US Budget deficit hits $2.81 TRILLION in just 10 months and is on track to be far more than DOUBLE the $1.4 trillion all-time record set in 2009

Federal government has spent $2.81 trillion more than it took in so far in the 2020 fiscal year, which ends on September 30

Previous record was $1.4 trillion in 2009 meaning record will be more than doubled

Tax receipts have only gone down by 1 per cent but spending has soared

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

12 August 2020

The U.S. budget deficit climbed to $2.81 trillion in the first 10 months of the budget year, exceeding any on record, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.

The nation's budgetary shortfall is expected to eventually reach levels for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 more than double the largest annual deficit on record.

The federal government rang up a $63 billion deficit in July, the department reported. That's a relatively modest amount compared to red ink that spilled in the spring months when the government tried to revive an economy that all but ground to a halt due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Last month's deficit was sharply lower than June's $864 billion, in part because the government collected a record amount tax revenue in July - $563 billion - after extending the filing deadline to July 15. That extension allowed Americans more time to sort through the economic havoc wrought by the pandemic.

So far this budget year, government receipts total $2.82 trillion, off just 1% from the same period last year, Treasury officials said, crediting the 'income replacement' provided by various government aid packages. In other words, unemployment benefits and other aid are still taxable.

+4







The year so far: How spending far outstrips tax receipts - and where it goes



Tax bonus: Moving tax day to July meant a massive influx of tax receipts


His economy: Donald Trump has run up the biggest deficit in history and it will keep growing in the next two months

Outlays so far this budget year total $5.63 trillion, a 50% increase over the $3.73 trillion at this point in 2019, with the vast majority of the extra spending related to fortifying the country's economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Congress has already passed rescue packages totaling nearly $3 trillion this year, but Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on another relief bill, just as an expanded unemployment benefit of $600 per week expired on July 31.

President Donald Trump issued a series of presidential directives last weekend to prolong the extended unemployment benefits at $400 a week, with 25% to be paid for by the states. But it´s unclear how much of an economic boost the extension would provide, given the economic uncertainty and funding that could run dry after five weeks.

Democrats in the House passed another bill with $3 trillion in aid, but the Republican-led Senate is pushing for a package closer to $1 trillion and did not bring the House bill up for a vote before going on August recess.

The Congressional Budget Office has forecast a $3.7 trillion deficit for this fiscal year as the country fell into a deep recession in February, ending a record expansion of nearly 11 years.

The Trump administration is predicting that the economy will bounce back in second half of 2020, but many private forecasters are concerned that consumers will dial back spending as infections surge in states like Florida. Consumer spending drives the U.S. economy, making up about 70% of all economic activity.

Last month, the government reported that the gross domestic product declined at a record 32.9% annual rate in the April-June quarter, as a resurgence of the viral outbreak pushed businesses to close for a second time in a number of regions.

For 20 consecutive weeks, more than a million Americans have sought jobless benefits. The unemployment rate fell last month to 10.2%, still higher than any point during the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

That was also when the federal government set the record for an annual deficit, hitting $1.4 trillion in 2009 as it tried to dig the country out of recession. The U.S. blew past that mark in May.

U.S. deficit "more than tripled" because of coronavirus rescue spending, report says

A report released Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows how emergency rescue payments during the coronavirus pandemic and falling tax revenue have tripled the U.S. budget deficit in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2020. File Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Aug. 10 (UPI) -- The federal budget deficit tripled in the first 10 months of the fiscal year 2020, up to $2.8 trillion compared with $0.9 trillion during the same period last year, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office said in a report Monday.

As Congress approved trillions of dollars in emergency economic rescue funding, federal outlays were 51% higher in the period, while tax revenues were 1% lower due to the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, the non-partisan agency said.

An analysis showed that revenue collections differed starkly before and after the start of the pandemic's economic disruption, the agency said.

"Through March, receipts were running 6% above last year's amounts," the report said. "And from April through July, they were 10% below last year's amounts."

Amounts withheld from workers' paychecks decreased by $74 billion, or about 9 percent because of a decline in wages. Corporate taxes fell by $27 billion, or 26%, because of economic disruption and emergency CARES Act tax incentives, the agency said.

Meanwhile, because individual and corporate taxpayers were allowed to file taxes on July 15 instead of in April this year, tax revenues in July were up to $563 billion, about 225% more than $251 billion in July 2019. However, revenues in the latest months of the pandemic this year dropped by 10% from last year all told, the agency said.

The delayed tax payments helped lower the federal budget deficit for July 2020 to $61 billion, the CBO estimated, down from $120 billion in the same month last year.

Spending in July rose to $624 billion, the agency estimated, about 68% more than $371 billion in outlays in July 2019. Most of those outlays were for federal unemployment payments, which increased to $110 billion this year mostly because of the $600 weekly federal benefit provided by the CARES Act, the agency said.

Other pandemic-related outlays included hospital and health-care provider reimbursements for pandemic losses, which rose to $17 billion this July, as compared with $243 million last July, the agency said. Medicaid spending increased by $7 billion as enrollment increased by 6.2% and states were required to keep enrollees on Medicaid until the end of the health emergency.

Congressional Republicans in the U.S. Senate have pointed to the national deficit as a reason to slow down a second round of national COVID-19 rescue payments. House Democrats rolled out a $3 trillion rescue bill in May, and GOP Senators unveiled a slimmed-down $1 trillion bill last month.

When negotiations stalled, President Donald Trump issued executive orders Saturday to provide an extra $400 in weekly unemployment aid, a payroll tax, eviction protection and relief from student loan debt. It remains to be seen whether Trump's orders will be challenged in court as outside the scope of the executive office, since most tax and financial legislation must be approved by Congress.

upi.com/7028120

Study: Income affects ability to social distance during pandemic

By HealthDay News

A woman takes a photo while wearing a protective face mask on a sidewalk on the Upper West Side of Manhattan New York City in May. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Does your income determine your ability to practice social distancing?

New research suggests that's so: Richer communities have been more likely to stay home during the pandemic than poorer ones, according to scientists from the University of California, Davis.

For the study, they used data from mobile location devices between January and April 2020 and found that social distancing varied by income.

During the lockdown, those in the richest communities stayed completely home by about 25 percentage points more than usual, compared with 10 percentage points in the poorest communities.

"We found that before the pandemic, individuals in the wealthiest neighborhoods tended to be the least likely to stay completely at home on a given day," researcher Joakim Weill said in a university news release. He's a graduate student in the department of agricultural and resource economics.

"But when the states of emergency came into play, individuals living in the wealthiest areas stayed home the most. It was a complete reversal," Weill noted.

The study couldn't show the causes for this reversal. But poorer communities may have more essential workers who can't work from home, the researchers said.

The study also showed that the pandemic disproportionately affected poorer communities, which have more people with preexisting conditions and less access to health care.

"As policymakers are thinking about emergency relief packages, this points to the need for lower-income regions to be an area of focus in order to build capacity for social distancing and other measures critical to reduce the spread of this disease," said researcher Michael Springborn, an environmental economist and associate professor in the department of environmental science and policy.

"This is just one piece of a broader set of emerging results showing that lower-income neighborhoods are particularly vulnerable as the pandemic proceeds," he said in the release.

The report was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Midwest derecho destroyed 10M acres of crops in Iowa

Derechos are sometimes called "inland hurricanes" due to the extensive damage that they can cause and how they appear on radar images.

By definition, a derecho is a long-lived complex of intense thunderstorms that travels at least 250 miles. Additionally, wind gusts along its path must exceed 58 mph with at least several reports of gusts over 75 mph, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

VIDEO www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/this-weather-phenomenon-not-only-looks-like-an-inland-hurricane-on-radar-it-can-feel-like-one-too/328474/udNhxEFM

Aug. 12 (UPI) -- A powerful derecho that tore through the Midwest earlier this week also flattened more than 10 million acres of crops in Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds said.

Among the crops destroyed were about 43% of the state's corn and soybean yields.

"Although it will take days or weeks to know the full scope of damage, initial reports are significant," Reynolds said Tuesday.

More than 600,000 customers also remained without power in the region Wednesday after the derecho -- a fast-moving line of severe thunderstorms -- tore through the area earlier this week.

About 300,000 of those customers were located in Iowa, according to poweroutage.us, the state's three largest metropolitan areas of Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Davenport continued to report widespread outages.

Two deaths have also been reported as a result of the storm including a 63-year-old bicyclist who was struck by a large falling tree and a 73-year-old woman who was found in a mobile home that was damaged by the derecho.

Reynolds said the storm resulted in more widespread damage than typical tornadoes and issued emergency declarations in 20 counties.

"It is just about across the entire state, very widespread and significant, significant damage has been done," she said.

Thunderstorms to continue Tuesday in the wake of powerful derecho

Provided by AccuWeather, Accuweather.com
AUG. 11, 2020 

In the wake of a massive derecho that rolled across the Midwest on Monday, the same atmospheric disturbance will spark up additional rounds of heavy thunderstorms along its path into Tuesday night.

At the derecho's peak intensity, wind gusts in excess of 100 mph were observed across portions of eastern Iowa during the afternoon on Monday. Numerous reports of 70- to 90-mph wind gusts also brought along a wide swath of damage reports across northern Illinois, including the Chicago metro area as well.


Luckily, a thunderstorm complex of that magnitude is not expected for the second day in a row. However, AccuWeather meteorologists will be monitoring a few separate areas for severe thunderstorm activity once again.

Amid hot and increasingly humid conditions, portions of the interior Northeast and New England will be one area to closely monitor for the threat of potentially heavy thunderstorms.

Ahead of the storm system that will eventually trigger these storms across the Northeast, a southwesterly breeze will bring a surge of moisture northward, putting the fuel needed for explosive thunderstorm development in place.


Anyone with outdoor plans across portions of upstate New York, including Ithaca, Syracuse and across the Adirondacks, will want to have a secondary plan of action prepared just in case thunderstorms develop overhead. As the afternoon progresses, this threat will translate eastward.

It is possible that another complex, or broken line of thunderstorms could develop once again during the afternoon. This threat could extend from the Champlain Valley and much of interior New England, southwestward into northeastern Pennsylvania.

In similar fashion to the events on Monday -- although not nearly as intense -- damaging wind gusts and locally flooding downpours will be the primary concern from these thunderstorms. A few incidents of hail cannot be ruled out.

During the late-night hours, thunderstorm activity is expected to weaken somewhat as they approach the Interstate-95 corridor across the Northeast and New England.

In the wake of the thunderstorm activity across the Northeast, a brief reprieve of the heat will be in store for some across the interior.

Another area of potentially threatening weather into Tuesday evening from the same storm system will be along the trailing edges of the drier push of air across the middle and lower Mississippi River Valley.


Across this zone, plenty of atmospheric moisture will remain in place, providing fuel for potentially drenching thunderstorms. Areas from eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, southern Missouri, Tennessee and northern Mississippi could come into play.

While locally severe wind gusts and hail are possible, the most expansive threat across this zone will be from heavy rain that could lead to flooding.

Mother Nature will be keeping busy across the country, as a threat for severe weather will unfold in another region of the country.

A weak disturbance at the jet stream level of the atmosphere will be streaking eastward out of the Rockies and into the High Plains, which will set the stage for explosive thunderstorm development into the evening hours.


Areas along and east of the I-25 corridor in Colorado and Wyoming will be first in line for this threat as storms erupt in the area. Large hail, damaging wind gusts and torrential rainfall rates will be possible here.

There may be enough atmospheric support in place across the northern portion of this zone for yet another complex of severe thunderstorms well after dark.

"The area from Mobridge, South Dakota, to North Platte, Nebraska, on east will be at greatest risk for severe weather after 10 p.m. local time Tuesday night.

This could prove dangerous for motorists traveling along I-90 in South Dakota overnight, as wind gusts could be strong enough to tip over high-profile vehicles.

A jet stream pattern conducive for a multi-day threat for severe weather will likely remain in place across the northern and central Plains in the coming days. While a derecho of the same caliber that was observed on Monday is not expected over the next few days, it cannot be completely ruled out.

upi.com/7028300

Derecho thunderstorms slam Chicago, leave devastation in Iowa
By
Brian Lada & Jean Lotus, Accuweather.com
AUG. 10, 2020

A derecho storm system with high-speed winds over 70 mph hit Chicago and northern Illinois Monday during evening rush hour. Image by National Weather

CHICAGO, UPI --

An intense line of storms known as a derecho developed over the central United States Monday, causing significant damage and widespread power outages as it blitzed eastward, striking Chicago during evening rush hour.

Thunderstorms ignited in southeastern South Dakota and eastern Nebraska on Monday morning, but gained strength and evolved into a derecho across central Iowa by midday. Winds between 70-100 mph were expected after the worst of the storms swept eastward through northern Illinois.

A tornado warning for Cook County another northern Illinois counties from the National Weather Service warned that 80 mph winds would pick up flying debris and be "dangerous to those caught without shelter."

Mobile homes may be heavily damaged, the weather service warned. "Expect considerable damage to roofs, windows, and vehicles. Extensive tree damage and power outages are likely," the weather service said.

High wind speeds were measured at 72 mph at Midway airport, the NWS said.

Earlier Monday, across Iowa, large trees, branches, debris and power lines littered streets and yards, with many residents finding themselves in the dark in the wake of the storms.

Over 400,000 were without power across Iowa alone as of early Monday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us, including the entire town of Ames - and these numbers may continue to climb into the evening. Marshalltown, Iowa, has been one of the towns hit the hardest by the derecho and recorded a wind gust of 95 mph observed at the town's airport.

Major damage has been reported in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the second-most populated city in the state. A wind gust of 100 mph was clocked in Hiawatha, which is just a few miles north of Cedar Rapids.

Derechos are sometimes called "inland hurricanes" due to the extensive damage that they can cause and how they appear on radar images.

By definition, a derecho is a long-lived complex of intense thunderstorms that travels at least 250 miles. Additionally, wind gusts along its path must exceed 58 mph with at least several reports of gusts over 75 mph, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

In 2012, a particularly strong derecho traveled 800 miles from the Midwest to the coast of the mid-Atlantic, causing $3 billion in damage and leaving some in the dark for days during the peak of summer heat.

upi.com/7028123

DERECHO

This weather phenomenon not only looks like an 'inland hurricane' on radar it can feel like one too

While a derecho is a thunderstorm complex, it is its severity, distance and duration that make this weather phenomenon stand out from the more typical spring and summer storms.

The term derecho is derived from the Spanish language adverb which means "straight" in English. The term tornado in Spanish means "to turn."

Even though derechos can produce isolated tornadoes with twisting and turning winds, damage is most often similar to a thunderstorm downburst. Winds during a thunderstorm downburst tend to push and/or knock objects over, such as trees and power lines, in a straight line.

However, while damage from a thunderstorm downburst may occur over a few miles or less, the damage produced by a derecho occurs over a much more broad scale.

This radar image shows the complex of thunderstorms that was classified as a derecho as it swept form southeastern Ohio to West Virginia during the evening hours on Jun 29, 2012. (NOAA)

While a derecho may look like an inland hurricane on radar and satellite images and seem like the same in person with its combination of strong wind and torrential rain, the meteorological community has criteria that determines whether or not a thunderstorm complex has achieved the "d-word" level.

"The main consideration for a thunderstorm complex to be considered a derecho is if severe, damaging, straight-line winds have occurred along a continuous 240-mile-long path or greater," according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski.

"A derecho must include wind gusts of at least 58 mph or greater along most of its path," according to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC).

Fifty-eight miles per hour is the official cutoff for winds to be considered severe weather.

While there is no official designation for how wide a derecho must be, the family of thunderstorm complexes that produce derechos generally reach 50 miles or greater in width as described by SPC.

AccuWeather meteorologists will generally not refer to a complex of thunderstorms as a derecho unless there is significant concern for the aforementioned criteria being reached.

Some examples of famous, deadly and damaging derechos include the long-lived thunderstorm complex during the summer of 2012.


This image shows the list and location of severe weather reports from the derecho of June 29-30, 2012. There were more than 1,000 reports of damaging winds during the event. (Storm Prediction Center/NOAA)

The 2012 derecho had its beginnings over Iowa on June 29 and traveled approximately 800 miles to the mid-Atlantic coast on June 30.

Nearly two dozen people were killed and damage approached $3 billion during the June 2012 event.

More than 4 million utility customers lost power during the event as scores of trees came down and took power lines with them in the two-day span.

In this June 30, 2012, photo, an American Beech tree is down on Capitol Hill grounds in Washington, D.C., across from the U.S. Supreme Court after a derecho swept across the region. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

There have been dozens of derechos over the past four decades alone.

During July 11-15, 1995, four separate derechos occurred over the northern tier of the United States. Damage from the four events approached $1 billion.


This hand-drawn map shows the areal coverage of the four derechos that occurred spanning July 11-15, 1995 over the northern United States. (NOAA)

"Derechos and their parent thunderstorm complexes often form and move along the northern edge of a large rim of heat," Pydynowski said.

This is often the location of a strong jet stream overhead, which helps to not only give the storms more strength, but also causes them to move along at a swift pace.

While multiple complexes of thunderstorms often occur every week during the late spring and summer, those which reach the criteria of a derecho are significantly less common.


In addition to the U.S., derechos have been documented in Europe over the past few decades.

A derecho should not be confused with a squall line, which is a narrow zone of thunderstorms some of which may be severe.

A squall line forms along or ahead of a cold front and typically marks the end of warm or hot weather, according to SPC.

Squall lines can extend for 1,000 miles or more and travel similar distances in extreme cases.

During or after the passage of a derecho, heat may build, cooler air may follow or temperatures may remain nearly the same.

Netherlands' Belgian enclave juggles tricky virus rules

Issued on: 13/08/2020 -

Artist Sylvia Reijbroek, who owns an art gallery, wears a face mask on the Belgian side of her shop, marked out by white crosses, because Belgium makes face coverings compulsory to fight the coronavirus 

François WALSCHAERTS AFP

Baarle-Nassau (Netherlands) (AFP)

There is a small Belgian enclave in the southern Netherlands where respecting two sets of rules to fight coronavirus has become a daily challenge, with international borders criss-crossing streets and even running through shops and homes.

The tiny town of Baarle-Hertog stands cheek by jowl with its Dutch neighbour Baarle-Nassau in southern Netherlands, but its 22 enclaves are Belgian territory and part of the Antwerp municipality which lies about 50 kilometres (31 miles) away.

Before, nobody worried too much about the fact that Belgian Baarle-Hertog was completely surrounded by the Netherlands, with the border running like a patchwork through the two towns and where the position of one's front door determined which country one lived in.


But then the coronavirus pandemic came along -- with Belgium following one set of guidelines and the Netherlands another -- and confusion reigned.

- Mask or no mask? -

In Baarle-Hertog, as in Antwerp, wearing a mask in a public space is obligatory. Not so in Baarle-Nassau, because Dutch rules require masks only on public transport.

"People don't understand whether or not they should wear a mask when they come to my shop," said Sylvia Reijbroek, a local resident whose art gallery is split by the border, marked by simple white crosses on the floor.

The Dutch woman used to be amused by the national boundary splitting the site, but since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic "it's not so nice any more".

Customers entering from the gallery's Belgian side have to put on a mask, before a few metres further, inside the gallery, they are allowed to take it off because they've "crossed the border".

Before the coronavirus, "there was no problem with borders. Now, we see it's different," Reijbroek, who is an artist, told AFP.

- Tale of two towns -

Despite the obvious white crosses demarcating the border between Belgium and the Netherlands, the two villages used to work well together, said Frans De Bont, Baarle-Hertog's mayor.

"With corona everything has changed. Nobody knows what to do," he told AFP.

"Now it's: 'you're Dutch and you have your rules' and we have Belgian rules which are stricter. And that's strange," said De Bont, whose 7.5 square kilometre village has recorded 14 coronavirus cases so far.

During the recent lockdown, Reijbroek had to close her art gallery under Belgian law, while an adjoining shop on the Dutch side could remain open.

Calling it an "intelligent lockdown", the Netherlands was one of the few countries in Europe not to order a full quarantine during the height of the pandemic.

"We have two governments which have different ways of dealing with the coronavirus. It's not very pleasant," Reijbroek said.

To help the two towns' population of some 9,600 residents navigate a tricky situation, some businesses now display storefront signs that read: "No mask required here."

To add to the absurdity of the situation, Antwerp's authorities recently tightened COVID-19 restrictions by introducing a nightly curfew.

- Unique situation -

The history of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog dates back to the Middle Ages, and the geographical anomaly has attracted tourists from all over the world.

In 1198, the territory was carved up when Henry I, Duke of Brabant, gave Godfried of Schoten, Lord of Breda, some land.

By 1830, when Belgium became independent and separated from the Netherlands, the question about precise borders once again came to the fore.

The border was finally settled in 1995, some 165 years later.

This is a "unique" case in the world, said Willem van Gool, director of the Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog tourist office.

"You could say that we are the world capital of enclaves. We are used to it," he said.

"But of course, with the coronavirus, we have new problems to solve," explained Van Gool.

"It's difficult for people here," Mayor De Bont conceded.

But for De Bont it's not a competition to see which country has implemented the most effective measures against coronavirus, so clearly seen in the way the two towns deal with pandemic.

"We are working on something bigger. We are busy with a war (against coronavirus) now," he said.

Both countries "are doing their best".

© 2020 AFP

The global coffee crisis is coming

It’s getting harder and harder to grow coffee.

By Sam Ellis Aug 10, 2020

Nearly 500 billion cups of coffee are consumed every year, making it easily one of the most popular goods in the world. It’s cultivated in dozens of countries by nearly 25 million farmers who depend on it to make a living.

But coffee is becoming harder to grow. It’s a notoriously picky plant that requires very specific conditions to grow. And as climate change warms the planet, the places that can sustain the plant are shrinking. A recent study estimates that by 2050, the amount of land that can sustain coffee will have fallen by 50 percent.

But while there may be time to save the coffee plant, the crisis has already arrived for coffee farmers. Deteriorating conditions and plummeting prices have made it difficult to make a living growing coffee, not to mention invest in measures to adapt to climate change.

This episode of Vox Atlas explains the coming coffee crisis and what coffee farmers need to survive it.

How a homemaker with no political experience took on Europe’s longest-serving dictator

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya became a symbol for the democratic future Belarus could have, not the autocratic one it has now.

By Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com Updated Aug 11, 2020,

Presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya casts her vote into a ballot box during the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. Valery Sharifulin/TASS/Getty Images


One of Europe’s last remaining dictators held onto power after facing his greatest political challenge in decades — and rigged an election to do so.

Alexander Lukashenko has served as Belarus’s president since 1994, when he won the presidency in the country’s last national democratic election since gaining independence from the Soviet Union. That’s because Lukashenko has remained in power ever since thanks to a combination of brutal repression and rigged elections. He’s now Europe’s longest-serving leader.

But after 26 years, many Belarusians have had enough of Lukashenko. Hundreds of thousands of people have rallied for weeks against him in the largest protests of the country’s post-Soviet history.

A government-backed poll from April found only a third of Belarusians trusted him — one of the lowest ratings of his rule. While good polling is hard to come by in Belarus, that one made sense: The dictator both minimized and mishandled his nation’s coronavirus outbreak, oversaw a collapsing economy, and struggled to keep an encroaching Russia at bay.

With such dismal approval ratings, most experts believe Lukashenko would’ve lost a free and fair vote. Which is why Lukashenko did everything in his power to make sure Sunday’s election was anything but free and fair.

And sure enough, Lukashenko won Sunday’s election in a landslide, receiving over 80 percent of the vote. “I don’t know who voted for him, how could he get 80 percent?” a Belarusian named Dmitri, who wouldn’t divulge his last name for security reasons, told the New York Times on Sunday.

His “victory” came down to a tried-and-true autocratic method: brutality. “That [was] the strategy for Lukashenko for this election,” said Ryhor Astapenia, a Belarus expert at the Chatham House think tank in Britain. “No sweeteners, only repression.”

The 65-year-old former collective farm director jailed two of the three top opposition candidates and barred the third from running; he also detained journalists and even alleged Russian mercenaries the regime claimed were trying to disrupt the election prior to the vote.

But his tactics didn’t quell people’s aspirations for democracy. It lit them on fire thanks in part to the efforts of one determined stay-at-home mom — who just had to flee the country for the safety of her children.

The homemaker versus the dictator

One of Lukashenko’s main opponents in this year’s election was Sergei Tikhanovsky, a famous YouTuber who made his name highlighting Belarus’s many problems. Two days after he announced his candidacy for president, he was arrested by the regime on charges of violating public order and election laws.

That might’ve been the end of the story. But it wasn’t: That’s because his wife, a 37-year-old former English translator turned homemaker named Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, stepped in to run for president instead.

She proved wildly successful, coalescing a nationwide movement to defeat the longtime leader and then hold actually fair elections. That she did so despite having no political experience, acknowledging she didn’t want to be president, and reminding crowds she’d prefer to be making cutlets for her children made her rise all the more surprising.

That energy persisted even after the election results were announced Sunday. The regime-run election commission said the challenger only received about 10 percent of the vote, far less than the 80 percent she garnered in some unbiased exit polls. Thousands poured into the streets of Minsk, Belarus’s capital, on Sunday to protest the election’s results.

Demonstrators have been met with tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets shot by regime forces, even though observers on the scene have yet to report one instance of violence by anti-Lukashenko protesters. Reports indicate at least one protester has died.

Viasna, a Belarusian human rights group, says they know of about 140 people among thousands detained by authorities while many more sustained injuries. The Trump administration on Monday proclaimed support for the democratic movement.

Tikhanovskaya made clear she rejected the regime-announced results. “I will believe my own eyes — the majority was for us,” she said during a Monday press conference in Minsk. “The authorities should think about how to peacefully hand over power to us,” she continued. “I consider myself the winner of this election.”Former candidate in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election Svetlana Tikhanovskaya during a press conference on the election results on August 10, 2020. Natalia Fedosenko/TASS/Getty Images

But the next day, state-run media showed a video of Tikhanovskaya reading a statement calling for an end to protests. Internet sleuths believe the couch from which she read the statement was the same one in Belarus’s election commission office. (Her team had said the opposition leader couldn’t be reached on Monday after she visited that office.) If true, it could signal Tikhanovskaya was forced to call for an end to anti-Lukashenko demonstrations by the regime.

She has since fled to Lithuania, according to that country’s foreign minister, and it’s unclear how long she’ll be there or what, exactly, she’ll do.

> Belarusians! I urge you to be prudent and respect the law. I don’t want blood and violence. I ask you not to confront the police, not to go out to the square, so as not to endanger your life. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. "— Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) August 11, 2020

Internet users identified the room by the sofa. It's the office of Central Electoral Commission, where God knows what Tsikhanouskaya has seen or heard. Pro-government media were first published and distributed this video. They believe people are stupid. pic.twitter.com/Wt4FawXEQW— Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) August 11, 2020

In the meantime, the Tikhanovskaya-led opposition aims for the pressure to stay on the dictator long term, hoping to sustain a historic call for change. Some believe it could work. “This is the beginning of the end of his era,” Valiantsin Stefanovic, Viasna’s deputy chairman, told me. “This is a new reality for him, because nobody loves him anymore. People want to be free.”

Others don’t believe the remarkable scenes of the past few weeks mean Belarus has moved much closer to a post-Lukashenko future. “There’s definitely something different about this now,” said Matthew Rojansky, an expert on Eastern Europe at the Woodrow Wilson Center think tank in Washington, “but that doesn’t mean this is the breakthrough moment.”

Which means, depressingly enough, Lukashenko most likely will survive the greatest threat yet to his rule — though he won’t come out of it completely unscathed.
How Lukashenko saw his control slip

When Lukashenko became Belarus’s president in 1994 — after receiving 80 percent of the vote in Belarus’s last fair election — he entered office with a staunch anti-corruption message. His right-wing populism resonated with citizens seeking to improve their lives after the fall of the Soviet Union and who blamed the nation’s woes on its sclerotic and incompetent run by the communist-era establishment.

Lukashenko promised to save Belarus. He would tax the rich, steer the economy in the right direction, and root out the corruption which he claimed, “like an all-devouring octopus has ensnared all government organs with its tentacles.”

But, over the years, Lukashenko became the exact enemy he set out to fight. “He moved from good governance to embracing and not denying iron-fistedness,” said Rojansky. Namely, he resisted needed economic reforms, stayed cozy with Russia, and cracked down on dissenters.

As Human Rights Watch noted in 2019, “Belarus continued to harass and pressure civil society activists and independent media,” including denying journalists entry to official events and arresting peaceful protesters. It’s also widely believed that Lukashenko ordered the kidnappings and killings of at least four political opponents. For those and other reasons, opposition figures boycotted or rarely entered recent elections to dethrone the autocrat.

Despite all that, Lukashenko maintained a semblance of popularity because the economy didn’t nosedive on his watch. That minimal success had less to do with Lukashenko’s management, though, and more to do with loans coming in from Russia to keep the country afloat and secure its fealty to Moscow.

As of last summer, Belarus owed Russia about $7.5 billion, causing tensions between the two countries. In an effort to signal his independence and that he hadn’t mismanaged the economy, Lukashenko said his country would give Russia $1 billion per year until the debt was repaid. Further, Belarus would no longer request more funds. “Stop yelling that you are providing for us,” he said in a speech last year, clearly directing his comments at the Kremlin.

Such bravado may also have been a cover. Russia had mostly stopped injecting cash into Belarus, and Minsk struggled to get financial support from other capitals (though Beijing did provide a $500 million loan last year).

As a result, Belarus’s GDP has basically been flat since 2012, forcing thousands to seek work in nearby countries like Poland, work multiple jobs, or gain employment in the country’s byzantine public sector.

That has long spelled trouble for Lukashenko. “An authoritarian system can maintain its popularity as long as it can provide the goods for the population,” said Eleanor Bindman, an expert on post-Soviet states and authoritarian regimes at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. “Once that social and economic side of the bargain goes away, people start thinking: ‘What are we getting out of this?’”

That thought clearly crept up more and more as Lukashenko failed to handle his nation’s coronavirus crisis. He called concerns about an outbreak a mass “psychosis” and claimed all it took to kill the virus was a little vodka or a quick trip to the sauna. “No one in the country will die from coronavirus,” he said in April, acknowledging two months later that he contracted the disease but had no symptoms.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, with a raised fist, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, left, on June 24, in Moscow. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

His lack of alarm kept the regime from imposing any social restrictions or offering any help to those on the front lines of the national response. “The state completely withdrew without providing support for medical workers,” Maryia Rohava, a Belarus expert at the University of Oslo in Norway, told me. They gave no guidelines and barely provided information at all, she continued, and led Belarusians to take matters into their own hands.

The country has an educated and highly tech-savvy population, and they used that know-how to crowdfund support for medical professionals. One campaign, #bycovid19, provided around $130,000 and 27,000 respirators in April alone. “Our goal is to make sure this system doesn’t collapse,” Andrej Stryzhak, the group’s cofounder, told the Guardian at the time. Such a collapse was possible, as cases increased while just one mask sold on the country’s black market for nearly $16.

Those kinds of campaigns brought hundreds of thousands of Belarusians together online — mostly on Telegram — to both form a movement and realize together that the country was in dire straits with Lukashenko at the helm. Any support the leader had quickly eroded. “We saw many people flip because of Covid-19, poverty, and his attitude toward current problems,” Franak Viacorka, an independent journalist in Belarus, told me.

The longstanding opposition to Lukashenko finally had its greatest opening — the dictator was weak. But the person who would soon lead the opposition was still taking care of her two kids at home, unaware she was about to become the most effective politician to challenge Lukashenko in decades.
How Tikhanovskaya rose to her unlikely moment

Initially three men looked to take the mantle of Lukashenko’s top challenger. But one by one, the dictator found a way to brush them aside before the election — a move experts said was rare because he usually waits to put down the opposition after the vote.

Victor Babariko, widely seen as the most likely opposition candidate, was barred by the regime from running. Valery Tsepkalo, the country’s former ambassador to the US, also couldn’t register for the election and subsequently fled to Russia fearing for his life.

The third man was Sergei Tikhanovsky, the popular YouTuber and fierce Lukashenko critic, who was repeatedly arrested for trying to get in the race. In response, Tikhanovsky in May pushed for his wife Svetlana to run in his stead, an idea experts told me gained support among thousands connected on Telegram. She collected the requisite 100,000 signatures which allowed her to register with regime-controlled election authorities.

Somewhat surprisingly, they approved her registration.

Experts told me Lukashenko usually allows some opposition candidates to run against him. Doing so lets the regime keep the appearance of a fair election and also allows those with grievances to express them once in a while, hoping complaints die down soon after the vote. That seems to have happened in this case, but the president also didn’t seem too threatened by Tikhanovskaya’s candidacy.

One reason was Tikhanovskaya had no political experience at all. In fact, she had never spoken at a political rally before. The other was Lukashenko holds sexist, outdated views of women. “Society is not mature enough to vote for a woman,” Lukashenko said in July, adding that the weight of the presidency would lead her to “collapse, poor thing.”

But Tikhanovskaya didn’t collapse under pressure. Instead, she united the opposition and brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets in support.

Tsepkalo’s wife and Babariko’s campaign manager, also a woman, backed her campaign during a July announcement that went viral after each made a sign with their hands: a heart, a fist in a fist-pump position, and a “V” for victory. The moment provided immense momentum to her candidacy, as it became clear three women symbolized a youth movement against the old dictator.

“This was a surprising and brilliant move by the opposition,” Tatyana Margolin, the regional director for Open Society’s Eurasia program, told me. “They undoubtedly saw that together they [would] be stronger, so they joined forces rather quickly.”

Presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, center, poses with Veronika Tsepkalo, left, the wife of opposition figure Valery Tsepkalo, and Maria Kolesnikova, Viktor Babaryko’s campaign chief, right, at a rally near Minsk on July 31, 2020. Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images

But Tikhanovskaya’s story was compelling in its own right: To take on the role of political leader, she sent her kids away to an undisclosed location to keep them out of the regime’s clutches. She also made clear that in the unlikely event she actually won, she would quickly hold free elections to let someone who actually wanted to be president to take over.

“I don’t need power, but my husband is behind bars,” Tikhanovskaya told a large Minsk crowd in July. “I’m tired of putting up with it. I’m tired of being silent. I’m tired of being afraid.”

She outlined some reforms, namely her husband’s platform of giving more money to the poor by taking cash away from the corrupt elite. But it’s what she and her female backers represented — a country without an entrenched, corrupt, dangerous regime in charge — that garnered her immense support.

Ironically, it was similar to the message the dictator offered back in 1994. “She’s trying to out-Lukashenko Lukashenko,” the Wilson Center’s Rojansky told me.

That play worked, as she drew hundreds of thousands across the country — not just in cities, but even small towns that have historically been Lukashenko strongholds — into the opposition. “She’s mostly a symbol of the grievances that people are trying to express,” said the University of Oslo’s Rohava.

Those grievances are now being expressed by many on Belarus’s streets. The likelihood that they’ll change anything in the short term, though, is unlikely.
Lukashenko is likely to hold on to power — for now

Belarus has long seen anti-Lukashenko protests like the ones on Minsk’s streets in recent weeks. In 2017, for example, the regime imposed a tax on part-time or unemployed workers, leading thousands to demonstrate against the government. In the end, Lukashenko cracked down on that movement like he had on others in previous years.

Some experts I spoke to said that given enough repression and time, it’s likely the current movement will fizzle out despite its unprecedented size and scope. “The regime is durable,” said Konstantin Ash, an expert on protests in Belarus at the University of Central Florida. “Lukashenko isn’t in a sky-is-falling situation. He’s still very much in charge.”

The only way to tell his grip on power is slipping, Ash added, was if members of the country’s security forces — which receive an inordinate amount of funding and authority from the autocrat — start to defect. “That’s the crucial element.”

So far that hasn’t happened. Instead, security forces have arrested 3,000 people in Minsk and 2,000 others around the country. Lukashenko has vowed to keep the pressure on protesters he called “sheep” under foreign control on Monday. “People need to settle down, calm down.”

But others are convinced Lukashenko’s increased repression, deadly failings, and the size of the democratic movement — now well-connected online — means the dictator’s days are numbered. “This is the best opportunity for this to be the beginning of the end for Lukashenko,” Manchester Metropolitan University’s Bindman told me. “I’d be very surprised if he made it through another five-year term without any other troubles.”

Stefanovic, the human rights leader in Belarus, said what’s also changed is the nation’s attitudes toward female leadership. That could sustain the movement far longer than Lukashenko might think. “Our society is ready to have a woman as the leader of the country,” he told me. “What matters is what a leader says, not if they’re a woman or man.”

The wild card in all of this, though, is Russia. Moscow wants deeper economic and political integration with Belarus, mainly in an effort to ensure it doesn’t lean westward and away from the Kremlin’s grip. That has some worried Russian President Vladimir Putin may launch a Ukraine-like invasion into the Eastern European nation.

Stephen Sestanovich, a Russia expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, though, isn’t so concerned. “The Russians can’t like their choices much,” he said. “Lukashenko has been an ornery partner for years, extremely hard to subdue. But the idea that he’d be brought low by a popular outpouring of opposition to dictatorship and bad management? From Putin’s point of view, that’s pretty awful too.”

What’s more, he added, it’s not like Belarus’s people are clamoring for a more Soviet-like future. Belarus “may look like a poor, unreformed Soviet backwater, but it’s been a nominally independent country now for close to 30 years,” Sestanovich said. “If there’s a constituency for returning to the Russian fold, Putin hasn’t found it.”

Anti-Lukashenko activists, then, may not have to contend with the complication of a Russian invasion. What they have to deal with — a weakened dictator who still wields immense power — will be tough enough.

Yemen's heritage battered first by bombs, then floods

Issued on: 13/08/2020 -

Yemeni labourers remove rubble ahead of restoration works on the site of a collapsed UNESCO-listed building following heavy rains in the Old City of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Mohammed HUWAIS AFP

Sanaa (AFP)

Muddy waters lap overfoot in Sanaa's Old City, inhabited without interruption for more than 2,500 years but now facing disaster after floods that threaten the collapse of irreplaceable houses.

The deluge risks finishing off the destruction of its distinctive buildings with their ochre brick facades and white latticework windows, experts say.

The foundations were already weakened by bombings in Yemen's long war.


"Since dawn we have been trying to clean the mud off the roofs and drain the water -- but it's no use," said Ali al-Ward, a long-time resident.

"We sleep with fear in the pits of our stomachs. We are between life and death," said the frail man with a greying beard as he surveyed the damage in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed site.

Flooding is common in Yemen at this time of year, blighting the poorest country on the Arabian peninsula that is in the grips of what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

The city has since 2014 endured a conflict that pits government forces against Huthi rebels who hold much of the country's north.

But the flooding has been particularly severe this year.

At least 172 people have been killed across Yemen since mid-July, according to official sources and local authorities.

Torrential rains have also threatened other UNESCO heritage sites in Yemen, including in Shibam further east, renowned for its high-rise mud-brick "skyscrapers".

In the capital Sanaa, 106 buildings, including five in the Old City, have been destroyed so far and 156 damaged, a source at the Huthi health ministry told AFP.

With water still lapping at the fragile structures, many of which have had no maintenance for years, there are fears that others will tumble.

"Our homes are made with earth walls. We hope civil society groups will find a solution for us," said Mohammed al-Khamissi, a young resident of the Old City.

- 'Literally melting' -

The extent of the damage can be blamed on years of "negligence and a lack of maintenance", said Doaa al-Wassiei, an official with the authority that manages Yemen's historic towns.

"Sanaa is literally melting. The bombings which struck the town have made the foundations fragile. The rain has come to finish off whatever was left," said Wassiei, who is also a member of a heritage protection group.

"Undoubtedly budgets are squeezed because of the war but this is about our identity, and just as we defend our country, so we must defend our identity."

She called for more coordination between government and civil society groups involved in conservation.

The work of those involved in protecting the nation's heritage was being hampered by dysfunction and a lack of political will.

The 2015 intervention of a Saudi-led coalition in support of the government against the Iran-backed Huthis escalated the conflict on many levels.

Coalition warplanes have been accused of targeting civilians as well as historic sites including the Old City.

The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and displaced some three million people. About 24 million Yemenis -- four-fifths of the population -- are dependent on some form of humanitarian aid.

- 'Unprecedented catastrophe' -

Shibam, located in Hadramawt province 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the capital, is also on the UNESCO heritage list and like Sanaa has not been spared by the elements.

At least four homes have been completely destroyed and 15 damaged at the 16th-century site dubbed the "Manhattan of the Desert" because of its striking mud-brick towers.

On the ground, labourers have been working to fill cracks in walls.

"We've paid particular attention to this town because it's of significant historical importance," Abdelwahab Abdallah bin Ali Jaber, who oversees the site, told AFP.

"The town appears to have been struck by what appears to be an unprecedented catastrophe."

UNESCO said it "profoundly regrets the loss of life and property in a number of historic centres in Yemen, including in the World Heritage sites".

"Along with its international partners, UNESCO has been mobilising resources and expertise to safeguard Yemen's cultural heritage by implementing a number of projects" including reconstruction and assisting local authorities, it said.

strs-aem/gw/sls/hc/leg

© 2020 AFP

CT scan reveals story behind ‘mummy of the screaming woman’ from Deir El-Bahari’s Royal Cachette

The Egyptian princess died of a heart attack 3,000 years ago, the scans reveal

Nevine El-Aref , Friday 17 Jul 2020


A study carried out by renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass and Sahar Saleem, professor of radiology at Cairo University who specialises in scanning mummies, has solved the mystery of “the mummy of the screaming woman” from the Royal Cachette in Deir El-Bahari.

Hawass told Ahram Online that the CT study and analysis conducted on the mummy revealed that severe atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries had led to sudden death of the Egyptian princess from a heart attack.

He said that the ancient Egyptian embalming process had preserved the posture of the princess at the moment of death.

Hawass explains that the story began in 1881, when the Royal Cachette of Deir El-Bahari was discovered in Luxor.

The site is where the priests of the 21st and 22nd dynasties hid royal members from previous dynasties, to protect them from grave robbers.




The Royal Cachette contained the "mummy of the screaming man.” Recent studies using CT scans and DNA, done by the scientific team of the Egyptian Mummy Project, proved that the mummy is that of Pentawere, son of King Ramses III, who was forced to commit suicide by hanging as a punishment for his involvement in the killing of his father, in what is known as the Harem Conspiracy.

The murderous son was punished by not being embalmed; his body was wrapped in a sheep skin, which indicates that he was considered "unclean" and that his fate was to be punished in the afterlife.

Other mummies were wrapped in white linen and carefully mummified.

The same Royal Cachette in Deir El-Bahari also contained a mummy of a woman showing signs of terror, pain and opened mouth as if screaming, hence known as "the mummy of the screaming woman."




To solve this mystery, Hawass and Saleem carried out a study and examined the mummy with a CT machine located at the Egyptian Museum.

Writings in the ancient hieratic Egyptian language on the linen wraps of the mummy read: “The royal daughter, the royal sister of Meret Amon.”

However, the mummy was considered unknown and was thus designated the “mummy of the unknown woman A” as there were many princesses with the same name, for example Meret Amun, daughter of King Seqenenre of the end of the seventeenth dynasty (1558-1553 BC), and also Meret Amun, daughter of King Ramses II (1279-1213 BC) from the nineteenth dynasty.

The results of CT scan indicates that the “mummy of the screaming woman” is a woman who died in her sixth decade.

Unlike Pentawere, the body of the woman received a good mummification treatment. Consequently, it is obvious that the circumstances of her death are different.

Hawass said that the CT results indicate that the mummy suffered from severe degree of atherosclerosis, which affected many arteries of the body.

He explains that atherosclerosis is a degenerative disease that progressively affects the arterial wall, leading to a narrowing of the cavity and blockage of the vessel.

The CT scan showed that she suffered from atherosclerosis of the right and left coronary arteries, neck arteries, abdominal aorta and iliac arteries, as well as the arteries of the lower extremities.

Cardiac diseases, especially coronary artery disease, are the leading cause of sudden death in adults in the modern period.

It seems that the “screaming woman” died suddenly while in her current body posture, with flexed crossed legs. Consequent to death, her head was tilted to the right side and her jaw dropped.

“We assume that the dead body of ‘the screaming woman’ might not have been discovered until hours later, enough to develop rigor mortis,” said Hawass.

“We assume that the embalmers likely mummified the contracted body of the ‘screaming woman’ before it decomposed or relaxed. The embalmers were thus unable to secure the mouth closed or put the contracted body in the state of lying down, as was usual with the other mummies, thus preserving her facial expression and posture at the time of death,” he said.

Belarus says 700 more held as women stage new rallies

In the capital and the town of Baranovichi, southwest of Minsk, drivers attacked members of traffic police

AFP , Thursday 13 Aug 2020



Belarusian women, one of them carrying a poster reads "My brother is not a criminal", rally in solidarity with protesters injured in the latest rallies against the results of the country's presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020. AP


Related


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EU says Belarus vote not free, threatens sanctions


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Belarus' ruler quashes opposition protest after vote


Opposition in Belarus tell Lukashenko to quit as West condemns crackdown after election

Police in Belarus said Thursday they had detained 700 more people during a fourth day of protests over the ex-Soviet country's disputed election.

"Some 700 people have been detained for participating in illegal mass events" on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement, bringing the total number of people detained to more than 6,700.

The ministry said it had registered fewer instances of mass unrest "although the level of aggression towards members of law enforcement remains high".

A total of 103 members of law enforcement have been injured with 28 hospitalised since Sunday, the interior ministry said.

In the capital and the town of Baranovichi, southwest of Minsk, drivers attacked members of traffic police, the ministry said.

"Members of law enforcement used arms to stop the transgressors," it said.

Rallies and clashes with riot police erupted in the authoritarian ex-Soviet country amid claims long-serving leader Alexander Lukashenko has stolen Sunday's election from his rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, 37.

Dozens have been injured in the post-election unrest and two people died.

Police have acknowledged opening fire on demonstrators and wounding one in the southwestern city of Brest on the Polish border on Tuesday night.

For the second day in a row, dozens of women joined hands in the capital on Thursday to form human chains, many wearing white and holding flowers, to denounce the violence.

A religious procession was set to take place later in the day.

Thousands arrested in Belarus amid outcry over election



Supporters attend a campaign rally for Belarusian opposition presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Minsk, Belarus, on July 30. Photo by Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA-EFE

Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Belarus authorities have arrested more than 6,000 demonstrators over the past three days amid substantial opposition to election results that declared President Alexander Lukashenko the winner of another term.

Lukashenko's opponents say police have used violence to quell the protests since election officials said the president won re-election in a landslide Sunday.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Lukashenko's chief opponent, fled to neighboring Lithuania for her own safety, Lithuanian Foreign Affairs Minister Linas Linkevicius confirmed Tuesday.

Belarus's interior ministry said about 3,000 arrests were made after rallies on Monday night, another 2,000 on Tuesday and 1,000 early Wednesday. Officials shut down Internet service this week but it appeared to improve on Wednesday.

Tikhanovskava had taken her husband's place as the leading opposition candidate after he was put in prison before the election. She rejected the preliminary results before fleeing Belarus.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy called on President Donald Trump to withdraw his nominee for ambassador to Belarus due to the unrest.

"Right now, this would be a huge mistake," Murphy tweeted. "It would look like an endorsement of Lukashenko's crackdown. The Senate should set aside this nomination."
upi.com/7028404

Many of Beirut's hospitals 'non-functional' following deadly blast, WHO warns

Issued on: 13/08/2020 - VIDEO AT THE END

People wearing face masks move a gurney at a damaged hospital following Tuesday's blast in Beirut, Lebanon August 5, 2020. © REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Text by:FRANCE 24Follow

The St. George Hospital where Soha Khalaf works as a nurse lies less than a mile from Beirut port. She had no time to recover from the enormous explosion that blasted over the city.

The ceiling crashed onto her head and tears streamed down her face, but she stuck to her task.

"People ran here yelling, 'Please, we need the ER.' But the ER was gone. And wherever I turned, I saw staff rushing down from other floors screaming," recalled Khalaf, assistant head nurse at the emergency room of Lebanon's oldest hospital.

Needles flew across the hall. Blood covered the floor. The lights went out.

Hundreds of people poured in from across the Lebanese capital after the Aug. 4 warehouse blast, which killed more than 170 people and demolished neighbourhoods.

"We just kept working, even as some of us bled, and we cried and cried."

With her colleagues, Khalaf stitched, intubated and bandaged victims on the pavement outside the ER. They stopped random cars to send patients to other hospitals, and relied on light from mobile phones as it got dark.

Across Beirut, doctors and nurses recounted a night of horror that shook up veteran medical workers in a city no stranger to explosions.

The aftermath of the blast has also raised fears for a healthcare system in tatters, already fighting a coronavirus outbreak which has seen 87 deaths and more than 7,100 cases since February.

Hospitals "non-functional"

More than half of Beirut healthcare facilities evaluated by the World Health Organisation are "non-functional" following last week's deadly port explosion, the agency said Wednesday.

Following an assessment of 55 clinics and health centres in the Lebanese capital, "we know now that just over 50 percent are non-functional", said WHO's regional emergency director Richard Brennan at a virtual press conference in Cairo.

Three major hospitals were non-functional and another three operating at well below normal capacity, he said.

Impact of financial crisis

Beirut's hospitals - which long attracted patients from around the region - have also been wrestling with the country's financial meltdown since late last year.

There are shortages in everything from dialysis equipment to syringes, with the state owing hospitals millions of dollars in arrears.

Now with hospitals turned into trauma centers and coronavirus cases still rising, some healthcare workers are asking: how can the system cope?

"The knockout"

On the night of the blast, hospitals used two months' worth of supplies, said Rona Halabi, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The explosion, which injured more than 6,000 people, knocked out three hospitals in Beirut and damaged 12 other facilities. Days later, pressure piled on thanks to hundreds of injuries at protests against Lebanon's leaders.

"These times are unparalleled to say the least," Halabi said, warning that the need for mental health care was also rising after scores of people suffered trauma.

"I have seen many explosions and a war. But I've never seen what I saw on August 4," said Khalaf, who has worked at St. George for 28 years.

The blast killed four nurses there. A few floors above, a doctor had delivered a baby as the building shook.

The next day, Khalaf and her friends returned to help clear rubble from the blast, which officials blamed on explosive material stored in unsafe conditions at the port.

When the shockwaves hit Naji Abi Rached's hospital all 17 elevators crashed. Staff had to carry some patients down eight flights of stairs. They could not evacuate patients in the COVID-19 ward.

Abi Rached, medical director at the nonprofit Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui, said the virus could now spread faster. With nearly a quarter of a million people homeless, the risk has grown. Lebanon recorded on Tuesday 300 new infections and seven deaths.

"This blast dealt the final blow, the knockout," he said.

Still, a week later, with the help of volunteers, the ER was running again. The dialysis center also opened, although with shattered windows.

For Beatrice Karam, a nephrologist who returned to Beirut after living abroad, the past week killed any hope for stability. Many of her friends felt the same, she said, warning of a looming exodus of doctors.

"It's like there was a blast inside of me too. And I had no feelings anymore, and I just want to leave."

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)