UPDATED
Virgin Galactic completes successful space flight

SPACE RACE 2.0 CAPITALISTS IN SPACE 


Virgin Galactic completed a successful space flight Saturday. Image via Virgin Galactic/Twitter

May 22 (UPI) -- Virgin Galactic completed its first successful space flight in more than two years Saturday.

"It was picture perfect," Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier told The Verge after the flight was completed. "We're gonna go through the data deeply and thoroughly as we always do." In a statement, Colglazier called the flight a "major step forward for both Virgin Galactic and human spaceflight in New Mexico," which had never hosted a crewed test mission to space until today.

The crewed VSS Unity spacecraft reached an altitude of more than 44,000 feet before gliding safely back to Earth.

Virgin's VMS Eve carrier launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico at about 10:35 a.m. EDT with Unity onboard, then launched Unity once it had switched to its own battery power and conducted flight control and electrical checks.

The United States considers pilots who have flown above 80 kilometers to be astronauts.

Saturday's trip is the latest step toward Virgin Galactic's goal of creating a space tourism program.

The company taken about 600 reservations for space flight tickets at a cost of $250,000 each

The flight marked the first spaceflight from New Mexico, which is now the third U.S. state to launch humans into space.

The flight also carried research payloads for NASA's Flight Opportunities program.

Virgin Galactic: Milestone Flight from New Mexico (Video)

 By Leonard David
 May 23rd, 2021

Credit: Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic completed on May 22 its third spaceflight and the first ever spaceflight from Spaceport America, New Mexico.

VSS Unity spaceship completed the first-ever human spaceflight from Spaceport America, New Mexico, with two pilots reaching apogee at 55.45 miles above ground. The flight is a meaningful step toward the opening of commercial space travel.

VSS Unity achieved a speed of Mach 3 after being released from the mothership, VMS Eve, and reached space before gliding  to a runway landing at Spaceport America.

On VSS Unity’s flight deck were CJ Sturckow and Dave Mackay, while Kelly Latimer and Michael Masucci piloted VMS Eve.

Credit: Virgin Galactic

Test objectives

According to a Virgin Galactic press statement, the flight fulfilled a number of test objectives, including:

• Carried revenue-generating scientific research experiments as part of NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program.
• Collected data to be used for the final two verification reports that are required as part of the current FAA commercial reusable spacecraft operator’s license.
• Tested the spaceship’s upgraded horizontal stabilizers and flight controls and validated Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) reductions.

Following the flight, Virgin Galactic will conduct a review of all test data gathered and thoroughly inspect the spaceship and mothership.  Once the team confirms the results, the company plans to proceed to the next flight test milestone.

Credit: Spaceport America

 

Important milestone

“Fifteen years ago, New Mexico embarked on a journey to create the world’s first commercial spaceport,’’ said Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic founder. ‘’Today, we launched the first human spaceflight from that very same place, marking an important milestone for both Virgin Galactic and New Mexico.”

To celebrate the first human spaceflight from New Mexico, the Zia Sun Symbol of New Mexico’s state flag was placed prominently on the exterior of the Spaceship.  In addition, we flew green chile seeds, which are synonymous with the state’s rich agricultural and culinary history.

To view a Virgin Galactic video spotlighting the flight, go to:

https://youtu.be/1TVs2lWk_GI

UPDATED

Mount Nyiragongo, One of the World’s Most Active and Dangerous Volcanoes, Blows in a Surprise Eruption


Jody Serra

Lava from the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo is seen in Buhene, on the outskirts of Goma, Congo in the early hours of Sunday, May 23, 2021.Photo: Justin Kabumba (AP)

On Saturday, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Mount Nyiragongo volcano suddenly erupted, forcing thousands to flee to neighboring Rwanda to seek shelter. By Sunday, reports stated that the speed of Nyiragongo’s lava had slowed and that the nearby city of Goma, home to more than one million people, had been spared.

The eruption—which was caused when fractures opened in the volcano’s side and resulted in lava flowing in several directions—took residents, experts, and officials by surprise. According to Reuters, this was in part due to problems at the Goma Volcano Observatory, the scientific entity that monitors Nyiragongo, a volcano near the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Rwanda. Volcanologists have struggled to carry out basic checks on the volcano since the World Bank cut off its funding in light of embezzlement allegations.

Observatory officials had not done comprehensive seismic checks on the volcano since October of last year because they didn’t have an internet connection. They managed to reestablish their internet in April when they received funding from a U.S. partner. Officials said that by then, too much time had been lost, however.

“As soon as the internet was restored, we had started recording the warning signals, but since we did not have previous data, we thought it was the start of volcanic activity,” Celestin Kasereka Mahinda, the observatory’s scientific director, said. “Hence this surprise.”



This general view taken on May 22, 2021 in Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo shows flame spewing from the Nyiragongo volcano.

Photo: Moses Sawasawa / AFP (Getty Images)

Although it was a surprise to observatory officials, volcano watchers and experts had been sounding the alarm in recent months about a possible Nyiragongo eruption based on increased volcanic activity and other indicators.

Nyiragongo is one of the world’s most active and dangerous volcanoes and has erupted seven times in the last hundred years. Volcano expert Robin George Andrews noted that one of the reasons Nyiragongo is dangerous is that its lava is very fluid and fast, so fast that it can catch up to speeding cars. Volcanoes in this region also “belch out” a lot of carbon dioxide, he said, which sinks downslope and kills anyone engulfed by it.

News of the volcano’s eruption sparked panic in the surrounding area, which is still haunted by the volcano’s 2002 eruption that killed 250 people and left 120,000 homeless. Although the country’s government said that an evacuation plan had been activated, the official announcement came hours after the sky turned a fiery red on Saturday, the Associated Press reported, after many had already taken it upon themselves to flee.

An army spokesperson told Reuters on Sunday that 13 people had been killed while they were fleeing from the disaster. Of those that died, nine had been involved in a traffic accident and four had tried to escape from a prison in Goma.

Residents check the damages caused by lava from the overnight eruption of Mount Nyiragongo, seen in the background, in Buhene, on the outskirts of Goma, Congo in the early hours of Sunday, May 23, 2021.Photo: Justin Kabumba (AP)

Nonetheless, the number of deaths is expected to increase considerably based on initial eyewitness reports.

Nyiragongo’s lava destroyed hundreds of houses in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. CNN stated that five schools had been decimated, while Reuters reported that cooled lava in some areas had turned to rubble. At some sites, it was three stories high, consuming large buildings and sending smoke into the sky.

On Sunday, people were beginning to return to their homes to assess what, if any, damage Nyiragongo had wreaked. After that, the monthslong restoration effort will begin.

Volcano erupts in Democratic Republic of Congo

By Christen McCurdy

Congolese residents of Goma gather at Rond Point Cercle to flee from erupting Mount Nyamulagira and Mount Nyiragongo part of the Virunga National Park in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo Saturday. Photo by Kinsella Cunningham/EPA-EFE

May 22 (UPI) -- Mount Nyiragongo, the volcano in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, erupted Saturday evening, prompting evacuations as the lava changed direction.

Residents of the nearby city of Goma were asked to evacuate late Saturday as the government began discussing emergency measures, according to a Twitter post from DRC government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya.

The volcano is one of the largest in the world. Its last large eruption of the volcano took place in 2002 and killed 250 people, CNN reported.

The volcano began erupting at around 7 p.m. local time.

By early Sunday morning the eruption appeared to have subsided, but the evacuation plan was still in effect as vulcanologists monitored the situation.

Initially the government chose not to order evacuations and urged calm as the scale of the eruption was not clear, but officials said the situation was unpredictable.

Tom Peyre-Costa, Norwegian Refugee Council spokesman for West and Central Africa, told CNN the lava was not flowing toward the city, but that if it changed direction, residents would have to evacuate to Rwanda.

Power was later cut off in the area as hundreds of residents began to evacuate toward the nearby border with Rwanda, The Guardian reported.

Mount Nyiragongo: DR Congo residents flee as volcano erupts

Lava destroys houses after DR Congo volcano erupts

Thousands of people have fled their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo after a large volcano erupted.

Fountains of high lava burst from Mount Nyiragongo into the night sky forming a thick red cloud over the town of Goma, which has a population of two million.

The lava flow reached the city's airport but has reportedly now stopped.

The volcano, located 10km (six miles) from Goma, last erupted in 2002 killing 250 people and making 120,000 homeless.

During the early hours of Sunday, many residents headed across the nearby Rwandan border, while others went to higher grounds to the west of the city.

Crowds were seen with mattresses and other belongings, fleeing even before the government's announcement, which came several hours after the eruption started

Rwandan authorities said about 3,000 people had officially crossed from Goma. The country's state media said they would be accommodated in schools and places of worship.

One Goma resident, Richard Bahati, said he was in his house when he heard screaming. "I got out and saw the sky was red. I am so worried, so worried. I lived through the problem with this volcano in 2002. The volcano devastated all our homes and possessions. That's why I'm scared again this time."

"Everyone is afraid, people are running away. We really don't know what to do," local man Zacharie Paluku told the Associated Press news agency.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTEPA

IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES

IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES


Electricity was out across large areas, and one highway that connects Goma with the city of Beni was engulfed by the lava. There were also reports of earthquakes.

"There is a smell of sulphur. In the distance you can see giant flames coming out of the mountain," resident Carine Mbala told AFP news agency.

An official from Virunga National Park, where the volcano is located, said in a note to staff that the eruption was similar to the one in 2002 and that everyone near the airport should "evacuate without delay".

People have been advised to stay calm, but some complained about the lack of information from the authorities amid conflicting accounts circulating on social media.

Communications Minister Patrick Muyay said on Twitter that the government was discussing "urgent measures" after the prime minister convened an emergency meeting in the capital, Kinshasa.

In a later update, Mr Muyay said the intensity of the lava flow had slowed and an assessment of the humanitarian situation was ongoing.

The UN peacekeeping mission in the country, Monusco, said it was carrying out reconnaissance flights over the city.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

View original tweet on Twitter


Mount Nyiragongo is one of the world's more active volcanoes but there were concerns that its activity had not been properly observed by the Goma Volcano Observatory, since the World Bank cut funding amid allegations of corruption.

In a report on 10 May, the observatory warned that seismic activity at Nyiragongo had increased.

Last year, the observatory's director, Katcho Karume, told the BBC World Service's Science in Action that the volcano's lava lake had been filling up quickly, increasing the chances of an eruption in the next few years. But he also warned that an earthquake could trigger a disaster earlier.

The volcano's deadliest eruption happened in 1977, when more than 600 people died.

Congo volcano forces mass evacuations

Duration: 01:26 

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Mount Nyiragongo volcano has erupted, forcing thousands to evacuate. Experts say it’s unlikely the eruption will hit the city itself as it flows east, away from Goma. Power was cut in the city, leaving its 2 million residents reeling.

In pictures: DR Congo's Mount Nyiragongo erupts

EXCERPTS

UPDATED

Global aviation stunned by Belarus jetliner diversion

By Tim Hepher

A Ryanair aircraft, which was diverted to Belarus, 

lands at Vilnius Airport in Vilnius

PARIS (Reuters) – The United Nations’ aviation agency said it was “strongly concerned” by the apparent forced landing of a Ryanair jetliner in Belarus, as global airlines called for an investigation into Sunday’s rare incident.

Aviation leaders reacted with shock after Belarus scrambled a fighter and flagged what turned out to be a false bomb alert to force a Ryanair jet to land, before detaining an opposition-minded journalist who had been on board.

The UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said the incident may have contravened a core aviation treaty, part of the international order created after World War Two.

“ICAO is strongly concerned by the apparent forced landing of a Ryanair flight and its passengers, which could be in contravention of the Chicago Convention,” it said.

“We look forward to more information being officially confirmed by the countries and operators concerned.”

Airlines joined a flurry of government protests.

“We strongly condemn any interference or requirement for landing of civil aviation operations that is inconsistent with the rules of international law,” said the International Air Transport Association.

“A full investigation by competent international authorities is needed.”

Aviation experts said the rare incident could fuel debate over the resilience of a decades-old system of cooperation.

ICAO has no regulatory power, but sits at the centre of a system of safety and security standards that keep most airways open across political barriers. These are managed through the Montreal agency by its 193 member states, including Belarus.

KEY CORRIDOR

“It looks like a gross abuse of the (Chicago) Convention. It’s piracy,” Kevin Humphreys, a former Irish aviation regulator, told Reuters.

He added he would “not be surprised” if some airlines skirted Belarus airspace while they awaited more details, but stressed each would make its own threat assessment.

“People in the industry will be worried,” he added.

Belarus is an important corridor between Europe and Moscow or southeast Asia and Europe, according to Flightradar 24.

Lawyers say Sunday’s flight was emblematic of a tangle of jurisdictions that share a delicate co-existence in aviation – involving a Polish-registered jet flown by an Irish group between EU nations Greece and Lithuania, over non-EU Belarus.

Under the 1944 Chicago Convention, each country has sovereignty over its own airspace, though the treaty prohibits any use of civil aviation that may endanger safety.

But the right to overfly other countries is enshrined in a side treaty called the International Air Services Transit Agreement, of which Belarus is not listed as a member. Non-treaty members grant overflights according to varying rules.

A separate 1971 treaty that includes Belarus outlaws the seizure of aircraft or knowingly communicating false information in a way that endangers aircraft safety.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it was “monitoring the situation from the safety perspective.”

It is not the first time an abrupt diversion has fuelled diplomatic tensions, but the first in memory that a commercial flight governed by civil treaties is involved, Humphreys said.

In 2013, Bolivia said President Evo Morales’ plane had been diverted on a flight from Russia and forced to land in Austria over suspicions – later denied – that former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, wanted by Washington for divulging secret details of U.S. surveillance activities, was on board.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Additional reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Alexander Smith, Timothy Heritage and Diane Craft)

VIDEO

 BELARUS’ ONGOING PROTESTS: EXAMINED (MSN.COM)

Duration: 07:06

Belarus forced a Ryanair flight carrying an opposition activist to divert to Minsk on Sunday, provoking an outcry from European leaders who called it "hijacking" and an "act of state terrorism".

A young woman stands with a poster reading 'I am, we are Roman Protasevich' and the Belarus flag as passengers disembark from a Ryanair passenger plane from Athens, Greece, that was intercepted and diverted to Minsk on the same day by Belarus authorities, after it landed at Vilnius International Airport, its initial destination, on May 23, 2021. AFP

Belarusian state TV reported that Roman Protasevich, 26, an opposition blogger exiled in Poland, had been detained in the capital after flight FR4978 was diverted from its Athens-Vilnius route, ostensibly over a security scare.

After landing in Vilnius several hours after the scheduled time, without Mr Protasevich, some passengers described seeing him looking nervous as the flight was diverted to Belarus.

Police in Belarus capital arrest more than 100 protesters

"He just turned to people and said he was facing the death penalty," Lithuanian Monika Simkiene, 40, told AFP.

Edvinas Dimsa, 37, said: "He was not screaming but it was clear that he was very much afraid. It looked like if the window had been open, he would have jumped out of it."


The EU is set to discuss toughening its sanctions against Belarus, which were imposed over the crackdown on opposition protesters by the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, at a planned summit on Monday.

"The outrageous and illegal behaviour of the regime in Belarus will have consequences," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted.

"Those responsible for the Ryanair hijacking must be sanctioned. Journalist Roman Protasevich must be released immediately."

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki denounced Belarus's actions as "an act of state terrorism", while French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called for a "strong and united response" from the EU.

Lithuania and Latvia have called for international flights not to use Belarusian airspace.

Minsk's airport earlier said the plane had to make an emergency landing there at 12.15 GMT after a bomb scare.

"The plane was checked, no bomb was found and all passengers were sent for another security search," said Nexta, a Belarus opposition channel on the Telegram messaging app, which Mr Protasevich previously edited.

Mr Lukashenko's press service said on its own Telegram channel that the president had given the order to divert the flight and had ordered a Mig-29 fighter jet to accompany the plane.

Belarus authorities have intensified their crackdown on the opposition after protests gripped the former Soviet country following last year's disputed presidential election.

"The forced landing of a commercial plane to detain a journalist is an unprecedented, shocking act," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted from Athens, where the flight began.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda described Belarus's actions as "abhorrent" and Lithuanian prosecutors said they had opened a criminal investigation for the hijacking of a plane.

The government in Ireland, home of Ryanair, called the incident "absolutely unacceptable", while Nato called it "dangerous" and demanded an international investigation.

Since last August's disputed election, Belarusians have taken to the streets demanding the resignation of Mr Lukashenko, who has ruled for more than two decades.

Mr Protasevich and Nexta founder Stepan Putilo, 22, were last year added to Belarus's list of "individuals involved in terrorist activity".

The two bloggers, both based in Poland, were added to the list over charges of causing mass unrest, an offence punishable by up to 15 years in jail.

Belarus had also called the Nexta Telegram channels and its logo "extremist" and ordered them blocked.

With close to two million subscribers on Telegram, Nexta Live and its sister channel Nexta are prominent voices of the Belarus opposition and helped to organise protesters.

"It is absolutely obvious that this is an operation of secret services to capture the plane in order to detain activist and blogger Roman Protasevich," exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said on Telegram.

The opposition says Ms Tikhanovskaya, who fled to neighbouring Lithuania after the election, was the true winner of last year's presidential vote.

A member of the Nexta team, Tadeusz Giczan, said on Twitter that representatives of the Belarusian security agency had been on the flight with Mr Protasevich.

"Then when the plane had entered Belarus airspace, the KGB officers initiated a fight with the Ryanair crew insisting there's an [improvised explosive device] onboard," he said.

A spokeswoman for state company Lithuanian Airports, Lina Beisine, said that Minsk airport reported the flight was redirected "due to a conflict between a member of the crew and the passengers".

Ryanair said the flight's crew had been notified by Belarus air traffic control of "a potential security threat on board" and were instructed to divert to Minsk, the "nearest" airport.

The EU and the US have imposed sanctions on Mr Lukashenko and dozens of officials and businessmen tied to his regime, with asset freezes and visa bans.

The opposition protests in Belarus, in which at least four people were killed, have subsided, but journalists and activists continue to be jailed.

More on Belarus

Eurovision 2021: Belarus banned from contest due to song's 'political' lyrics

US, UK and Canada to impose sanctions on Belarusians on Friday


Updated: May 24, 2021 02:12 AM

UK BLM activist Sasha Johnson shot in London
The 27-year-old BLM activist is in critical condition

Tiffany Stewart

THE GRIO
May 23, 2021

Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is reportedly in critical condition after she was shot in the head.

According to The Guardian, Johnson’s affiliated group, Taking the Initiative party, announced the news on social media on Sunday. On the group’s official Facebook page, the party explained that the incident happened early in morning.

The statement said: “It is with great sadness that we inform you that our own Sasha Johnson has sustained a gunshot wound to her head. She is currently hospitalised and in critical condition. The incident happened in the early hours of this morning, following numerous death threats.”

“Sasha has always been actively fighting for black people and the injustices that surround the black community, as well as being both a member of BLM and a member of Taking the Initiative Party’s Executive Leadership Committee. Sasha is also a mother of 3 and a strong, powerful voice for our people and our community.”

It is with great sadness that we inform you that our own Sasha Johnson has sustained a gunshot wound to her head. She is currently hospitalised and in a critical condition. The incident happened in the early hours of this morning, following numerous death threats.

Sasha has always been actively fighting for black people and the injustices that surround the black community, as well as being both a member of BLM and a member of Taking the Initiative Party’s Executive Leadership Committee. Sasha is also a mother of 3 and a strong, powerful voice for our people and our community.

Let’s all come together and pray for Sasha, pray for her recovery and show our support to her family and loved ones.

According to their website, the Taking the Initiative Party was established by a group of British people, “some from working-class backgrounds who felt, like many others across the country, that we had become politically homeless

They aim to create change in communities across the U.K. and by doing this, they will put forward “exceptional candidates who truly represent their communities” and “look like the society it leads.” Their mission statement goes on to say that they “see a Government that is in the pocket of Big Business and looking after its own interests.” They said that their views have put somewhat of a target on their backs.

The incident that took place on Sunday came after “multiple death threats” towards Johnson and the party. Composed as a group of Oxford Brookes University graduates, the party is described as “a strong, powerful voice” in the Black equal rights movement.

The party describes Johnson as an efficient and passionate activist who has a hunger for change. According to the Guardian, she rose to prominence after last year’s BLM protests, helping to organize demonstrations and address crowds.

Sasha Johnson has been named as the victim of a shooting in London. Picture: PA/ LBC

Claudia Webbe, the Labour MP for Leicester East, took to Twitter to express her feelings after learning the shocking news. She wrote: “Shocking to hear of the gunshot to the head of Sasha Johnson; All women should be safe on our streets. Wishing her a full recovery. Sending love and solidarity to her family, friends and loved ones. There are still too many guns and violent weapons damaging too many lives #BLM.”


According to reports made by the Metropolitan police, the 27-year-old woman was shot during a house party shortly before 3 a.m. However, the police have no reason to think it was a targeted attack at this stage in the investigation.

Read More: ‘BLM’ apparel banned at the Tokyo Olympics

Detective chief inspector Jimi Tele said: “This was a shocking incident that has left a young woman with very serious injuries. Our thoughts are with her family who are being provided with support at this terribly difficult time.”

“Finally, I recognise that this incident will have shocked those in the local community and further afield. I would ask people to avoid speculating as to the motive or the circumstances behind it,” Tele continued.

Although Tele told the press that detectives are making “good progress,” no arrests have been made so far.

'Pray for Sasha Johnson': UK Black Lives Matter campaigner in critical condition after being shot in head

Metropolitan Police said a woman, 27, was shot shortly before 3am in Southwark, London

File photo: Sasha Johnson, centre, of the Black Lives Matter movement attends a protest at Hyde Park in London. AP

Prominent Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is being treated in intensive care after being shot in the head early on Sunday morning, her political party said.

The Taking the Initiatives Party said she was in a critical condition.

Metropolitan Police have not confirmed her identity but said a woman, 27, was shot shortly before 3am at a gathering in Southwark, London.

Officers said the woman was taken to a south London hospital with life-threatening injuries. They have appealed for witnesses and said her family had been informed.

On Instagram, the party said Ms Johnson is a mother of two and a "powerful voice", who had always fought for black people and the injustices that surround the community.


"Let's all come together and pray for Sasha, pray for her recovery and show our support to her family and loved ones," it said.

Police said at this stage there was no evidence to suggest it was a targeted shooting or that she had received any credible threats against her prior to the incident.

Detectives from the Met's Specialist Crime Command have been conducting inquiries at the scene in Consort Road and the surrounding area, and are pursuing several lines.

It is believed that the shooting occurred near a house where a party was taking place and that several people may have been in the area, the Met said.

"This was a shocking incident that has left a young woman with very serious injuries," Det Chief Insp Jimi Tele said.

"Our thoughts are with her family who are being provided with support at this terribly difficult time."

Mr Tele said detectives were making progress but needed the public's help.

"If you saw anything suspicious in the Consort Road area in the early hours of Sunday morning or if you have heard information since that could help detectives, it is crucial that you get in touch."

Ms Johnson, a graduate of Oxford Brookes University, has been a leading figure in the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK, and is a member of the Taking the Initiative Party's leadership committee.

Updated: May 24, 2021 05:06 AM

UK CAPITALIST

Calls for Covid windfall tax as billionaires enjoy bumper year during pandemic

Phones 4u founder John Caudwell said Rishi Sunak should levy a 90 per cent tax on excess profits made during lockdownA prominent billionaire has called on Rishi Sunak to levy a Covid windfall tax Tolga Akmen/Pool via REUTERS

By Sam Clark
May 23, 2021 

Business and economics figures have called for the super-rich to be subject to a Covid-19 windfall tax as Britain’s billionaires experienced a record money-making year.

The Sunday Times Rich List revealed that the UK’s super-rich had a bumper year, with the combined wealth of the country’s top 250 wealthiest people growing by 21.7 per cent to £597.3 billion in the last year.

That equates to an average wealth growth of more than £1 million per day for each person on the 250-strong list, which was topped this year by investor Sir Leonard Blavatnik.

The boosted figures come at a time when millions of people have been furloughed and hundreds of thousands have lost jobs, triggering calls for a special tax on the super-rich.

Billionaire mobile phones mogul John Caudwell told The Sunday Times that chancellor Rishi Sunak should levy a one-off tax on those people who have benefited from the pandemic.

“If I were Rishi Sunak, I would say to those who have profited massively: ‘We want a major contribution from you for this year, a tax on the excess profits you made because of lockdowns.’

“They won’t have to worry about tax overall in the UK because the windfall tax would only apply to excess profits for the past year. It wouldn’t damage their share price. What it would do is raise hundreds of billions of extra tax, to help to fix the short-term crisis from which these companies have hugely benefited,” Mr Caudwell said.

Mr Caudwell suggested a one-off 90 per cent tax, saying such a measure would leave affected businesses “as well off as they would have been without the lockdowns”.

E-commerce businesses have benefitted from the lockdowns because high-street competitors were unable to bring in cash. The owners of online retailers like Boohoo, The Hut Group, Asos and Farfetch did particularly well in this year’s Rich List.

Mr Caudwell was joined in calls for a change to the tax system by George Dibb, head of thinktank the IPPR Centre for Economic Justice, who said: “This year’s Sunday Times Rich List shows the rich got richer just as millions of people were struggling to make ends meet. This only bolsters our view that the UK tax system simply isn’t fair.”

According to a Sunday Times analysis, a one-off tax of 5 per cent on all wealth over £1 billion would raise £19 billion for UK government coffers.

Experts or 'grifters'? Little-known firm runs Arizona audit

In early March, a Boston-based vote-counting firm called Clear Ballot Group sent a bid to Arizona's state Senate to audit the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The firm has conducted more than 200 such audits over 13 years in business. “Our level of comparison data is unmatched,” Keir Holeman, a Clear Ballot Group vice president, wrote to the Republican-controlled Senate. He never heard back, he says.


Instead, the state Senate hired a small Florida-based cybersecurity firm known as Cyber Ninjas that had not placed a formal bid for the contract and had no experience with election audits. Senate President Karen Fann says she can't recall how she found the firm, but her critics believe one credential stood out: Cyber Ninjas' chief executive officer had tweeted support for conspiracy theories claiming Republican Donald Trump, and not Democrat Joe Biden, had won Maricopa County and Arizona.

Now the untested, little-known cybersecurity firm is running a partly taxpayer-funded process that election experts describe as so deeply flawed it veers into the surreal. Its chief aim, critics say, appears to be testing far-fetched theories, rather than simply recounting votes — an approach that directly undermines the country's democratic traditions.

“If I give you 20 M&Ms, and you want 30, you can keep counting it, but you did not get 30 M&Ms,” said David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a former Department of Justice voting rights attorney and elections expert. “This is not an effort to find the truth."

Experienced vote counters have watched the process in shock. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said this week Maricopa County will need to replace all of its election machines because their security has been permanently compromised by the auditors. Experts note the review isn’t following standard recounting procedures and, unlike with other election audits in Arizona, members of each major political party are not at each table observing the counting.

The auditors are checking for bamboo fibers to test a theory that tens of thousands of fake ballots were shipped from Asia. A onetime treasure hunter who claims to have invented a new method to automatically spot ballot fraud says his technology is being used in the review.

It's become too much for some Republicans. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, all but one of whom are Republicans, this week accused Republicans in the Senate of having “rented out the once-good name of the Arizona Senate” to “grifters.”

“Your ‘auditors’ are in way over their heads,” the board wrote in a letter.

Cyber Ninjas' defenders say they're creating a template for a re-examination of the election in every battleground state Biden won. Trump allies have already called for similar operations in Georgia. And criticisms about the firm's lack of election experience are hollow, its advocates argue, because the Arizona audit is unprecedented.

“This is an audit like none that has ever been performed,” said Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive officer of Overstock.com who has been raising money for the audit. “This audit is an audit check for all forms of mischief.”

The man running the operation, Cyber Ninjas chief executive officer Doug Logan, declined through his spokesman to be interviewed. He has only answered questions from reporters in public once, during a contentious press conference last month.

“There's a lot of Americans here, myself included, that are really bothered at the way our country's being ripped apart right now,” Logan said. “If we go through here and we don't find any fraud, I will be ecstatic.”

Maricopa County has already conducted two audits, which found no problems with the count in the state's most populous county. At the urging of Trump supporters, the Senate insisted on a third and subpoenaed more than 2 million ballots from the county.

When the Senate leader went looking for an elections firm to do the work, she did not put together a formal request for proposal, as is typical for government contracts. Fann said she and her staff reached out to several firms and got two bids back — the one from Clear Ballot Group for $450,000 and the other from a cybersecurity group called Intersec Worldwide. Fann said she preferred the Intersec proposal, but balked at an $8 million price tag.

In an interview, she said she could not recall who had referred her to Cyber Ninjas. “To be honest with you I can’t even tell you exactly what path led me there,” Fann said.

But Fann had tapped into a loose network of computer security experts who had become active in pro-Trump election conspiracy theories. In a self-published book written this year, Byrne dubbed the group “cyber ninjas” — a term used by so-called “white hat” hackers who defend against online intrusions. Byrne told AP that, in December, he and Logan “crossed paths in a few places.” But Byrne said he wasn't involved in the audit bid and does not know Logan well.

Logan, 42, in December had tweeted and retweeted references to the conspiracy theory that voting machines were hacked to switch votes from Trump. “The parallels between the statistical analysis of Venezuela and this year’s election are astonishing,” Logan tweeted, with a #StoptheSteal hashtag that referenced the pro-Trump movement seeking to overturn the election.

Logan also served as an expert witness in a pro-Trump lawsuit raising conspiracy theories about the election in Antrim County, Michigan. Another cybersecurity professional who filed an expert witness affidavit in that case, Ben Cotton, was a partner on the Intersec proposal. Cotton's own firm, CyFIR, which did not respond to a request for comment, is now a subcontractor on the Arizona audit.

The Senate agreed to pay Cyber Ninjas $150,000 in state money, but it is not clear how much more the audit will cost and who is paying for it. The pro-Trump One America News Network raised $150,000 in a single day in April and has continued to ask for donations. Byrne has also started a fundraising drive with a group that says it has raised $1.7 million with a goal of $2.8 million. Neither will have to disclose donors or account for how the money is spent, and Logan has declined to detail financial information.

Byrne's organization is also involved in recruiting volunteers. The audit's liaison with the Senate sent an email to local Republicans last week asking for more volunteers and referring them to the website of Byrne's organization's to apply. Byrne said his group simply refers volunteers to Cyber Ninjas for “vetting.” The email was first reported by The Arizona Republic.

Logan started Cyber Ninjas in 2013 in Indiana after working for two years for a cybersecurity firm called Cigital, according to his LinkedIn profile and Cyber Ninja press releases. He moved his firm from Indiana to Sarasota in 2014, according to the Cyber Ninjas website, which quotes Logan describing the firm as a “Christian company.” Last year, when Cyber Ninjas received $98,000 in federal COVID relief money, it claimed five employees.

At a public presentation last week, Logan cited as part of his qualifications that his firm “worked with some of the largest names in the financial services space.” Two of the companies he lists as former clients in his expert witness statement, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase, said through spokespeople that they have no record of hiring Cyber Ninjas.

Logan's scant public record before the audit was a history of volunteering for the U.S. Cyber Challenge, a training event for internet security amateurs and professionals. In 2015, Logan received an award from the security firm SANS for his volunteerism with the event,

John Pescatore, the SANS employee who oversees the award program, said Logan was cited mainly for designing an online “capture the flag” game where players try to hack into an opponent's base. “It takes a lot of work,” said Pescatore of Logan's volunteering. He added he doesn't know Logan but Cyber Ninjas has a good reputation for testing companies' systems for vulnerabilities, its market niche.

A spokesman for the U.S. Cyber Challenge did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Logan is not the only person associated with the effort to overturn the 2020 election who is working on the audit. Jovan Pulitzer, an inventor who unsuccessfully pushed for a post-election audit in Georgia, has said his technology is being used to detect altered ballots.

Pulitzer is also a former treasure hunter and author of a series of books on lost treasures, including one titled “How to Cut Off Your Arm and Eat Your Dog.” In 2000, he developed a barcode scanner called Cuecat that purported to link print magazine ads to the internet. It was later named one of the 50 worst inventions of all time by Time magazine.

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Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press

W. Kamau Bell: Few things say 'the US economy is broken' more than this

Opinion by W. Kamau Bell CNN

As many of us excitedly toss off our masks, freshly vaccinated (or freshly faking being vaccinated), and in a hurry to get back to "normal," there is something decidedly "not normal" going on. We're in an era of historic job loss, and yet there are jobs available. Except it looks like no one wants them.

© Spencer Platt/Getty Images People walk through the streets of Manhattan on March 01, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

These are the kind of jobs that usually aren't hard to fill ... or at least the kind of jobs that people have no other choice but to take. I'm talking about fast-food gigs, and the entry-level positions that traditionally can fill quickly with just a "Help Wanted" sign. But right now, so few people seem interested in these types of roles that IHOP hosted a "National Recruiting Day" in many locations, and Taco Bell made it easier for applicants to interview from their car. A McDonald's in Florida is said to have even offered people $50 -- not as a "hiring bonus," but just to show up for the interview.

The problem, as we talk about on tonight's episode of "United Shades of America," has to do with wealth inequality, which the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief. (Remember the pandemic? I hope you do, since it's still happening.)

Over the past year, "The Haves" have worked "The Have-Nots" overtime, just so "The Haves" could have even more while the "Have-Nots" are fighting for a better minimum wage. And this isn't just some college dropout comedian saying this. At his first address to Congress, President Joe Biden sounded like he'd just finished watching a Sen. Bernie Sanders speech: "Twenty million Americans lost their jobs in the pandemic -- working and middle class Americans," he said in April. "At the same time, roughly 650 billionaires in America saw their net worth increase by more than $1 trillion ... and they're now worth more than $4 trillion."

Few things say "The United States economy is broken" more than the idea that while we're in a global pandemic -- with nearly 600,000 Americans dead, almost 10 million jobs lost, and the population of unhoused people higher for the fourth year in a row -- there's at least one billionaire somewhere going, "2020 was a great year!"

And they may not be billionaires, but people who invest in the stock market are certainly another group who made money during the pandemic. At the end of 2020, the stock market hit record highs -- and keep in mind that more than 80% of the stocks in this country are owned by the richest 10%. (Now I sound like Bernie Sanders.)

So all of those publicly traded companies having a hard time finding employees? All they need to do is take some of that "record high" profit and, instead of giving it to stockholders, offer their applicants more -- an extra dollar, or two, or three, or whatever it takes -- onto their starting wage. Maybe the "dollar menu" becomes the "two dollar" menu. Pay those workers more and offer those workers better benefits and worker protections (or just let them unionize), and voila! We can get back to "Would you like fries with that? What size? Large or jumbo?"

To be clear, this isn't just about the currently unemployed. Increasingly, there are people who work for these companies that don't want these positions, either. Around the country, people are walking off the job to protest low wages and working conditions, and on their way out the door some are posting new signs. But instead of "help wanted" these signs basically read, "these jobs are not wanted."

To talk about this issue, "United Shades" traveled to South Carolina. Sen. Lindsey Graham's state is one of the poorest in the country, but it also has oceanfront properties, scenic views and historic mansions that are being gobbled up by the rich and the even richer. And all that property gobbling is happening in a state that puts more pressure on the poorest people who were already feeling the pressure.

Before the pandemic, economic advocacy group Prosperity Now estimated that 40% of Americans were a missed paycheck or unexpected bill away from being out on the streets. And now that we're in the pandemic, folks are missing all the paychecks. How do we call the US a civilized society when the people at the top of the economy are doing better and better, while the people at the bottom are doing worse? On top of that, we live in a culture that frames it as their fault, when all the evidence shows it's the system that's failing. And the people at the top could make it a wee bit better for the people at the bottom. All they would need to do is to do the same thing rich people from previous generations did: not be so historically greedy, and pay a fair share of their taxes.

In the episode, I took a Zoom class with Professor Richard Wolff, a Marxian economist who shared how the leaders of the country thought about wealth back in the day. "In both World Wars I and II, the United States' President and Congress passed what was called an excess profits tax. And here's what it said: If, during a war, when we're asking young men and women to risk their lives, their health, their bodies to fight for this country, it is unconscionable that others who are not risking make money off this war."

And then, like a good teacher (or even a good TV host) Professor Wolff tied history into the present moment. "Here we are in a war; it's not a war with a military adversary, it's a war with a disease. And by the way, it has already killed more people than some of the wars this country has been involved in. And we haven't done anything, we haven't even seen a proposal to say the people who made money during the pandemic, that money has to go to help the society."

Before you think I skewed the findings of this episode by talking to an admitted expert in Marxism, I also talked to Stephen Prince, an admitted wealthy person. How wealthy? He wouldn't tell me, but he did let it slip that he owns a plane. So, he's doing all right. Stephen is a part of a group called Patriotic Millionaires. They believe that rich people should pay a higher tax rate. And he doesn't just think that the higher tax rate should stop with rich people. He told me, "Ninety-one of the top 500 companies in America [in 2018] paid zero in income taxes. Zero. But that's not right. We can't rebuild the highway system. We can't house the homeless. We can't do those things if large corporations aren't paying any taxes." And the reason why those corporations are able to pay so little of an already low corporate tax rate (lowered to 21% under President Trump) is because of the loopholes.

Hearing about how all these super wealthy people are working so hard to keep so much really made me question the nature of American capitalism. Other countries have rich people, but they also have free healthcare and free or inexpensive higher education. They have a social safety net that keeps people from falling off the economic cliff. They have things like state-sponsored childcare and parental leave. And let me be clear, I'm not talking about the super wealthy people of one particular party. All the billionaires are complicit here, from the right-wing ones to the left-wing ones to the ones who get to host "Saturday Night Live" for no good reason.

One person who I talked to about this is Germaine Jenkins. Germaine runs Fresh Future Farm, a farm that is smack-dab in the middle of an economically struggling neighborhood. Germaine didn't start this farm to be rich. She started it to help people like her, people who don't have access to affordable and healthy food. And she really cares about her people. During the height of the pandemic when her customers weren't leaving their homes, Germaine and her crew would drop off care packages of not only food but toilet paper and PPE. And here's the key part: It was all free. She even helped with financial assistance. And again: It was free.

Germaine knew that people who were struggling before a pandemic would be struggling even more during one. Imagine if Amazon, Wal-Mart, Instacart, or any of the chain grocery stores had that approach. Imagine how much better the poorest people would be today if all those successful companies had said, "If you are struggling right now, we will give you what you need."

Throughout the episode, I asked people a question inspired by a social media post from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She makes the case that, by definition, you can't have billionaires without inequality. I was curious what Germaine thought about that idea. Germaine kept it simple.

"We should have a society where everybody who's born here can eat, live, be educated. So if one has to be lost in that mix, my vote is for taking care of the masses." I asked if she was worried about the billionaires in her ideal society. She replied, "They'll be all right."

I agree with Germaine

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© Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images Food is loaded as drivers in their vehicles wait in line on arrival at a "Let's Feed LA County" food distribution hosted by the Los Angeles Food Bank on December 4, 2020 in Hacienda Heights, California. - While coronavirus cases continue to surge nationwide and shutdowns return, the US economic recovery stalls with just 245,000 jobs in the final report of 2020 as the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent, according to Bureau of Labour Statistics. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

IOC  VP gets backlash saying Olympics are on, no matter virus

TOKYO (AP) — If John Coates was trying to stir controversy, he succeeded.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

An International Olympic Committee vice president, Coates was asked a few days ago by a Japanese reporter at an online news conference if the Tokyo Olympics would go ahead, even if a state of emergency were in force in Japan.

Coates replied: “Absolutely, yes.”

Coates said what the IOC and local organizers have been trying to persuade the Japanese public about for months: The postponed Olympics with 11,000 athletes from 200 nations and territories will open on July 23 and will be “safe and secure.”

But his defiant tone has stirred a backlash in Japan where 60-80% in polls say they do not want the Olympics to open in two months in the midst of a pandemic.

Just over 12,000 deaths in Japan — good by global standards, but poor in Asia — have been attributed to COVID-19. But Tokyo and Osaka and several other areas are under a state of emergency until May 31. And it's likely to be extended.

There is fear of new variants spreading with only a tiny percentage of Japanese vaccinated. Estimates range between 2% and 4%.

“Right now, more than 80% of the nation’s people want the Olympics postponed or canceled," Japanese billionaire businessman Masayoshi Son said over the weekend. He is the founder and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. He also owns the SoftBank Hawks baseball team.

“Who is forcing this to go ahead, and under what rights?” Son added.

Technically, the games belong to the International Olympic Committee and only it has the power to cancel. Of course, any move would have to be negotiated with Japanese organizers.

There is no suggestion this will happen.

Social media criticized Coates, and also went after IOC President Thomas Bach who has said repeatedly that everyone must “sacrifice” to pull off these Olympics, which have already banned fans from abroad. A decision on local fans attending — if any — will be made next month.

The IOC relies on selling television rights for 75% of its income, and Japan has officially spent $15.4 billion to prepare the games. Government audits suggest the figure is much higher. All but $6.7 billion is public money.

The Shukan Post magazine said in its latest issue that organizers have booked all the rooms during the Olympics in at least four of Tokyo's most expensive hotels. The magazine called the accommodations “fitting or royalty" for the IOC and others.

Tokyo organizing committee president Seiko Hashimoto said Friday the “Olympic family, IOC and international federations” would amount to 23,000 visitors.

The magazine said the IOC would pay up to $400 per night for rooms, with local organizers making up any difference.

Many of Japan's newspapers are among more than 60 local Olympic sponsors that have contributed more than $3 billion to local organizers. They have been restrained in their criticism, although one of them — the Hokkaido Shimbun — did call for unspecified action from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. Suga has said it's the IOC that must determine the fate of the Olympics.

“That inaction itself is forfeiting the responsibility over people's lives and health. Those in charge should take that to heart.”

The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun, which is not a sponsor, called for a cancellation in an editorial on Sunday.

“We are in no mood to celebrate an event filled with fear and anxiety," the newspaper said. "The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics should be canceled ... The government must make the decision to protect the lives and livelihood of the people.”

Organizers and the IOC say that the games will be safe because of extensive testing and building a bubble around the athletes. It says more than 80% of the residents in the Olympics Village, located on Tokyo Bay, will be vaccinated.

The comments of Atsuko Saitoh, who identifies herself as midwife and former university professor, are representative of the criticism on social media. She has run unsuccessfully for Japan's upper house and is running in the next lower house election.

“Bach and Coates do not value the lives of the athletes, others involved or the people of the host nation. It’s tantamount to predicting terrorism to say that the games will be held under an emergency, despite the overwhelming opposition in public opinion.”

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Stephen Wade And Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press

Bangladeshi journalist known for unearthing graft gets bail


DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A Bangladeshi journalist who is known for her strong reporting on official corruption was released from jail Sunday, hours after a court in the nation's capital awarded conditional bail amid protests at home and abroad calling for her release

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Rozina Islam, a senior reporter for the leading Prothom Alo newspaper, had been held in detention since her arrest Monday.

“I will most certainly continue working as a journalist,” Islam told a small crowd of supporters and journalists after leaving the jail outside Dhaka. Her family said she would go to a hospital for a health checkup.

Islam was arrested after she allegedly used her cellphone without permission to photograph documents related to government negotiations to buy coronavirus vaccines, while she waited in the room of an official involved in the process, according to case documents seen by The Associated Press.

She faces charges of violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a possible death penalty. Media and human rights groups criticized the arrest and demanded her unconditional release.

Her lawyer, Ehsanul Haque Shomaji, said Islam had to surrender her passport before bail was granted.

Prosecution lawyer Abdullah Abu did not object to the bail request, and both sides told reporters that Magistrate Baki Billah mentioned in his order that mass media plays a supporting role in democracy.

Bangladesh's Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen on Thursday said he regretted the arrest and said Islam would receive fair justice.

Several of Islam's hard-hitting reports on corruption involving the Health Ministry and others have drawn attention to the millions of dollars spent on procuring health equipment to deal with the pandemic.

Her family said Islam was held for more than five hours on Monday in the room of a personal assistant of the secretary of the Health Ministry — a top bureaucrat. Her sister said Islam was physically and mentally harassed before she was handed over to police.

“Bangladesh authorities should produce evidence of wrongdoing or immediately release Rozina Islam and stop arresting journalists for doing their job, which is also to highlight governance flaws,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

“Instead of locking up critics, encouraging a free press should be central to the government’s strategy to strengthen health services in combatting the pandemic,” he said.

The New York-based rights watchdog said at least 247 journalists were reportedly subjected to attacks, harassment and intimidation by state officials and others affiliated with the government in 2020. More than 900 cases were filed under the Digital Security Act, with nearly 1,000 people charged and 353 detained, many of them journalists, it said.

Julhas Alam, The Associated Press

Thousands rally at ‘obscene’ motorcade for Jair Bolsonaro

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro 

THE GUARDIAN 23/5/2021

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has led a raucous column of motorcycle enthusiasts through the streets of Rio in an attempt to reenergise his flagging far-right movement as public anger grows over his handling of the country’s Covid outbreak.

Thousands of flag-waving Bolsonaristas gathered outside the Olympic Park in west Rio on Sunday morning for the two-wheeled show of support before roaring east towards the southern beach districts and city centre, with Bolsonaro near the front.

As defenders of the Brazilian president assembled under a white banner reading, “Legend, you are not alone!,” Bolsonaro’s detractors bashed pans and hurled profanities from their balconies in protest. Many dissenters denounced as “genocidal” his handling of a Covid epidemic that has killed nearly half a million Brazilians, nearly half of the total lost in Latin America and the Caribbean.

© Photograph: Andre Coelho/EPA President Bolsonaro (right) and his minister of infrastructure, Tarcisio Freitas, at the head of the motorcade on Sunday.

Supporters said they had come from across the country to endorse the 66-year-old leader.

“He represents freedom, order and progress and the end of corruption,” saod José Antônio do Nascimento, a 57-year-old who had travelled south from the city of Belo Horizonte and was wearing a white and read T-shirt that read: “We’re down with Bolsonaro”.

Nearby a group of leftwing and LGBT demonstrators had turned out to voice their disgust and show the Bolsonarian bikers their middle fingers.

© Provided by The Guardian Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro attend a rally in Rio as part of Sunday morning’s event. Photograph: António Lacerda/EPA

“I feel profound sorrow,” said Marcio Vellozo, a 48-year-old law graduate. “We’ve lost nearly 500,000 lives and people are hitting the streets to celebrate. What are they celebrating?”

The crowded motorcade – which Bolsonaro’s critics called an obscenity given Brazil’s relentless coronavirus emergency – looked like an attempt to wrest back the political initiative after a dismal few weeks for the rightwing populist. Bolsonaro’s political standing has taken a severe hit since his main rival, the former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, burst back on the political scene in March with the restoration of his political rights.

“His popularity ratings are in freefall,” said Thaís Oyama, the author of a book about Bolsonaro, who believed that the president’s response to coronavirus was largely to blame.

With a congressional Covid inquiry currently examining the Bolsonaro administration’s failure to control the epidemic or acquire sufficient vaccines, Oyama said that even Bolsonaro voters were now wondering whether their relatives would have survived had Bolsonaro responded differently.

She claimed that Sunday’s motorcycle rally was designed to project strength but actually betrayed “a certain despair” over his tumbling popularity and Lula’s reemergence.

Lula, a former union leader who has been the country’s main left-wing leader since the late 1980s, looks set to challenge Bolsonaro for the presidency in the 2022 election, with polls suggesting the leftist is in pole position.

Speaking to the Guardian last week, Lula claimed that Bolsonaro would eventually be held to account for his calamitous Covid response but recognised that his rival still had the support of a hardcore of “fanatics” representing between 15% and 20% of voters.

© Provided by The Guardian 

The motorcade at Copacabana beach in Rio on Sunday. Photograph: Lucas Landau/Reuters

“These people have always existed, in any society. You have such people in England. They exist in Germany, they exist in the US and they exist in Brazil too,” Lula said of those radicals. “What we need to ensure is that the majority has the right to govern this country.”

Bolsonaristas may be a minority but they are a noisy one. Thousands of right-wing and predominantly white and male bikers, some wearing Donald Trump face masks or waving the flags of Israel and Brazil, turned out for Sunday’s procession, revving their engines all the way to its conclusion at a second world war monument near downtown Rio.

It took more than nine minutes for the entire cavalcade to pass the Guardian’s position, where street hawkers sold Bolsonaro-themed paraphernalia including anti-Covid face masks stamped with Bolsonaro’s likeness and the words: “My president”.

Bolsonaro was not wearing one when he addressed the throng from the top of a sound truck and claimed he was on a God-given mission to save Brazil. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy but all of us have a mission here on Earth,” he told his acolytes. “It’s a heavy cross to bear but He helps us to do so, as do all of you”.

Brazil’s president, who has been internationally condemned for undermining Covid containment measures and calling the disease “a little flu”, said he regretted “every single death, of whatever cause”. “But we must be strong. We have got to face this challenge. We must live and we must survive.”

Shaking his fists at the Bolsonaro-supporting bikers nearby, Vellozo said: “Our president is a 100% denialist. Trump is now out of the picture and so he is seeking to become the global leader of denialism.

“I’m not surprised by the size of [the protest],” he added. “But as a Brazilian it disappoints me.”