INDIA
COVID-19 Lockdown: With Salaries Unpaid, 4.5 Lakh Striking Bihar Teachers Suffer
Teachers have been forced by situation to knock on the doors of moneylenders or borrow on high interest rates to purchase essential items like rice, flour, pulses, potato and medicines.

Mohd. Imran Khan 28 Mar 2020

Representational Image

Patna: Virendar Kumar, Ganesh Prasad, Nazia Khatoon, Bhola Paswan, Harender Yadav and Santosh Kumar are six among the 4.5 lakh striking contractual school teachers in Bihar, locally known as ‘Niyojit Shikshak’, facing a difficult situation during the ongoing lockdown as they have not been paid salary for the past three months.

“We are struggling for survival during the lockdown as most of us have not been paid the salary of January and February as we protested against the Nitish Kumar government's failure to fulfil our demands including ‘equal pay for equal work’ and reverting to the old pension scheme,” Virendar, a striking school teacher from Naubatpur block in Patna, said.

He said that several teachers have been forced by situation to knock on the doors of moneylenders or borrow on high interest rates to purchase essential items like rice, flour, pulses, potato and medicines.

Another teacher, Ganesh from Paliganj block in the district, said, “My close relatives have given some money, but that is not enough to manage the family of five members till April 14 [when the lockdown is supposed to end]. I am worried about it”.

He said most striking teachers are living like paupers" as they have not been paid salary for months.

Similarly, Nazia, a striking teacher from Haspura block in Aurangabad district, said that the Chief Minister should order the Education Department to pay our pending salary for the striking period without any delay and the government should pay our salary of March on April 1. “How can one survive without money? And salary is our main source of livelihood,” said the mother of three children, whose husband is a marginal farmer in the village

Till date, Bihar has reported nine confirmed cases of COVID-19 including one death. Dr. Pradeep Das, the Director of Patna-based Rajendra Memorial Research Institute (RMRI), where COVID-19 tests are being done in Bihar, confirmed the same.

Brajnandan Sharma, convener of Bihar Rajya Shikshak Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti, told NewsClick: “One can imagine how striking teachers and their families were managing life without salary. But after lockdown, it has become a much bigger challenge. Majority of them will be pushed to starvation if not paid salary on humanitarian grounds to survive during the lockdown”.

Another striking teachers’ leader, Bhola Paswan, and Suresh Prasad of Bihar Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh reiterated this demand.

Bihar Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav, too, has demanded that the state government pay salary to the striking teachers in view of unprecedented crisis following outbreak of coronavirus and lockdown. “It is not the proper way to sit on their salaries because they are striking.”

CPI(M) state secretary Awadesh Kumar said, “Our party has been supporting striking teachers and their demands. Now we demand that the government pay them their salary first”.

Last month, Bihar Education Minister Krishnandan Prasad Verma had warned striking teachers that they would be marked absent and their salary would be deducted on the ‘no work no pay’ principle.

Striking contractual school teachers, mostly from primary and middle schools, had not celebrated Holi earlier this month to mark their protest. They have been on an indefinite strike since February 17, the day class X examination by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) started. Yet, there has been no move to open a dialogue with them.The strike has reportedly affected teaching in schools badly.

The strike call has been given by the Bihar Rajya Shikshak Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti, a joint platform of 26 school teachers’ associations.

According to Samiti leaders, teachers were not just unhappy, but also angry with the government for “deliberately ignoring” their demands of salary at par with the permanent teachers in various state government schools.

The state government has, so far, acted against more than 8,000 striking teachers by suspending, dismissing and lodging cases against them.

Different organisations and associations of striking teachers have expressed dismay over the harsh or punitive action by the government against the teachers who are protesting peacefully for their rights.

INDIA
Baburao Bagul’s “Revolt”: A Fanonian Reading
In 1963—just seven years after a "new man" born out of the conversion to Buddhism of Babasaheb Ambedar acquired a historical sense of "spiritual democracy" (to use Kancha Illiah Shepherd’s term) and an instinct for social equality—Bagul published his first short story collection, Jevha Mi Jaat Chorali in Marathi, now translated into English 

as When I Hid My Caste.

Yogesh Maitreya  28 Mar 2020



Fanon has narrated the stream of thoughts of a youth living under colonial suppression; a repulsive situation for the oppressed. When the colonisation operates via "public law", to use Ambedkar’s term, rather than via legal precepts, it makes oppression a subtle practice in which neither body nor mind is free to act as per will. The will is morphed, mutilated and replaced by the codes of conduct of the colonial ruler. Yet, this is not the worst. The worst befalls the oppressed when he finds “the order of the world” has been colonised. Brahmanism, in this sense, is much a subtler form of slavery; one that is far from being apparent. It can only be understood by decoding the "emotional" world of an oppressed. The emotional world of characters in Baburao Bagul’s stories is so rich with these "emotional codes" that by deciphering them we can almost see the blueprint of revolt against caste society.

In 1963—just seven years after a "new man" born out of the conversion to Buddhism of Babasaheb Ambedar acquired a historical sense of "spiritual democracy" (to use Kancha Illiah Shepherd’s term) and an instinct for social equality—Bagul published his first short story collection, Jevha Mi Jaat Chorali in Marathi, now translated into English as When I Hid My Caste. It stirred up the Marathi literary world, especially Brahmin writers, with unbearable madness. One prominent reason, among many others, was his depiction in these stories of the emotional world of a dalit. The portrayal was woven with a clear sense of the pain he experienced and the vision to free him from it.

Of the book’s ten stories, "Revolt" demands special reading. This is because it features the past, the present and the future, creating a timeless narrative of a dalit who had newly-absorbed the taste of transiting from one world to another, from being oppressed to feeling assertive, powerful and the creator of his own life of the mind.

Also read | Fanonian Reading of Daya Pawar’s Baluta

Revolt is a story of the rebellion of Jai, son of a bhangi father, who worked as a bhangi, was called "bhangi", and lived as a "bhangi". It is the story of a dalit man who comes in contact with books, words, and the emotional turbulence that then occurs in his subconscious world. Books offer him a future in which he is free, but his father represents the deprived past from which it is difficult for him to escape. All this takes place in Jai’s present.

Jai’s parents married him off very young; even before he hit puberty. While studying for his matriculation, he hardly looks at his wife. He is yet to develop romantic feelings or sexual attraction for her. The reason is the emotional turbulence within him, due to his anxiety to break away from the past to which he is being made to belong—the past of being bhangi, the son of "bhangi". He finds the objective conditions around him, of poverty, filth, and stigma, disgusting—unlike the books he reads, which show him a bright future. It is here that he becomes an emotionally violent man. As Bagul says, he becomes “a man who could snarl at his father like an animal when the latter lay on his deathbed; a man who could ignore the poverty and deprivation in his own life; a man, who though physically male, would not so much as look at his own wife.’1

Yes, Jai sees himself and his wife as victims of conditions that are essentially constructed by caste. He is as powerless as his wife, but he has books—his wife does not. Hence, he is closer to discovering the "reality". Fanon says: ‘The native discovers reality and transforms it into the pattern of his customs, into the practice of violence and into his plan for freedom.’2

But the practice of violence here is not on the outside or with other humans. It is primarily against the "regressive thinking" that a person is made to internalise by the caste system. Jai is violent against himself. And this is very apparent. As Bagul writes: "Over the past few years, Jai, though he had lived in the same house, had grown aloof and isolated; so now he simply let his head rest on his father’s chest and allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of being loved".3

This emotional violence leads him to an isolation from his past, but he starts feeling disgusted by this, too, as it forces him to be a part of his past again, like his father did. In this sense, he did not hate his father, nor had he isolated himself from him. He hates that his father was a victim of caste and was unable to resist it. Interestingly, Jai is also aware of his own isolation. He cannot bear to remain aloof from the feeling of being loved—the feelings he had experienced when he had laid his head against his father’s chest. It is this unique emotional condition that is a product of the caste system. Neither can Jai fully embrace his past nor can he afford to totally isolate himself from it. This is the caste-complex of the victims of the caste system. Fanon explains:

“The problem of colonization, therefore, comprises not only the intersection of historical and objective conditions but also man’s attitude towards these conditions.”4

Also read | From Mahars to Buddhists: The Culture of Protest

Here, born in the family of a bhangi, an inhumane profession justified by caste (and by Mahatma Gandhi), Jai could not help but hate even his own mother, when he saw her stigmatised for being "bhangi". He vehemently opposes his parents, who pursue him to follow their work due to their poverty.

However, in brahminisation—which is much more horrendous than colonisation—when Jai is persuaded to work as a "bhangi" for the sake of his poverty-stricken family, his attitude does not only turn violent. He also interrogates the entire system which is primarily responsible for making him a man who is not free to pursue his aspiration to follow a life of the mind; to acquire a PhD.

Jai vents: "What kind of culture is this? Where a man can treat the mother who gave him life with contempt simply because she does the work of a bhangi? Where he can insult her and refuse to eat the food she cooks? If this culture had not created untouchability, I would not be the chief tormentor of my poor aged mother…" 5

Jai realises his own victimisation the moment he poses these questions. This is a revealing moment, because after this realisation his emotions for his parents turn mature. Now, he can see beyond himself and his dreams. But he also knows that doing the work of a bhangi will never free him as a man. Jai develops the ability to sacrifice—but does it come at the cost of his freedom? Yes.

He now consents to do the work of his father: cleaning toilets, sweeping roads and disposing of human excreta in a tin pot. On his first day at work, his supervisor mockingly bypasses his educational background and calls him “bhangi”. He swallows the poison of humiliation. He is ordered to lift human excreta in a tin pot. The mere sight repulses him. Yet the unimagined happens. He now has a tin pot on his head, full of human shit. He is asked to hurry up.

Bagul writes: This blind hurry meant the tin shook and spilled. The contents spilled over, glug, glug, on to him. And just as a man who finds that a snake has coiled itself around him and has bitten him lets loose a scream of agony, Jai screamed, "Aai".6

While he was carrying the filth, his attention is snatched by his mother, who had fallen ill. He shouts and runs towards her, with a spillage of excreta running across his body, its smell making him feel disgusted about life. He reaches her, but she insists that he should grab the tin pot he had thrown, for she wants him to work properly on his first day. But he could not. The carter, who is in charge of making him work, shouts at him, orders him to stay away from his mother, lift the tin pot and dispose of the excreta.

His disgust causes the revolt, the hatred, the horror that was running through Jai’s nerves to rise within him. So he took the tin, threw it where it would go, and then grabbed the carter with both hands.7

Also read | Dalit Women as Active Participants in Ambedkarite Movement

In this fight, Jai beats the carter to death. A person who dreamed of becoming a professor becomes a murderer instead. But he is fully aware of his rage, his anger, and what he has done. He reaches his mother and begs for punishment from her. He seeks justice from his mother. Because Jai, who has risked his dream to become a "bhangi", is now free, even as a murderer.

The path to his freedom passed through violence. He is de-brahmanised now. Because, as Fanon says, “the extraordinary importance of this change is that it is willed, called for, demanded. The need for this change exists in its crude state, impetuous and compelling, in the consciousness and in the lives of the men and women who are colonised…their first encounter was marked by violence…”8

Fanon provides one more dimension of violence by the one who is colonised when he says, “A normal black child, having grown up with a normal family, will become abnormal at the slightest contact with the white world.”9 In Jai's case, we find that the violence was not willed, but was a demand created by the brahmanical code of conduct between humans, of seeing someone as perennially inferior and filthy. The freedom which Jai sought once through books, was hardly conceivable without violence in the situation that he was pushed into.

Notes:
1 Baburao Bagul, When I Hid My Caste, Speaking Tiger, 2018
2 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Penguin Classics, 2001
3 Baburao Bagul, When I Hid My Caste, Speaking Tiger, 2018
4 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, While Masks, 2008, Grove Press
5 Baburao Bagul, When I Hid My Caste, Speaking Tiger, 2018
6 Id.
7 Id.
8 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Penguin Classics, 2001
Yogesh Maitreya is a poet, translator and founder of Panther's Paw Publication, an anti-caste publishing house. He is pursuing a PhD at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the writer's own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Indian Writers' Forum.
Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum,
Original published date:
27 Mar 2020

Pandemic and Socialism
As COVID-19 grips the world, in country after country, there is socialisation of healthcare and of production of some essential goods, which markedly departs from the capitalist norm.

Prabhat Patnaik
28 Mar 2020


A hospital built in Wuhan, China under 10 days to treat Coronavirus 

infected patients. | Image Courtesy: Al Jazeera

It is said that in a crisis everybody becomes a socialist; free markets take a back seat, to the benefit of the working people. During the Second World War for instance, when universal rationing was introduced in Britain, the average worker became better nourished than before. Likewise, private companies get commandeered to produce goods for the war effort, thus, introducing de facto planning.

Something of the sort is happening today under the impact of the pandemic. In country after country, there is socialisation of healthcare and of production of some essential goods, which markedly departs from the capitalist norm; and the more severe the crisis, the greater is the degree of socialisation. Thus Spain, the second worst-hit European country after Italy, has nationalised all private hospitals to cope with the crisis: they are all now under the control of the government. Even Donald Trump is directing private companies to produce goods urgently needed during the pandemic. Tightening government control over production does not just characterise China at present; it marks U.S. policy as well, not to mention several European countries.

There is a second reason why a pandemic-hit world takes an apparently socialist turn. This has to do with the enforced need for a scientific temper; and a scientific temper itself is a big step towards socialism. The utter vacuity of the “theories” peddled by the Hindutva outfits for instance, like cow dung and cow urine being antidotes to the coronavirus, are met by people with contempt at a time like this. The peddlers of these theories themselves, quite sensibly, either rush to hospitals on their own, or are rushed to hospitals by their kin, at the first sign of a cough. Superstition proves expensive in such a situation. An enforced change in attitudes occurs which is also conducive to the idea of socialism.

Also read: Covid-19: Know It So That We Can Fight It

True, India is lagging far behind other countries, both in terms of the enforced adoption of a scientific temper, and in terms of the enforced turn to socialisation of production and of healthcare. The prevalent penchant for kitsch has still not been abandoned despite the crisis. During Modi’s “Janata curfew” on March 22 for instance, when he had called for five minutes’ bell-ringing for health workers, enthusiastic Modi-devotees not only stretched the period to as long as half an hour, but even assembled together for noisy demonstrations, and took out processions in places while blowing conch-shells, all of which nullified the very rationale of the “curfew”, which was to enforce social distancing.

Likewise, while the government has now widened testing facilities by including private hospitals, it has still not made testing, and treating patients who test positive, free of charge at these hospitals.

But the continued prevalence of Hindutva kitsch to the exclusion of a scientific temper, and the continued deference to the desire for profit-making at private hospitals, can be attributed to the fact that the crisis has so far been less severe in India. If its severity increases, which one hopes does not happen, then India, too. will have to change its attitude and pursue the path of socialisation followed by other countries.

An alternative, opposite tendency is also discernible at present, which is to adopt a “beggar-my-neighbour” policy. Trump’s offer to buy exclusive rights to a vaccine being developed by the German firm CureVac captures this tendency. Trump, in other words, was trying to ensure that the vaccine will be available only for the US and not for others, an attempt that got negated by the German government. Likewise, the temptation, by no means negligible, to concentrate on protecting only one segment of the population, and to leave the others--which would include the old, the women and the marginalised groups--to their fates, is another expression of this tendency. And Trump’s persistence with sanctions on Iran, despite that country being very badly hit by COVID-19, is another obvious instance of this tendency.



The thinking in all these cases is typical of capitalism, which is to leave the poor and the vulnerable to the mercy of the pandemic while ensuring that the rich, the strong, the well-heeled, remain protected. The setback for Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist who had been advocating universal healthcare in the US, in the build-up to the US elections, would only strengthen this tendency.

Also read: War on Coronavirus Becoming Assault on Marginalised

This tendency, however, has a natural limit. The hallmark of the current pandemic is that it is difficult to keep it restricted to just one country or one segment of the world or one segment of the population. The jejune attempt to do so, which Trump revels in, is bound to fail. To say this is not to suggest that mankind would somehow seamlessly move to a new understanding of the necessity of going beyond capitalism for tackling the crisis, but, rather, that in the welter of anti-pandemic measures, the ones going beyond capitalism will eventually have to take a dominant position. And the longer the pandemic lasts, the more true this is likely to be.



What this pandemic demonstrates is that, while the current globalisation has been under the aegis of capitalism, it does not have the wherewithal for dealing with its fall-out. Capitalism has led to a situation where commodity and capital movements, including those of finance, have become globalised; it believed that matters could just be kept confined to such movements alone. But that was impossible. Globalisation also means the rapid global movement of viruses, and hence the global outbreak of pandemics.

Such a global outbreak of a pandemic with very high mortality had occurred just once before and that was in 1918 with the Spanish flu virus; and that had spread worldwide because it occurred in the midst of a war when thousands of soldiers had crossed thousands of miles to fight in trenches and then had gone back home as carriers of the virus. The war, in short, had broken down national exclusion during the period it raged, causing a global pandemic. The 2003 SARS outbreak affected 26 countries and while serious, led to an estimated mortality of 800 while the current pandemic has already claimed over ten times that number.

Now, however, the breaking down of national exclusion has got built into the system, which is why global outbreaks of the sort we are witnessing will be common phenomena in the current phase of capitalism. And which is also why Trump-style efforts to restrict the crisis to only some population segments and protect others, are bound to fail. Capitalism, in short, has now come to a stage where its specific institutions are incapable of dealing with the problems that get created by it.

Also read: Two Basic Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic

The pandemic is only one example of this phenomenon; several others claim our attention urgently, of which I shall mention only three. One is the global economic crisis which cannot be resolved within the existing institutions of capitalism. At the very least, it requires a globally-coordinated stimulation of demand through fiscal means, by several governments acting together. How very far we are from such global coordination is illustrated by the fact that the leading capitalist country--the United States--can only think of protecting its economy for overcoming the crisis, which is an approach of segmentation analogous to what it is attempting in the context of the pandemic. The second example refers to climate change, where again capitalism has created a crisis which it cannot possibly resolve within the parameters that define it. My third example relates to the so-called “refugee crisis” or the global movement of those devastated by capitalism in the course of its wars, and also its peace.

These crises suggest an end-game for the system. They are not mere episodes: the economic crisis is not a mere cyclical downturn, but represents a protracted structural crisis. The crisis caused by global warming is, likewise, not just a temporary episode that would go away on its own. And the pandemic shows the shape of things to come in the era of capitalist globalisation when the entire world will be struck by rapidly moving viruses that afflict millions of people, not once in a century, but far more frequently. For mankind to survive all these challenges, the institutions of capitalism are grossly inadequate. A movement towards socialism is needed, towards which the current measures superseding the “free market” and the profit motive, though apparently only temporary and emergency measures, are unwitting pointers.

Pandemic Exposes Cracks in World Order


In this episode of the International Round-Up, Newsclick's Prabir Purkayastha looks at the failure of the G20 leadership to arrive at any concrete plan to address the COVID-19 crisis.

Meanwhile, the US which now has the highest number of cases is continuing with its attempt to pin all the blame on China. He also discusses the latest developments in Israel,where erstwhile opposition leader Benny Gantz has struck a deal with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

INDIA
COVID-19: Under Lockdown, Gujarat’s Daily-Wagers and Slum-Dwellers Have Run Out of Food

“I have not eaten since yesterday. I can survive on water but my child needs to eat. Today, I fed him one biscuit that was left. I ran out of rice and essentials,” said Ramaben 

Damayantee Dhar 28 Mar 2020


The roads in one of the busiest parts of Ahmedabad was deserted due to the lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic, aside from the odd one or two people out to buy medicines or essentials. A woman, without about ten masks hanging from a stick stood ata corner of the road near Gulbai Tekra, an urban slum.

She runs to anyone who passes by, but no one stops to buy the masks she sells.

“My name is Rama,” she said. “I do not want money. Do you have rice or roti? My child has not had any food since morning,” she asked.

Ramaben is one of the residents of Gulbai Tekra, an urban slum of daily-wage earners and labourers in central Ahmedabad. Most of the men in the slum, like her husband, have not had any work since the lockdown began. And, like most families, she too has run out of food.

“I have not eaten since yesterday. I can survive on water but my child needs to eat. Today, I fed him one biscuit that was left. I ran out of rice and essentials,” said Ramaben, pointing to her toddler who sits by her on the street as she attempts to sell masks.

“I bought these masks at Rs 25 each from a manufacturer in the city and am selling them for Rs 30. But, I have sold two since morning,” she added.

A woman from Gulbai Tekra slum, Ahmedabad selling masks

Three days later, on March 27, Red Cross distributed basic food items amongst the slum dwellers of Gulbai Tekra.

In another part of Ahmedabad, near Jodhpur cross roads, about 10 families live on the street in a make-shift slum. Men and women from these families are predominantly daily-wage earners who resort to begging when there is no work or means of earning. Since the lockdown began, they could neither earn nor beg.

“We did not have anything to eat yesterday except one roti that we fed the kids with water. That roti was given to us by a passer-by,” said a woman.

“Nobody from the government has reached us with food yet,” said another man from the slum. “I do not have any money left. I have two rotis and a family of five to feed. Why is this happening?” he asked, as other slum dwellers flocked around. None of them have any idea why the city was suddenly under a lockdown.

Somepolice personnel and civic body workers have distributed food packets in certain areas of Ahmedabad and Vadodara. Aside from them, various NGOs and rights organizations, groups of activists and the Red Cross have been distributing food to these families.

However, the Gujarat government or civic bodies in various cities are yet to announce any measures or a plan to feed the homeless and the families of daily- wage earners living in slums.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has reportedly distributed some food parcels to homeless that they received through donations from restaurants, temples committees and individuals.

The AMC has, however, been delivering cooked food parcels to people who are quarantined at home. About 4,000 people are home quarantined in Ahmedabad and the AMC has been distributing about 3,500 food parcels twice a day since March 18.

To prevent those that arrived from foreign countries from venturing out, a kit was planned to be delivered at their door step that included milk powder, noodles, khakra, biscuits etc. However, the civic body came up with the idea of delivering cooked food to prevent any chances of transmission.

Noticeably, AMC has received some requests for Jain food that are devoid of any bulb vegetables as onion, garlic, potato, ginger, radish, carrot, that it has decided to accommodate.

Lockdown: A Decree of Hunger for Workers

The government has declared a 21-day-long lockdown without any preparation in a bid to contain the spread of COVID-19. However, this time ill-timed move has left lakhs of workers homeless and without food.

60% of India's Population Is Poor, Shows COVID-19 Relief

The central government has announced that it will give 12 kg foodgrains at Rs 12 to 80 crore people.

Newsclick Team

 

27 Mar 2020

The central government has announced that it will give 12 kg foodgrains at Rs 12 to 80 crore people. This is part of the 'Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana', which will be implemented for the next three months. This means that 80 crore people, i.e. 6 out of every 10 people in the country, will require free foodgrains. However, this data about the country's poor is two and a half times more than the government's own data

Whales face more fatal ship collisions as waters warm

By PATRICK WHITTLE MARCH 28, 2020

In this March 11, 2006 photo provided by the New England Aquarium, a whale swims off the coast of Georgia with fresh propeller cuts on its back. The whale is assumed to have died from its injuries, as it was never seen again. Ship strikes are one of the biggest causes of mortality for large whales, and scientists say the problem is getting worse because of the warming of the oceans. (Brenna Kraus/The New England Aquarium via AP)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Climate change is imperiling the world’s largest animals by increasing the likelihood of fatal collisions between whales and big ships that ply the same waters.

Warming ocean temperatures are causing some species of whales in pursuit of food to stray more frequently into shipping lanes, scientists say.

The phenomenon already has increased ship strikes involving rare North Atlantic right whales on the East Coast and giant blue whales on the West Coast, researchers say. The number of strikes off California increased threefold in 2018 — to at least 10 — compared to previous years.

When whales are killed in a ship collision, they often sink and don’t always wash ashore. So scientists and conservationists say fatal ship strikes are dramatically under-reported.

Vessels strikes are among the most frequent causes of accidental death in large whales, along with entanglement in fishing gear. Conservationists, scientists and animals lovers have pushed for the International Maritime Organization to step up to protect the whales, but it won’t happen without cooperation from the worldwide shipping industry.

For the right whales, which number only about 400 and have lost more than 10% of their population in just a few years, the death toll is driving them closer to extinction, said Nick Record, senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine.

At least three right whales died from ship strikes in 2019 — a small number, but still dangerously high for so small a population. All three deaths were documented in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence off Canada, where scientists have said the whales are spending more time feeding as waters off New England warm.

Scientists say the changing ocean environment with global warming is causing right whales and some other species to stray outside protected zones designed to keep them safe from ships.

“When one of their main food resources goes away, it means they start exploring new areas for food,” Record said. “And that means they’re encountering all new sources of mortality because they are going into these places where they are not protected.”

On the West Coast, where there was increase in whale ship strike deaths, scientists reported that the risk of such accidents has been growing in the 2000s as the blue whale population shifted northward in the North Pacific.
FILE - In this March 28, 2018 file photo, a North Atlantic right whale feeds on the surface of Cape Cod bay off the coast of Plymouth, Mass. Ship strikes are one of the biggest causes of mortality for large whales, and scientists say the problem is getting worse because of the warming of the oceans. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

The increased ship strikes could necessitate “a broader area where ships don’t travel,” said Jessica Redfern, an ecologist with New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life and lead author of a study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science in February.

Moving shipping lanes, and the possibility of enforcing slower speeds for large ships, is a subject of much debate among conservation groups, international regulators and the shipping industry.

Shippers say they have made attempts to work with conservationists, such as an ongoing effort to move a shipping lane in Sri Lankan waters to protect blue whales. In a statement to The Associated Press, the World Shipping Council expressed a willingness to keep working to keep shipping activity away from whales, but expressed skepticism about whether slowing vessels would help.

“Reduced ship speeds also increase the residence time of a ship in a given area where whales are active,” the council said. “Given those factors, there is some notable uncertainty about how effective reducing ship speeds is in lowering the risk of whale strikes.”

Changes to international shipping laws would have to go before the International Maritime Organization, which regulates shipping. The organization has taken numerous steps to protect whales in the past, including agreeing in 2014 to a recommendation for ships to reduce speed to 10 knots (11.5 miles per hour) off the Pacific coast of Panama for four months every summer and fall.

A spokeswoman for the organization declined to comment on the role of warming seas in increased ship strikes. But the subject has caught the attention of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees marine issues in the U.S.

Right whales, in particular, began showing a change in migratory behavior around 2010, said Vince Saba, a fisheries biologist with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. That happened as warm Gulf Stream water has entered the Gulf of Maine, a key habitat for the whales, he said.

“With that redistribution, the animals have moved into areas where there weren’t management rules in place to protect them. In a sense, the deck got reshuffled,” said Sean Hayes, head of the protected species branch for the fisheries science center.

Whales also face increased threat because ships now can travel in parts of the sea that were previously ice, said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a scientist with Massachusetts-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation. As waters continue to warm, the whales will need more protections or the number of deaths will only grow, she said.

“The reality is that it’s time to actually implement the mitigation and that’s going to mean expanding areas where the speed rules would be in place,” she said.

___

Follow Patrick Whittle on Twitter: @pxwhittle

TRUMP WANNABE
Brazil’s Bolsonaro makes life-or-death coronavirus gamble
By DAVID BILLER MARCH 28,2020

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro speaks to journalists about the new coronavirus at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, March 27, 2020. Even as coronavirus cases mount in Latin America’s largest nation, Bolsonaro is calling the pandemic a momentary, minor problem and saying strong measures to contain it are unnecessary. (AP Photo/Andre Borges)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Even as coronavirus cases mount in Latin America’s largest nation, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has staked out the most deliberately dismissive position of any major world leader, calling the pandemic a momentary, minor problem and saying strong measures to contain it are unnecessary.

Bolsonaro says his response to the disease matches that of President Donald Trump in the U.S., but the Brazilian leader has gone further, labeling the virus as “a little flu” and saying state governors’ aggressive measures to halt the disease were crimes.

On Thursday, Bolsonaro told reporters in the capital, Brasilia, that he feels Brazilians’ natural immunity will protect the nation.



“The Brazilian needs to be studied. He doesn’t catch anything. You see a guy jumping into sewage, diving in, right? Nothing happens to him. I think a lot of people were already infected in Brazil, weeks or months ago, and they already have the antibodies that help it not proliferate,” Bolsonaro said. “I’m hopeful that’s really a reality.”

A video titled “Brazil Cannot Stop” that circulated on social media drew a rebuke from Monica de Bolle, a Brazilian senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“Do you know what will happen, Bolsonaro? Brazil WILL stop. Your irresponsibility will bring thousands to avoidable deaths,” she tweeted Friday. “The destroyed lungs of these people, as well as the organs of those who won’t be able to have medical care, will fall on your lap. And Brazil will not spare you.”

Bolsonaro, 65, shows no sign of wavering even as the nation’s tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases surpasses 3,400, deaths top 90 and Brazilians overwhelmingly demand tough anti-virus measures. Pollster Datafolha this month found 73% of people supported total isolation, and 54% approved of governors’ management of the crisis. Bolsonaro’s backing was just 33%.

Does Bolsonaro actually believe, as he says, that the virus will be vanquished by a cocktail of drugs and Brazil’s tropical climate? It’s possible, but analysts say a more calculated political gamble may underlie his increasingly defiant position.

Bolsonaro may have concluded that when he faces reelection in two and a half years, the economy will matter more to most Brazilians than the death toll from coronavirus. By labeling the virus threat as overblown and decrying state governors’ quarantines and shutdowns as unnecessary, he could be preparing to blame others for any recession that might happen.


“If things go really poorly from an economic point of view, he can point his finger at the governors,” Christopher Garman, managing director for the Americas at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, said by phone. “What he isn’t calculating is the public opinion hit that he can take for being seen to have not handled well the public health crisis.”

The governors of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the states hardest hit by the virus, have banned public gatherings, closed schools and businesses and called for strict social distancing. Both are Bolsonaro critics and possible contenders in the 2022 presidential race. They also have backup: 25 of Brazil’s 27 governors signed a joint letter this week begging Bolsonaro to back strict anti-virus measures.

Bolsonaro, a Trump devotee, said he has watched his U.S. counterpart speak about the virus in recent days and found their perspectives rather aligned. Like Trump, he has sought to ease anxiety by often touting the yet-unproven benefits of chloroquine in combating the virus. On Thursday, he eliminated tariffs for the anti-malaria drug.

Local media have counted some two dozen people who tested positive for COVID-19 after traveling with Bolsonaro this month to the U.S. That includes his national security adviser, who this week returned to work at the presidential palace. Bolsonaro says his two tests for the virus came back negative, but he has refused to publish his results.

From the U.S., Bolsonaro called coronavirus fears a “fantasy.”

As COVID-19 started to spread in mid-March, he issued a lukewarm call for postponement of pro-government demonstrations, then celebrated the rallies and shook supporters’ hands. For a few days, he and his ministers wore masks, but they removed them when speaking. Asked March 23 why they had dispensed with their masks, officials exchanged sidelong glances for a full 15 seconds before a moderator broke the silence to call for the next question.

Bolsonaro returned to a hard line of denial Tuesday in an address to the nation. He demanded that life return to normal and people get back to work. His athletic past, he said, rendered him impervious to the virus. The next morning, he told reporters he and his health minister would decide to isolate only high-risk Brazilians – the elderly and those with preexisting health problems. The minister, a doctor who had earned praise for his no-nonsense crisis management, changed his position and said many quarantine measures had been hasty.

“It’s a very high-risk, tremendous gamble for Bolsonaro and probably it won’t work,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank. “But I wouldn’t rule out that it could. He could get lucky. It seems like it is going to hurt him significantly, but he has defied the odds before.”

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death. The vast majority of people recover.

Bolsonaro, a former Army captain, was a fringe lawmaker during his seven congressional terms and gained prominence with a stream of offensive statements. Popular support coalesced around his call for aggressive policing, plans to impose conservative cultural values and promises to rejuvenate the economy. During his 15 months in office, he has battled the media, sought to purge the nation of so-called “cultural Marxism” and dismissed data showing a surge in Amazon deforestation.

He has flouted the international consensus on coronavirus even as Trump has moved toward some World Health Organization recommendations for isolation. Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador spent weeks dismissing the coronavirus threat but on Thursday closed government for all but essential work and urged Mexicans to remain indoors.

Brazil’s economy still has not healed from a devastating 2015-2016 recession, and the country cannot survive a sustained stoppage without food riots and the like, according to Tony Volpon, chief economist at UBS in Brazil. He supports a shutdown but says the government should develop a plan to gradually ease the restrictions by region and business type, accompanied by ramping up testing and clamping down wherever coronavirus cases spike.

In Sao Paulo and Rio, self-isolating Brazilians have leaned from their windows every night for the past week to bang pots and pans in protest. While that’s not indicative of nationwide discontent, Eurasia’s Garman said, it could spread if the health system begins to collapse.

Bolsonaro’s fate will depend largely on the damage wrought by the disease, according to Thiago de Aragão, director of strategy at political risk consultancy Arko Advice.

If deaths are relatively low and the economy crippled, “public opinion could side with him,” de Aragão said. “If the final outcome is 50,000 deaths and trucks carrying coffins, like in Italy, it will be tremendously negative for the president.”

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/mutual-aid-solidarity-and-humor-in.html

Bomb disrupts funeral for 25 Sikhs killed in Afghan capital
HOW'S THAT PEACE DEAL GOING

By TAMEEM AKHGAR March 26, 2020

Afghan Sikh men mourn their beloved ones during a funeral procession for those who were killed on Wednesday by a lone Islamic State gunman, rampaged through a Sikh house of worship, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 26, 2020. An explosive device disrupted Thursday's funeral service for 25 members of Afghanistan's Sikh minority community, killed in an attack by the Islamic State group on their house of worship in the heart of the capital. (AP Photo/Tamana Sarwary)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An explosive device disrupted Thursday’s funeral service for 25 members of Afghanistan’s Sikh minority community who had been killed by the Islamic State group. No one was hurt in the blast, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.

The explosion went off Thursday near the gate of a crematorium in Kabul, as the frightened mourners struggled to continue with the funeral prayers and cremation.

A 6-year-old child was among the victims of Wednesday’s attack by a lone IS gunman, who rampaged through a Sikh house of worship in the heart of Kabul’s old city. After holding some 80 worshippers hostage for several hours and wounding eight people, the gunman was killed by Afghan Special Forces aided by international troops.
The Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan claimed responsibility for the attack on the group’s Amaq media arm, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks militant postings and groups. The gunmen was identified as Indian national Abu Khalid al-Hindi.

Maroon-colored cloth covered the many coffins surrounded by more than 100 family members who came to say their final farewell. The coffins were taken from their house of worship, known as a Gurdwara, to the crematorium for burial.

Dozens of wailing women remained behind in the Gurdwara as their loved ones were carried away.
 
An Afghan Sikh girl looks at a funeral procession and cremation ceremony for those who were killed on Wednesday by a lone Islamic State gunman, rampaged through a Sikh house of worship, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 26, 2020. An explosive device disrupted Thursday's funeral service for 25 members of Afghanistan's Sikh minority community, killed in an attack by the Islamic State group on their house of worship in the heart of the capital. (AP Photo/Tamana Sarwary)

Among the dead was Tian Singh, an Indian national, India’s External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

Sikhs have suffered widespread discrimination in the conservative Muslim country and have also been targeted by Islamic extremists.

“I am under pressure from my people, who say we cannot cannot live in this country anymore. Our children and our women are not secure,” said Narindra Singh Khalsa, a member of Afghanistan’s Parliament representing Sikhs and Hindus.

As news of the attack first broke, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed tweeted that the Taliban were not involved. Earlier this month, Afghanistan’s IS affiliate struck a gathering of minority Shiite Muslims in Kabul, killing 32 people.

Afghan Sikh men mourn their beloved ones during a funeral procession for those who were killed on Wednesday by a lone Islamic State gunman, rampaged through a Sikh house of worship, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 26, 2020. An explosive device disrupted Thursday's funeral service for 25 members of Afghanistan's Sikh minority community, killed in an attack by the Islamic State group on their house of worship in the heart of the capital. (AP Photo/Tamana Sarwary)

The Taliban and the U.S. signed a peace deal last month that would eventually see all American troops leave the country, with the final withdrawal tied to Taliban pledges to deny space in Afghanistan to other militant groups, such as their rival, the Islamic State group.

This month’s attacks on religious minorities in Afghan capital raises concerns that the Islamic State is reasserting itself, striking out at religious minorities that are reviled by the violent Sunni militant group as heretics.

In July 2018, a convoy of Sikhs and Hindus was attacked by an Islamic State suicide bomber as they were on their way to meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Nineteen people were killed in that attack.

Under Taliban rule in the late 1990s, Sikhs were asked to identify themselves by wearing yellow armbands, but the rule was not enforced. In recent years, large numbers of Sikhs and Hindus have sought asylum in India, which has a Hindu majority and a large Sikh population.


Afghan Sikh men attend a funeral procession and cremation ceremony for those who were killed on Wednesday by a lone Islamic State gunman, rampaged through a Sikh house of worship, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 26, 2020. An explosive device disrupted Thursday's funeral service for 25 members of Afghanistan's Sikh minority community, killed in an attack by the Islamic State group on their house of worship in the heart of the capital. (AP Photo/Tamana Sarwary)


Afghan Sikh men attend a funeral procession and cremation ceremony for those who were killed on Wednesday by a lone Islamic State gunman, rampaged through a Sikh house of worship, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 26, 2020. An explosive device disrupted Thursday's funeral service for 25 members of Afghanistan's Sikh minority community, killed in an attack by the Islamic State group on their house of worship in the heart of the capital. (AP Photo/Tamana Sarwary)

Estonia won its war on fentanyl, then things got worse

By ERIKA KINETZ March 26, 2020

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Igor Smirnov was introduced to opiates the day his first son was born, when he got celebratory drunk and a neighbor injected him with an intoxicating extract of opium poppies.

“I’ve never tried anything better in my life,” he said. “It’s natural, it’s a clean high.”

Smirnov graduated to heroin during a stint in prison for robbery in the mid-’90s, as the Estonian economy was reeling from the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and drug abuse rates shot up. After the Taliban banned poppy production in Afghanistan, decimating the 2001 harvest, a new drug appeared to take the place of heroin on the quaint, cobbled streets of Estonia’s capital, Tallinn: Fentanyl. People called it “China White.”

Smirnov didn’t like the drug at first, but soon learned to live with it.

“Fentanyl costs too much,” he said. “If you use fentanyl, the dealers are simply collecting money because the high lasts a short time.”

Smirnov has lived the arc of illicit drug abuse in Estonia, a tiny Baltic state that for nearly two decades has battled a fentanyl epidemic so severe its overdose death rate was almost six times the European average.

Once fentanyl landed in Estonia, heroin disappeared. Even after poppies started growing again in Afghanistan and Estonian police choked off fentanyl supply in 2017, heroin didn’t come back. Instead, users turned to cocktails of other kinds of synthetic drugs, including amphetamines, alpha-PVP, a dangerous stimulant also known as flakka, and prescription drugs, harm reduction workers, users, public health officials and police told The Associated Press.



Video: Estonia won its war on fentanyl in 2017 after major police busts effectively cut off supply to the tiny nation. Overdose deaths plunged. But many users didn't return to heroin. Instead, they began injecting combinations of synthetic drugs. (March 26)

There are signs that the U.S. is on a similar path, tipping from plant-based drugs like heroin to synthetic ones like fentanyl and methamphetamine. That could herald big changes in global narcotics supply chains and cement the role of China -- an important source of illicit synthetic drugs -- as a vital link in the worldwide drug trafficking business.

“The trajectory is toward full synthetics,” said Daniel Ciccarone, a professor at University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, who researched heroin and opioid supply chains under a federally-funded study. “Name the major drug producers in world – Afghanistan, Colombia -- only people in the know would say China. Well, guess what? China.”

Fentanyls are easier to make and smuggle than heroin, and far more profitable to sell. One kilogram of fentanyl bought in China for $3,000 to $5,000 can generate over $1.5 million, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Fentanyl is also at least 30 times more potent, which can make it hard for users to return to heroin after getting used to the punch of synthetics.

“What happens after fentanyl is heroin doesn’t work anymore,” said Jaan Vaart, who used to use drugs and now runs a mobile outreach bus for Convictus, a harm reduction center in Tallinn. “Nobody wants to spend their money on water. Heroin was like injecting water after that.”

Dusk falls over Estonia's medieval capital, Tallinn, Thursday, June 27, 2019. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

HEALTH EXPERTS WARN: “BE AFRAID”

Estonia won its war on fentanyl in 2017. A massive law enforcement surveillance operation led to a clandestine laboratory hidden beneath a staircase in a brick home outside Tallinn. It was one of two major busts by police that year that effectively cut off fentanyl supplies to the tiny nation, which is roughly twice as big as New Hampshire. Police seized nearly 10 kilograms of fentanyl that year, up from 314 grams in 2016. Overdose deaths plunged after the busts.

What happened next took many by surprise.

Users unable to find good fentanyl didn’t return to heroin. Instead, they began injecting combinations of different synthetic drugs, including amphetamines, the opioids isotonitazene and tramadol, benzodiazepine sleeping pills and cathinones. Unidentifiable mystery drugs have also appeared.

“Something fishy is going on. They don’t like heroin after this. They prefer stimulants,” said Katri Abel-Ollo, a researcher at the center for addiction prevention of Estonia’s National Institute for Health Development. “They use different types of drugs, it’s like Lego construction. Our harm reduction workers say the mental state of patients is becoming worse and worse. They are unpredictable in how they behave.”

Ekaterina, a thin 30-year-old in methadone treatment, said if you know where to look you can still find fentanyl in Estonia. But people are increasingly into new things, especially something her friends call “crystal.”

She said crystal hits like a bunch of different drugs all at once. Her friend had the chemical formula for the main ingredient tattooed on her arm: C15H21NO, or alpha-PVP, the drug known as flakka.

“In Estonia, it’s new,” said Ekaterina, who did not want her last name published.

Flakka gained notoriety in the U.S. five years ago for the insane things it made people do: One user impaled himself on a fence. Another reportedly jumped off a bridge. A young woman in South Florida, also believed to be on flakka, ran through the streets naked and covered with blood screaming about God and Satan. After China banned the drug in late 2015, flakka use plummeted in the U.S.

New synthetics like flakka are bringing agitation and volatility to the streets of Estonia.

“A person who uses fentanyl compared to a person who uses alpha-PVP is still more in control,” said Aljona Kurbatova, head of the drug abuse prevention center at Estonia’s National Institute for Health Development. “They are mostly a danger to themselves, but with alpha-PVP, people don’t really control how they act.”

Looking ahead, Kurbatova sees two possibilities, neither good. Fentanyl comes storming back into Estonia and users with diminished tolerance overdose in droves. Another possibility is that alternative synthetics dominate the market, creating costly new health and social problems that Estonia’s drug treatment systems, calibrated to address opioid abuse, are ill-equipped to handle.

“Be afraid. Be very, very afraid,” she said. “It was so much easier when it was just heroin.”

Former drug-user turned councillor Jaan Vaart, sits inside the staff room at the Convictus drug rehabilitation center in Tallinn, Estonia on Thursday, June 27, 2019. After Fentanyl, "Heroin was like injecting water," he said. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

A GLOBAL NARCOTICS SHIFT

Supply and demand drivers are fueling the rise of synthetics in other countries as well, according to a sweeping 2019 analysis by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit policy research group headquartered in Los Angeles.

In U.S. regions with the most extensive exposure to fentanyl, synthetic opioids appear to be replacing heroin just as they did in Estonia, drug seizures and mortality data show. Rising overdose rates from methamphetamine, often with opioids present, and studies that show growing numbers of people taking both opioids and stimulants suggest users in the U.S. also may be turning to cocktails of synthetic drugs, as they did in Estonia.

In Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio and West Virginia, per capita heroin seizures started falling around 2014, while seizures of synthetic opioids rose. By 2017, there were more fentanyl seizures than heroin seizures in all those states except West Virginia.

“It’s kind of all we see now,” said Brian Boyle, DEA special agent in charge of New England. “We do not just see pure heroin anymore.”

It’s a global trend. Illicit drug markets in Latvia and parts of Canada also appear to be tipping from heroin toward fentanyls, while in Finland, heroin has been largely replaced by the semi-synthetic opioid buprenorphine, according to RAND.

“This is a new dawn,” said Bryce Pardo, a lead author of RAND’s report. “It’s no longer plant-based.”

A young man waits for his methadone treatment at a rehabilitation center in Estonia's capital Tallinn on Friday, June 28, 2019. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

CHINA’S RISE ON THE SYNTHETIC DRUG FRONT

That shift is potentially bad news for Mexican poppy farmers and good news for unscrupulous chemists at clandestine Chinese labs.

The rise of e-commerce, darknet marketplaces and the cryptocurrency bitcoin helped China emerge as a global supplier of novel synthetic drugs. Before Chinese suppliers exported fentanyls and fentanyl precursors, they were selling cathinones, stimulants sometimes sold as “bath salts,” cannabinoids and sending methamphetamine precursors to super-labs in Mexico, according to U.S. and international law enforcement agencies and officials, as well as U.S. legal cases and U.S. Treasury Department sanctions.

“China has been doing this for the last ten years,” Pardo said. “The synthetic opioid phenomenon is one chapter in the new psychoactive substances saga.”

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says China’s vast, freewheeling chemicals industry is the largest source of synthetic opioids that end up in the U.S., either via mail directly or through Mexico.

Beijing disagrees. Chinese officials have lashed out at U.S. assertions that Chinese supply is at the root of America’s opioid problem and called for evidence to support claims that China is the top supplier.

DEA data shows that after China bans a specific kind of fentanyl, seizures of that substance in the United States drop, suggesting that China is a meaningful source of synthetic opioids. In May, China designated all kinds of fentanyls as a class of controlled substances, a move that appears to be having an impact.

“We are seeing less coming directly from China, and more fentanyl and precursors being routed through Mexico,” Mary Brandenberger, a DEA spokeswoman, said in an email.

Igor Smirnov sits inside a drug rehabilitation center with his councillor in Tallinn, Estonia on Thursday, June 27, 2019. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

The takedown of Estonia’s main Russia-linked fentanyl networks in 2017 did not appear to disrupt flows of fentanyl analogs, suggesting alternative supply chains may still be active.

“While fentanyl is reported to enter the country from Russia, the new fentanyl derivatives mainly originate in China,” according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction’s 2019 report on Estonian drug markets.

Estonian police told the AP they’d gathered a few investigative leads implicating Chinese sources but have struggled to trace supply chains definitively. Estonian customs said each year a handful of packages with synthetic drugs shipped directly from China are seized, but more may be transshipped via larger European countries.

China’s National Narcotics Control Commission told the AP that Estonian authorities have not asked for help. “We really have not received this kind of cooperation request from Estonian police, nor have we received contacts providing leads,” a NNCC spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, the volume of synthetic narcotics coming into Estonia by mail is growing and new psychoactive substances, or NPS, are proliferating.

“We see more and more drugs being sold in crypto markets and more and more drugs are being shipped by post,” said state prosecutor Vahur Verte. “We see the emergence of more and more NPS.”

Many long for the simpler days of heroin.

Today, Smirnov is in treatment and, like Estonia itself, is off fentanyl. He still yearns for a lost organic past, when he could head out into Estonia’s poppy fields and harvest the bulbs for a clean, natural high.

“Poppy liquid is better,” he said wistfully. “One hundred percent.”

Igor Smirnov leaves a drug rehabilitation center in Tallinn, Estonia on Thursday, June 27, 2019. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

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Associated Press newsperson Kali Robinson in Washington and researcher Chen Si in Shanghai contributed to this report.https://apnews.com/be15d6289f39b45742d598f6f65185ce

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Follow Kinetz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ekinetz

Rumors hampering fight against coronavirus in South Asia

By SHEIKH SAALIQ MARCH 28, 2020

In this Tuesday, March 24, 2020 photo, an Indian girl wearing a face mask as a precaution from coronavirus watches a video on the WhatsApp app in New Delhi, India. With the pandemic starting to gain a foothold in the region, social media are rife with bogus remedies, tales of magic cures and potentially hazardous medical advice. Experts are urging caution and say the “coronavirus infodemic” could have disastrous consequences. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

NEW DELHI (AP) — The message started with an outlandish claim: The coronavirus was retreating in India because of “cosmic-level sound waves” created by a collective cheer citizens had been asked to join.

Messages were pinging from phone to phone across this country of 1.3 billion saying the applause Prime Minister Narendra Modi had organized for health workers had been detected by a “bio-satellite” that confirmed the weakening of the virus.

Soon, Siddhart Sehgal’s family group chat on WhatsApp was buzzing with messages hailing Modi as India’s savior.

It of course wasn’t true.

In this Sunday, March 22, 2020, photo, Ringhuila Zimik, 26, smiles as she speaks about the rumor of medicine being sprayed from the sky to contain a new virus, in Shangshak village, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. "We all heard about it. I didn't know whether to believe it or not but stayed indoors anyway," she said. As India and other South Asian nations brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. This battle has been hard to contain as social media continues to be rife with bogus remedies to tales of magic cure and potentially dangerous medical advice. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur)

As India and other South Asian nations work to stop the spread of the virus, they face another battle: reams of misinformation.

With the pandemic starting to gain a foothold in the region, social media sites are rife with bogus remedies, tales of magic cures and potentially hazardous medical advice. Experts are urging caution and warning that the “coronavirus infodemic” could have disastrous consequences.

Its a trend also seen elsewhere and governments around the world have been urging citizens not to listen to or spread rumors about the pandemic.

So far it hasn’t worked in South Asia, a region where online misinformation has in the past had deadly consequences such as lynchings, arson and communal riots where neighbors turn on one another.

On Tuesday, Indians were ordered to stay indoors for three weeks in the world’s biggest coronavirus lockdown. In announcing the move, Modi reiterated the danger of misinformation.

FILE - In this Sunday, March 22, 2020, file photo, families of roadside shopkeepers ring bell and clap to cheer health workers during 14-hour "people's curfew" called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in order to stem the rising coronavirus caseload, in New Delhi, India. As India and other South Asian nations brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. The WhatsApp messaging app was flooded with claims that “cosmic level sound waves” generated by a collective cheer Modi had asked the country of 1.3 billion to participate in last Sunday had weakened the virus in India. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)

“I appeal to you to beware of any kind of rumors or superstitions,” the prime minister said.

Earlier appeals against virus rumors have yet to prove effective.

Poultry sales in India plunged following false claims that chickens were linked to the pandemic. Racial attacks against people from the country’s northeastern states increased after rumors spread that they carried the virus.

On Sunday, people in a remote village in Manipur state locked themselves inside their homes because of rumors that fumigants were being sprayed from the sky to kill the virus.

The government has asked social media companies to launch awareness campaigns about virus misinformation. It also set up a government WhastApp channel where people can ask questions about the virus and vet claims they hear.

Still the falsehoods spread.

FILE - In this Thursday, March 5, 2020, file photo, an Indian doctor displays homeopathy medicine recommended by a group of experts under India's AYUSH ministry, that claims to prevent COVID-19, at a government hospital in Hyderabad, India. As South Asian nations, including India, brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. In India, a major challenge comes from advisories released by a parallel health ministry set up by the Modi government that promotes alternative therapies such as yoga and traditional Ayurveda medicine. The advisories by AYUSH recommend herbs and homeopathy as cures and prescribe virus prevention methods. These advisories have drawn widespread criticism. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A., File)

On Monday, Amitabh Bachchan, a top Bollywood star who has more than 40 million Twitter followers, said clapping and blowing conch shells would “destroy virus potency.” He later deleted the tweet after facing criticism.

Elected representatives from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party have also offered bizarre claims of cures for the virus, ranging from cow urine and cow dung to cloves “energized by mantras.”

Rumors have spawned concerns elsewhere in the region as well.

In Bangladesh, some clerics claimed Muslims would not be affected by the virus and exhorted tens of thousands of people to gather for a mass prayer last week despite concerns about the health risk.

One preacher claimed to have interviewed — in his dream — a man in Italy to obtain a cure for the virus.

When a journalist at a leading private television station reported about the misinformation, he received death threats.

“We are monitoring and doing our part, but it (misinformation) comes from various sources, one after another,” said Zakir Hossain, a spokesman for the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. “This is a huge task.”

Pakistan too has had to fight against religious leaders urging the devout to attend prayers and promising their faith will protect them. A cleric in Lahore made a video saying it was impossible to catch the virus while praying and said he should be hanged if he were wrong. Police arrested him instead and he made another video urging people to take the pandemic seriously and wash their hands.

FILE - In this Sunday, March 22, 2020, file photo, people clap from balconies in a show of appreciation to health care workers during a 14-hour "people's curfew" called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in order to stem the rising coronavirus caseload, at a Chawl in Mumbai, India. As India and other South Asian nations brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. The WhatsApp messaging app was flooded with claims that “cosmic level sound waves” generated by a collective cheer Modi had asked the country of 1.3 billion to participate in last Sunday had weakened the virus in India. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

On the outskirts of Islamabad the army was called in to shut down a mosque after its prayer leader despite exhibiting symptoms kept his mosque open.

In Sri Lanka, authorities warned that legal action will be taken against people who spread false information over social media. Several people have been arrested.

Pakistan has been the worst hit South Asian nation with some 1,200 virus cases reported. India has reported more than 725.

For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in a few weeks. But for some it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

There are concerns that if cases were to surge in South Asia, it would overwhelm already strained health systems.

Sumaiya Shaikh, an editor for fact-checking website ALT News, has been tracking misinformation on messaging apps in India since before the pandemic.

In January, when the virus was still largely limited to China, Shaikh said India experienced a deluge of false WhatsApp messages claiming that Chinese police were shooting people suspected of having the disease.

When India started having cases, rumors about cures began, Shaikh said.

“This misinformation has reached a critical mass and is jeopardizing public health,” she said.

The search for accurate virus information in India is complicated by advice issued by a parallel health ministry, the Ministry of AYUSH, created in 2014 by Modi to promote alternative therapies such as yoga and traditional Ayurveda medicine.

The ministry has recommended herbs and homeopathy as cures for the virus, along with frequent sipping of water boiled with basil leaves, crushed ginger and turmeric.

P.C. Joshi, a medical anthropologist at the University of Delhi, said that advice “falls into the category of misinformation which can be hazardous for public health.”

The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The messages spreading online, often shared among friends and relatives, have unnerved many Indians who don’t know whether to take them seriously.

When the messages claiming that the virus was retreating in India spread on WhatsApp, members of the Sehgal family wanted to leave their home and join others outside celebrating. But Siddhart stopped them.

“My family usually believes whatever they get on WhatsApp regarding the virus,” he said. “It’s hard to explain to them that most of it is fake.

FILE- In this Sunday, March 22, 2020, file photo, a woman walks her dog, as most people in this mountain village stayed indoors with fears of a rumor of medicine being sprayed from the sky to contain the new virus, in Shangshak village, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. As South Asian nations, including India, brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. This battle has been hard to contain as social media continues to be rife with bogus remedies to tales of magic cure and potentially dangerous medical advice. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur)

Associated Press writers Julhas Alam in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Bharatha Mallawarachi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Yirmiyan Arthur in Manipur, India, and Kathy Gannon and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.