EU-DIGEST

3/10/20

Britain: Coronavirus: Budget will pledge 'historic spending' despite outbreak

By investing historic amounts in British innovation and world-class infrastructure, we will rebalance opportunities and lay the foundations for a decade of growth for everybody.’ Wednesday’s budget comes as the government faces calls for increased investment in a number of sectors to help tackle the coronavrius outbreak. On Sunday, Mr Sunak told the BBC’s Andrew Marr the NHS would get ‘whatever resources it needs’ to manage the crisis. The chancellor said he was looking at extra financial help for individuals and businesses if measures against the virus, such as a two-week lockdown, meant they were out of pocket.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/10/budget-will-unveil-historic-spending-despite-coronavirus-hit-economy-12378706/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

By investing historic amounts in British innovation and world-class infrastructure, we will rebalance opportunities and lay the foundations for a decade of growth for everybody.’

Wednesday’s budget comes as the government faces calls for increased investment in a number of sectors to help tackle the coronavrius outbreak.

On Sunday, Mr Sunak told the BBC’s Andrew Marr the NHS would get ‘whatever resources it needs’ to manage the crisis. The chancellor said he was looking at extra financial help for individuals and businesses if measures against the virus, such as a two-week lockdown, meant they were out of pocket.

Read more at: Coronavirus UK: Budget will pledge 'historic spending' despite outbreak | Metro News

USA economic meltdown is inevitable: A market crash was coming, even before coronavirus - by Steven Pearlstein

This is what panic selling looks like. When everyone wants to sell and almost nobody wants to buy, prices suddenly stop having much to do with the underlying value of whatever it is that is being traded. As the expression goes on Wall Street, nobody wants to try to catch a falling knife.

But it’s even worse than that when most of these stocks, bonds and derivatives have been purchased with borrowed money. The wiseguys who now dominate the daily trading on Wall Street — the hedge funds and private equity funds — typically put down $1 or $2 of their own and their investors’ money for every $10 worth of the securities they purchase.

Ultimately, all of these pieces of paper that are furiously being traded on financial markets are tied to some company or some household in the real economy. And that is where you run into the second problem. For it turns out that those companies and households also hold record amounts of debt, which makes them sensitive to any reduction in their sales or profits or normal income flows. So even the prospect of an economic slowdown causes them to save more and spend and invest less. While that is perfectly rational behavior on the part of any business or household, when everyone does it at the same time, it becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, turning what might have been a modest slowdown in the economy into a full-blown recession.

Note -EU digest: as the Washington Post reports The coronavirus panic could threaten a $10 trillion mountain of corporate debt, unleashing a cycle of layoffs and business spending cuts that would hit the economy just as some analysts are warning of a recession. Using a broad measure of business liabilities, the ratio of debt to assets is at its highest in 20 years, according to the Federal Reserve. One potential trouble spot lies in the rapid growth of “leveraged loans,” made by top banks such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to scores of cash-short companies.

Stock Markets: European stocks falter again as bounce on Wall Street (Casino) fades as a result of fake reports - by Jill Disis and Julia Horowitz,

Global stocks are struggling to get back on track one day after novel coronavirus fears and an oil price war sparked a worldwide panic.

The mood among investors was initially helped by news of President Donald Trump's plan to propose "significant relief" in the form of a payroll tax cut and help for hourly workers most affected by the coronavirus, or Covid-19, and expectations of more stimulus measures as the risks of a global recession rise.

But concerns about the spread of the virus, and the scope of the policy response, returned to weigh on markets following the worst day for US stocks since 2008.

The S&P 500 was up 1.3% on Tuesday afternoon, after previously rising as much as 3.7%. The Dow climbed about 1%. The Nasdaq rose 1.4%.

European shares, meanwhile, finished the day mainly in the red. Germany's DAX (DAX) lost 1.4%, France's CAC 40 (CAC40) dipped 1.5% and the FTSE 100 ended flat. In Italy, where the entire country is now under unprecedented restrictions, the main benchmark index dropped another 3.3% after falling 11% on Monday.

US oil futures were last up 7.9% to $33.59 a barrel. The global benchmark Brent crude also rose 8% to trade above $37 a barrel.

JPMorgan equity strategists said that Monday's slump was exaggerated given that the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates to zero and the Trump administration has said it will unveil a stimulus plan.

"The market has gone ahead and priced in too severe of an adverse scenario, assuming we get timely and strong counter-policy response and a Covid-19 outbreak that peaks in the coming weeks," the bank told clients Tuesday.

US Economy: If Jeff Bezos really wants to fight the climate crisis, he should just pay his taxes - by Guy T Sapersteinn

Wildfires are ravaging California and Australia – and local fire departments are alarmingly underfunded and underprepared

Read more at:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/09/jeff-bezos-climate-crisis-taxes-california?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Add_to_Firefox

3/9/20

EU-Turkey Relations: Turkey’s Erdogan leaves EU talks without agreement on migrants

Stern-faced EU leaders warned President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday to respect the terms of a previous deal to keep migrants away from Europe's borders, after the Turkish leader came to Brussels t…

Read more at:
https://www.france24.com/en/20200310-turkey-s-erdogan-leaves-eu-talks-without-agreement-on-migrants

US Economy Meltdown: Dow plunges over 2,000 points, oil collapses amid price war and coronavirus - by Jonathan Garber

U.S. equity markets tumbled Monday after an oil price war broke out between Saudi Arabia and Russia and amid new cases of coronavirus, especially in America.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
I:DJI	DOW JONES AVERAGES	23851.02	-2,013.76	-7.79%
SP500	S&P 500	2758.65	-213.72	-7.19%
I:COMP	NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX	7985.59538	-590.02	-6.88%

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed over 2,000 points lower, coming back from a point drop of more than 2,150 points, or 8.2 percent, at session lows while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were lower by 7.9 percent and 7.2 percent, respectively.

Monday's sharp selloff, which caused the major averages to be temporarily halted due to volatility, caused the New York Federal Reserve to increase its daily cash injections into the banking system to $150 billion from $100 billion.

The stock-market's steep slide comes after a production dispute between OPEC members, led by Saudi Arabia, and Russia sent West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, plunging by as much as 33.8 percent, the most since the outbreak of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, to a low of $27.34 a barrel in overnight trading. The energy component finished the day down 24.59 percent at $31.13 a barrel.

Note EU-Digest: This is what happens when you elect a President who is a complete "ignoramas", lies like there is no tomorrow, says he knows more about the Corona Virus than the medical profession, brags he is the best deal maker in the world, wants only "yes men" in his cabinet, and unfortunately, that is "only the top of the Trump iceberg drama".

Read more at: Dow plunges over 2,000 points, oil collapses amid price war and coronavirus | Fox Business

CLIMATE CONTROL: In denial: The spin machine upending the climate consensus

Climate law rollbacks in the US and Australia have origins in libertarian think tanks that trade in climate denial. Investigative journalists have exposed how one is now trying to strip climate protections in Germany.

Read more at :
https://www.dw.com/en/trump-climate-change-denial-emissions-environment-germany-fake-heartland-seibt/a-52688933

The US Media: News outlets must stop running white nationalist propaganda - by Tina Vasquez, Ethan Fauré, and Nathaniel Hoffman

n 1968, a government study called the Kerner Report warned that the media was failing to report on the underlying problems of race relations in the United States. Five decades later, we find ourselves in the midst of another media crisis with grave consequences for our fragile democracy: Major media organizations like the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio (NPR) are regularly quoting representatives of known white nationalist groups without context about the groups’ ideologies and often don’t present adequate responses.

In the last several months alone, the New York Times published an op-ed by Jerry Kammer, a senior research fellow at the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), NPR quoted CIS and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and The Washington Post cited CIS multiple times. All of these are stark examples of what journalists Juan González and Joseph Torres called the news media’s “deeply flawed national narrative: the creation myth of heroic European settlers battling an array of backward and violent non-white peoples to forge the world’s greatest democratic republic.”

This harmful white supremacist narrative and its chief proponents should be well-known to reporters and editors by now, but it seems the pull of access journalism and the drive for Trump scoops continues to cloud journalistic ethics. In brief, John Tanton, a white nationalist and eugenicist who died in 2019, was one of the founders of CIS and a network of anti-immigrant groups targeting different segments of civil society.

For more than 30 years, the group has published countless reports designed to pump misinformation into immigration discourse, starting within conservative outlets, but working across the media landscape. CIS has also distributed more than 2,000 articles from white nationalists and influential anti-Semites. CIS is not merely “a group that favors stricter immigration policies,” as it is routinely identified in the media. I

t is part of a network of anti-immigrant groups—including FAIR and Numbers USA—founded and funded by white nationalists who work to stop non-white migration to the U.S. In fact, CIS’s penchant for misrepresentation and obfuscation of facts in the pursuit of severely limiting immigration has led it to be dubbed the “False-Fact Think Tank.”

Read more at: News outlets must stop running white nationalist propaganda

Airline industry: Airlines are getting walloped by the coronavirus - Jordan Weissmann

Southwest said on Thursday that it expected to lose between $200 million and $300 million in ticket sales, thanks to the outbreak. “In recent days, the company has experienced a significant decline in customer demand, as well as an increase in trip cancellations,” it explained in a regulatory filing. Meanwhile, United and JetBlue are planning to cut back on flights to reduce losses, and an industry group—the International Air Transport Association—is now predicting that, globally, carriers will lose between $63 billion and $113 billion in passenger revenue this year.

Read more: Airlines are getting walloped by the coronavirus.

Oil Prices tanking: Russia vs Saudi: How much pain can they take in oil price war? - by Davide Barbuscia, Darya Korsunskaya

In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave the green light for the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter, to pump at will after Russia rejected an OPEC proposal for deeper cuts to cope with the coronavirus outbreak, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The Saudi fiscal breakeven - the oil price at which it would balance its budget - is at around $80 a barrel, double that of Russia, said Malik at Tellimer.

Saudi Arabia enjoys foreign reserves of $500 billion and a low debt-to-GDP ratio of 25% that gives it ample room to borrow.

Read more: Russia vs Saudi: How much pain can they take in oil price war? - Reuters

3/8/20

Pollution - plastic waste: How Big Oil and Big Soda Kept the Plastics Crisis a Secret for Decades - by Tim Dickinson

A disaster created by BIG OIL and BIG SODA killing mankind

Every human on Earth is ingesting nearly 2,000 particles of plastic a week. These tiny pieces enter our unwitting bodies from tap water, food, and even the air, according to an alarming academic study sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, dosing us with five grams of plastics, many cut with chemicals linked to cancers, hormone disruption, and developmental delays. Since the paper’s publication last year,

Sen. Tom Udall, a plain-spoken New Mexico Democrat with a fondness for white cowboy hats and turquoise bolo ties, has been trumpeting the risk: “We are consuming a credit card’s worth of plastic each week,” Udall says. At events with constituents, he will brandish a Visa from his wallet and declare, “You’re eating this, folks!”

With new legislation, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020, Udall is attempting to marshal Washington into a confrontation with the plastics industry, and to force companies that profit from plastics to take accountability for the waste they create. Unveiled in February, the bill would ban many single-use plastics and force corporations to finance “end of life” programs to keep plastic out of the environment. “We’re going back to that principle,” the senator tells Rolling Stone. “The polluter pays.”

The battle pits Udall and his allies in Congress against some of the most powerful corporate interests on the planet, including the oil majors and chemical giants that produce the building blocks for our modern plastic world — think Exxon, Dow, and Shell — and consumer giants like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Unilever that package their products in the stuff. Big Plastic isn’t a single entity. It’s more like a corporate supergroup: Big Oil meets Big Soda — with a puff of Big Tobacco, responsible for trillions of plastic cigarette butts in the environment every year. And it combines the lobbying and public-relations might of all three.

Americans have occasionally crusaded against “problem plastics” — scapegoating packing peanuts, grocery bags, or drinking straws for the sins of our unsustainable consumer economy. We’ve been slow to recognize that we’re actually in the midst of a plastic pandemic. Over the past 70 years, we’ve gotten hooked on disposable goods and packaging — as plastics became the lifeblood of an American culture of speed, convenience, and disposability that’s conquered the globe. Plastic contains our hot coffee and frozen dinners. It is the material of childhood, from Pampers to Playmobil to PlayStation 4. It cloaks our e-commerce purchases and is woven into our sneakers, fast fashion, and business fleece. Humans are now using a million plastic bottles a minute, and 500 billion plastic bags a year — including those we use to bag up our plastic-laden trash.

But the world’s plastic waste is not so easily contained. Massive quantities of this forever material are spilling into the oceans — the equivalent of a dump-truck load every minute. Plastic is also fouling our mountains, our farmland, and spiraling into an unmitigatable environmental disaster. John Hocevar is a marine biologist who leads the Oceans Campaign for Greenpeace, and spearheaded the group’s response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf.

Increasingly, his work has centered on plastics. “This is a much bigger problem than ‘just’ an ocean issue, or even a pollution issue,” he says. “We’ve found plastic everywhere we’ve ever looked. It’s in the Arctic and the Antarctic and in the middle of the Pacific. It’s in the Pyrenees and in the Rockies. It’s settling out of the air. It’s raining down on us.”

Read more at: How Big Oil and Big Soda Kept the Plastics Crisis a Secret for Decades - Rolling Stone

The Netherlands: Two more die of coronavirus in Netherlands, total stands at 265

Two more patients in the Netherlands have died as a result of contracting coronavirus, according to latest figures from the public health institute RIVM. In its latest update on Sunday the RIVM said the number of confirmed infections stands at 265, a rise of 77 since Saturday.

The figure is the biggest increase for a single day, although in percentage terms it is smaller than Saturday’s rise (41.0% compared to 46.9%).

The latest casualties are an 86-year-old man who was admitted to the Bernhoven Hospital in Uden, Noord-Brabant, and an 82-year-old man who was being treated in the Zuyderland Medical Centre in Sittard-Geleen, Limburg. The source of both infections is being investigated.

The RIVM said 144 of the 265 patients who had tested positive for coronavirus had travelled abroad, 131 of them to northern Italy. In 47 cases the source of the infection is not yet known.

Read more at: Two more die of coronavirus in Netherlands, total stands at 265 - DutchNews.nl

Middle East: Turkey Corona Virus - Turkey to investigate coronavirus claims amid public concerns over transparency

Turkey’s General Directorate of Security announced on Saturday it would be launching investigations into any form of misinformation on the presence of coronavirus cases in the country.

The investigations will include any form of social media posts sparking fear in the population, the directorate said in an official statement on its website.

The move is adding fuel to concerns that the Health Ministry of the country, surrounded by countries where the disease has been found, is hiding cases of the deadly virus.

Originating in China’s Wuhan province in December 2019, coronavirus has spread to more than 20 countries, including the United States, Russia, Iran, Spain, and India. The death toll caused by the virus worldwide climbed to at least climbed to at least 3,491 on Saturday with at least 102,472 confirmed across the globe, officials said.

Covid-19 has been found in half of Turkey’s eight neighbours - Iran, Greece, Iraq and Georgia.
The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) has confirmed that no cases of Covid-19 have been seen in the country with Health Minister, Fahrettin Koca, announcing on Friday that all 1,363 people suspected of possible infection had tested negative.

The figures include the crew of a Turkish Airlines jet that arrived in Singapore this week from Istanbul with an infected traveller. The crew was transported back to Turkey before undergoing examination.

There is "mistrust among the citizens against the Health Ministry," TTB Chair, Professor Sinan Adıyaman, told bianet news site on Saturday.

"It is definitely thought to exist in Turkey and some rumours are spreading. For example, there has been a rumour for a week that "29 Mayıs Hospital [in Ankara] is in quarantine. But that hospital continues its routine work," Adıyaman said.

Questions also loom over Turkey’s own test kit for the lethal virus. Turkish officials earlier this month announced the kit, which they say provides faster results than the 90-minute kits in use and has the highest accuracy in the world.

US Economy: As coronavirus cripples global supply lines, more U.S. firms looking to leave China

Beyond short-term economic disruptions and increased recession worries, the spreading coronavirus is sowing the seeds of a broad transformation of the global supply chains that for years brought low consumer prices and high corporate profits on products such as cellphones, computers and household goods.

China looks to be the biggest loser as U.S. producers step up plans to reduce their reliance on the world’s second-biggest economy, which has long enjoyed a central, dominant role in an international manufacturing network that ships parts and materials back and forth among different countries before assembling them into finished products.

A slow U.S. exodus from China was already underway because of soaring wages in China and President Trump’s trade and tech wars, with companies such as Apple announcing plans last year to diversify its manufacturing, which was heavily reliant on China. Trump’s punitive tariffs on Chinese imports and the increasingly broad bipartisan support in the U.S. to get tough with Beijing have added to the cost and political pressure for companies operating in China.

Read more at: As coronavirus cripples global supply lines, more U.S. firms looking to leave China - Los Angeles Times

Sugar and diet: f Sugar Is so Bad for Us, Why Is the Sugar in Fruit Ok?

Sugar in food and drinks comes in various forms. Sugar molecules are classified as monosaccharides (single sugar molecules such as glucose and fructose) and disaccharides (more complex structures such as sucrose and lactose).

Fruit contains natural sugars, which are a mix of sucrose, fructose and glucose. Many people have heard that sugar is bad, and think that this must also therefore apply to fruits.

But fructose is only harmful in excess amounts, and not when it comes from fruit. It would be incredibly difficult to consume excessive amounts of fructose by eating whole fruits.

3/7/20

The Netherlands: Construction starts in Netherlands on longest cycling bridge in Europe

Construction has started in the Netherlands on what will be Europe’s longest bridge for cyclists and pedestrians –stretching over a lake, canal, motorway and nature reserve – to connect a new village to its closest town.

he so-called “Blue carpet bridge”, or Blauwe Loper, will be 800 metres long, but there are plans to ultimately extend it to 1km in length. The first phase is scheduled for completion by next Christmas.

The €6.5m ($7.00 m) bridge, which rises at a comfortable 2.5% gradient at its steepest, will connect Winschoten, in Groningen province, with Blauwestad, a new village being built on reclaimed land.

The bridge will only be accessible to cyclists and pedestrians – and bats. Its LED lighting has been designed to assist the creatures in finding their way from the nearby nature reserve to the Oldambtmeer lake. The bridge will also be painted in “bat-friendly” green.

Read more Construction starts in Netherlands on longest cycling bridge in Europe | World news | The Guardian

Turkey - Corona Virus: Is Turkey holding back on reporting corona cases ? Singapore sends Turkish Airlines flight home empty after a passenger tested positive for Corona Virus

A Turkish Airlines aircraft was flown back to Istanbul with no passengers on board on Thursday on orders from Singapore authorities after a passenger who had arrived on the same plane on Tuesday tested positive for coronavirus.

The infected passenger was a French national traveling from London to Singapore, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, and the plane’s crew would be held in quarantine for 14 days as a precaution.

A Turkish aviation official told Reuters earlier that there were 143 passengers, three pilots and 10 crew members aboard the flight to Singapore. Last month, Nigeria said its first case of the virus entered the country on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul, when a man traveling from Italy landed in Lagos.

“The passenger diagnosed with coronavirus in Singapore is a French citizen. The person was a transit passenger going from London to Singapore. Our plane returned without passengers. The crew will be protectively held in quarantine for 14 days,” Koca said on Twitter.

Singapore’s CAAS aviation regulator said that the pilots and crew of flight TK54 that arrived on Tuesday had been come into close contact with the passenger, but the aviation official said the crew tested negative for the virus in Singapore.

Turkish Airlines declined to comment.

Read more at: Singapore sends Turkish Airlines flight home empty after coronavirus case - Reuters

Airline Industry: Germany's Lufthansa to slash half of flights over coronavirus

German airline giant Lufthansa said Friday it would slash capacity by half in the coming weeks, as the group battles "drastic declines in bookings and numerous flight cancellations" prompted by the novel coronavirus.

Read more at;
https://www.thelocal.de/20200306/german-airline-lufthansa-to-slash-flights-by-50-over-coronavirus

Spain-Coronavirus: Spain confirms almost 400 cases as death toll jumps to eight

There have now been eight deaths connected to the coronavirus in Spain, authorities confirmed late on Friday, as the number of confirmed cases continues to rise. Here's the latest news.

Read more at:
https://www.thelocal.es/20200307/spain-reports-first-coronavirus-death

EU-Turkey relations: Erdogan orders coast guard to stop migrants and refugees crossing Aegean

The Turkish president has ordered his coast guard to prevent migrants and refugees from crossing the Aegean Sea. Erdogan has triggered a migrant crisis at the Greek border by falsely informing people the border was open.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/erdogan-orders-coast-guard-to-stop-migrants-and-refugees-crossing-aegean/a-52675278

EU: Hard truths about the eurozone crisis – by Adam Tooze

There has been little honest reflection within the European Commission about the eurozone crisis. Until now.

Read more at:
https://www.socialeurope.eu/hard-truths-about-the-eurozone-crisis

US Economy: Yield Curve Gets Ugly, 10-Year Treasury Yield Falls Below 1% for First Time Ever, 30-Year at Record Low, on Rising Inflation

Spooked by the Fed’s shock-and-awe surprise 50-basis-point rate cut, the already frazzled markets did a job today. Gold surged nearly 3%. The three major stock indices all swooned nearly 3%. And Treasury yields plunged across the board.

The 10-year Treasury yield plunged from 1.13% pre-announcement to an intraday low of 0.935%, and closed officially at 1.02%. When the yield drops, it means that bond prices rise. In late trading the yield fell below 1% again, and is currently at 0.997% reflected in the chart (data via Investing.com):

At this point, nearly the entire yield curve is below our most doctored and repressed US inflation gauge, the Fed’s preferred “core PCE,” which languishes at 1.6%. And the entire yield curve is far below the Cleveland Fed’s median CPI, which has surged to 2.9%.

The Median CPI is based on the data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) but removes the extremes of price increases and price decreases, that are often temporary, to reveal underlying inflation trends:

Read more at: Yield Curve Gets Ugly, 10-Year Treasury Yield Falls Below 1% for First Time Ever, 30-Year at Record Low, on Rising Inflation | Wolf Street

Turkey-Russia agreement: Ceasefire in Syria's Idlib comes at a cost for Turkey's Erdogan - by Tuvan Gumrukcu

After six hours of talks with Vladimir Putin, a somber Erdogan announced an accord which cements territorial gains by Russian-backed Syrian forces over Turkish-backed rebels.

Returning from Russia, Erdogan said his deal with Putin will lay the ground for stability in Idlib and protect civilians who could otherwise become refugees in Turkey, after months of fighting that has displaced nearly a million people.

“The ceasefire brings about important gains,” he said.

The agreement, if it holds, does stem the advances of forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, easing Ankara’s greatest fear - an influx of Syrians fleeing bombardment in Idlib and clamoring to cross its border and join 3.6 million Syrian refugees already in Turkey.

Read more at: Ceasefire in Syria's Idlib comes at a cost for Turkey's Erdogan - Reuters

Corona Virus - don't panic: Susan Hellmann: "The coronavirus is scary. Here’s why you should not panic"

Susan Desmond-Hellmann has a unique set of experiences. Until February, she was the CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where part of her job was thinking up new ways to battle infectious disease. Before that, she was the chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco.

In the 2000s, she was one of the most prominent people in the pharmaceutical industry, running drug development at Genentech during its time as one of the most closely watched biotechnology companies.

That made her a perfect person to speak to about the risks posed by the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19. STAT caught up with her earlier this week. The transcript - clkick on the link below - has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Read more at: Susan Hellmann: The coronavirus is scary. Here’s why you should not panic

3/5/20

USA - Justice System: Federal judge says Barr made a 'calculated attempt' to spin the Mueller report in favour of Trump | CBC News

A U.S. federal judge on Thursday sharply rebuked Attorney General William Barr's handling of the special counsel's Russia report, saying Barr had made a "calculated attempt" to spin the investigation's findings in favour of President Donald Trump.

Read more at:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mueller-report-barr-judge-rebuke-1.5487800

EU: Friendly kissing poses European dilemma as coronavirus spreads

When French President Emmanuel Macron leaned in to give Premier Giuseppe Conte the Italian double-cheek kiss not once, but on two separate occasions, during a Franco-Italian summit in Naples recently, it was much more than a greeting.

It was a signal to citizens not to fear their neighbors as a new virus from China spreads, with Italy established as Europe’s hotspot.

Friendly kissing in the time of coronavirus has become a fresh dilemma, especially in effusive southern Europe, with perhaps the power to reshape customs. But even more-reserved northerners are grappling with whether to forgo the hallowed handshake.

The government’s special commissioner for coronavirus, Angelo Borrelli, has suggested that Italians' demonstrative nature could be contributing to the virus’ spread, with more than 1,100 people testing positive and 29 deaths, almost all in the country’s north.

But there have been no official edicts on the social custom of kissing, which sociologists say is rooted in Italy's Mediterranean culture as well as its strong family and social structure.

“We have a collective social life that is very florid, very expansive. We have lots of contact, we shake hands, we kiss each other, we hug each other,” Borelli told reporters. “Maybe it is better in this period not to shake hands, and do not have too much contact, and try to be a bit less expansive, which is different from how I am.”

In neighboring France, Health Minister Olivier Veran on Saturday advised people to cut back on “la bise,” the custom in France and elsewhere in Europe of giving greetings with kisses, or air kisses, on the cheeks, along with shaking hands. France, which has had 100 cases and two deaths so far, made a similar recommendation during the swine flu epidemic a decade ago.

In Spain, a country rooted with a strong tradition of cheek-kissing in social as well as many professional exchanges, is so far continuing the practice unabated. Spain has registered 71 coronavirus infections.

In Germany, where children are taught to shake hands with adults and the firmness of the grip can be seen as correlating to personality strength, health experts and doctors are trying to persuade people to quit traditional etiquette.

At Virchow hospital in Berlin, doctors not only stopped shaking hands with their patients — even non-contagious ones — but are actively encouraging them to follow the example as cases in Germany hit 66.

Health experts have been warning that shaking hands is a prime way to spread the disease.

Read more at: Friendly kissing poses European dilemma as coronavirus spreads

Turkey: Looming coronavirus threat adds to Turkey’s economic woes

The fast-spreading coronavirus has dampened global economic prospects for 2020, a year that many had hoped would see a revival in the fragile world economy. For Turkey, the threat comes atop existing economic woes, coupled with its deepening military involvement in the war in neighboring Syria. Though the deadly virus is not yet officially present in Turkey, it has badly affected another neighbor, Iran, forcing the closure of border crossings in a blow to bilateral trade and tourism.

Of the nearly 89,000 cases reported globally as of March 2, 90% are in China, the epicenter of the outbreak, where the death toll is nearing 3,000. The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned March 2 that the virus was now spreading faster outside China, singling out South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy as “our greatest concern.” In Iran, Turkey’s eastern neighbor, the official death toll stood at 66 as of March 2, with more than 1,500 people infected since Tehran announced the first deaths Feb. 19. According to WHO, infection cases have been exported from Iran to at least 11 countries.

The outbreak threatens to further cripple the sanction-hit Iranian economy, which shrank some 9.5% last year, atop a nearly 5% contraction in 2018, according to figures by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With its oil and gas revenues plunging, Iran’s current account deficit hit $12 billion — or 3.4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) — in 2019, a far cry from the $15 billion surplus in 2017. The country’s unemployment rate has shot up to 17% and its annual consumer inflation to about 30%, while the budget deficit has reached more than 5% of the GDP.

With the coronavirus closing in on Turkey, the Turkish health minister warned March 2 there might already be infected individuals in the country, although no case has been officially confirmed thus far. According to the head of the Turkish Medical Association, “Turkey could weather the disease without any human loss if the necessary measures are enforced.”

Amazon and the Corona Virus: Senator slams Amazon over coronavirus price gouging on hand sanitizer and face masks - by Nick Staff

US Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) is harshly criticizing what he sees as Amazon’s inconsistent response to ongoing coronavirus-related price gouging on the e-commerce company’s third-party Marketplace platform. While Markey is acknowledging that Amazon is indeed removing an ever-increasing number of listings, he said Wednesday in a new letter to CEO Jeff Bezos that Amazon’s response needs to improve. He’s chiefly concerned about the lack of transparency around how it determines a product is having its prices unfairly raised and the process Amazon undergoes to detect that and then take action.

Senator slams Amazon over coronavirus price gouging on hand sanitizer and face masks - The Verge

USA: Dow tanks 950 points as Wall Street's roller-coaster week continues -"and this is just the beginning of the US Economic meltdown"

Stocks plunged on Thursday, erasing most of the steep gains in the previous session, as markets remained highly volatile in the face of the fast-spreading coronavirus.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day 969.58 points, or 3.5%, lower at 26,121.28 after tanking nearly 1,150 at its session low. The S&P 500 dropped 3.3%, or 106.18, to 3,023.94 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.1%, or 279.49, to 8,738.60. All 11 S&P sectors finished the day in the red. Stocks turned sharply lower as the 10-year Treasury yield fell to an all-time low below 0.9%.

Fears about the coronavirus disrupting the global economy continued to grip Wall Street as countries around the world extended quarantines and travel restrictions. California declared a state of emergency after a coronavirus-related death and 53 confirmed cases in the state. The number of infections in New York also doubled overnight to 22 as the state ramps up its testing.

Read more at: Dow tanks 950 points as Wall Street's roller-coaster week continues

USA: Unprepared, Panic Stricken Trump’s Economy Goes Viral - by Robert Kuttner

The U.S. faces its most severe economic collapse since 2008, on several fronts. One is the economics of quarantine—canceled schools, conventions, business travel, tourism, and all the knock-on effects on the consumer and producer economy; in short, the collapse of normal daily economic life.

The second is the collapse of global supply chains on which far too much of the U.S. economy has come to depend. The emblematic factoid here is that most surgical masks are made in Wuhan.
Neither the collapse of demand nor the collapse of supply lends itself to the usual economic remedies. The Fed could cut rates to zero and that will not restore travel to Italy or cause the resumption of canceled conferences.

The only entity with the reach to stem some of the damage is the same one on which we are relying to guide us through the public-health catastrophe—the U.S. government, which is not exactly in good hands. In the short run, we will rely on the residual competence of the deep state that Trump keeps trying to destroy.

If we can just replace Trump in November, the lessons of the pandemic will demonstrate the case for more robust and competent government. The absence of universal health insurance will make this calamity more severe than it had to be, as sick people failed to seek medical help. With 40 percent of service-sector workers denied sick days, nobody will ever again be able to contend that all workers should not have paid medical leave, or that health coverage should not be universal.

And we need a serious industrial policy to reclaim and rebuild domestic supply chains. Given the suffering and death that will ensue, it would be grotesque to call any of these consequences silver linings. But once the twin epidemic of COVID-19 and Donald Trump is behind us, there is an overdue opportunity to rebuild.

Read more: Trump’s Economy Goes Viral - The American Prospect

3/4/20

Climate Control: Europe Looks To Pass 2050 Net Zero Carbon Goal Into Law

The European Commission proposed on Wednesday enshrining the European Green Deal’s commitment for carbon neutrality by 2050 into legislation, as part of the European Union’s heightened focus on climate action and policy.

Under a European Climate Law, the 2050 carbon neutrality target would become legally binding, and all EU institutions and member states will be collectively bound to take the necessary measures at EU and national level to meet that target.

The Climate Law would enshrine into law the EU’s political pledge to become climate neutral by 2050, the Commission said, noting that the proposed law is a crucial part of the European Green Deal, which the EU’s executive arm proposed at the end of last year.

“We are acting today to make the EU the world’s first climate neutral continent by 2050,” the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The Climate Law is the legal translation of our political commitment, and sets us irreversibly on the path to a more sustainable future. It is the heart of the European Green Deal. It offers predictability and transparency for European industry and investors. And it gives direction to our green growth strategy and guarantees that the transition will be gradual and fair,” von der Leyen noted.

Note EU-Digest: In the meantime yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed to expand the scope of its already dangerous plan to limit the science the agency can consider when developing critical public health and environmental safeguards.

EPA’s original “Censored Science” proposal, released in April 2018 by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, would effectively bar the agency from considering critical research when making decisions around protecting human health and the environment. The newly-released supplemental proposal would apply these restrictions to an even wider array of scientific studies, further imperiling EPA’s ability to protect our health and ecosystems from environmental harms including climate change, air pollution, water pollution and other toxic chemical exposures.

Read more at: Europe Looks To Pass 2050 Net Zero Carbon Goal Into Law | OilPrice.com

Turkey: Erdogan is bullying Europe because Trump gave him the green light – by Iveta Cherneva

The show which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is playing now with the migrant crisis is, to a great extent, the result of the green light he got from Trump last October when the US troops withdrew from Syria.

Erdoğan entered Syria like a king and started running the show. Several days ago, he even proclaimed to his party that the Syrian province Idlib was Turkish territory now. “We are the hosts now”, he said.
The 33 killed Turkish soldiers in Syria were a big blow – but it was a small price to pay for the gains Erdoğan has made.

Erdoğan’s ambitions to continue expecting help from NATO in Syria are arrogant, as is his country’s veto on the Alliance’s defence plan for the Baltic States and Poland in NATO, unless the Syrian Kurdish YPG is recognised as a terrorist organisation. These are just blackmailing tactics.

Turkey will never get direct military help by NATO in Syria. And forget about Article 5 in the Turkey-Syria case. In the end, it is Turkey that entered Syria, not the other way around. This is why Article 4 and consultations are the most that Turkey can hope for, and they already used that option last week.

A Turkish government spokesman announced that 100,000 refugees are now headed towards the EU. When all other leverage fails for Erdoğan, it is the refugees’ turn. This is the show we are watching. I won’t even mention the refugee deal that Turkey struck with the EU – that is pretty irrelevant right now, from where I am sitting.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov will try to serve as a mediator between the EU and Turkey – he did so on Monday and will continue over the following days.

The chiefs of the three EU institutions are meeting the Greek leadership on Tuesday in Greece but that will be no more than a symbolic meeting. The real breakdown of dialogue is not between EU institutions and Greece. It is elsewhere.

Erdoğan’s plans, however, are to see many more dramatic scenes at the EU border. Unavoidably, there will be human suffering. Turkey’s propaganda will make the most of it.

The last refugee episode tells Europe that the show will end when Erdoğan says so. Today, the Turkish leader said that “millions” of refugees will enter Europe. It doesn’t take millions, however. Several thousand refugees and several fatalities will be more than enough to accomplish what Erdoğan intends – humiliate the EU.

Read more at: Erdogan is bullying Europe because Trump gave him the green light – EURACTIV.com

USA: Democratic Primaries: ‘He’s the best we got’:- But Biden supporters admit his mental fitness has them on edge - by Samantha Chang

Many of Joe Biden’s own supporters admit that they’re worried about his deteriorating mental acuity and unending stream of gaffes but still support him because he’s the best choice among a motley crew of lackluster Democrat candidates.

Author Raymond Arroyo, a Fox News contributor, interviewed Biden supporters at a recent rally, where he asked: “There are a lot of stories emerging about the mental acuity of Joe Biden — people worried about his recall and slippage of facts. Does that concern you in a debate situation?”
Many voters said it did concern them. One man said: “I wish he was younger, but he’s the best we got.”

Read more at: ‘He’s the best we got’: Biden supporters admit his mental fitness has them on edge

US Presidential Elections: Bernie Sanders Praised Fidel Castro, But So Did Obama - by Eric Levitz

Bernie Sanders has a 100 percent rating from the American Civil Liberties Union. His support for individual political rights is so unwavering he has called for the enfranchisement of all of America’s incarcerated citizens. His belief in freedom of expression is so unyielding he has scolded progressive college students for shutting down the speeches of far-right speakers. “To me, it’s a sign of intellectual weakness,” the Vermont senator said in 2017. “If you can’t ask Ann Coulter, in a polite way, questions which expose the weakness of her arguments, if all you can do is boo or shut her down or prevent her from coming, what does that tell the world?”

One can reasonably critique Sanders’s remarks in political terms. Given the Cuban-American vote in Florida — and/or the devout anti-communist boomer bloc across the nation — the senator might have been wise to put more emphasis on his condemnation of the Cuban government’s authoritarianism and less on the unfairness of how the regime’s legitimate achievements have been elided.

But as a substantive matter, the notion that Sanders’s acknowledgement of the Castro regime’s accomplishments betrays his secret sympathy for authoritarian communism is absurd. It is a fact that Cuba has one of the highest-performing education systems in Latin America, while its medical system has enabled its people to enjoy life expectancy and infant mortality rates similar to those of U.S. residents despite the island’s relative poverty. Meanwhile, with regard to Sanders’s remarks from the 1980s, the claim that Castro’s early social programs mitigated popular opposition to his government is endorsed by many historians of the region.

If offering an (accurately) positive assessment of any aspect of an authoritarian communist regime’s record is tantamount to endorsing its form of rule, then Barack Obama is an authoritarian communist:

Wall Street: ‘Head-fake’ stock market rally may become real with interest-rate cuts - by Nigam Arora

Before getting carried away with any rallies, remember when the stock market started going up on the news of coronavirus. The reasoning of Wall Street was that the virus would cause central banks to print more money. (The stock market is addicted to easy money.) Subsequently, Wall Street twisted the news of the coronavirus to claim that it was easing, and the stock market went higher than it was before the news of coronavirus. At that time, I wrote “How an external event could stunt U.S. stocks.”

All prudent stock market investors should consider reading “Prudent investors should look at these four stock charts as coronavirus spreads” and “Stock market investors’ motto — ‘in central banks we trust’ — is still working.”

Comment EU-Digest: Expect what the Federal Reserve and central banks have done in the past: Save stock market investors

Read more at: Head-fake’ stock market rally may become real with interest-rate cuts - MarketWatch

USA - Trump Administration: Trump has trapped us all in a nightmare whirlwind — but he’ll eventually jump ship

In this Trumpian prison of ours, you really have little choice. Whether you like it or not, whether you want to or not, you’re a witness to the vagaries of one Donald J. Trump, morning, noon, and night, day in, day out. I mean, you know what film the president thinks should have won the best-picture Oscar this year, right? Gone With the Wind, which, after he brought it up, promptly shot to number one on topics trending on Twitter. You have a sense of how many years he expects to remain in the White House (up to 26, as he told one of his rally crowds recently, or assumedly until Barron is ready to take over); you know that he’s a “germophobe” (small tip: don’t cough or sneeze in his presence and the next time you meet him, don’t try to shake his hand); you’re probably aware that his properties in India (as well as his pronunciation of Indian names) leave something to be desired, but that the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas is buzzing along (especially when he visits while on the campaign trail). And here are some other things you might have caught as well: that you and I have spent quite a little fortune (up to $650 a night per agent) putting up the Secret Service people protecting him at Trump properties; that, thanks to a tweeted photo of him on a windy day, he has quite a tan line (or that, as he tweeted back, “More Fake News.

This was photoshopped, obviously, but the wind was strong and the hair looks good? Anything to demean!”); or that he hates being told, especially by American intelligence officials, no less “Shifty Schiff,” that Vladimir Putin would like to lend his reelection a hand, but loves it that the Russian prexy may have a yen to promote Bernie Sanders in this election season; that his greatest skill (à la The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice) may be firing people he considers personally disloyal to him (even if it’s called purging when you’re the president and they’re government officials or bureaucrats), hence his three years in office represent the greatest turnover in Washington officialdom in presidential memory; or perhaps the way he tweets charges and claims of every sort (that, for instance, Mitt Romney is a “Democratic spy”); or all the people he actually knows but claims he doesn’t; or his urge to slam every imaginable, or even unimaginable, figure ranging from the forewoman of the Roger Stone jury (“She somehow weaseled her way onto the jury and if that’s not a tainted jury then there is no such thing as a tainted jury”) to the 598 “people, places, and things” the New York Times counted him insulting by May 2019, including John McCain (23 times, “last in his class”) and his daughter Meghan (four times, “obnoxious”); oh, and let’s not forget his threats to unleash nuclear weapons on North Korea (“They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”) and Afghanistan (“And if we wanted to do a certain method of war, we would win that very quickly. But many, many — really, tens of millions of people would be killed…”). And that, of course, is barely a hint of the world we now inhabit, thanks not just to Donald J. Trump, but to the very Fake News Media that he denounces so incessantly.

Read more at: Trump has trapped us all in a nightmare whirlwind — but he’ll eventually jump ship – Alternet.org

3/3/20

Netherlands: coronavirus total rises to 24 with new Covid-19 cases confirmed

Public health institute RIVM confirmed six new coronavirus diagnoses in the Netherlands. These patients were reported to the RIVM on Monday and are all currently quarantined at home, the health service said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also updated its travel advice for Japan due to the virus.

According to the RIVM, a total of 24 people have now been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the Netherlands. "Almost all persons diagnosed with the coronavirus are travelers from northern Italy or are family contacts of a previous patient," the health service said. "The source of the infection is still unknown for a few patients. This is still under investigation."

Local departments of municipal health service GGD are currently investigating who the new patients were in contact with.

A spokesperson for the RIVM told NL Times that around 200 people have been tested for Covid-19 in the country so far. The service is working on an interactive map so that Netherlands residents can better track affected areas.

Read more at: Netherlands coronavirus total rises to 24 with new Covid-19 cases confirmed | NL Times

Corona Virus and US Economy: U.S. Close Sharply Lower After Surprise Interest Rate Cut -"revealing major weaknesses US Economy"

After seeing considerable volatility early in the session, stocks moved sharply lower over the course of the trading day on Tuesday. With the pullback on the day, the major averages partly offset the strong gains posted in the previous session.

The major averages finished the day firmly in negative territory but off their lows of the session. The Dow tumbled 785.91 points or 2.9 percent to 25,917.41, the Nasdaq plunged 268.07 points or 3 percent to 8,684.09 and the S&P 500 slumped 86.86 points or 2.8 percent to 3,003.37.

The sell-off on Wall Street came after the Federal Reserve announced a surprise decision to cut interest rates by 50 basis points to 1 to 1-1/4 percent.

Read more: U.S. Close Sharply Lower After Surprise Interest Rate Cut | Nasdaq

3/2/20

USA: White House yanks Pentagon nominee who suggested Trump’s Ukraine scheme was illegal - by Matthew Chapman

This scheme, facilitated by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and a handful of now-indicted associates, formed the basis of the first article of impeachment against Trump at the end of last year. Senate Republicans ultimately mustered the votes to quash these allegations in an impeachment trial where additional witnesses were prohibited from coming forward.

The Pentagon has not yet stated whether McCusker will remain in the comptroller position on an acting basis

Read more at: White House yanks Pentagon nominee who suggested Trump’s Ukraine scheme was illegal – Raw Story

Global Politics: The United States’ global power is slipping away as its contempt for others fuels the decline of the West

The annual Munich Security Conference that took place February 14-16 this year turned out to be an iconic event, drawing comparison with the one held in the same Bavarian city on February 10, 2007, where in a prophetic speech Russian President Vladimir Putin had criticized the world order characterized by the United States’ global hegemony and its “almost uncontained hyper use of force—military force—in international relations.”

If Putin’s 2007 Munich speech was prescient about an incoming new Cold War and the surge of tensions in Russia’s relations with the West, 13 years later, at the event this year, we witnessed that the transatlantic ties that evolved through the two world wars in the last century and blossomed into a full-fledged alliance system have reached a crossroads.

Deep cracks have appeared in the transatlantic relationship. In an extraordinary opening address, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, an éminence grise in European diplomacy, accused Washington of rejecting “the very concept of an international community.”

Steinmeier acknowledged that there is no return to the halcyon days of close transatlantic partnership, as Europe and the U.S. are drifting away from each other. He warned, “If the European project fails, the lessons of German history, but perhaps also European history, will be called into question.”

Having said that, Steinmeier did not advocate that Europe could go it alone, either. Rather, “only a Europe that can and wants to protect itself credibly will be able to keep the U.S. in the alliance.”

But he regretted that “Europe is no longer as vital to the U.S. as it used to be. We must guard against the illusion that the United States’ dwindling interest in Europe is solely down to the current administration… For we know that this shift began a while ago, and it will continue even after this administration.”

The theme of European independence—Europe becoming a sovereign, strategic and political power—was also the leitmotif of a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron who brought a rare dynamism into the European debate, fighting spiritedly for a common European foreign and security policy. The German policymakers have signaled broad agreement with Macron’s idea that Europe must take charge of its own destiny.

In contrast, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had earlier insisted that the talk about the demise of the West is “grossly exaggerated,” and, in fact, “the West is winning. We are collectively winning. We are doing it together.”

Meanwhile, two subplots that kept appearing in the discussions were, one, the continued relevance of multilateralism in the international system and, two, deep anxiety over the current global security environment.

Read more at: The United States’ global power is slipping away as its contempt for others fuels the decline of the West – Alternet.org

Slovakia General Elections: Slovakia kicks out centre-left rulers - by Andrew Rettman

The centre-right opposition Ordinary People party claimed victory in the parliamentary election in Slovakia.

The party won 25% of the vote and 53 seats in the 150-seat parliament in a move that steered the country to the right, according to results released by the Statistics Office.

Slovakia has been dominated by the social democratic left-wing populists SMER-SD, led by former Prime Minister Robert Fico, since 2006. In the 2016 election, the leftist party gained 28.3% of votes after campaigning on an anti-migrant ticket.

This time, the SMER-SD party came in second with 18.3% of the vote, winning about 38 seats.

Since the February 2018 murder of journalist Jan Kuciak — who had been investigating the misuse of EU funds in Slovakia, tax fraud and alleged ties between government officials and the Italian mafia — the party’s popularity tumbled.

"After Ján Kuciak's murder, a massive breakthrough occurred in a part of society. The people's cup of patience had flowed over," Slovak political analyst Marián Sekerák told Euronews.

Read more at: Slovakia kicks out centre-left rulers

Climate Control: A Trump-elevated skeptic has been ordering Interior scientists to muddy department climate reports

Indur Goklany is a longtime Interior Department staffer who was elevated by Team Trump into a top climate policy role soon after the great orange buffoon Donald took office. The reasons for choosing him seem evident enough: Goklany is a climate "skeptic" who won minor acclaim with conservative climate change denial groups such as the fossil fuel-funded Heartland Institute for the usual bog-standard suppositions. That “Well Actually maybe scientists do not know what the evidence shows they know about the climate,” “Well Actually maybe climate change will have upsides that you eggheads have not considered,” and “Well Actually maybe tamping down on pollution would be far more harmful to society than, you know, worldwide ocean acidification, extinctions, and those other minor unpleasantries.”

Unsurprisingly, The New York Times is now reporting that Goklany has been putting his mark on "at least nine" of the agency's key scientific reports, muddying the agency’s scientific messages in an effort to both sides the fate of the planet.

As has been standard practice in the pro-extraction, oil-funded climate denialist movement, the language Goklany has been ordering scientists to include in agency reports revolves around claiming scientific uncertainty where little actually exists. The end result of this is to defraud the public—blunting government's own scientific conclusions in an effort to stifle demands for stricter pollution controls. The Times reports that Goklany insisted climate science "may be overestimating the rate of global warming." In fact, newer climate studies have repeatedly found warming to be happening at a faster rate than previous studies had predicted.

He also, said the Times, ordered scientists to note that increasing carbon dioxide levels “may increase plant water use efficiency” and “lengthen the agricultural growing season.” This one is trotted out only by the most dishonest of denialists; while it is technically true that plant respiration may benefit slightly from higher carbon dioxide levels (and heat), the effect is minuscule compared to the effect of the planet's climate zones changing positions out from under those same plants. If deserts are expanding into agricultural areas and drought is dropping precipitation rates throughout this nation's heartland, the plus of those newly unusable lands having slightly longer growing seasons doesn't enter into it.

The short version is, once again, that we are screwed. The point of Trump-style climate denialism is not to deny climate change is happening outright but to instead insist that the science is far too "uncertain" to justify action. As with a certain coronavirus in the news, the premise is that while we cannot know what might happen, what we do know is that this is all the fault of people who want to bring the stock markets down with unpleasant news rather than letting the invisible hand of the markets decide what percentage of humanity needs to die off in order to boost the financial portfolios of Dear Leader’s friends and allies.

Read more: A Trump-elevated skeptic has been ordering Interior scientists to muddy department climate repo

Corona Virus: U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Climbs to Six as Virus Spreads World-Wide - hy jennifer Calfas, Jim Carlton and Lucy Craymer

Washington state emerged as the U.S. center of a spreading coronavirus fight Monday, as state health officials reported four additional deaths there and 18 confirmed cases and multiple schools closed for disinfection. Total death Toll climb to six.

Note EU-Digest: Conservative estimates show that by April, supply lines of major pharmaceutical Product reservers will have dried up in America..

Read more at: U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Climbs to Six as Virus Spreads World-Wide - WSJ

Afghanistan: US-Talibon Agreement guaranteed to fail

The agreement, warned Rep. Barbara Lee, "leaves thousands of troops in Afghanistan and lacks the critical investments in peacebuilding, human-centered development, or governance reform needed to rebuild Afghan society."

A Fake Deal ? USA-Taliban-Afghanistan

The Taliban have agreed to sever ties with al-Qaida and other international terror groups and sit down for peace talks with other Afghans, including a government they have always denounced as a US puppet. In return, Washington will start a phased withdrawal of troops.

Troop levels will be cut to 8,600 over the next 135 days and five bases will be closed. If both sides keep to their commitments, all U.S. military forces could leave Afghanistan by spring 2021, although Washington is thought to want to keep intelligence operatives on the ground fighting Isis and al-Qaida.

According to Lee, nobody should be fooled into thinking that this is a "peace" agreement.

"It leaves thousands of troops in Afghanistan and lacks the critical investments in peacebuilding, human-centered development, or governance reform needed to rebuild Afghan society," the Congresswoman said.

As peace advocates have been saying since even before the U.S. invasion took place in 2001, following the attacks of September 11, there was never a military solution to the situation in Afghanistan. That remains true today.

"Two decades of trying to bomb our way to peace have made clear: there is no U.S. military solution in Afghanistan," said Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War, in a statement.

While the reduction in U.S. military presence "is a welcome step," Stephens said, the agreement "utterly fails to confront the underlying logic of military occupation, lacks any strategy for long-term peace, and falls far short of accountability and justice. It is no 'peace deal.'"

Like Lee, Stephens said a deal that leaves nearly two-thirds of current U.S. forces in Afghanistan for 'counterterrorism' purposes—"bringing levels down to about where they were when Trump entered office"—cannot be considered a peace deal. While the drawdown can be considered a positive development, he said, the agreement "is far from an end to endless war—and further still from anything that would ensure stability, peace, and justice after decades of violence."

Read more at: "So-Called ‪'Peace Deal' Is Anything But": Critics Warn US-Taliban Deal Exposes Fallacies of Endless War Paradigm | Common Dreams News

3/1/20

USA-Dow Jones:Stock futures fall 200 points as coronavirus spreads all over the world during the weekend - by Paul Davidson

Dow futures fell more than 200 points Sunday in a sign more turmoil on Wall Street is likely this week amid reports the coronavirus is spreading in the U.S. and globally.

The broader Standard & Poor's 500 stock index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq each fell about 1%.

“The concern is just as high as it was last week, so the big swings and volatility are likely here to stay in the near term ” said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Ffinancial.

Read more at: Dow Jones: Stock futures fall 200 points as coronavirus spreads

EU calls emergency meeting on deepening Turkey-Syria crisis

Brussels has called an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers as Turkey’s escalating conflict with the Syrian regime risks creating a new refugee crisis. Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said that the fighting around the province of Idlib, Syria’s last rebel-held enclave, represented “a serious threat to international peace and security” and that the EU had to “redouble efforts to address this terrible human crisis with all the means at its disposal”.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, declared on Saturday that his country had “opened the gates” to the EU for the 4m refugees currently living in Turkey as he sought to pressure Europe into providing Ankara with greater support in Idlib.

Read more at: EU calls emergency meeting on deepening Turkey-Syria crisis | Financial Times

Christianity: 25 Most Popular Churches in America

While some churches may have trouble filling their pews, the appeal of megachurches continues to grow. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research (HIRR) defines megachurches as Protestant Christian congregations with a sustained average weekly attendance of 2,000 or more people, including children, at its worship services, at all its worship locations. In its most recent […]

Read more at:
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/11/01/25-most-popular-churches-in-america/

Coronavirus: Louvre museum in Paris closes due to staff fears

Greece: Migrants invasion - Greece blocks 10,000 migrants at Turkey border

The influx has come since Turkey vowed to open its doors for migrants to travel the EU.

Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51695468

Coronavirus latest: Germany′s COVID-19 cases almost double

The number of coronavirus cases in Germany has risen sharply; official data shows infections have reached 129, compared with 66 on Saturday. More than half are in North Rhine-Westphalia. Follow the latest from DW here.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-latest-germanys-covid-19-cases-almost-double/a-52593500

The Nethertlands: About 100 tested for Covid-19 incl. family of Amsterdam coronavirus patient

As many as 100 people have been tested in the Netherlands for the Covid-19 strain of coronavirus, Dutch health authority RIVM told Parool. Among them are the husband and three children of an Amsterdam woman who tested positive for the virus on Friday, one of whom required a second test to rule out a possible false positive.

The new figures mean the Netherlands has begun ramping up testing of people in the country, as just about 50 had been screened by the end of Wednesday. All test results thus far were negative, apart from two people, including the woman from Amsterdam now in quarantine in Diemen.

Her family's results were expected to be announced by the RIVM and public health service GGD Amsterdam on Saturday. Her symptoms were mild, the city confirmed.

Out of precaution, some youth athletes playing matches in Amsterdam Ijburg will not shake hands before or after their games, broadcaster NOS said. They will also take stricter hygiene precautions, including the use of disinfecting soaps. Two of the Amsterdam woman's children attend schools on Ijburg. Nevertheless, Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema told reporters Friday night that there is no cause for panic, and no events were ordered cancelled by her or Diemen mayor Erik Boog.

Read more: About 100 tested for Covid-19 incl. family of Amsterdam coronavirus patient | NL Times

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