Split-screen: Biden preps to be president, Trump fights for the job he is ignoring

President-elect Joe Biden meets with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) on Friday in Wilmington, Del.
(Associated Press)

By JANET HOOK STAFF WRITER LA TIMES
NOV. 22, 2020

WASHINGTON — 

Joe Biden’s first two weeks as president-elect have been a throwback to days of yore, when presidents were, well, presidential — one of the many norms that Donald Trump busted during his years in the White House.

Since being declared the election winner, Biden has consulted national security and health experts. He’s had somber chats with world leaders. He’s convened groups of governors, congressional leaders, labor and business bigwigs. He has listened via videoconference to healthcare workers describing their coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, even shedding a public tear with one.

Meanwhile, President Trump has refused to concede and taken ever more brazen steps, legally and politically, to reverse his election defeat. Yet he’s shown little sign of performing the job he’s trying so hard to keep. On Saturday, Trump left the virtual G-20 summit to play golf as other leaders, including those of Germany, France, South Korea and Italy, discussed by video a global response to the worsening pandemic.

The result is a vivid split-screen view of the presidency: While Trump puts governing responsibilities on the back burner to mount his all but doomed rearguard action to hold power, Biden is modeling the role of president as he builds his administration-in-waiting.
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He has responded to Trump’s intransigence by expressing supreme confidence in his own status as president-elect, following the advice of former First Lady Michelle Obama: When they go low, we go high.

Some Democrats wonder whether Biden needs to make a more forceful response to Trump for what amounts to an attack on democracy. He has called the president’s actions “embarrassing” to Trump and the nation, but, for now, Biden has left the most pointed takedowns of Trump’s maneuvering to aides and allies. “It’s absolutely appalling … it’s also pathetic,” said Biden legal advisor Bob Bauer.


POLITICS
Transition tensions escalate as Trump steps up desperate effort to hold on to power

Nov. 19, 2020

Biden’s strategy has been to focus, with increasing urgency, on the public health and national security risks of Trump’s failure to cooperate in easing the transition and denying Biden’s team access to federal agencies’ data and resources. The president-elect is betting that his election mandate is to keep his cool and be the adult in the room.

“Biden got hired because the public wanted something like this,” said former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean. “They didn’t want four more years of reality TV and Sturm und Drang.”

Biden’s determination to not fly off the handle is visible every time reporters ask him about Trump’s attacks on the legitimacy of the election result.

He pauses to compose himself, shakes his head a bit and says something like, “Let me choose my words.” It is a marked contrast to Biden’s impassioned critiques of Trump during the campaign.

Now his demeanor sends the clear message: The campaign is over.

Jill Alper, a Michigan-based Democratic strategist who is a veteran of past presidential campaigns, called the Biden transition team’s approach to Trump “pitch perfect.”

“It reminds me of a lesson in Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’: ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.’ And there is no need to fight,” she said. “The best thing Biden can do is move quickly to assemble his team, end the pandemic and build back the economy. And that’s what he’s doing.”

Biden’s strategy mirrors his campaign’s in one important respect: Just about everything he does is intended to draw a contrast with Trump.

“You’ve seen, over the last several days, Donald Trump holed up in the White House consulting with people like Rudy Giuliani and ... hatching conspiracy theories about Venezuela and China,” Bauer said. “And you’ve seen President-elect Biden meeting on a bipartisan basis with governors, addressing the public health emergency, and acting like the president-elect he is and the president that he soon will be.”

Biden has been especially visible during this interregnum, holding some kind of public event or announcing senior staff appointments almost every day. Trump, meanwhile, has all but disappeared from the public stage.

Friday, when he announced a policy to reduce the cost of prescription drugs from the White House briefing room, it was only his third public appearance since election night.

“Biden is playing the role of reassurer-in-chief,” said Paul Light, a New York University professor who is an expert on presidential transitions. “He has to be out there, and the transition has to get underway, to reassure people that somebody is at home. Trump has virtually disappeared.”

Americans are giving Biden good marks. A poll released Friday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 62% of voters rated Biden’s postelection conduct good or excellent, double the percentage who said the same about Trump.

Biden’s transition is a down payment toward fulfilling his campaign promise to restore stability to government after Trump’s tumultuous reign.

Prizing both personal loyalty and competence, Biden is assembling a White House staff packed with longtime confidants and experienced Washington hands. Ron Klain, who will be his chief of staff, has a history with Biden and the Democratic establishment that reaches back to the 1980s; so do top advisors Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon.

He’s promised racial and gender diversity. Biden picked former campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon as deputy chief of staff, while Rep. Cedric L. Richmond, an African American from Louisiana who was Biden’s campaign co-chair, will be a senior advisor in charge of public outreach, and Julie Rodriguez, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, his director of intergovernmental affairs.

He’s made gestures to some of his former Democratic rivals, placing former campaign aides to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., on the White House communications staff.

One complication: Biden was supported not just by voters craving normalcy but by progressives who want far-reaching change in economic and social policies.

That wing of the party is watching carefully as he builds his Cabinet, and is pushing him to reach beyond establishment regulars to give the left a strong voice.

Many dreamed of seeing Warren in a top post such as Treasury secretary, but that seems unlikely — if only because of the political risk of removing her from the narrowly divided Senate when Massachusetts’ Republican governor would name a replacement.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the last primary rival to be vanquished by Biden, is being promoted — by progressives and himself — for Labor secretary.

“It seems to me pretty clear that progressive views need to be expressed within a Biden administration,” Sanders said in an interview with the Associated Press. “It would be, for example, enormously insulting if Biden put together a ‘team of rivals’ — and there’s some discussion that that’s what he intends to do — which might include Republicans and conservative Democrats, but which ignored the progressive community. I think that would be very, very unfortunate.”

Some progressives have already sniped about a few of Biden’s early picks for his staff and transition team. The Sunrise Movement, a group of young environmental activists, called it a “betrayal” of Biden’s commitment to combat climate change that he tapped Richmond, who has received large political donations from the oil and gas industry — hardly a surprise given that it is a major employer in his House district.

Demand Justice and other groups on the left have complained that Biden’s transition advisors include many with corporate ties.

Progressives have mounted campaigns to discourage Biden from offering Cabinet posts to people including Rahm Emanuel, a former advisor to President Obama whom they consider too moderate and criticize for his handling, as Chicago mayor, of the police shooting of a Black teenager.

Jen Psaki, a transition spokeswoman, responded in a briefing for reporters Friday, saying, “I would encourage people to wait until we’ve made even one announcement about a Cabinet member — and certainly more than just a dozen White House names — before they pass judgment.”

Progressives and moderates alike praised Klain’s appointment as chief of staff. Members of the so-called Squad of progressive House Democratic women of color, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, gave him high marks for his willingness to listen.

Still, Biden’s honeymoon may be short. Ocasio-Cortez and her colleagues Thursday spoke at a Sunrise Movement demonstration in front of the Democratic National Committee headquarters, with a “BIDEN BE BRAVE” banner unfurled, to demand that the president-elect not falter in pursuing the aggressive climate policies he ran on.

“That’s what our next move is, to make sure the Biden administration keep its promise,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We have to organize for it. We have to bring the heat for it.”

Trump campaign faces lawsuit for ‘disenfranchising black voters’ in 

efforts to overturn Michigan

 election result

A poll worker prepares to start counting ballots during the 2020 general election in Detroit, Michigan on 3 November. Source: Getty Images

Republicans have asked for a delay of two weeks to allow for a full audit of results in Wayne County, home to majority-black Detroit, that was overwhelmingly won by Joe Biden.

A group of Detroit voters is suing Donald Trump and his campaign for attempting to overturn the election result in Michigan, claiming it is openly seeking to disenfranchise black voters.

A lawsuit, filed in a DC federal court on Friday, describes the Trump campaign’s allegations of voter fraud as one of the “worst abuses in our nation’s history”, accusing it of attempting to “intimidate” and “coerce” Michigan state and local officials into replacing electors.

Republicans have asked for a delay of two weeks to allow for a full audit of results in Wayne County, the state's largest county and home to majority-black Detroit. It was won overwhelmingly by president-elect Joe Biden.

"To effectuate this strategy, defendants are openly seeking to disenfranchise black voters, including voters in Detroit, Michigan," the lawsuit read.


READ MORE

Observers for Donald Trump are being accused of obstructing the vote recount in Wisconsin

More than three quarters of Detroit residents are black, according to US census data.

“Central to this strategy is disenfranchising voters in predominately black cities,” the suit alleges.

“Repeating false claims of voter fraud, which have been thoroughly debunked, Defendants are pressuring state and local officials in Michigan not to count votes from Wayne County, Michigan (where Detroit is the county seat), and thereby disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters.”





After his court defeat in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump faces new pressure to concede the election



Mr Trump has repeatedly falsely accused several cities, including Detroit and Philadelphia, of orchestrating a massive election fraud.

His campaign has claimed, without evidence, that mail-in voting was corrupt.

“No more,” the lawsuit says. “The Voting Rights Act of 1965 flatly prohibits Defendants’ efforts to disenfranchise black people and assault our Republic.”


READ MORE


Joe Biden denounces Donald Trump's 'irresponsible' fight to reverse the election results


Michigan's board of canvassers, which includes two Democrats and two Republicans, is due to meet on Monday to certify the results.

Republican Party national committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, and the party's Michigan chair, Laura Cox, called on the board to "adjourn for 14 days to allow for a full audit and investigation into those anomalies and irregularities".

Michigan's Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has said that audits cannot be conducted until after certification because officials do not have legal access to the documents needed until then.

On Saturday, Ms Benson posted on Twitter that there had been "no evidence" to draw into question the result of the election.



In a nutshell:
✅5.5m Michigan citizens voted ✅The results of their votes are clear
✅No evidence has emerged to undermine that
✅We have rules & laws in place to protect the integrity of our elections & the will of the voters
✅ Those rules & laws should govern the days ahead. https://t.co/msMw041OM7— Jocelyn Benson (@JocelynBenson) November 21, 2020

Mr Trump has rarely appeared in public since his electoral loss, but has not given up on his provocative Twitter campaign.

Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania judge on Saturday threw out Mr Trump's claims of widespread electoral fraud there.

The decision - announced in a scathing judgment which excoriated the Trump team's legal strategy - paves the way for Pennsylvania to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state, which is scheduled to take place on Monday.


READ MORE


After a Joe Biden win was confirmed in Georgia, Michigan leaders dealt Donald Trump another setback



Judge Matthew Brann wrote in his ruling that Mr Trump's team had presented "strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations" in their complaints about mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.

"In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state," Justice Brann wrote.

"Our people, laws, and institutions demand more."

Only a limited number of Republicans have so far recognised Mr Biden as the winner and called on Mr Trump to concede.

The Pennsylvania court ruling prompted a Republican senator from the state, Pat Toomey, to join those ranks, saying Biden "won the 2020 election and will become the 46th president of the United States".

"President Trump should accept the outcome of the election and facilitate the presidential transition process," Mr Toomey said in a statement that congratulated Mr Biden while specifying he voted for Mr Trump.

- Additional reporting by AFP.

ISIS BACK FROM THE GRAVE

Islamic State increases its military activities in Syria, Iraq and globally


IS member in Yemen - Ramadan 2020 (Amaq news agency)


Enab Baladi – Taim al-Haj

The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) has been attempting to map out its military operations in Asia, and Africa, which have increased since the killing of its former leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in October 2019 in a US raid in Syria.

Syria and its neighboring country Iraq, where the IS used to have its greatest influence on, were a considerable part of the IS’s military activities, according to what the IS’s media machinery publishes.

This raised the question about the IS’s future goals and whether it is looking for a foothold to announce its state again, just like what it did in 2014, primarily since the IS assigned a new leader and spokesperson. In the last voice letter, the IS leader threatened all those who antagonize the IS with a long-term war and essential changes in the scene, especially in the Arab countries.

Adapt to defeat … establish relationships

Researcher in security and strategic affairs, and extremist groups, and a specialist in the file of the IS and its supporters, Hisham al-Hashimi believes that the new IS leadership, headed by Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi could review its relations with other armed factions to reconcile with the Sunni society.

Al-Hashimi told Enab Baladi that the IS in Syria and Iraq started to cope with the defeat, develop methods for staying as long as possible in the region, without having to entirely withdraw from it towards regions where it is currently active such as West Afric and East Asia.

Al-Hashimi highlighted that this adaptation with the defeat cannot work out unless a new principle in the relations with the communities in which the IS group is hiding is adopted. He describes this principle as “destroying and taking the security forces’ eyes off the human resources cooperating with the intelligence services (moles).”

This principle was applied by the IS as reflected in the serial and organized assassination campaigns, according to al-Hashimi.

The IS has returned its military activities despite the loss of control on the ground, mainly in Syria and Iraq, since the beginning of 2019. The IS group has reinforced its military operations, especially after the IS former leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his spokesperson, Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir were targeted by the US in October 2019. 

In Syria and Iraq … on what does the IS group depend on?

The IS group is currently active in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Central Africa, Somalia, Pakistan, and other countries, through attacks carried out by its cells on those areas.

Al-Hashimi believes that the future of the IS group in Iraq and Syria is intrinsically linked to its willingness to review its unilateral systematic theses, combat goals, and strategies to draw on the lessons of the past.

The IS group is one of the most important organizations, classified as “terrorist,” according to al-Hashimi. The IS significantly depends on the combination of the traditional capabilities of regular armies and those used in guerrilla wars.

Al-Hashimi explains that this capability-based integration is embodied in IS’s success by seizing the equipment and weapons of the Iraqi army, especially after its collapse in Nineveh province, in addition to its seizure of weapons that were intended for the Syrian groups described by Western governments as “moderate” and its ability to use these weapons.

This is mainly because, according to al-Hashimi, a part of the IS’s military personnel, and some of its senior leaders, had served in the Iraqi army, which gave it the ability to use these weapons.

Furthermore, the IS group has the capacity to plan, manage, and carry out military campaigns as it can define the human and material resources that must be deployed on various fronts. In other words, the IS can command, control, and conduct several offensive operations on more than one front.

New leadership

The new leaders of the IS group reject that the local forces, including the Iraqi and Syrian armed forces, whether legal or popular, were the reason for their defeat, and expulsion from the Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria, which they controlled between 2014 and 2019, but instead they believed that the air force and intelligence services of the U.S.led coalition against IS were behind their defeat, according to al-Hashimi.

Al-Hashimi said that the IS new leadership consists of the essential intermediate and field cadres in the stage of foundations of the IS group in the period 2010 -2014. They have experience in financial management and intelligence work.

Al-Hashimi added that the IS group’s ongoing military activities since the killing of “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi” show the beginning of a new era, during which a number of the next methodological, organizational and strategic steps were observed for these new leaders.

The IS group’s new leaders, for example, are very bound up with the notions of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is infamous for being the bloodiest among his fellow “jihadist” leaders.

The IS group adopted “the strategy of attrition,” which undermines the stability in any system, as no system can be politically stable in the light of security crises, targeting economic and social security, according to al-Hashimi.

Amaq news agency, an ISIS-affiliated media outlet, published an audio recording for the new IS spokesperson Abu Hamza al-Qurashi. The audio recording was the second word for him since the killing of the IS former leader, “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

Al-Qurashi focused, in the speech that Enab Baladi viewed on 28 May, on “the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), and on the IS’s continuing “war of attrition” in several countries. Al-Qurashi linked the spread of the “coronavirus” pandemic worldwide with “fighting Muslims,” stressing that the epidemic has damaged the economies of major countries and made them abandon their allies.

Al-Qurashi commended the military activities carried out by the IS cells in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Egypt, Somalia, Pakistan, and other regions of Africa. He called those cells to intensify the attacks, at the request of the IS new leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, which was declared as “the new “caliph,” on 31 October 2019.


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للمزيد https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2020/06/islamic-state-increases-its-military-activities-in-syria-iraq-and-globally/#ixzz6eWsXAqMr

Syrian economy resumes activity… Poverty and bankruptcy outweigh Coronavirus



Al-Bzuriah market in old Damascus - 20 June 2019 (Lens young Dimashqi Facebook page)

Enab Baladi
 02/05/2020

Enab Baladi – Murad Abdul Jalil

“The virus of poverty, hunger, and bankruptcy is more dangerous than any other virus.”

With these words, the Chairperson of the Syrian regime’s Federation of Industry and a member of the Syrian parliament, Fares al-Shihabi, has responded to the preventive economic measures taken by the Syrian regime’s government in the past few weeks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

These measures did not last long before the regime’s government decided to relaunch the Syrian economy partially, for the measures have weakened the economy, which is already seeing a state of deflation owing to the past nine years of war in Syria.

The regime’s decision conformed with what al-Shihabi expressed in a Facebook post on 23 April. He said, “the move of re-opening markets and easing the coronavirus lockdown came to rescue the economy.”

Even though no precise official figures are available to show the repercussions of the coronavirus on the Syrian economy, the Syrian government’s reduction of procedures is a clear indication of the losses that severely affected various economic sectors.

These economic losses have directly affected citizens adversely, especially entrepreneurs.
Easing Coronavirus lockdown measures despite increasing infections

Last week, the Syrian regime’s government began easing preventive economic lockdown measures by re-opening all professional and business services and shops, according to a working schedule that is to be distributed among these occupations.

The work schedule provided by the government allocated one or two days of work for each occupation, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., on condition of adherence and compliance with the precautionary measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Later, the regime’s government agreed in a meeting held on 23 April to extend the opening hours of shops, trade, and service occupations’ centers until 5 p.m. to secure the citizens’ needs for Ramadan.

Besides, the regime modified the curfew times imposed in all provinces to be from 7:30 p.m. till 6:00 a.m.

It also allowed the restaurants to be open outside the daily curfew hours, and citizens to move between the provinces on Monday and Tuesday of each week after their movement was previously suspended.

The Ministry of Transport is permitted to gradually operate the transport directorates in the Syrian provinces, as transportation was one of the most adversely affected sectors.

In mid- March, the regime’s government undertook measures that almost completely shut down the economic activity in the days before the official announcement of the first confirmed case of the coronavirus infection on 22 March.

As of 24 April, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases reached 42 while the number of recovered cases amounted to six. The number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus was three.

The numbers mentioned above indicate that the government’s decision to re-open parts of the state’s economy partially was not because of its ability to contain the coronavirus outbreak, but following a significant disruption in the economic activity and for fear of a disaster that could hit the county’s economic weakness and the already existing stagflation phase, according to the financial analyst, Manaf Quman.

Quman confirmed to Enab Baladi that the economic indicators show that the rates of inflation, unemployment, and poverty are high, and are offset by stagnant economic growth rates, as well as weak productivity and spending capacity.

Quman added that most of the world’s governments took measures against the coronavirus, which led to an adverse impact on their economy. This impact was relatively different between one country and another, depending on the nature of the measures.

The Syrian government, on the other hand, resorted to implementing drastic measures; it enforced curfews, closed markets and business places, which are considered the primary platform for consumer-producer interaction, for it is well known that the regime’s government lacks the technical infrastructure for online shopping or home delivery of products.
Estimates warn of bankruptcy

While there are no official figures for the coronavirus effects on the Syrian economy, experts’ estimates show losses in some sectors, most importantly, the sectors of industry, trade, and transport.

This loss was due to the complete suspension of movement inside cities and rural areas or between the provinces. The tourism sector was also affected negatively by hindering visits, especially people coming from Iran and Iraq to religious sacred places in Syria.

It is worth noting that tourism is an essential sector for the regime’s government, for it is a source of foreign-exchange income to Syria.

On his part, the Chairperson of the Syrian Commission on Financial Markets and Securities, Abed Fadlia, estimated that 60 percent of the public sector’s facilities had been entirely out of service.

At the same time, the Secretary of the Tartous Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kifah Qaddour, assured that the industrialists’ losses are very large and heavy, which could lead to the collapse of some companies.

According to the pro-government local newspaper al-Watan, Qaddour mentioned that “the losses of the traders are significant, especially for those dealing in the garment and footwear trade due to the seasonality of goods and the change of models in the next year.

In addition, most of the shops are rented monthly, or through an “investment allowance scheme”, meaning the continuation of the economic lockdown may lead to business breakdown and bankruptcy for some traders.

Ali Kanaan, the head of the Banking Department at the Faculty of Economics at Damascus University, estimated economic losses with one thousand billion Syrian Pounds per month (SYP-775,193,000 USD), on average of more than 33.3 billion SYP per day (25,813,000 USD), according to al-Watan.

Kanaan also estimated the economic losses during March and April, to be about two trillion SYP (1,550,386,000 USD), which may double to four trillion SYP (3,100,772,000 USD) in case the lockdown continues till next June.

The Damascus Center For Research and Studies (DCRS), also published a study in which it reported that the Syrian economy is heading to a severe recession following the cessation of production.

The DCRS underlined that the measures taken by the regime’s government to prevent the spread of the coronavirus have contributed to the disruption of most sectors and social components.

These measures also led to a reduction in the state’s revenues secured from taxes, fees, and surpluses of public-sector economic institutions and the payments of renting and investing the state’s properties.

DCRS’s study pointed out that “continued economic inactivity will bring the Syrian economy into a severe economic downturn, with potentially overwhelming political, economic, and social consequences, leading to unsettling possibilities.”

The continuing decline in the state’s revenue will put the regime’s government in the face of very serious financial, living, and financing entitlements, which will take a heavy toll on the country and society, with consequences that cannot be ignored or contained.

On the other hand, al-Shihabi has called through his Facebook page for the re-opening of clothing, textile, and leather shops partly and gradually, and under strict regulations before “the traditional textile industry goes bankrupt in its entirety, leaving tens of thousands unemployed with no income or clear future,” as per his expression.

Back on 23 April, al-Shihabi published another post on Facebook in which he said that “the problem is no longer how to protect ourselves and control the disease, but instead how to protect ourselves, our economy, our living while controlling the disease.”

He added in the same post, “the virus of poverty, hunger and bankruptcy is much more dangerous than any other virus.”

Syrian citizens are most affected

Syrian citizens, of whom 83 percent live below the poverty line, according to the UN statistics, were not far from the coronavirus’ effects, which have increased poverty and food insecurity.

A Syrian employee, who depends on other sources of income to patch his salary of 50 thousand SYP (38 USD) at best, by either resorting to a second job or establishing a small business, can no longer continue doing so after these sources had a relapse with the imposition of the quarantine measures.

Meanwhile, day-workers were the most affected by the measures as they lost their main source of income, and ended up being unemployed with no financial support, according to Quman.

Moreover, the gap between expenses and income widened as the purchasing price for essential consumables of a family of five members rose to 430,000 SYP (334 USD), according to Quman.

He added, only food and beverages cost 230,000 SYP (178 USD), while the higher ceiling of an employee’s income is set at 50,000 SYP (38 USD); thus, more Syrian people are to face growing levels of poverty and food insecurity. Millions of Syrian will become food insecure.

According to the international database website for living conditions worldwide, Numbeo, the average salary in Syria is 92.93 USD (approximately 120,000 SYP), in both the private and the public sectors.

Last March, the Finance Minister in the Syrian regime’s government, Mamoun Hamdan, announced that 100 billion SYP (77,821,011 USD) would be allocated to finance the measures taken against the coronavirus.

Nevertheless, Osama al-Qadi, the head of the “Syria Economy” working group, considered that the spending and managing of these allocated funds would be manipulated thanks to the widespread corruption in the government institutions.

Al-Qadi indicated to Enab Baladi that 100 billion SYP is considered a small sum, which is equivalent to approximately 80 million USD. He added if this sum of money is equally distributed among the citizens living in the regime controlled-areas (around 13 million persons), each individual’s share would be only 6 USD as a support during the coronavirus crisis.

However, now and more than ever, Syrian citizens are in dire need of support to buy their basic needs that are barely available such as sugar, rice, and diesel oil.

Regarding the employment issue, al-Qadi clarified that there are two million and 600 thousand governmental employees according to official figures, and the remaining two-thirds of Syrian labor are working in the private and joint sectors, not related to the government.

Al-Qadi considered that two-thirds of Syrian citizens are adversely affected by the lockdown measures, and the most affected are those who do not work in the public sector, for they do not receive a regular paycheck or financial aid.

Meanwhile, unemployment risk threatens the Syrian labor force in all sectors, according to al-Qadi.


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للمزيد https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2020/05/syrian-economy-resumes-activity-poverty-and-bankruptcy-outweigh-coronavirus/#ixzz6eWrdaWOC

SYRIA

After cutting off food baskets… homemade bulgur wheat and tomato paste are back in Daraa


The distribution of food aids in Daraa - 2020 the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC)

Enab Baladi
 13/11/2020


Daraa – Halim Muhammad

Umm Mahmoud lit the wood-burning stove under the pot and added wheat grains to prepare the bulgur’s supply. She abandoned this task years ago but returned to it in the summer of the second year after the Syrian regime re-controlled her governorate.

The forty-something-year-old woman coughed as she tried to keep the fire burning to cook the wheat, but the smoke rising from the stove filled her eyes with tears and affected her health as she suffers from a chronic pulmonary allergy.

“It is like we came back in time to decades ago, when my mother used to rely on firewood to prepare and store supplies of bulgur and tomato paste,” Umm Mahmoud told Enab Baladi.
Deficient aids

Umm Mahmoud is “forced” to return to store food supplies to feed her family of seven, not only because of high prices and poor economic conditions but also due to the cut off of aid she used to receive for years during the war.

Before the Syrian regime’s forces regained control of the area, in July 2018, relief organizations that assisted residents were active by delivering aid through the al-Ramtha border crossing with Jordan.

The United Nations (UN) has resorted to the al-Ramtha border crossing to eliminate bureaucracy and not hinder humanitarian efforts by activating the Security Council resolution to deliver cross-border assistance without requiring permission from the Syrian regime government.

Nevertheless, the region’s return to the Syrian regime’s control suspended the UN resolution, and the relief aids returned subject to the governmental decisions.

“I used to receive the aid basket a maximum of every month and a half, and the basket was filled with tomato paste, bulgur, canned food, oil, and sugar, but nowadays the basket is distributed every six months,” Umm Mahmoud said.

According to Umm Mahmoud, the aid provided was “enough” to meet the family’s food needs.

Nowadays, the aid granted does not include canned food or tomato paste, whereas the bulgur is not enough and of bad quality. Therefore, most people, especially in the countryside, resorted to preparing bulgur and tomato paste at home, Umm Mahmoud said.
How to prepare bulgur supply and tomato paste at home?

The preparation of homemade food supplies is an old habit in the Daraa governorate, given the importance of bulgur in preparing the “Hauran Mansaf” and the “Mlehi,” a ceremonial big occasion dish made with bulgur and garnished with meat and nuts.

Umm Mahmoud explained to Enab Baladi the preparation way of bulgur supply at home, which begins with putting the bulgur wheat in water to melt the dust and push the straw to the top of the pot. Then the moist grains are spread outdoors until they are dried by the sun.

Umm Mahmoud removes the dirt, little stones, and barley from the wheat grains and then sends them to the grinder to become ready for storage.

As for tomato paste’s homemaking, it does not require lots of effort, as Haneen, a local woman in her thirties, told Enab Baladi while mashing the red tomatoes.

Haneen covered up her hair and wore medical gloves before starting her work. She first cleaned the tomatoes, then cut them, added salt, and mashed them.

The women of Daraa province have two ways to making tomato paste, the first of which is placing the tomato paste under the sun for several days after mashing the tomatoes, and the second way is done by cooking the tomato juice on fire until it holds together and turns into a paste.

Haneen prefers the cooking way and said that the last step is to store the tomato paste in jars to be consumed later and added to food, such as pasta meals, potato soups, and beans.
What about the markets?

According to Haneen, bulgur and tomato paste are available in shops and markets, but their high prices drive families to prepare them at home.

The price of one kilogram of bulgur in the market is 1200 Syrian pounds (SYP = less than half a dollar), and the price of tomato paste is 1500 SYP per kilo. These prices are considered high, given the weak purchasing power of the residents in this region.

The United Nations had repeatedly expressed its “concern” about the rise in food prices in Syria, as they increased in more than double over 2019, by 133 percent, according to last June’s estimations when the Syrian pound witnessed the largest drop in value against the US dollar.

According to the latest data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in August, 32 relief organizations are active in the governorate of Daraa, including five organizations affiliated to the UN, 13 Syrian non-governmental organizations (NGOs), eight international NGOs, five civil society organizations, and the “Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC).”



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Syria’s bread crisis continues… Syrian women make their own bread


Women baking flatbreads in a tandoor oven in the village of killi in the northern countryside of Idlib - October 2020 ((Enab Baladi / Iyad Abdel Jawad) )

Enab Baladi
 22/11/2020

“ Even though making flatbreads is so exhausting because I make it myself and sometimes with my neighbor’s help. Yet, I think homemade bread is much tastier and better than store-bought bread.”

Inside her home in the province of Rif Dimashq, Halima “aka Umm Ammar” (57 years old) has to knead the dough with her hands to make “Tandoor bread” in a traditional way, because bread is no longer available in government bakeries at all times, Halima told Enab Baladi online.

In fairly thin and large dough discs just like paper, on a tava called “Saj,” which is a flat or convex disc-shaped griddle made from metal, Halima makes flatbreads for the daily consumption of her family.
lower cost

The cost of a bundle of homemade bread is estimated at 1,700 Syrian Pounds (SYP- 0.5 USD); one kilogram of flour is sold for about 1,400 SYP (0.4 USD). On the other hand, the price of a bundle of bread in the market sometimes reaches more than 2,000 SYP, according to Halima.

In late October, the Syrian regime’s Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection raised the price of subsidized bread and flour in its area of control by up to 100 percent.

The ministry’s decision stated, “The sale price of one kilogram of subsidized bread without a bag is modified to become 75 SYP (0.02 USD) when sold to the consumer. The price of a plastic bread bag is set at 100 SYP (0.03 USD) for bread distributors and consumers from the bakery outlet.”

The decision included raising the sale price of a ton of subsidized flour to 40,000 SYP (13.8 USD).

The increase in the price of a bundle of subsidized bread came in conjunction with the crisis of the SYP’s devaluation against foreign currencies. The US dollar is worth around 2,600 SYP during the current November, according to the website of Syrian Pound Today (a Syrian Pound tracking website.)
A shortage of flour in bakeries … “Let’s bake at our homes”

The majority of the city’s residents in Rif Dimashq mainly rely on buying bread from the market. However, just a few weeks ago, long breadlines re-appeared in front of bakeries in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Because of the disruption of bakeries in Rif Dimashq, people have to go to the capital to buy their bread.

Sometimes people go to the bakeries for nearly three days. Still, they cannot even buy one bundle, according to what Halima quoted about people’s suffering while securing a bundle of bread from the bakeries.

Halima said that she heard that the neighbors started to use the flour they have at their homes in making saj bread due to the shortage of flour in state-owned bakeries. She added, “As long as we know bread baking, so why don’t we bake it at our homes?!”

On 15 September, the Director-General of the Syrian Bakeries Foundation, Ziad Hazza, announced that the bread situation was “improving,” denying that there was a shortage of flour and baking ingredients such as yeast, and fuel, despite the bread crisis that appeared in the form of long queues in front of bakeries in Damascus. He said that all bakeries are well provided with bread supplies to meet people’s demands, and “fair distribution is taking place despite economic sanctions,” according to the pro-government newspaper, al-Watan.

“ Making and baking saj bread ” is one of women’s old profession in the Syrian countryside. The smell of freshly baked bread attracts everyone and evokes happy memories. When Halima was 18 years old, she learned under her mother’s supervision to prepare this type of bread at home. Now she is using this skill after many years as a shelter to protect her and her family from the bread crisis that most Syrian cities are experiencing.
Homemade saj bread was a luxury in the past but at present, it is a necessity

The bread crisis has brought the saj bread baking skill to the front of the daily household chores in Syria again. Many Syrian people prefer to bake their own bread instead of standing in long lines outside bakeries to buy bread. They think that homemade bread is less expensive and much healthier than bakery-bought bread. This is how Amal Sallat “Umm Ibrahim” (44 years old) compared homemade bread and market-bought bread in a phonecall with Enab Baladi. She said that baking bread is like going “on a picnic” where all family members were gathering and cooperating with kneading and baking bread before the 2011 year.

Making “saj bread” takes so much time and effort, especially if the number of people for whom the bread is made is large, according to Sallat, who has been practicing this profession for a long time. It also needs special tools such as “a bread cushion;” the sheeted dough discs are then placed onto the oven’s inner walls with the aid of the cushion. Besides, the rolling pin is used to flatten the dough in addition to a gas cylinder.

“Saj bread” had symbolism in the city of Idlib, represented in gathering relatives and friends on various occasions such as wedding ceremonies and funerals. Those gatherings used to create a feeling of heightened security among people during family crises,” Sallat said. Nowadays, saj making bread has become a necessity more than a luxury, due to bread crises and high prices.

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Neanderthals And Humans Were at War For Over 100,000 Years, Evidence Shows

The Saint-Césaire Neanderthal skull suffered a blow that split the skull. (Smithsonian Institution)

NICHOLAS R. LONGRICH, THE CONVERSATION
3 NOVEMBER 2020

Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becoming Homo neanderthalensis – the Neanderthals. They weren't our ancestors, but a sister species, evolving in parallel.


Neanderthals fascinate us because of what they tell us about ourselves – who we were, and who we might have become. It's tempting to see them in idyllic terms, living peacefully with nature and each other, like Adam and Eve in the Garden.

If so, maybe humanity's ills – especially our territoriality, violence, wars – aren't innate, but modern inventions.

Biology and palaeontology paint a darker picture. Far from peaceful, Neanderthals were likely skilled fighters and dangerous warriors, rivalled only by modern humans.
Top predators

Predatory land mammals are territorial, especially pack-hunters. Like lions, wolves and Homo sapiens, Neanderthals were cooperative big-game hunters. These predators, sitting atop the food chain, have few predators of their own, so overpopulation drives conflict over hunting grounds. Neanderthals faced the same problem; if other species didn't control their numbers, conflict would have.

This territoriality has deep roots in humans. Territorial conflicts are also intense in our closest relatives, chimpanzees. Male chimps routinely gang up to attack and kill males from rival bands, a behaviour strikingly like human warfare.

This implies that cooperative aggression evolved in the common ancestor of chimps and ourselves, 7 million years ago. If so, Neanderthals will have inherited these same tendencies towards cooperative aggression.

All too human

Warfare is an intrinsic part of being human. War isn't a modern invention, but an ancient, fundamental part of our humanity. Historically, all peoples warred. Our oldest writings are filled with war stories. Archaeology reveals ancient fortresses and battles, and sites of prehistoric massacres going back millennia.

To war is human – and Neanderthals were very like us. We're remarkably similar in our skull and skeletal anatomy, and share 99.7 percent of our DNA.

Behaviourally, Neanderthals were astonishingly like us. They made fire, buried their dead, fashioned jewellery from seashells and animal teeth, made artwork and stone shrines. If Neanderthals shared so many of our creative instincts, they probably shared many of our destructive instincts, too.
Violent lives

The archaeological record confirms Neanderthal lives were anything but peaceful.

Neanderthalensis were skilled big game hunters, using spears to take down deer, ibex, elk, bison, even rhinos and mammoths. It defies belief to think they would have hesitated to use these weapons if their families and lands were threatened. Archaeology suggests such conflicts were commonplace.

Prehistoric warfare leaves telltale signs. A club to the head is an efficient way to kill – clubs are fast, powerful, precise weapons – so prehistoric Homo sapiens frequently show trauma to the skull. So too do Neanderthals.


Another sign of warfare is the parry fracture, a break to the lower arm caused by warding off blows. Neanderthals also show a lot of broken arms. At least one Neanderthal, from Shanidar Cave in Iraq, was impaled by a spear to the chest.

Trauma was especially common in young Neanderthal males, as were deaths. Some injuries could have been sustained in hunting, but the patterns match those predicted for a people engaged in intertribal warfare- small-scale but intense, prolonged conflict, wars dominated by guerrilla-style raids and ambushes, with rarer battles.
The Neanderthal resistance

War leaves a subtler mark in the form of territorial boundaries. The best evidence that Neanderthals not only fought but excelled at war, is that they met us and weren't immediately overrun. Instead, for around 100,000 years, Neanderthals resisted modern human expansion.

The out-of-Africa offensive. (Nicholas R. Longrich)

Why else would we take so long to leave Africa? Not because the environment was hostile but because Neanderthals were already thriving in Europe and Asia.

It's exceedingly unlikely that modern humans met the Neanderthals and decided to just live and let live. If nothing else, population growth inevitably forces humans to acquire more land, to ensure sufficient territory to hunt and forage food for their children.


But an aggressive military strategy is also good evolutionary strategy.

Instead, for thousands of years, we must have tested their fighters, and for thousands of years, we kept losing. In weapons, tactics, strategy, we were fairly evenly matched.

Neanderthals probably had tactical and strategic advantages. They'd occupied the Middle East for millennia, doubtless gaining intimate knowledge of the terrain, the seasons, how to live off the native plants and animals.

In battle, their massive, muscular builds must have made them devastating fighters in close-quarters combat. Their huge eyes likely gave Neanderthals superior low-light vision, letting them manoeuvre in the dark for ambushes and dawn raids.
Sapiens victorious

Finally, the stalemate broke, and the tide shifted. We don't know why. It's possible the invention of superior ranged weapons – bows, spear-throwers, throwing clubs – let lightly-built Homo sapiens harass the stocky Neanderthals from a distance using hit-and-run tactics.

Or perhaps better hunting and gathering techniques let sapiens feed bigger tribes, creating numerical superiority in battle.

Even after primitive Homo sapiens broke out of Africa 200,000 years ago, it took over 150,000 years to conquer Neanderthal lands. In Israel and Greece, archaic Homo sapiens took ground only to fall back against Neanderthal counteroffensives, before a final offensive by modern Homo sapiens, starting 125,000 years ago, eliminated them.

This wasn't a blitzkrieg, as one would expect if Neanderthals were either pacifists or inferior warriors, but a long war of attrition. Ultimately, we won. But this wasn't because they were less inclined to fight. In the end, we likely just became better at war than they were.

Nicholas R. Longrich, 

Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology and Paleontology, University of Bath.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Doubling Down on Space Safety

 November 20, 2020  Doug Messier  News  Leave a comment

by Keith Wright
U.S. Air Force Safety Center

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. — Recently, the Air Force Safety Center transferred the Space Safety Division to the United States Space Force as one of the first blended organizations in the Department.  Already charged with supporting both services, this transfer serves to leverage the Center’s expertise doubling down on space safety for both services.

The Safety Center’s Space Safety Division will continue to call Kirtland Air Force Base home, while remaining steadfast in their commitment to promote and enhance space mishap prevention and a risk management culture in the USSF.

Air Force Chief of Safety Maj. Gen. John T. Rauch Jr., who stands charged with the oversight of Air Force mishap prevention programs and command of the Air Force Safety Center, oversees the Space Safety Division’s efforts to develop, execute and evaluate space mishap prevention programs.

“When standing up any new organization, it is important to ensure safety remains an integral part of the culture – who we are and how we do business,” said Rauch. “This reorganization capitalizes on best practices derived from an already proven Safety Management System ensuring mishap prevention efforts are built into the Space Force America needs.”

Rauch added, “Our safety professionals are steadfast in their support to enable the Air and Space Forces mission execution safely and effectively.”

The Space Safety Division’s key tasks include the development, execution, and evaluation of Air and Space Force space mishap prevention programs, along with execution of several Department of Defense responsibilities; Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Board, DoD Executive Agent for Nuclear Space Safety, and co-chair to the quad-agency working group with the FAA, NASA, and NTSB. Additionally, they oversee mishap investigations, program evaluations, and ensure application of corrective actions and mishap inclusion through the Air Force Safety Automated System.

“Space Safety’s alignment under USSF ensures unity of effort,” said Dr. Mark Glissman, Chief of Space Safety Division. “This construct allows us to work directly with applicable major and field commands on all space safety matters.”

The division’s force structure will be made up of a mixture of civilian, military and contractors.

Glissman added, “Additionally, being a part of a blended organization aligns Space Safety closely with all Department of the Air Force safety disciplines to provide unparalleled support to both services reducing duplication of effort.”

Mishaps may occur during any stage of space operations – a satellite could fall over during manufacturing; a rocket possibly veers off course during launch; a chance satellite collision with debris in space; crash during re-entry operations; or unsafe conditions at a ground-based radar site. These are all possible mishap scenarios across the spectrum of space activities Space Safety may work to avoid.

Outside of space operations, Space Professionals may also be susceptible to hazards in the occupational, weapons and aviation disciplines on their installations.

“Mishap prevention is essential to the readiness of every service,” Rauch said “As each echelon of the Space Force stands up, elements of safety will be woven in to safeguard personnel, protect resources and preserve combat capability.”

UK
Sunak: no return to austerity in new spending plan

IF THE UK CAN DO IT SO CAN ALBERTA
Sun, 22 November 2020

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Sunak during an interview in London

LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister Rishi Sunak said there would be no return to austerity and instead he will announce "quite a significant" increase in funding for public services in a one-year spending plan on Wednesday.

"You will not see austerity next week," Sunak told Sky News television on Sunday. "What you will see is an increase in the government's spending on day-to-day public services, and quite a significant one, coming on the increase that we had last year."

Sunak will announce the heaviest public borrowing since World War Two after Britain suffered the biggest economic crash in over 300 years.

Economists think Britain is on course to borrow about 400 billion pounds ($531.28 billion) this year, approaching 20% of its gross domestic product, or nearly double its borrowing after the global financial crisis.

Sunak told Sky that the forecasts to be published alongside his spending blueprint would show the "enormous strain" that coronavirus has put on the economy and the priority for his plan would be to fight the pandemic.

Britain's finance ministry said on Saturday that Sunak was expected to announce one-year package worth more than 3 billion pounds to support the state-run National Health Service (NHS) as it struggles with coronavirus.

Asked about reports that he would freeze public sector pay as part of an attempt to slow the surge in borrowing caused by the pandemic, Sunak said it was reasonable to look at state salaries in the context of the broader economy.

"When we think about public pay settlements, I think it would be entirely reasonable to think about those in the context of the wider economic climate," he said.

Sunak declined to answer questions on possible tax increases saying he would not be talking now about future budget decisions.

(Reporting by William Schomberg; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Guatemala protesters set congress on fire during budget protests

Public anger targets President Alejandro Giammattei over cuts to education and health

A demonstrator gestures outside the congress building in Guatemala City during clashes between police and protesters on Saturday. 

Photograph: Esteban Biba/EPA

Hundreds of protesters broke into Guatemala’s congress and burned part of the building amid growing demonstrations against President Alejandro Giammattei and the legislature for approving a budget that cut educational and health spending.

The incident on Saturday came as about 10,000 people were protesting in front of the National Palace in Guatemala City against corruption and the budget, which protesters say was negotiated and passed by legislators in secret while the Central American country was distracted by the fallout of back-to-back hurricanes and the Covid-19 pandemic.

About 1,000 protesters were demonstrating outside the Congress building.

Video on social media showed flames coming out of a window in the legislative building. Police fired tea gas at protesters, and about a dozen people were reported injured.

“We are outraged by poverty, injustice, the way they have stolen the public’s money,” said Rosa de Chavarría, a psychology professor.

“I feel like the future is being stolen from us. We don’t see any changes. This cannot continue like this,” added Mauricio Ramírez, a 20-year-old university student.

The amount of damage to the building was unclear, but the fire appears to have affected legislative offices rather than the main hall of congress. Protesters also set bus stations on fire.
  

A demonstrator is arrested during clashes between the police and protesters in Guatemala City on Saturday. Photograph: Esteban Biba/EPA

Giammattei condemned the incidents via Twitter on Saturday, saying: “Anyone who is proven to have participated in the criminal acts will be punished with the full force of the law.”


He said he defended people’s right to protest, “but neither can we allow people to vandalise public or private property”.

The president said he had been meeting with various groups to present changes to the controversial budget.

Discontent had been building on social media over the 2021 budget and clashes erupted during demonstrations on Friday. Guatemalans were angered because lawmakers approved $65,000 to pay for meals for themselves, but cut funding for coronavirus patients and human rights agencies.

Protesters were also upset by recent moves by the supreme court and attorney general they saw as attempts to undermine the fight against corruption.

The vice-president, Guillermo Castillo, has offered to step down, telling Giammattei that both men should resign their positions “for the good of the country”. He also suggested vetoing the approved budget, firing government officials and reaching out more to various sectors around the country.

Giammattei had not responded publicly to that proposal and Castillo did not share the president’s reaction to his proposal. Castillo said he would not resign alone.

The spending plan was negotiated in secret and approved by congress before dawn Wednesday. It also passed while the country was recovering from hurricanes Eta and Iota, which brought torrential rains to much of Central America.

The Roman Catholic Church leadership in Guatemala called on Friday for Giammattei to veto the budget.

“It was a devious blow to the people because Guatemala was between natural disasters, there are signs of government corruption, clientelism in the humanitarian aid,” said Jordan Rodas, the country’s human rights prosecutor.

He said the budget appeared to favour ministries that have historically been hotspots of corruption.

In 2015, mass streets protests against corruption led to the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina, his vice-president, Roxana Baldetti, and members of his cabinet. The former president and Baldetti are in jail awaiting trials in various corruption cases.

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