LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Saturday, March 13, 2021

THIRD WORLD USA

'ITS A SHITHOLE COUNTRY'

Medically vulnerable in US put near end of vaccine line

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED: 13 March 2021

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - When Ann Camden learned last month that her 17-year-old daughter got exposed to the coronavirus at school and was being sent home, she packed her belongings, jumped in the car and made the two-hour drive to the coast to stay with her recently vaccinated parents.

The 50-year-old mother had been diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer and could not afford to become infected. She also was not yet eligible under North Carolina's rules to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. So she left her twin daughters with her husband and fled for safety.

Across the United States, millions of medically vulnerable people who initially were cited as a top vaccination priority group got slowly bumped down the list as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention modified its guidelines to favor the elderly, regardless of their physical condition, and workers in a wide range of job sectors.

North Carolina is one of 24 states that currently places people under 65 with "underlying medical conditions" near the bottom of the pack to receive the vaccine, according to Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. A report she wrote for the foundation last month listed Pennsylvania as the lone state making vaccines available to the medically vulnerable during its first phase of distribution.

When North Carolina unveiled its initial guidance in October, it placed people with multiple chronic conditions near the top of the list. In response to December recommendations from the CDC to prioritize people 75 and older, however, it dropped those with chronic conditions to Phase 2. When the guidance changed again to expand eligibility to those 65 and up, medically vulnerable residents learned in January they would be dropped to Phase 4 - to be vaccinated after "frontline essential workers" but before "everyone."

"When they slid us to group 4, it was very quiet," Camden said. "It was like, `We don´t want to talk about it. We´re just gonna kind of tuck you over there.´ That in itself was kind of insulting."

Maura Wozniak poses for a picture on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021, in Huntersville, N.C. Wozniak, a 42-year-old mother of 2 has cystic fibrosis and also has undergone lung transplants and has been moved into group 4, just ahead of the general public receive the COVID-19 vaccination. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

The state's top public health official, Dr. Mandy Cohen, said residents under 65 with chronic conditions were moved down the list after health officials received data showing elderly residents are far more likely to die of COVID-19, though she acknowledged "age is not a perfect proxy for risk."

Camden decided not to wait for the state to qualify her. Just two days after she arrived at her parents´ house, a friend connected her with a CVS pharmacist in Wilmington who had spare doses of the vaccine about to go to waste. Camden received a Moderna shot in the pharmacist´s dining room on Feb. 21.

"It´s incumbent on all of us to take it when we can get it," Camden said. "I don´t want to feel guilty or embarrassed because I was gonna get it whenever I could."

Jon D´Angelo, a 32-year-old Carteret County resident who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, didn´t qualify for a vaccine since he doesn´t live in a long-term care facility. He said he jumped the line, but declined to describe where and how he got the vaccine. After a minute-long pause when asked how he justified his actions, he replied, "Justice is more important."

Responding to the frustrations of people like Camden and D'Angelo, states are now revising their guidelines again. As of Monday, 28 states, including North Carolina, had at least partially opened up vaccine eligibility statewide to those with high-risk medical conditions, Kates said. Four additional states are making the vaccine available to medically vulnerable residents living in certain counties.

North Carolina announced this week that it would start vaccinating people 16 years or older with at least one of 18 at-risk conditions on March 17. And last week, the state expanded its eligibility guidelines to include people like D´Angelo who receive at-home care. D´Angelo is now retroactively eligible under Phase 1, which launched in December.

"I´m glad they did it, but the fact that it took three months to correct is outrageous," D´Angelo said.

On Monday, South Carolina expanded eligibility to disabled and at-risk people, and Michigan did so for medically vulnerable residents 50 and older. California is opening up vaccinations to the disabled and at-risk on March 15.

In Georgia, the governor announced this week that those 16 or older with serious health conditions will be eligible starting March 15. Shana Frentz, a 36-year-old with two autoimmune conditions, said she secured an appointment at a Georgia pharmacy that began signing up people a day before the announcement. Before that, she had explored the possibility of going to a neighboring state. During the months it took before she became eligible in Georgia, she said she and others like her felt "kind of tossed aside."

Maura Wozniak, a 42-year-old Charlotte-area resident, has cystic fibrosis and will wait until it´s her turn to get vaccinated. Wozniak was furious with North Carolina's decision to push her back in line, as it meant a lengthier delay for her kids to get back to the classroom. But after learning on social media that she'd soon become eligible, she cried in relief.

"They were able to hear the pleas from high-risk individuals in the state," Wozniak said. "The fact that they gave us a date was promising. Is everything gonna be perfect? No. But at least there's a certain window now."

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Associated Press writer Anila Yoganathan in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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Follow AP´s coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.

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Follow Anderson on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BryanRAnderson.

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Anderson is a corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Black Scholar: It's Time France Confronts Its Colonial Past

March 13, 2021
By Associated Press

FILE - Pap Ndiaye, a Black French scholar and expert on the U.S. civil rights movement, gestures as he poses for a photo inside France's National Museum of the History of Immigration, in Paris, March 11, 2021.

PARIS - A Black French scholar and expert on U.S. minority rights movements who’s taking charge of France’s state-run immigration museum says it’s “vital” for his country to confront its colonial past so that it can conquer present racial injustice.

“The French are highly reluctant to look at the dark dimensions of their own history,” Pap Ndiaye told The Associated Press in his museum, initially built to display colonial exploits but now meant to showcase the role of immigration in shaping modern France.

Ndiaye was named to head France’s National Museum of the History of Immigration at a crucial time, as his country is under pressure to reassess its colonial history and offer better opportunities for its citizens of color, in the wake of Black Lives Matter and other racial justice movements.

Following George Floyd’s death in the U.S. last year, thousands took to the streets in Paris and across the country expressing anger at racism and discrimination in French society, particularly toward people from the country’s former colonies in Africa.

What happened in the U.S. “echoes the French situation,” Ndiaye said.

The trial of a former police officer charged in Floyd’s death will be closely monitored in France, Ndiaye said, because “it tells about the reality of police violence, and we would like very much for this reality of police violence to be discussed the same way in France.”

Many young French are increasingly pushing back against a national doctrine of colorblindness, which aims at encouraging equality by ignoring race altogether — but has failed to eradicate discrimination.

They “are disappointed in many ways in the French promise of equality and opportunities for all,” Ndiaye said. “We must go beyond the official discourse and acknowledge reality.”

These issues “have to be discussed. They have to be measured also through the use of statistics,” Ndiaye said, also urging “more effective policies” targeting discrimination in the job and housing markets.

These are bold statements for a top government-appointed official in France, where collecting data based on race or ethnicity is frowned upon, and where the far-right has brought anti-immigrant rhetoric to the mainstream. President Emmanuel Macron has promised more steps to fight discrimination and has treaded carefully on how to address colonial wrongs.

Ndiaye, who was born and raised in France, described his stay in the U.S. from 1991 to 1996 to study as “a personal revelation.” Born to a French mother and Senegalese father, he said his U.S. experience “helped me integrate that Black part of me I had put aside a little bit to make it a source of pride.”

Coming back to France, he specialized on the history of minorities in both countries, and his publication in 2008 of the book “The Black Condition” made him a precursor of Black Studies in France.

From his new post at the immigration museum, Ndiaye hopes to contribute to opening the debate needed so the French confront their collective memories.

“I know many French people would say that slavery is something that happened in the United States when slavery did not really happen in France or on a much smaller scale — which is not the case. The main difference between France and the U.S. is that slavery was overseas [in French colonies], very far from the mainland.”

France and the U.S. have different histories, but they’ve been facing “similar issues, issues of racial domination ... issues of racial injustice,” Ndiaye stressed.

The Palais de la Porte Doree, which houses the museum in the east of Paris, is a strong testimony from France’s colonial era.

Built for the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931, it aimed to present the French colonies in a favorable light.

Amid other propaganda, Ndiaye said, a monumental fresco in the main hall of the museum was meant to convince the public “that colonization is good for the colonized themselves, that they enjoy being colonized by the French because of the civilizing mission of the French Empire.”

The fresco still stands, as a reminder. Visitors will be able to “measure the gap between the official discourse on colonization at that time... and the reality,” he said. “A reality of violence, a reality of oppression, a reality of domination.”

The immigration museum, inaugurated in 2007, is now closed to the public amid the virus crisis and in full renovation, with a reopening expected next year.

It will propose a new approach to the history of immigration to ensure that it is “not a footnote” in France’s history, Ndiaye said. “Immigration is presented in a positive manner of course when we know that one French out of four has at least one grandparent who came from elsewhere.”

The permanent exhibition will start from 1685, when King Louis XIV passed the Code Noir, or Black Code, legislation meant to regulate the conditions of slavery in French colonies. It legalized the brutal treatment of slaves and foresaw capital punishment for offenses including striking a “master.”

The display will focus on France’s colonial Empire that once included a large part of northern and western Africa and other territories in the Caribbean, the Middle East and south-east Asia.

The exhibition will end with the migrant crisis that shook Europe in 2015, when more than 1 million people crossed by land and by sea to reach the continent.

With a growing non-white French population with ancestors coming from colonized areas, Ndiaye said people want “their history, the history of their family, to be better integrated within the general master narrative of French history.”

INDIA

LEFT & WRITE

Kobad Ghandy, is finally adjusting to life outside prison

Kobad Ghandy | Amey Mansabdar

Past the Parsi hostel for women in Worli, through a narrow opening almost down a rabbit hole, lies the once-slum colony of Mayanagar. The birthplace of the Dalit Panthers in the 1970s has now been gentrified; there are apartments with lifts. A bright yellow crane at the entrance, however, indicates that work is still in progress.

After spending a decade in several prisons, Kobad Ghandy—painted as the poster boy of the ultra-left movement in India—has returned to where it all began for him. Free now, he plods carefully with his walker. “Arthritis and sciatica are both jail products,” he says.

Old timers who recognise him stop to take pictures with an unmasked Ghandy. “I take things to build my immunity, then I do not worry that much,” he says.

Ghandy chats easily, reminiscing about the 1970s, when he walked in armed with a mat and printed material to awaken the people of Mayanagar into political consciousness. “I remember the first time I met him,” says Arul Francis—one of the young men Ghandy inspired—as he sits down with a milky cup of coffee. This is the first time the two are meeting in decades. Back then, Francis was among the many unemployed youth fired up by the ideas of B.R. Ambedkar, Karl Marx and Jyotirao Phule. “I still remember what was printed on the paper he brought when I first met him:

‘Bombay is the most densely populated city with 60 per cent slums. Why?’ We had no consciousness about social issues till then,” says Francis.

Despite his years in the field—even “declassing” to live in a dalit slum in Nagpur—Ghandy’s accent stubbornly remains. It is a constant reminder of privilege and the world he left behind. But it is not a barrier, and the camaraderie is real. “We would talk about everything in our lives,” says Rajesh Bhalerao, a dalit activist who was 17 when the Panthers came to be. An unemployed Bhalerao had received his lessons in political consciousness with Ghandy. “We were fighting for the fundamental rights that the Constitution guaranteed us,” he says. “We were raising issues of unemployment through the tools that democracy provided us, like protests. But there was also a blowback.”

In May 1972, having spent three months in a British jail for organising an anti-racism meeting (he had gone there to study chartered accountancy), Ghandy had returned to India, only to stumble upon Mayanagar. It was close to his parents’ flat in Worli, though it could have easily been another world. It is here, with its primitive drainage and lack of water, that Ghandy encountered caste.

The Dalit Panthers’ vibrant cultural revolt against rigid Hinduism, borrowing from the Black Panthers of America, was forcing questions of equality. Idealism, Marxism and communism offered the heady possibility of change.

“There used to be a car showroom across the road,” says Francis. “He asked us whether we would be able to buy a car even if we had the money or would we have to be content to just watch it from outside. It was our first lesson in class.”
Anuradha was an avid letter writer, too, and while clearing my mother’s stuff after she died, I found her letters from her period in Indora. Sunil Shanbag, brother-in-law of Kobad Ghandy

It was a powerful lesson, one that changed Francis’s life. It also played a part in transforming the slum into its current state. “They stood on their own feet and managed to get the slum redeveloped,” Ghandy says with pride. “Across the road, the other side, the slum still remains. That is because they were not organised.”

There were many who drifted into the basti (colony)—a favourite place for college students to earn their social work stripes—but Ghandy was a regular. Mayanagar changed him. It became a lifelong commitment. He realised that his work there could become a lifelong commitment. A few years later, he took a further radical step; he and his wife, Anuradha, moved into the dalit basti in Indora, Nagpur. “It was not a sacrifice,” he says in his first in-depth interview after being released from jail in late 2019.

Ghandy’s prison days began in 2009, when he was arrested in Delhi and booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. “It is dehumanising, especially Tihar, where I spent the maximum time,” he says, matter-of-factly. “It is meant to break you. [Break] people like us, and people without money, resources or connections. And if you are somewhat sensitive, it is difficult to maintain your sanity.”

Then home minister P. Chidambaram had launched Operation Green Hunt, an all-out offensive against the “red corridor”, which stretched from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh and parts of Karnataka and Kerala. “Left-wing extremism (Naxalism) is the most violent movement in the country,” he had told top police officers in 2011.

This is the movement the police claimed Ghandy was an active part of.

“Kobad Ghandy was a central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). He was in charge of the international affairs wing of the banned outfit,” says K. Durga Prasad, who once headed Andhra Pradesh’s anti-Naxal force, the Greyhounds. He says that though he has no information on whether Ghandy actually participated in any Maoist operations against security forces directly, that in itself is no proof of his innocence. “He was extending logistical support to Maoists, arranging funds, organising meetings and was fully involved as a CC member,” he asserts.

In 2016, a Delhi court, and subsequently four other courts, found Ghandy innocent of any terror link. “The police had really no evidence,” says Ghandy’s lawyer Rebecca John. “We demolished the case, witness by witness, relying on inconsistencies and contradictions. It was one of the earlier cases under UAPA, but once the Delhi court ruled there was no evidence to connect him to a banned organisation, he was able to get relief in almost all his pending cases on similar charges across the country.”

Out now, Ghandy stays with his sister and has spent his time writing. He learnt to type in jail. His first book Fractured Freedom: A Prison Memoir, published by Roli Books, hits stores later this month.

Born to Nargis and Adi Ghandy, who were from “the typical Parsi/corporate background”, Ghandy’s commitment to the communist cause seemed highly peculiar. He had studied at the elite Doon School, with Sanjay Gandhi as his classmate, and hardly seemed the kind for revolution. “He was a shy, withdrawn fellow,” says Gautam Vohra, his classmate in Doon School. “One would have never imagined that he would get so involved with any issue, especially communism. He never paraded his views, he never made a big display. But you could see he had commitment.”

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Ten years, seven jails, five states

Ghandy is gentle, almost professorial, and charmingly idealistic even now. His conviction in communism apart, he has found support from friends and family, though they do not share his vision.

His life changed when he met Anuradha Shanbag, to whom the book is dedicated. There was love, marriage and shared ideology. Involved with the Progressive Youth Movement, which was inspired by the Naxal movement, Anu was a firebrand intellectual committed to the cause.

Her parents shared the same ideology. “There was very little choice if you came from my family,” says her brother Sunil Shanbag, who expressed his ideology in theatre. “I was in Rishi Valley [School], when I got a letter from her talking about why the nationalisation of banks was right. Anu was then only 14.” Over the years, Anuradha got more radicalised. “I remember she went to a camp of Bangladesh refugees in Madhya Pradesh, and she came back changed,” he says. There were intense discussions with her father over politics, even though they were both leftists, and Anuradha chose a different life. “Kobad came here often, and we soon realised that there was a relationship,” says Sunil.

New horizons: Ghandy at the Mumbai airport on his way to London to study chartered accountancy in 1968

They married in 1977, when the Emergency was lifted. They were both involved in the civil liberties movement at the time and founded the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights in Maharashtra. A few years after the wedding, the couple moved to Indora and got actively involved with organisational activities. They deliberately kept away from family to avoid attachment. Anuradha cycled 15km daily to reach the college where she taught. They led a frugal existence. “It must have been difficult for my sister. It must have come at a personal cost,” says Sunil. “She was an avid letter writer, too, and while clearing my mother’s stuff after she died, I found her letters from her period in Indora. She must have realised that her parents were anxious.”

Except for a few short visits early on, they kept away from relatives. There are no photographs of the couple with their families after marriage. When her father died, Anu could not go home. It was just one of the extreme steps that the two took to keep focus.

They also decided to not have children. “In those days, in Andhra Pradesh,” writes Ghandy, “it was a norm that if a young married couple were both active revolutionaries, the male member would have a vasectomy to avoid children, which required additional attention and [would] distract from one’s activities. Anu and I, having decided to dedicate our time to the poor, followed this norm after marriage.”

In 1999, the couple returned to Mumbai; Anu had been asked to leave Nagpur University (where she taught) for her political activities. She had become a mass leader, and “her work with trade unions and women was increasingly coming under the scanner of the cops,” writes Ghandy.

She then went to Bastar for two years to work with the tribal women. On one of her trips to the forest, she contracted falciparum malaria, which led to an untimely death. “It was the worst day of my life,” says Ghandy.

The famous picture of Anuradha, smiling with thick, black frames, is from the morning of the wedding. “I had taken it with my camera,” says Sunil. “It was only after her death in 2008 that we found a few more that some friends had from an earlier period.”

The two most seen pictures of Ghandy—laughing on his wedding day and dazed on the day he was arrested—serve as a before and after poster. The years in between the two events have been captured in the new book. “Kobad’s story has fascinated me since I first heard about him,” says Priya Kapoor, editorial director at Roli Books. “We corresponded while he was in prison and I expressed interest in publishing his book whenever he was ready. Few live a life true to their convictions, especially when it leads to tremendous hardships. I hope his story is read widely; it deserves to be.”

By Mandira Nayar

March 21, 2021

The Week

Bolivia arrests former president as govt investigates 'coup' that ousted Morales

Former interim president Jeanine Añez arrested, alleges political persecution

By Milan Sime Martinic March 13, 2021 THE WEEK

File photo of Bolivia's former interim President Jeanine Anez |
REUTERS/David Mercado/File Photo

Accused of sedition, terrorism, and being part of a “coup” that ousted former president Evo Morales, Jeanine Añez, the former interim president who ruled Bolivia for one year leading to new elections, was arrested in her home region of Beni at 1:35 in the morning after police surrounded her residence some 12 hours earlier and launched a citywide manhunt.

An arrest warrant was issued earlier for Añez and five of her government’s ministers along with seven former police and military commanders. The events follow new accusations and her recent defeat in candidacy for governor of the Amazonian region of Beni, the country’s largest geographical jurisdiction.

The government announced her arrest but provided little additional information and has not made much of a public case for its action other than the listing of the charges, prompting accusations of political persecution.

“I denounce to Bolivia and the world, that in an act of abuse and political persecution the MAS (Movement toward Socialism) government has ordered my arrest. It accuses me of having participated in a coup that never happened. My prayers for Bolivia and for all Bolvians,” tweeted Añez shortly after her arrest as she was being transferred to the capital, La Paz.

Añez assumed the presidency in October 2019 as the Constitutional next-in-line after Morales, his vice-president, and the presidents of the upper and lower houses of congress resigned following a countrywide revolt that questioned his claim to have won the elections.

Under the Bolivian Constitution, the president’s successor is the vice president. The line of succession then follows to the president of the Senate, then to the president of the House of Representatives, and to the first vice president of the Senate—all of whom resigned following Morales. Añez was the second vice president of the senate and the country’s political and military forces coalesced around her as she took possession of the presidency in scenes that reminisced of the triumphant revolutionary takeovers of Bolivia’s past.

She represented the opposite spectrum of Morales’s left-wing political persona, with a heavily religious tinge that started with raised Bibles as she took office and right-wing politicians appointed to her cabinet. She also represented a cultural divide between the Andean and Amazonian regions of Bolivia, replacing the prominence of the wiphala, a 7-colour Andean flag, with a Patuju flag that represents the indigenous peoples of the Bolivian lowlands. That set up a dynamic of cultural, geographical, and political division.

At first, she made it clear she understood her constitutional role as a caretaker whose role was to ensure the calling and carrying out of new elections—a chore that was delayed by the pandemic, and that at one point had her running as a candidate for the presidency. Eventually, elections were held and they resulted in a lopsided victory by Luis Arce, the candidate of Morales’s political party, the former Minister of Economy.

Añez was Bolivia’s 66th president and the second woman to hold the high office.

Her handling of unrest and ongoing violence by those still supporting Morales was criticized by the opposition as being heavy-handed, resulting in as many as 30 deaths. While she was still in office, the outgoing parliament approved a motion recommending that she and her ministers face justice for their responsibility over the unrest on the “massacres of Senkata, Sacaba and Yapacani,” recommending a judgment of responsibility for genocide and other offences.”

A government investigation into the events it characterizes as a “coup” backed by the CIA and supported by economic interests in the US and Europe has taken new momentum recently with charges that the UK supported Añez to gain access to the country’s rich lithium reserves.

In the noise of investigations and new accusations, and in the wake of the flight abroad of two of Añez’s key ministers in charge of the Ministries of Government and Defense as the new government was sworn in, Bolivia’s courts suddenly considered her a “flight risk,” and ordered her arrest along with her most senior Ministers. Notably, after leaving office Añez did not take flight but stayed and ran a campaign for governor of her home region in the elections held earlier this month.

The former commanders of police, Col. Yuri Calderon, and of the country’s military, Gen. Williams Kaliman, were also part of the order of arrest and are being sought by the country’s police. It was their support that tipped the power balance amid the 2019 post-election revolutionary uprising. When Kaliman withdrew his support, Morales resigned and then left the country for Mexico, fearing for his safety.

Demonstrations and attempts to retake control by Morales’s MAS supporters resulted in violence and deaths as the military was ordered in to take control.

Last month, the new MAS-dominated congress voted to give amnesty to those prosecuted for acts of violence by Añez’s government during the chaos that followed Morales’s resignation.

The new Minister of Government Carlos Eduardo del Castillo informed of the former president’s arrest via Twitter, “I inform the Bolivian people that Mrs. Jeanine Añez has already been apprehended and is currently in the hands of the police,” congratulating the police for their “great work” in the “historic task of giving justice” to the Bolivian people.

Complaining of the order by the public prosecutor’s office Añez tweeted before her arrest, “The political persecution has begun,” adding that the move signified a “return to the styles of dictatorship.”

Timeline: Bolivia's political crisis

AFP 3/13/2021`

Since the contested re-election of President Evo Morales in October 2019 until the arrest of ex-interim president Jeanine Anez on Saturday, here are the key events that marked Bolivia's political crisis.

© AIZAR RALDES Former interim Bolivian president Jeanine Anez (C) is arrested as part of a probe into a coup plot

- Contested vote -

On October 20, 2019, leftist Morales, the country's first indigenous head of state and who has held power since 2006, runs for a fourth term, despite his attempt at re-election being rejected in a referendum in 2016.

After provisional results show him winning in the first round, the opposition claims fraud and protests break out in the streets. On October 25, Morales is declared the winner with 47.08% of the vote, ahead of centrist Carlos Mesa, with a ten-point advantage that allows him to win the election in the first round.

The opposition and part of the international community demand a second round.

- Morales resigns -

On November 10, after weeks of demonstrations and lacking support of the police and the army, Morales resigns. He goes into exile in Mexico and then Argentina.

Riots break out in La Paz and El Alto. On November 12, the second vice president of the Senate, opposition leader Jeanine Anez, is proclaimed interim president. Morales denounces a coup.

New elections are set for May 3, 2020.

- Terrorism probe -

On December 5, the Organization of American States (OAS) concludes that the October presidential election had been "deliberately rigged."

On December 18th, the prosecutor's office issues an arrest warrant for Morales as part of an investigation into sedition and terrorism.

On January 8, 2020, the interim government announces corruption investigations against 600 former members of the Morales executive and officials of state-owned companies during Morales' presidency.

- New elections -

Morales announces his former economy minister, Luis Arce, considered the father of the Bolivian "economic miracle", would be the candidate of his Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.

On January 25, Anez causes tensions by declaring herself a candidate, despite having promised otherwise. Carlos Mesa, Luis Fernando Camacho and former president Jorge Quiroga are also scheduled to run.

In March, Bolivia goes into lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the presidential elections are postponed.

- Protests and delays -

In May, protests by pro-Morales farmer and indigenous unions increase, demanding a relaxation of health measures and a date for the elections.

In June, the elections are set for September 6, following an agreement between parties.

On July 6, the attorney general accuses Morales of terrorism, calling again for his arrest. On July 23, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) again postponed the elections, to October 18, due to coronavirus cases.

MAS leaders threaten to launch a "permanent mobilization" in the absence of elections on September 6. Two days later, thousands of Morales supporters staged protests in El Alto.

In mid-August, the date of the elections is confirmed for October 18.

- Morales return -

In mid-September, Jeanine Anez retires from the presidential race. Luis Arce wins the presidential elections in the first round. Morales' successor is proclaimed new president on October 23 after having obtained 55.10% of the vote.

On November 8, he officially becomes the new president, and Morales returns to Bolivia a day later.

- Arrest of Anez -

On March 12, 2021, the Bolivian prosecutor's office issues an arrest warrant against Anez and several of her former ministers for "sedition" and "terrorism", as part of an investigation into an alleged coup in the fall of Morales.

Anez is arrested on March 13. Several of her former ministers were also charged with sedition, terrorism and conspiracy.

doc-ang-ot/pma/dw

WELCOME TO AMERICANIZED RACIST ALBERTA

Racist signs greet those who walk past a home in an Alberta town — can anything be done about it?

Phil Heidenreich 3/12/2021

GLOBAL NEWS

© Global News Police are investigating after complaints were made about hateful and racist signs on a residential property in Vermilion, Alta. This photo shows two of the signs but Global News has chosen not to show the signs that include racial slurs and misogynistic…

An Alberta man's decision to erect hateful signs on his property is raising concerns from people in the town he lives in that his freedom of speech seems to trump their right to feel safe.

The signs, that in some cases target specific groups with racial slurs, used to be posted on a tree on a residential property in Vermilion, Alta., until they were recently torn down. They now appear at the front of the home. Some of the messages target Black and Asian people while others spew vitriol against women and public officials.

"It just hurts the heart," said Sophia Lindsay, a Black woman who told Global News that she lives about a block away from the home with her family. "It can get scary. Right now he could just be using pen and paper... next time he could be using words... he could be using violence.

"I avoid certain parts of this street."

READ MORE: 'Racism is a real problem': Muslim women fearful following attacks in Edmonton

Lindsay said she moved to Vermilion from Toronto a few years ago and had never previously experienced such overt racism. She said she was hesitant to speak up about her concerns because she's one of only a handful of Black people living in the east-central Alberta town of about 4,000 and fears being stereotyped as "that angry black girl."

"I got to the point where... somebody needs to stand up and say something," she said.

Lindsay told Global News she first noticed concerning signs on the man's property in the summer. When she spoke to other people about it, she was told the man had been posting disturbing signs on his property for years. In 2017, a criminal complaint was made but charges were never laid because Crown prosecutors did not believe a conviction was likely.

"If one of my sons was walking down the street and saw this, how would he feel as an individual?" Lindsay said. "I must say, Vermilion has some beautiful people in it... just loving and beautiful -- but then there's these ones... he put up a post: 'Black lives don't matter, white lives matter'... he's just on an extreme.

"I don't feel like it should be acceptable or it should just be swept under the rug.

"What's making it even worse is that there's nothing being done... It's not being treated seriously and that's really concerning as well."

Lindsay said she first called the RCMP and then voiced her concerns on social media before getting in touch with the Lloydminster and Vermilion for Equity Foundation, an organization in the region that advocates for diversity and inclusivity.

READ MORE: No charges after person dons what looks like KKK hood in northern Alberta: RCMP

Tigra-Lee Campbell is the president of the organization. She said while the racist signs are shocking, she is not altogether surprised. In the summer, a friend of hers tried to organize an anti-racism rally in Vermilion in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck in Minneapolis.

"After seeing the comments and backlash we received for even wanting to... have a rally... it's not surprising, which is really sad," she said.

Campbell said she has also voiced her concerns to RCMP and the Town of Vermilion but received little in the way of a response.

She said she believes either the town or police should be able to find a way to respond in an impactful way.

"Where there's a will there's a way," Campbell said.

At a town council meeting on March 2, Mayor Caroline McAuley brought up the complaints the town has received about the property and what she described as its "decorative signage."

"I am concerned about it," she said in the meeting. "Our challenge always is personal freedoms and personal rights of individuals and how we address that in a greater community."

Both Lindsay and Campbell expressed their disappointment with how the mayor referred to the signs.

"It's not decorative signage -- it's racism and hate speech, and in 2021, we need to be calling this what it is," Campbell said. "It makes me feel like you don't care."

"I don't think it's decorative at all," Lindsay said. "I don't think that should have been a statement used in the first place.

"You don't respect the people that he's hurting because you're making light of it."

Kevin Lucas, the Town of Vermilion's community services director, told Global News that the mayor intended for her comment to be tongue-in-cheek and is fully aware of the gravity of the situation.

"The town has been quite proactive in their approach with this individual," Lucas said. "We've been trying to work with him and it seems, just like the seasons, we have peaks and valleys, and I believe right now we're in a bit of a peak.

"The messaging has got substantially more aggressive so the town's approach, course of action I guess, will be more aggressive as well."

Lucas said the town has recently filed a cease and desist order calling for the man to remove the signs. He noted that if the measure doesn't prove to be effective, the town will take further action although he did not specify what those next steps may involve.

"Our legal department was able to obtain the information and we moved very quickly on it," he said. "We have had conversations... with this gentleman… (but) at this point, (he has been) un-co-operative."

Lucas added that the town is collaborating with the RCMP on the issue and acknowledged the municipality had received multiple complaints in recent weeks.

"I don't believe this is reflective of the town of Vermilion," he said. "The town of Vermilion is a very progressive and welcoming community... this is a one-off.. we're dealing with it the best we can."

"It's hurtful to the community, but it also brings to the forefront how we're not immune to anything. Even though we're a small community, we're not immune to this type of behaviour."

A Global News crew knocked on the door of the home where the signs are posted but nobody came to the door.

When Lindsay was asked if she ever confronted the man who posts the signs about his messages, she said: "If this is what you're writing on your tree, my words are not going to penetrate you."

When reached for comment on the matter, the press secretary for Justice Minister Kaycee Madu told Global News that it is not for elected officials to determine whether the signs amount to criminal-level hate speech or to make "operational decisions" for police or Crown prosecutors. However, there is an expectation police and prosecutors will "uphold the law and prosecute it accordingly."

Irfan Chaudhry is a hate crimes researcher and the director of the office of human rights and equity at MacEwan University. He told Global News that while at first glance he believes this case meets the threshold for criminality when it comes to hate speech, these investigations can be quite complicated.

"Given some of the racist language that's definitely clearly present on the signs, I think that to me is as high of a threshold as you can have around hateful and derogatory slurs that are being put out to the public, even though they're on technically private property," he said.

"That's where I think, for me, it's a little bit of a head-scratcher in terms of where some of the hesitation might be."

READ MORE: Edmonton police chief condemns tiki torch carrying but says no evidence of hate crime at recent rally

However, Chaudhry noted that it's quite possible police are taking their time to ensure there is a robust case against the man, or that the fact the signs appear on private property could be problematic for law enforcement in terms of being able to respond.

"That's where we hope that our laws can have that flexibility to address these types of situations," he said.

"I think this is where collectively we need to be stronger and act on these reports because... it sends a broader message that it seems to be OK to have this type of hate placed on... (a) yard because nothing is being done about it."

Chaudhry said if there is a sticking point in terms of pursuing criminal charges, it may be the fact that the signs sit on private property.

"The threshold (for criminal hate speech) is really high in Canada," he said. "There's a number of conditions that have to be met."

He noted that in this case, the racism seems very overt and deliberate to him. It is also public and targets identifiable groups.

Chaudhry said that if criminal charges can't be laid there are a number of different avenues that could be pursued, including a possible civil suit if any of the signs are libellous or defamatory.

He added that this case may serve as a warning for the town that it might want to consider being proactive, "so that when this happens, we can address it appropriately and also not always be guided by the fear of being potentially sued around a freedom of speech or freedom of expression claim (under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms)."

Chaudhry noted that perhaps a bylaw could be drafted for such instances that would offer some sort of resolution.

"Maybe Vermilion might be a starting place for other municipalities across the province to consider similar actions," he said.

"I would be very surprised if after all of this it comes out that nothing can be done. Because that to me now is wilful ignorance of a key issue and not wanting to act on it."

Lucas said the town is looking at how this case relates to its nuisance and unsightly properties bylaw and that the town will review whether it needs to be updated in the future.

Lindsay said she hopes the situation will be resolved and that she would like to see the man be required to attend a workshop on racism, diversity and inclusion so he understands people of different ethnicities or with different skin colour are still people.

She said she hopes that by speaking out she will have helped other Black people in the community who may have been too afraid to do so.

"I know they must feel the same," Lindsay said. "I don't want to feel like that's the type of town I live in.

"This is affecting all racialized people, regardless of whether we're living in Vermilion or not... people outside of Vermilion are also witnessing this. That's a huge issue.

"I'm hoping at least this will shed light to let everyone know we have feelings. I want people to respect my feelings the same way I respect your feelings."

Campbell said she is saddened by the impact the racist signs may have on children in Vermilion. She said children old enough to read will be impacted by the message, and some children don't yet understand that racism and hatred exists in the world.

"Having to explain racism and discrimination to a child is not easy -- it's heartbreaking actually," she said.

"When you have racialized children, you need to prepare them for the world."

"My boys have never experienced this in their whole life," Lindsay said.

The RCMP told Global News on Friday that it has no updates to share about the case but that police continue to investigate.

--With files from Global News' Sarah Komadina

Mount Etna just erupted (again) plus other dangerous volcanoes

Incredible volcanoes around the world

Rachel Mills

3/13/2021

While watching huge ash clouds being sent up into the sky or peering right into the glowing crater rim of some of these active volcanoes is not possible now, many of the world's active volcanoes can usually be explored up close. If you are planning a trip to any of these rumbling wonders, remember to check travel advice and COVID-19 health information, opening times and guidelines. In the meantime, click through these images – including the latest fireworks from Mount Etna in Sicily – from the safety of home.

Mount Etna just erupted (again) plus other dangerous volcanoes

4/42 SLIDES © Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images

US House approves gun control bills expanding background checks

Washington — The House approved on two bills that would expand background checks on firearm sales, even though the legislation will likely stall in the Senate. These are the first significant gun control measures passed by the House since President Biden took office, after he promised to enact legislation strengthening background checks during the presidential campaign.

The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, H.R. 8, was approved with a vote of 227 to 203, with eight Republicans joining almost all Democrats in voting for the bill. Introduced by Democratic Congressman Mike Thompson, H.R. 8 would establish background check requirements for gun sales between private parties, prohibiting transfers unless a licensed gun dealer, manufacturer or importer first takes possession of the firearm to conduct a background check. The legislation would not apply to certain transfers, such as a gift between spouses. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy has introduced the companion bill in the Senate.

The legislation was nominally bipartisan, with three Republican cosponsors: Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan, Christopher Smith of New Jersey and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

The second legislation considered by the House on Thursday is the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021, H.R. 1446. The bill, introduced by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, would close the so-called "Charleston loophole," which allows some gun sales to go through before background checks are completed. Under that loophole, Dylann Roof was able to purchase a firearm in 2015 which he then used to murder nine people at a historically Black church in South Carolina.

The bill would increase the amount of time firearm sellers must wait to receive a completed background check before transferring a firearm to an unlicensed buyer from three days to 10 days. It passed by a vote of 219 to 210, with two Republicans voting for it and two Republicans voting against it.

Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to stall the vote on H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446 on Thursday with motions to recommit, which would have sent the bills back to the Judiciary Committee for further debate. Many House Republicans have expressed opposition to these bills, arguing they infringe upon Second Amendment rights.

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Even though the two bills passed the House, they face a steep uphill climb in the Senate, where Democrats have a slim 50-seat majority. Most legislation requires 60 votes to advance in the Senate, so Democrats would need support from 10 Republicans to overcome a legislative filibuster.

Despite the potential hurdles, Congressional Democratic leaders on Thursday touted the passage of the bills.

"If you are afraid to vote for gun violence prevention because of your political survival, understand this: The political survival of none of us is more important than the survival of our children," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a press conference on Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also indicated Thursday that he would bring gun control legislation to the Senate floor, even if it doesn't receive any Republican votes, to get senators on the record.

"H.R. 8 will be on the floor and we'll see where everybody stands," Schumer said during the press conference with Pelosi. "No more hopes and prayers."

The White House has said gun control legislation remains an important priority for the president. During a White House briefing last month, press secretary Jen Psaki said that Mr. Biden is "not afraid of standing up to the NRA — he's done it multiple times and won — on background checks and a range of issues."

"It is a priority to him on a personal level," Psaki said.

First published on March 11, 2021 / 10:14 AM

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Grace Segers

Grace

Here's how Biden’s coronavirus relief bill represents a major departure from Reaganomics

President Ronald Reagan and Sen. Joe Biden in the White House

in November 1987, White House Television Office

Alex Henderson

March 12, 2021

Having been passed by Democratic majorities in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — a massive $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill — is now on its way to President Joe Biden's desk to be signed into law. E.J. Dionne and Paul Waldman are among the Washington Post opinion columnists who have weighed in on the bill and what it means for Biden's economic agenda. Dionne and Waldman both view the bill as a departure from Reaganomics, and Waldman believes that it underscores Biden's immunity to Republican Culture War distractions.

Biden has long been a Democratic centrist who has both a liberal streak and a conservative streak, and during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren attacked him from the left while then-President Donald Trump was attacking him from the far right. But Biden, as president, has reached out to both progressives and centrists in his party — and Dionne sees the American Rescue Plan Act as a triumph for liberalism.

Dionne notes that the "25% across-the-board tax cut" that President Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1981 "inaugurated a new ideological era" of Reaganomics and conservative economic policy. Reagan famously said, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem." But with the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Dionne argues, Congress has moved away from Reaganomics after 40 years. According to Dionne, "Bidenism is replacing Reaganism."

"Passage of the Biden plan reflects the triumph of precisely the opposite view: that only active and competent government can get us out of the mess we're in now," Dionne writes. "The willingness of Democrats to speed through a program of this size reflects the final shrugging off of Reagan-era constraints that made even liberal politicians gun-shy about government activism."

Dionne continues, "The shift away from top-down supply-side economics could not be more dramatic. The Reagan theory, reduced to its essence, was: Help the rich, and their investments will produce jobs and prosperity for everyone else. The Biden theory is bottom-up: Help middle-class and low-income Americans, and their purchasing power will drive an unprecedented era of growth."

Earlier this week on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough — a former GOP congressman and outspoken Never Trump conservative — expressed similar thoughts on the American Rescue Act. Scarborough argued that while liberal New Deal economics and the philosophy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dominated the United States from 1933-1980, Reaganomics prevailed from 1981-2020. Scarborough recalled that in a 1981 column, conservative George Will famously said that Americans were "all FDR's children now" — and yet, it was in 1981 that Reaganomics triumphed over the New Deal. And Scarborough, like Dionne, believes that the American Rescue Act marks the beginning of a post-Reaganomics America.

During the 1980s, Dionne recalls, "Conservatives were unrelenting in ascribing the good times to Reagan's policies.

Biden's team and Democratic strategists know they must sell the rescue plan hard and make sure voters know all that the administration is doing to end the pandemic and get the economy moving."

In recent weeks, the far-right pundits at Fox News and Fox Business have had more to say about Culture War topics than the American Rescue Plan Act. Waldman, in his column, emphasizes that Biden has been immune to Republican Culture War fearmongering.

"Joe Biden is kryptonite to the Culture War," Waldman writes. "And without a single figure on whom Republicans can focus that resentment, the link between culture and policy is broken.".

While Fox News has been obsessing over nonsense, Waldman notes, Biden and his Democratic allies have been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and the state of the U.S. economy.

"On Fox News these days," Waldman writes, "among the most important issues facing America are the fate of a few obscure titles on the Dr. Seuss backlist and how prominently the 'Mr.' in 'Mr. Potato Head' will appear on the toy's packaging. Meanwhile, Biden is about to sign what may be the most progressive piece of major legislation to become law since Lyndon B. Johnson was president. The American Rescue Plan not only pours huge amounts of money on individuals and communities, it also utterly rejects the anti-government paradigm that has dominated Washington since Ronald Reagan's presidency — a paradigm that held the past two Democratic presidents in its grip."

The UK variant is likely deadlier, more infectious and becoming dominant. But the vaccines still work well against it

New research published this week in the British Medical Journal found the coronavirus variant originating in the United Kingdom, called B.1.1.7, is substantially more deadly than the original strain of SARS-CoV-2.

The authors say the B.1.1.7 variant is between 32 and 104% deadlier. However, it’s important to recognise these data were only collected from one group of people so more research is needed to see if these numbers hold true in other groups of patients.

The B.1.1.7 variant is becoming the dominant virus in many parts of the world, and is more infectious than the original strain (UK authorities have suggested it’s up to 70% more transmissible). This makes sense because a virus can become more transmissible as it evolves. However, it’s actually a strange thing for a virus to become more deadly over time (more on that later).

The good news is preliminary data suggest COVID vaccines still perform very well against this variant.

What did the study find?

There are two ways to check if someone has this variant. The first is by doing full genomic sequencing, which takes time and resources. The other, easier way, is to analyse results from the standard PCR test, which normally takes a swab from your nose and throat.

This test targets two viral genes in the swab sample, one of which doesn’t work very well with this variant (it’s called the “S-gene”). So if someone was positive for one of these genes, but negative for the “S-gene”, there’s a good chance they’re infected with the B.1.1.7 variant.

The study authors looked at the S-gene status of 109,812 people with COVID, and looked at how many died. They found S-gene negative people had a higher chance of dying 28 days after testing positive for the virus. The study “matched” patients in the S-gene positive and S-gene negative groups based on various factors (including age) to ensure these factors didn’t confound the results.

This matches a report from the UK government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), which said in January there’s a “realistic possibility” infection with this strain is linked with a higher chance of death.

With increased death from a variant, you would also expect to see increased hospitalisations and ICU admissions in places where the variant is surging. We’re still waiting for better data on this, but one Danish study suggested an increased risk of hospitalisation from this variant.

But why is it more deadly?

Viruses have a selective advantage (meaning they’re more likely to outcompete other viruses) if they’re able infect more hosts. It’s also advantageous for the virus if they can evade the host’s immune response, because it helps them survive longer and reproduce more.

But it’s actually quite strange for this variant to be more deadly. There’s not a selective advantage for a virus to kill its host, because it might kill its host before they transmit the virus.

Scientists still need to find out why this variant is more deadly, and how it came about.

One possibility is this variant’s increased disease severity is linked to its increased transmissibility. For example, it could be that because it’s more infectious, it’s leading to larger clusters of infection including in places like aged care homes, which we know are linked to more deaths. We don’t know for sure yet.

Vaccines still respond well to this variant

It’s important to note the current crop of vaccines still perform well against the variant.

A slight drop in the numbers of neutralising antibodies responding to the B.1.1.7 virus was recorded after vaccination with vaccines from Novavax and Moderna. But the protection these vaccines offer should still be sufficient to prevent severe disease. This variant also had a negligible impact on the function of T-cells, which can kill virus-infected cells and help control the infection.

Preliminary data suggest people given the AstraZeneca vaccine also experienced a mild decrease in the number of circulating antibodies when infected with the B.1.1.7 variant. But again, the effect was relatively modest, and the authors say the efficacy of the vaccine against this variant is similar to that of the original Wuhan strain of the virus.

It’s becoming dominant

The B.1.1.7 variant is becoming the dominant strain in many parts of the world. The ABC reports it’s dominant in at least 10 countries.

In the UK it represents around 98% of new cases, and up to 90% of new cases in some parts of Spain.

In Denmark, new cases from this variant were around 0.3% in November last year, rising to 65% of new cases in February. It accounts for more than two-thirds of new cases in the Netherlands.

In the United States, the states of Florida, Texas and California (among others) are seeing significant increases in the number of cases from this variant.

It’s possible the spread of this variant is even higher than reported. The ability to detect its spread is dependent on how often genomic sequencing is done, and many countries aren’t currently in the position to do regular genomic testing.

There’s a suggestion from some researchers and commentators the variant is linked with a surge in cases among kids. However, this observation remains largely anecdotal and it’s unclear if this simply reflects rising total case numbers in certain places