, say the virus doesn’t pose a large risk to children, one recent study suggests older children can transmit the virus just as much as adults. Another study said children younger than five carry a higher viral load than adults, raising even more questions about their role in transmission. At least 86 children have died in the U.S. since May… Since July 21, there have been only four days during which the U.S. recorded fewer than 1,000 virus-linked fatalities. But it’s still business as usual in some parts of the country…
Related: Chaos coast to coast as a school year like no other launches, Washington Post, Aug 9, 2020

Confusion as well as doubt over the legality and practicality of Trump ‘executive orders’ following failure to reach Congressional agreement on for economic relief, New York Times, Aug 9, 2020 and read: report in Washington Post, Aug 9, 2020
Related:
* Breaking down the executive actions Trump signed on coronavirus relief, CNN, Aug 9, 2020 With stimulus talks stalled, President Donald Trump announced he would go around Congress to deliver aid to Americans affected by the pandemic. But a close read of the actual text of executive actions he signed on August 8 suggests that even if they are deemed constitutional, they will not quickly deliver the aid Trump promised. They may not deliver much at all…
* Trump’s executive orders as public relations stunts, by Jack Rasmus, published on his website, Aug 9, 2020

How China controlled the coronavirus, essay by Peter Hessler, The New Yorker, Aug 10, 2020 (Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2000. He lives and teaches at university in Chengdu, population 16 million, the capital city of Sichuan Province. The city is located app. 1,100 km east of the city of Wuhan.)

Western media’s favorite Hong Kong ‘freedom struggle writer’ is an American ex-Amnesty Int’l staffer in yellowface, by Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone, Aug 8, 2020 A prominent Hong Kong pundit and anti-China activist named ‘Kong Tsung-gan’ has become a go-to source for Western media. An investigation by The Grayzone confirms Kong as a fake identity employed by an American teacher who’s a ubiquitous figure at protests in Hong Kong.

How the Guardian newspaper betrayed not only Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn but the last vestiges of British democracy, by Jonathan Cook, published on his website blog, Aug 10, 2020

The lost days of summer: How Trump and his regime fell short in containing the virus. Report in Washington Post, Aug 8, 2020 …If the administration’s initial response to the coronavirus was denial, its failure to control the pandemic since then was driven by dysfunction and resulted in a lost summer, according to the portrait that emerges from interviews with 41 senior administration officials and other people directly involved in or briefed on the response efforts…
Related:
* California becomes third state to exceed 10,000 Covid-19 deaths while concerns grow about under-reporting of cases and deaths there and in other states, Washington Post, Aug 8, 2020
* Trump bypasses Congress after talks collapse, signs executive orders extending some coronavirus benefits, Associated Press, Aug 8, 2020 read also: report in Washington Post, Aug 8, 2020

Here is how to crush the SARS-CoV-2 virus until vaccines arrive, by Michael T. Osterholm and Neel Kashkari , commentary in New York Times, Aug 7, 2020 (Professor Michael T. Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota; Neel Kashkari is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis).) To save lives, and save the economy, we need another lockdown
Related:
* A vaccine or a spike in deaths: How America can build herd immunity to the coronavirus, Washington Post, Aug 7, 2020
* America’s obesity epidemic threatens effectiveness of any COVID vaccine, by Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News, Aug 6, 2020
* What the huge COVID-19 testing undercount in the US. means, interview with Melissa Hawkins (professor of public health at American University), published in The Conversation, Aug 5, 2020

TikTok diplomacy: A digital containment doctrine spearheaded by the U.S. gov’t, by the Qiao Collective, Aug 5, 2020
Previously reported:
* Trump’s tantrum against TikTok is no laughing matter, by Ari Paul, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, Aug 5, 2020
* The U.S. may lose in Trump’s TikTok war, by Shang-Jin Wei, published by Project Syndicate, Aug 6, 2020

The reporter who revealed the truth about Hiroshima in The New Yorker, defying the U.S. government’s censorship of the terrible story. Book review by Katie Hafner, in Washington Post, Aug 8, 2020 Reviewing: Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-Up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World, by Lesley Blume, Simon and Schuster, 276pp, August 2020

Vice-President Pence’s hyped-up claims of ‘voter fraud’ in Indiana, by Glenn Kessler, fact checker columnist, Washington Post, Aug 8, 2020 Pence earns four ‘pinocchios’ for falsely claiming ‘case after case’ of voter fraud across the United States in 2016, including ‘prosecution for falsifying ballots’ in Indiana that year.

National strike continues across Bolivia, demands grow for Western-backed, coup president Jeanine Áñez to step down, People’s Dispatch, Aug 7, 2020 Social movements and trade unions stress that their demand is no longer just democratic elections but also the immediate removal of the entire coup-installed government
Related:
* Indefinite strike begins in Bolivia against postponement of general elections, by Peoples Dispatch, Aug 4, 2020 Over 24 major interdepartmental and inter-provincial highways and roads have been blocked by protesters to demand compliance with the decision to hold elections on September 6 in Bolivia
* Bolivians are in revolt against their illegitimate coup regime, by Thomas Field, Jacobin Magazine, Aug 4, 2020 Nine months after the right-wing coup that ousted Bolivian president Evo Morales, elections still have not been held and popular discontent with the coup regime is boiling over.
* As Bolivian regime delays elections a third time, Western media continue to ignore 2019 coup, by Bryce Greene, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR.org), Aug 6, 2020

[As of August 7, Bolivia is suffering a rate of Covid-19 illness of 7,159 per million population. That compares to Colombia, 7,209, and Mexico, 3,637. Those two countries are much better equipped to treat the medical and social consequences of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic compared to Bolivia where hospitals are overwhelmed. Making conditons worse, in November 2019, the newly-installed coup regime expelled more than 700 Cuban medical internationalists from Bolivia. Today, police are being tasked with removing dead bodies from streets and homes. In contrast, Venezuela has a Covid-19 case rate of 850 per million population, notwithstanding the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who returned from neighbouring countries hit hard by the pandemic; its death rate from Covid-19 is one of the lowest in the world. This achievement is thanks to the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, begun in the late 1990s under the political leadership of Hugo Chavez, who died tragically of cancer in 2013. Venezuela’s health care system, built with the assistance of revolutionary Cuba, is an outstanding achievement of the Bolivarian Revolution. Venezuela’s low case and death rates are also thanks to the fact that the people of Venezuela and their international supporters have successfully resisted the drive by imperialist governments to engineer a coup against the socialist government led by the political successor to Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro. He is the elected president of Venezuela.].

New but not-so-novel anti-Russia allegations in the pages of the Washington Post. Page one article in Washington Post, Aug 8, 2020, titled ‘Russia is trying to denigrate Biden while China prefers unpredictable Trump not be reelected, senior U.S. intelligence official says’. [The article begins: Russia is “using a range of measures” to interfere in the 2020 election… And the sum total of evidence for the new allegation as presented in the article… are comments by William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center of the U.S. government. We have seen and read this script before, many times. The spectrum of corporate media jumping on this latest, anti-Russia bandwagon: see Associated Press and New York Times.] Related: Joseph Biden’s ‘Ukrainegate’ problem, by Gerald Sussman, CounterPunch, Aug 10, 2020

Virus keeps spreading across U.S. as schools begin to open, frightening parents and alarming public health officials, Washington Post, Aug 6, 2020 …In Ohio, Trump wore a mask during his tour of the Whirlpool manufacturing plant, but not as he railed against “the plague inflicted upon us by China”… The president said the current approach of protecting vulnerable populations is working…
Related:
* White House and Democrats fail to reach agreement on virus relief bill, next steps are uncertain, Washington Post, Aug 6, 2020
* Republican Party candidates for House of Representatives are selling ‘Covid-19, made in China’ face masks, stoking anti-Asian racism and violence. Report in Washington Post, Aug 6, 2020 [The vast numbers of Covid-19 infections and deaths in the United States are caused by the criminal negligence of the governing regime in Washington. But the response of the regime is a wave of anti-Asian racism and a new cold war against China. The regime’s international allies amongst the club of imperialist countries, including Canada, Europe and Australia, are entirely on board with the new cold war.]

Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker, Green Party candidates for president and vice-president of the U.S. 2020

Reverse the new nuclear arms race: For complete and mutual nuclear disarmament, by Howie Hawkins and Madelyn Hoffman, published on the website of the Green Party USA 2020 presidential campaign, Aug 5, 2020

No honour among thieves: Canada says it will retaliate ‘dollar for dollar’ after U.S. slaps 10% tariff on aluminum imports from Canada. Report by CBC News, Aug 6, 2020 [Canada has served the Trump regime in Washington as a loyal partner and servant in the new cold war against China and Russia and in countless other joint policy objectives. But loyalty apparently does not always buy special treatment from the regime.]

New York attorney general seeks to dissolve National Rifle Association in lawsuit accusing gun rights group of wide-ranging fraud and self-dealing, Washington Post, Aug 6, 2020

How the U.S. Army plans to use space and artificial intelligence to hit deep targets quickly, Defense News, Aug 5, 2020

New York Times feature article analyzes U.S. pandemic failure, but opens by echoing Donald’s Trump’s claims of a ‘China virus’ that the Chinese gov’t ‘allowed to escape from Wuhan’. Feature article in New York Times titled ‘The unique U.S. failure to control the virus’, published on Aug 5, 2020 [The New York Times feature article opens with the following two sentences: ‘Nearly every country has struggled to contain the coronavirus and made mistakes along the way. China committed the first major failure, silencing doctors who tried to raise alarms about the virus and allowing it to escape from Wuhan…’ (end citation) This false accusation has been widely refuted by published analyses. (See examples listed below.) But Western media and governments are hell-bent on keeping the accusation alive. They are largely holding the anti-China accusation ‘in reserve’ until such time as their disastrous and embarassing pandemic records (notably in the U.S., Canada and Europe) begin to abate and critical analysis fadessss. At that time, the new cold war against China will recommence with a vengeance, with the false accusation of China ‘covering up’ the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in December 2019/January 2020 in the lead.] Related readings:
* Why Laos, Vietnam and China have beaten the virus while India, Brazil and the U.S. have not, by Vijay Prashad, published in Consortium News, July 16, 2020
* How the United States government failed to prepare for the global pandemic, by Vijay Prashad, People’s Dispatch, May 20, 2020
* How Chinese authorities and the World Health Organization handled the coronavirus pandemic, by Vijay Prashad, published by the Independent Media Institute, Apr 22, 2020
* Ottawa had a playbook for a coronavirus-like pandemic 14 years ago. What went wrong?, by Grant Robertson, Globe and Mail, April 9, 2020

White House calls Arizona a coronavirus success story as state resets after huge spike in cases, Washington Post, Aug 5, 2020 …The White House endorsement comes even as Arizona continues to suffer the effects of a virus that has no vaccine and no widely effective treatment. The state is now averaging some 14,000 to 16,000 new cases a week. Earlier on August 5, Trump claimed in a ‘Fox & Friends’ broadcast that the virus was spreading in a “relatively small portion” of the country (it is spreading nearly everywhere); said children are “virtually immune” to the virus (they are not); and once again insisted the outbreak “will go away like things go away”…

Chart in Wash. Post, Aug 6, 2020

Related:
* Medical experts speak out as Trump repeats false claim that children are ‘virtually immune’ to Covid-19, Common Dreams, Aug 6, 2020 …Shortly after Trump’s briefing, Twitter and Facebook both removed videos posted by the president’s campaign account and personal page claiming that children are “almost immune from this disease” Both platforms said the videos violated their rules against disseminating misinformation about Covid-19…
* Facebook, Twitter penalize Trump for posts containing ‘children are immune from coronavirus’ misinformation, Washington Post, Aug 5, 2020

America’s unholy crusade against China, by Jeffrey Sachs, published on Project Syndicate, Aug 5, 2020 Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an anti-China speech that was extremist, simplistic, and dangerous. If biblical literalists like Pompeo remain in power past November, they could well bring the world to the brink of a war that they expect and perhaps even seek.
Related:
* Trump regime’s ‘clean network’ initiative to restrict and ban Chinese entrepreneurs from the internet is madness. Editorial in Global Times, Aug 6, 2020 …Winning reelection is now the overriding goal of the Trump team. The Trump administration has failed in the epidemic fight and achieved almost no accomplishments. Under such circumstances, the State Department headed by Pompeo has assumed a major role in seeking reelection. Pompeo has uttered anti-China remarks almost every day, and constantly played tricks to intensify conflicts between China and the U.S. …
* U.S squeeze on China’s apps, digital infrastructure could upend global internet, analysts say, South China Morning Post, Aug 6, 2020
* Call to McCarthy-style, anti-China persecution presented on page one of Canada’s Globe and Mail daily. Page one article in Globe and Mail, Aug 6, 2020, titled ‘CSIS [Canada’s CIA] warns universities about China recruiting’

U.S. nears five million virus cases fueled by Fourth of July gatherings, graduation parties, no-mask weddings and crowded bars, Associated Press, Aug 5, 2020
Related:
* Trump regime presses to open schools as U.S. approaches five million Covid-19 cases and UN head says suppressing the virus is a pre-condition for safe schools. Report in Washington Post, Aug 4, 2020 [With its central government having abandoned it citizens to the pandemic, the U.S. school opening policy in the U.S. is quickly becoming a messy ‘patchwork’.].
* With bad coronavirus news at home, Trump points misleadingly to rising cases abroad, Washington Post, Aug 4, 2020 ‘I think we’re doing very well, and I think that we have done as well as any nation.’–Donald Trump, speaking on August 3, 2020

The decision to attack Japan with nuclear weapons and the genesis of the Cold War, book excerpt by Scott Ritter, published in Consortium News, Aug 5, 2020 (This excerpt is from the newly published book Scorpion King: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump, written by Scott Ritter and published by Clarity Press.)

Massive warehouse blast in Beirut’s port kills more than 70, injures thousands, Associated Press, Aug 4, 2020
Related:
* Initial investigations point to negligence as cause of Beirut blast, Reuters, Aug 5, 2020
* ‘Apocalyptic’ scenes as Lebanon reels from blast in port of Beirut, Deutsche Welle, Aug 5, 2020 Some 300,000 have been left homeless, according to Beirut Mayor Marwan Abboud.
* Chemical linked to Beirut blast caused past explosions in Texas, Toulouse, France 24, 2020
* Lebanon’s mushroom cloud of incompetence, commentary by Faysal Itani, New York Times, Aug 4, 2020 (Faysal Itani is a deputy director at the Center for Global Policy and adjunct professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University.)
* Beirut explosion: The disaster was exceptional but the handling and mishandling of deadly cargoes on ships and in ports are not, The Conversation, Aug 5, 2020
* I was bloodied and dazed. Beirut strangers treated me like a friend, by Vivian Yee, New York Times, Aug 5, 2020 In a land conditioned by calamity, people knew what to do, including helping wounded people they didn’t know.

Colombia’s supreme court orders house arrest of former president Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) while investigation of his violent, paramilitary past proceeds, Associated Press, Aug 4, 2020 [Colombia is #29 by population in the world but is #10 in Covid-19 illnesses. It borders Venezuela, which has six per cent the number of Covid-19 cases of Colombia. The Western powers arm and protect Colombia’s right-wing government while working for the violent overthrow of Venezuela’s socialist government.]

COVID-19 conspiracy theories are creating a ‘public health crisis’ in Canada, Canadian Press, Aug 3, 2020 [Here is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Corporate and state media in Canada is awash in conspiracy theories, notably in its promotion of a new cold war against China and Russia, led by the Trump regime in Washington. The Canadian government and media normalize their Trump regime ally in Washington and share its trade and military aggression against countries and people such as Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela who dare to stand up to imperialism. They impose economic embargos and threaten coups and military aggression, all under false and conspiratorial pretexts: ‘Russia annexed Crimea and hacked the 2016 U.S. election. China is destroying democracy in Hong Kong. Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons. Venezuela is a dictatorship.’ Thus do we see how such imperialist foreign policy weakens the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It undermines global cooperation and spews conspiracy theories in politics. The hypocrites in Ottawa and in editorial offices across the country are a public health threat to the people of Canada and the world. This has already been proven by their track record of criminal negligence since the pandemic first loomed in January 2020.]

Treating the search for a Covid vaccine like an arms race endangers us all, by Sarah Lazare, In These Times, Aug 3, 2020

(Map in The Guardian Aug 4, 2020, source Johns Hopkins U)

Coronavirus cases are climbing in Midwest states with previously low infections, Washington Post, Aug 3, 2020
Related U.S. news:
* Trump turns against his own top Covid-19 fan and advisor, Deborah Birx. Report by Washington Post, Aug 3, 2020
* Unhinged Trump interview braodcast on HBO spotlights deadly failure of his regime’s Covid-19 response, Common Dreams, Aug 4, 2020 read also: Trump flounders in interview over US Covid-19 death toll, The Guardian, Aug 4, 2020
* Republicans fear that Trump’s attacks on mail-in ballots as ‘fraudulent’ will backfire, cause his supporters not to vote, Washington Post, Aug 3, 2020 President Trump’s unfounded attacks on mail balloting are discouraging his own supporters from embracing the practice

When coronavirus infections subsided in May, Israel reopened its schools. It didn’t go well, New York Times, Aug 3, 2020

The UK government’s failed track and trace system for Covid-19 is a disaster for England, by Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, Aug 1, 2020

Another Hiroshima is coming, unless we act now to stop it, by John Pilger, Consortium News, Aug 3, 2020 The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 8, 1945 were acts of premeditated mass murder unleashing a weapon of intrinsic criminality. The bombings were justified by lies that form the bedrock of 21st century U.S. war propaganda, casting a new enemy, and target – China.

The atomic bombings of Japan at 75: President Harry Truman’s ‘human sacrifice’ to subdue the Soviet Union, by Peter Kuznick, published in Consortium News, Aug 3, 2020 (This article forms the introduction to the English language translation of The Atomic Bomb on My Back: A Life Story of Survival and Activism, by Taniguchi Sumiteru, to be released on August 9 by Rootstock Publishing. Peter Kuznick is Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University. He is the co-author (with Akira Kimura) of Rethinking the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Japanese and American Perspectives, and co-author (with Oliver Stone) of the New York Times best-selling The Untold History of the United States (books and documentary film series).)
Related:
* Canada must acknowledge its key role in developing the deadly atomic bomb, commentary by Setsuko Thurlow, published in the Globe and Mail, Aug 1, 2020 read the commentary here in pdf format: Canada’s role in developing nuclear weapons (Setsuko Thurlow is a Canadian nuclear disarmament campaigner and survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima. She was 13 years old at the time of the bombing.)
* Setsuko Thurlow’s appeal to Justin Trudeau, letter dated June 22, 2020, published on the website of the Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Coalition (Toronto)
Background:
* In 2017 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow says history will judge harshly those countries rejecting anti-nuclear weapons treaty. News compilation on A Socialist In Canada, Dec 11, 2017
* Draft treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, approved by the UN General Assembly on July 7, 2017. Click here to open the ten-page document in pdf format.

Scholars speak out against the ‘unnecessary’ nuclear attacks against Japan in August 1945, Consortium News, Aug 2, 2020
Related: What Europeans believe about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and why it matters, by Benoît Pelopidas and Kjølv Egeland, published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Aug 3, 2020

Memorial days: The racial underpinnings of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, by Elaine Scarry, published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Aug 3, 2020 This past Memorial Day, a Minneapolis police officer knelt on the throat of an African-American, George Floyd, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Seventy-five years ago, an American pilot dropped an atomic bomb on the civilian population of Hiroshima. Worlds apart in time, space, and scale, the two events share three key features. Each was an act of state violence. Each was an act carried out against a defenseless opponent. Each was an act of naked racism…

Victoria state records Australia’s worst day of Covid-19 on August 4 with 15 deaths and 725 new cases, The Guardian, Aug 5, 2020
Related:
* Melbourne’s declared ‘state of disaster’ over Covid-19 infection rates is Covid-as-usual in the U.S., but media fails to draw that connection, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, Aug 3, 2020
* State of disaster declared in Australia’s Victoria state; Melbourne placed under stage 4 coronavirus lockdown, stage 3 for rest of Victoria, ABC.net.au, Aug 2, 2020 [Australia has recorded more than 18,000 cases of Covid-19 and just over 200 deaths. Case numbers have risen sharply in July, to many hundreds daily, mostly in Victoria.]

Several tens of thousands rally in Berlin on Aug 1 to oppose pandemic safety measures. Report by Deutsche Welle, Aug 2, 2020 and read: report by Washington Post, Aug 2, 2020 [A counter-protest also took place, observing distance and face mask regulations. Many chanted ‘Nazis out’ against the ‘Day of Freedom’ protest, which was dispersed by police. Germany is #18 in the world for Covid-19 cases, more than 212,000. More than 9,200 have died. The country is #19 in the world by population. Despite these grim numbers, corporae media frequently vaunts what it calls Germany’s ‘successes’ in combatting Covid-19.]

Trump keeps promising an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system that never arrives, Washington Post, Aug 2, 2020
Background:
* Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Wikipedia. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or colloquially as Obamacare, is a United States federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010.
* Obamacare pros and cons, The Balance, April 2020

How the Trump re-election campaign came to court QAnon, the right-wing, online conspiracy movement, Washington Post, Aug 2, 2020

Minneapolis police losing staff while criminal violence in the city rises, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug 1, 2020

Chart in Wash. Post, Aug 3, 2020

Public health experts in U.S. call for total reset in pandemic response, Washington Post, Aug 1, 2020 The coronavirus is spreading at dangerous levels across much of the United States. Public health experts are demanding a dramatic reset in the national response, one that recognizes that the crisis is intensifying and that current piecemeal strategies aren’t working. This is a new phase of the pandemic, one no longer built around local or regional clusters and hot spots. It comes at an unnerving moment in which the economy suffered its worst collapse since the Great Depression, schools are rapidly canceling plans for in-person instruction and Congress has failed to pass a new emergency relief package… Some experts argue for a full six-to-eight-week national shutdown, something even more sweeping than what was instituted in the spring. There appears to be no political support for such a move…
Related:
* San Francisco flattened the curve early. Now, coronavirus cases are surging, Washington Post, Aug 2, 2020
* 30 million unemployed in U.S. lose extra jobless benefits as talks between Congress and the White House are at an impasse, Washington Post, Aug 1, 2020
* Trump’s re-election effort in crisis, aides attempt August reset before time runs out, Washington Post, Aug 1, 2020 …The campaign is operating under a renewed sense of urgency as it becomes clearer that a large portion of the electorate will probably cast their ballots early by mail as a result of the pandemic. That gives Trump even less time to turn things around…

Coronavirus infected scores of children and staff at Georgia sleep-away camp, Washington Post, Aug 1, 2020 A new report suggests that children of all ages are susceptible to coronavirus infection and may also spread it to others. The report, released on July 31 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, details an outbreak at a sleep-away camp in Georgia last month in which 260 children and staffers — more than three-quarters of the 344 tested — contracted the virus less than a week after spending time together in close quarters. The children had a median age of 12… The report is likely to add fuel to an already polarizing nationwide discussion about whether sending children back to crowded school buildings is worth the risk, in large part because so little data has been available about children’s vulnerability to the infection and their ability to transmit the virus…
* The risk that students in U.S. could arrive at school with the coronavirus, New York Times, July 31, 2020
* School superintendent in Arizona on safe reopening of schools: ‘I’m sorry, but it’s a fantasy’, Washington Post, Aug 1, 2020

Donald Trump in 2000 at yacht party with future First Lady, Jefrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (photo in Wash. Post, Aug 2, 2020)

Last week, Donald Trump wished Ghislaine Maxwell ‘well’; before that, they mingled for years in the same gilded circles, Washington Post, Aug 1, 2020

Like slavery before him, will Donald Trump’s term be the next ‘lost cause’?, Washington Post, July 31, 2020
Related: The lies our textbooks told my generation of Virginians about slavery, Washington Post, July 31, 2020

Protests in downtown Portland remain calm with police out of sight, The Oregonian, Aug 2, 2020 Black Lives Matter protests continued for the 66th day in Portland on August 1 for the third night since federal officers left their post at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse…
Related:
* With federal law enforcement gone, elected officials in Oregon must focus on protest demands, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Aug 1, 2020
* Thousands of anti-racism protesters continue gathering in Portland with little interaction with the state police replacing federal paramilitaries. Report in Washington Post, Aug 1, 2020

Theoretical physicists say 90% chance of societal collapse within several decades due to deforestation, VICE.com, July 28, 2020

Is public transportation risky? It may be safer than you think, New York Times, Aug 2, 2020 New studies in Europe and Asia suggest that riding public transportation is not a major source of transmission for the coronavirus.

Coronavirus will be here until ‘the end of time’, says epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm of U of Minnesota, International Business Times, July 30, 2020
Related: Interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, Marketwatch, Aug 1, 2020

Romola Garai stars as Eleanor Marx in forthcoming ‘Miss Marx’

‘Miss Marx’, contender for the Venice Golden Lion film prize, has secured its first tranche of international deals ahead of the September film festival, report by Manori Ravindran, Variety Magazine, July 31, 2020 (two-minute film trailer at weblink)

Mexico eclipses Britain with third highest coronavirus death toll, Reuters, July 31, 2020
[Mexico recorded 688 fatalities on July 31 to bring its death toll to 46,688, surpassing Britain, India and Italy–the countries with the fourth, fifth and sixth highest death tolls, respectively. Here are death rates per million population for the worst-hit countries in the world, as of Aug 1, 2020: Belgium 849, Britain 680, Spain 608, Peru 582, Italy 581, Sweden 568, Chile 492, U.S. 475, France 464, Brazil 436, Mexico 362, Netherlands 359, Ireland 357. Lesser-hit countries include Ecuador 323, Bolivia 255, Canada 237, Iran 202, Colombia 198. The least-hit countries in the world include Australia 8, Cuba 8, Japan 8, South Korea 6, Venezuela 6, New Zealand 4.].
Additional news of Covid-19 in the world:
* South Africa braces for more coronavirus deaths as cases surge, photo essay in Washington Post, July 30, 2020 [South Africa has the fifth-highest count of Covid-19 cases in the world, nearly 500,000; it is #25 in the world by population. Its per capita Covid-19 rate is one half that of the U.S. while its death rate is one quarter.].
* COVID-19 cases in Philippines exceed 98,000 with three straight days of record, daily new cases, Xinhua news agency, Aug 1, 2020 [Philippines is #25 in the world for total Covid-19 cases, just behind Indonesia. It is #13 in the world for population; Indonesia is #4 for population. Daily new cases in the past three days have doubled in Philippines from the July average of app. 2,000.].
* How the packed, poor district of Dharavi in Mumbai has beat back the coronavirus while India’s cases continue to soar, Washington Post, Aug 1, 2020

Far-right extremism in German military’s elite special forces and neo-Nazi infiltration of state institutions is much broader than officials have let on. Report in New York Times, Aug 1, 2020 Far-right networks are far more extensive than officials say they understood. The reach of far-right extremists into Germany’s armed forces is particularly alarming
Related:
* Germany extends military mission in Afghanistan, Pajhwok Afghan News, Mar 14, 2020
* German gov’t and military warn against early NATO troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Reuters, Sept 14, 2019 [Germany is the second-largest bilateral contributor of developmental and military support to Afghanistan after the US., with some 1,300 soldiers stationed there. Deutsche Welle]