Analysis: Idaho awash in enough cash to address a lot of issues — or start a lot of fights

Maybe the 2022 Legislature will decide to pay for full-day kindergarten.



Kevin Richert
Fri, June 18, 2021
This story originally published June 17 at IdahoEdNews.org.

Maybe the 2022 Legislature will decide to pay for full-day kindergarten.

Or maybe not.


But if lawmakers say no, money won’t be an excuse.

Idaho’s ever-growing budget surplus is trending toward a record-shattering and mind-boggling $800 million. The big reason: Individual income tax collections are ahead of forecasts by a whopping $452.2 million. We’ll know the exact surplus sometime after June 30, when the state closes the books on the 2020-21 budget year.

Regardless, the state is awash in enough cash to address a lot of issues — or start a lot of fights.

Which is where all-day kindergarten enters the picture.

Most school districts and charter schools already offer a full day of kindergarten, but that means they have to come up with a way to pay for it. The state only covers the costs of half-day kindergarten.

The idea of state-funded full-day kindergarten is not a new one. In 2019, Gov. Brad Little’s education task force recommended funding full-day kindergarten. The Idaho School Boards Association has supported the idea for several years. In March, Republican Sen. Carl Crabtree of Grangeville and Rep. Judy Boyle of Midvale unveiled a full-day kindergarten bill.

And on Wednesday, the State Board of Education endorsed full-day kindergarten. If Little goes along with the unanimous recommendation from his State Board, the issue will come up again at the board’s August meeting.

Little is talking in general terms about what he wants to do with the surplus. In a news release last week, he pledged to “advocate for even more tax relief and strategic investments in key areas, with education topping the priority list.” Little’s staff didn’t respond to a request for details.

However, it would be shocking if Little didn’t join the push for full-day kindergarten.

Early reading has been Little’s top education priority — and maybe even his highest policy priority, period. Full-day kindergarten fits right in with Little’s goal of getting children reading by third grade.

There’s plenty of money to pay for full-day kindergarten — the Crabtree-Boyle bill pegged the cost at a maximum of $42.1 million per year. And while supporters will argue for the benefits of full-day kindergarten, and talk about building pre-reading skills and social skills, they can also make a bottom-line case. They can say state funding would provide stability, allowing districts to move the kindergarten costs off of one- or two-year supplemental property tax levies. They can also argue for equity, since state funding would get schools out of the business of charging for full-day kindergarten.

“Having to charge tuition creates access barriers,” said Quinn Perry, the ISBA’s policy and government affairs director.

Of course, there would be pushback from critics, and from one of the Statehouse’s usual suspects.

Reliably enough, the Idaho Freedom Foundation ripped full-day kindergarten earlier this week, saying the idea would yield negligible benefits that would disappear by third grade, while limiting parental choice.

“Idaho’s kids need a proven reform like school choice instead of proven failures like full-day kindergarten,” the foundation’s Anna Miller wrote Tuesday.

Sounds like another debate pitting the foundation against, more or less, every education stakeholder group in the state. Why should the 2022 legislative session be any different than 2021?

But a big surplus is kind of like a budgetary Rorschach test. Anybody can look at it and see the solution to a longstanding problem.

Rod Gramer hasn’t had time to poll his Idaho Business for Education members about the surplus. But he believes the statewide group of business leaders would support full-day kindergarten and a big push for early education. The Legislature rejected a $6 million-a-year federal early education grant this year, largely at the Freedom Foundation’s urging, but Gramer hopes 2022 would be a historic year for pre-K and kindergarten alike. “In my book, they’re the most important things we can do to improve student outcomes in Idaho.”

In addition to all-day kindergarten, the ISBA would like to see some surplus dollars go into school classified staff salaries. School districts are facing their own version of the labor shortage, when classroom paraprofessionals, bus drivers and cafeteria staff can make more money elsewhere in the labor market. “We’re losing employees too, and it’s not just educators,” Perry said.

While noting the momentum behind full-day kindergarten, state superintendent Sherri Ybarra says she’d like to see the state restore several budget line items — for classroom technology, teacher training, IT staffing and content and curriculum. She also wants help for distracts and charters, which are backfilling staffing at a cost of more than $200 million a year, putting pressure on local property taxes.


Wendy Horman, an Idaho Falls Republican who sits on the budget-writing Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, clicked off several ideas for surplus dollars. The state could fund grants and scholarships for public and private school students, an idea she pushed unsuccessfully in 2021. The state could finally shift to an enrollment-based funding formula, providing money to districts that would otherwise lose money during the transition. Or lawmakers could upgrade the State Department of Education’s data management system. “It’s not very splashy, but I think it’s essential to (classroom) improvement to have accurate, real-time data.”

A surplus of money has a way of generating a surplus of ideas. So a robust budget year often has a way of translating into a rough legislative session. “Sometimes it’s harder when you have money than when you don’t have money,” Gramer said.

The Legislature is just coming off a record-setting 122-day slog of a session. A record-setting budget surplus — which just happens to coincide with an election year — could make for another long winter (and spring) around the Statehouse.

WH advisor: No strong evidence unemployment benefits are 'pulling people out of the labor force'

Denitsa Tsekova
·Reporter
Mon, June 21, 2021


One White House official is pushing back on concerns that federal unemployment benefits are causing a labor shortage.

"As the economy gets back up and running, we need to make sure that the unemployment insurance system does what it's designed to do, which is support people during periods of unemployment," Heather Boushey, a member of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "So far we have not seen strong evidence that this is having a significant effect of pulling people out of the labor force. People know that it's temporary."

Boushey's message comes as 25 Republican-led states and Democrat-led Louisiana have eliminated or plan to eliminate the pandemic-era jobless programs this month or early next month, well before their federal expiration in September.

In addition to the extra $300 in weekly benefits, 20 of the states also have opted out of or intend to opt out of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) programs. PUA provides benefits to workers like contractors who don’t otherwise qualify for regular unemployment insurance. PEUC provides additional weeks of benefits.

In those 26 states, more than 4 million workers will see their benefits slashed by at least $1,200 a month in June or early July, losing a total of $22.1 billion in benefits, according to estimates by the Century Foundation.

The expanded unemployment benefits have given workers more time to search for a job and find the right match, according to Boushey. The additional weekly benefit is "a key reason why the economy is recovering as it is now," she said.

Council of Economic Advisers member Heather Bousey talks with reporters in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 24, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The unemployment rate in May was 5.8%, down from its pandemic peak of 14.8% in April 2020. Still, 7.6 million jobs have yet to be recovered for the economy to return to pre-pandemic levels.

During the pandemic, many essential workers were not protected on the job and weren't paid enough, potentially leading some to rethink their jobs or industry, according to Boushey.

"We need to make sure that workers are safe, that they are protected, and that they're paid a decent wage," she said. "People are seeing the places where they're valued and the places where perhaps they need to be valued more."

Denitsa is a writer for Yahoo Finance and Cashay, a new personal finance website. Follow her on Twitter @denitsa_tsekova

Read more:


Some workers finally have the upper hand in the job market


Workers are quitting at historic rates — and the 'leap of faith' trend may just be beginning


America has 'two completely different systems' when supporting unemployed workers

Lobster or legitimacy? A key U.S. ally embraces the West — and pays the price with China


Mahalia Dobson
Sun, June 20, 2021

Australia is stuck between a rock lobster and a hard place.

Its biggest trading partner is China, expected to become the world's biggest economy. That should be good news, but there's a catch: Canberra also craves the security and legitimacy it gets from being allied with the United States and the West.

As Beijing and Washington target each other's economic and military ambitions in a cycle of escalating tensions, some in Australia worry their country could pay the price for being caught between the two geopolitical foes.


Experts say those competing strategic interests and Canberra’s recent strategic shift toward the West are partly to blame for its yearlong trade war with Beijing — and plummeting lobster prices.

Until recently China accounted for around 96 percent of Australian exports of southern rock lobster, trade worth over half a billion U.S. dollars a year to the the antipodean nation.

But late last year, Beijing abruptly imposed a ban on lobster imports after Chinese officials claimed samples of the crustaceans contained heavy metals.

“We’re a pawn in the whole cycle of things,” said Andrew Ferguson, managing director of Ferguson Australia Group, a seafood company based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Losing the market has been devastating for his business.

“Covid has not been helpful,” he recently said by phone. “China certainly picked a good time to do this because it’s hurting us with the full strength of it.”

The lobster ban was swiftly condemned by Australians as another move in a long-running trade dispute between the two countries that has affected other major agricultural exports such as barley, wine and beef.

Strained relations have escalated to the point that Beijing has essentially suspended all but the most routine contacts between the two sides and accused Canberra of having a “Cold War mindset.” Chinese state media and the foreign ministry routinely attack Australia as adopting anti-Chinese policies at the behest of the U.S.

On Saturday the Australian government said it was lodging a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization over China's imposition of anti-dumping duties on Australian wine exports.

“We are facing a conundrum of the likes of which we haven't seen in generations,” said John Blaxland, professor of international security and intelligence studies at the Australian National University.

He said that Australia will not play down its alliance with the U.S. and is willing to tolerate economic pain at its expense, for “fear of political oblivion.”

“Historically, Australian leaders, prime ministers have sought to balance the security ties with the United States, with the trade interests with China,” he said by phone from Canberra. “But in recent times, that's become increasingly problematic.”

“The consensus has emerged that we will double down on ties with the United States and push back on threats and coercion from China.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison just spent a week in Europe on a major charm offensive, rallying allies to help ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region — and seeking diplomatic support for Canberra’s ongoing trade fight with Beijing.

Attending the Group of Seven meeting as a guest, he met with President Joe Biden on the sidelines and inked a major new free trade agreement with his British hosts.

Image: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he meets with his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison at Downing Street in London, Britain (Henry Nicholls / Reuters)

After separate meetings with Morrison in London and Paris, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron said their respective countries stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Australia.

Johnson was quick to add, however, that "nobody wants to descend into a new Cold War with China."

The G-7 also issued a statement chastising Beijing for repression of its Uyghur minority and other human rights abuses, as well as “nonmarket policies and practices” that undermine the global economy.

China, currently the world's second-largest economy, isn't part of the bloc and blistered at the criticism.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian described the G-7 statement as deliberate slander and meddling.

Ties between China and Australia have been on a downward trajectory since Canberra banned foreign political donations in 2017, then worsened when Australia banned Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies from its 5G network in 2018. But relations really plummeted last year after Morrison led calls for an international inquiry into the origins of Covid-19.

Beijing has also been angered by criticism of its actions in the South China Sea, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Image: A paddock of barley being harvested on a farm near Inverleigh, west of Melbourne, Australia (WILLIAM WEST / AFP via Getty Images)

But one of the main points of contention has been both sides' evolving national priorities and foreign policies vis-a-vis the United States.

Indeed, from Beijing’s perspective, Australia’s foreign policy has already shifted “rather dramatically” towards the U.S., according to Jane Golley, director of the Australia Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University.

“They have always maintained a strong alliance, but they have been much more vocal about that alliance and created more distance from Beijing in the last two, three, four years,” she said.

Economists argue that Canberra's willingness to align itself with Washington's China policy has had a direct impact on Australia’s trading relationship with China.

“Beijing doesn't have a problem with Australia being a U.S. security ally. What it has a problem with is when Australia uses that alliance to attack China,” said James Laurenceson, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.

Image: Australian wine is displayed among other wines at a shop in Beijing (Noel Celis / AFP via Getty Images file)

“We’re desperate to signal to the United States that we want them to hang around,” he said. “So we go out in front on a whole heap of different issues, whether it be banning Huawei, or whether it be, you know, calling out China's actions in the South China Sea, or whether it be calling for a Covid inquiry.”

But tangling with China on policy issues is a risky business and comes with an economic cost.

China accounts for nearly 40 percent of Australia’s total exports, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Over the last 13 months, China curbed Australian beef imports and levied tariffs totaling 80 percent on barley and over 200 percent on wine imports.

The costs to Australia’s bottom line have been real: Exports to China fell by approximately $2.3 billion in U.S. dollars in 2020, according to the bureau.

The one saving grace has been China’s reliance on Australia’s iron ore, but that may only last so long.

Blaxland said that China was making an example of Australia, warning other countries of the consequences of speaking out.

“I think this is the new normal,” he said.

Exclusive: HK's Apple Daily to shut within days, says Jimmy Lai adviser

Anne Marie Roantree

REUTERS

Sun, June 20, 2021, 

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily will be forced to shut "in a matter of days" after authorities froze the company's assets under a national security law, an adviser to jailed owner Jimmy Lai told Reuters on Monday.

The closure of Apple Daily would undermine the former British colony's reputation as an open and free society and send a warning to other companies that could be accused of colluding with a foreign country, media advocacy groups said.

Next Digital, publisher of the top-selling 26-year-old newspaper, would hold a board meeting on Monday to discuss how to move forward after its lines of credit were frozen, the adviser, Mark Simon, said.

"Vendors tried to put money into our accounts and were rejected," he said by phone from the United States.

"We thought we'd be able to make it to the end of the month. It's just getting harder and harder. It's essentially a matter of days."

Apple Daily said on Sunday the freezing of its assets had left the liberal newspaper with cash for "a few weeks" for normal operations."

Chief Editor Ryan Law, 47, and Chief Executive Cheung Kim-hung, 59, were denied bail on Saturday after being charged with collusion with a foreign country.

Three other executives were also arrested on Thursday when 500 police officers raided the newspaper's offices, drawing condemnation from Western nations, global rights groups and the U.N. spokesperson for human rights.

Those three are still under investigation but were released from police detention.

Hong Kong and Chinese officials said press freedom cannot be used as a "shield" for those who commit crimes, and slammed the criticism as "meddling."

"WE CAN'T BANK"

In May, Reuters reported exclusively that Hong Kong's security chief had sent letters to tycoon Lai and branches of HSBC and Citibank threatening up to seven years' jail for any dealings with the billionaire's accounts in the city.

A Hong Kong-based spokesperson for Citibank said at the time the bank did not comment on individual client accounts. HSBC declined to comment.

Authorities are also prosecuting three companies related to Apple Daily for alleged collusion with a foreign country and have frozen HK$18 million ($2.3 million) of their assets.

Simon told Reuters it had now become impossible to conduct banking operations in the global financial hub.

"We can't bank. Some vendors tried to do that as a favour ... and it was rejected."

The newspaper has come under increasing pressure since owner and Beijing critic Lai, who is now in jail, was arrested under the national security law last August and has since had some of his assets frozen.

Apple Daily plans to ask the government's Security Bureau to unfreeze the assets on Monday and failing that attempt, it may look to challenge the decision in court.

Simon said some reporters had received threatening phone calls from unknown sources.

"Our staff are now just worried about personal safety," he said.

Police have said dozens of Apple Daily articles were suspected of violating the national security law, the first case in which authorities have cited media articles as potentially violating the legislation.

Simon said that based on his understanding from officers' questioning of the executives, around 100 articles were under scrutiny.

"After all this is said and done, the business community is going to look up and recognise that a man's company was gutted and stolen by a communist regime in Hong Kong," he said.

"That's a big deal."

(Reporting by Anne Marie Roantree; additional reporting by James Pomfret and Clare Jim; Editing by Stephen Coates)

We must stand with Hong Kong’s embattled journalists
Johnny Patterson
Sun, June 20, 2021

People queue up to buy the Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong (AP)

First, they came for the protestors, then they came for the elected democrats, and now it is the turn of journalists. Step by step, the long arm of the national security law is suffocating free expression in Hong Kong.

Having rounded up and imprisoned a number of opposition politicians under “subversion” charges, this week the Chinese Communist Party turned its attention to Hong Kong’s free media – sending 500 national security officers to arrest the editor-in-chief and four other directors from the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, on the basis that they have “colluded with foreign political forces” by publishing articles critical of the state.

This is another milestone moment in a dark year for Hong Kong. However, it is not to say that the pro-democracy press has been immune from political pressure in the past. Jimmy Lai, the owner of Apple Daily, is already facing a National Security Law charge of his own, and the newspaper has been under an advertising embargo from most major Hong Kong businesses for more than a decade. But journalists have never been targeted under the National Security Law and their words have never before been criminalised in this way.


The contrast with events two years ago could not be starker. On 16 June 2019, up to 2 million people marched the streets of Hong Kong. In a city of 7.5 million, that is extraordinary. Slogans such as “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” and “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong” rang from the rooftops and alleyways. The overwhelming cry of Hong Kong’s people was that they would stand up for their freedoms.

It was a message of defiance which Beijing found unacceptable and catalysed the current purge. China’s national security law has transformed Hong Kong by giving the government a piece of legislation which overrides all locally enshrined human rights safeguards and is so broadly defined that it can be applied to pretty much anyone in opposition.

When the law was introduced by Carrie Lam, she claimed that it would only target a “very small minority” of extreme lawbreakers. With newspaper editors following democratically-elected legislators into the dock, the mendacity of her claim is now evident. The legislation is being used to propel the city to full-blown totalitarianism.

Weeks before the protest movement broke out, I visited Hong Kong. Half of the 30 or so people I spoke with on that trip are now jailed. Most of them were either activists or legislators at the time. Their backgrounds? Lawyers, pilots, accountants, students. Idealists who just wanted to live in a free, just society.

Many of them are being denied bail as they await trial, and some have even been held in solitary confinement.

Each of those hundreds of imprisoned protesters are individuals – some of whom I am privileged to call friends – whose future looks bleak. With many of the national security law cases being escalated to the High Court, some of Hong Kong’s leading democrats now face a minimum of 10 years in jail. Their crimes? Writing news editorials or standing in primary elections. It is appallingly unjust.

Why should the suffocation of Hong Kong’s freedoms matter to us? Three reasons. First, because the UK and China signed a treaty in international law to protect Hong Kong’s freedoms. The British government has stated that Beijing is in permanent breach of the handover treaty. We have a duty to make sure that no political prisoner is forgotten, and should look to take further steps to show that there are consequences for this treaty breach, including the use of Magnitsky sanctions.

Equally importantly, every step to suffocate Hong Kong’s freedoms will convince British National Overseas passport holders – who now have the right to live in the UK – that their future might not be in Hong Kong. The government must put proper resources and preparation into the welcome package in anticipation of new arrivals.

Finally, as we watch our friends in Hong Kong see their freedoms unpicked piece by piece, it is a reminder of the value of what we take for granted.

In a statement earlier this week, Apple Daily’s journalists stood defiant: “We will continue to persist as Hongkongers and live up to the expectations so that we have no regrets to our readers and the times we are in. Though we are facing a sweeping clampdown on our publication, the staff of Apple Daily will hold fast to our duties faithfully and press on till the end to see the arrival of dawn.” We should stand with them.

Johnny Patterson is the policy director of Hong Kong Watch

Read More

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Departure of U.S. Contractors Poses Myriad Problems for Afghan Military


Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt

NEW YOPRK TIMES
Sun., June 20, 2021


An Afghan Air Force helicopter lands at Camp Shorabak, Afghanistan, May 11, 2021. (Jim Huylebroek/The New York Times)

KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan Air Force UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, shelled while on the ground by the Taliban on Wednesday, sat helpless at a small outpost in the country’s southeast, its burning and damaged airframe displayed in a video on Twitter.

Even if it could get to the chopper to try to service it, the Afghan military would face another escalating problem: It is heavily reliant on American and other foreign contractors for repairs, maintenance, fueling, training and other jobs necessary to keep their forces operating, and those contractors are now departing along with the U.S. military, leaving a void that leaders on both sides say could be crippling to Afghan forces as they face the Taliban alone.

The problem is especially acute for the Afghan Air Force. Not only does the small but professional fleet provide air support to beleaguered troops, but it is also essential to supplying and evacuating hundreds of outposts and bases across the country — the quickly thinning line that separates government and Taliban-controlled territory.

With their ability to maintain their aircraft diminishing, Afghan pilots who fly over Taliban-held territory are finding that the condition of their aircraft upon their return is as pressing a concern as the success of their mission.

There are “a lot of problems” in the Afghan Air Force and it needs “American support,” one pilot said bluntly shortly before he flew to retrieve Afghan troops in a besieged district. His helicopter was hit with several bullets and narrowly missed a rocket-propelled grenade.

The Pentagon’s command to train, advise and assist the Afghan Air Force, known as TAAC-Air, concluded in January that no Afghan aircraft could be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months in the absence of contractor support.

“I am concerned about the ability of the Afghan military to hold on after we leave, the ability of the Afghan Air Force to fly, in particular, after we remove the support for those aircraft,” Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., head of the Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees Afghanistan, told a Senate committee in Washington in April.

The issue is at the center of tortuous discussions among Biden administration officials, who are trying to devise workarounds for the myriad problems associated with President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all American troops — and the contractors who support them — from Afghanistan. The withdrawal is expected to be complete by early to mid-July.

Officials at the Pentagon say that one possible solution would be to transfer contracts with private companies now paid for by the United States to the Afghan government. Under such an arrangement, American and other foreign contractors would stay in Afghanistan, but they would be paid by Afghan officials in overseas aid, mainly from the United States.

That way, the Pentagon and the Afghan government could get around the terms of the deal the United States struck with the Taliban, which implies that the Americans will not have private contractors in the country after the withdrawal.

“We should encourage the Afghan government to retain or engage contractor support for the Afghan Air Force and other key logistical and operational elements of the Afghan security forces — and we should pay for that support (including private security to protect those contractors),” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an essay this past week in The New York Times.

Contractors in Afghanistan have long operated under a system that is susceptible to corruption and mismanagement. Transferring their payments through another entity — in this case the Afghan government — is bound to make the contracts even more open to charges of corruption, lawmakers and independent analysts warn.

Even if the contracts are transferred, several senior American commanders and policymakers say it is unclear how many foreign contractors will choose to keep working in Afghanistan with the American security umbrella gone or if those companies will stomach the risk.

Another idea is to relocate aircraft out of the country for any major overhauls. But that would most likely become hugely expensive, one Pentagon official said, and could end up costing American taxpayers more than they pay now to maintain the Afghan Air Force and its planes inside the country.

Maj. Robert Lodewick, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an email Saturday that contracts with the Afghan Air Force and its special mission wing “have been modified, and the contractors continue their support.” Lodewick said he could not identify specific contractors or provide details on how the maintenance and logistics support would be provided.

These issues, fundamental to the survival of the Afghan national security forces once the U.S. military withdraws, are still being hashed out. That they are still being addressed even as the last U.S. troops are preparing to leave speaks to the years of disconnect between the Pentagon and a succession of presidents, all of whom, at one point or another, sought a more reduced American presence in the country than officials in the military and the Defense Department.

How to deal with the contractors is just one of a number of pressing problems created by the rapid withdrawal of American troops. The CIA is struggling to ensure that it can gather intelligence about potential threats from Afghanistan once the U.S. military presence ends.

The Pentagon is still weighing how it will strike terrorist groups such as al-Qaida from afar once it no longer has troops or warplanes in Afghanistan. And the Biden administration has yet to strike deals to position troops in any nearby nations for counterterrorism operations.

The Afghan government has always relied heavily on foreign contractors and trainers. As of this spring, there were over 18,000 Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan, including 6,000 Americans, 5,000 Afghans and 7,000 from other countries, 40% of whom are responsible for logistics, maintenance or training tasks, according to John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

The Afghan security forces rely on these contractors to maintain their equipment, manage supply chains, and train their military and police to operate the advanced equipment that the United States has bought for them.

For instance, during a virtual forum this year, Sopko spoke of the challenges the Afghans were facing with maintenance work. As of December, he said, the Afghan National Army was completing just under 20% of its own maintenance work orders, well below the goal of 80% that had been set and the 51% that they completed in 2018. The Afghan National Police carried out only 12% of its own maintenance work against a target of 35%.

Since 2010, the Defense Department has appropriated over $8.5 billion to develop a capable and sustainable Afghan Air Force and its special mission wing, but American policymakers and commanders have always known that both would need continued, expensive logistics support from contractors for aircraft maintenance and maintainer training, the inspector general’s office concluded in a report in February.

Contractors currently provide 100% of the maintenance for the Afghan Air Force’s UH-60 helicopters and C-130 cargo aircraft, and a significant portion of Afghan’s light combat support aircraft, Sopko said.

Problems with contractor support were mounting well before Biden’s decision in April to withdraw all American military personnel and contractors.

An assessment last fall by the inspectors general of the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, found that worker shortages, coronavirus-related restrictions and a lack of oversight made it difficult for American military officials to hold contractors accountable to performance standards.

Coupled with reduced training time and a lack of American officials to assess Afghans’ proficiency, the assessment found that basic skills for Afghan aircrews and aircraft maintenance workers declined.

By the end of last year, the American training command reported that only 136 of the 167 aircraft in the Afghan fleet were ready for combat missions or would be after minor maintenance, a drop of 24 aircraft from the previous quarter.

Even then, Afghan aircrews overworked what planes they had, the training command found, regularly exceeding the recommended number of flying hours between scheduled maintenance checks.

Another logistical headache emerged several years ago, after U.S. lawmakers lobbied to phase out Afghanistan’s fleet of Russian-made helicopters, called MI-17s, replacing them with U.S.-made Black Hawks.

Aside from not being able to carry as much cargo at higher elevations as the MI-17s, the more complicated Black Hawks effectively reset maintenance training for Afghan mechanics. One U.S. official said it would take until the mid-2030s for the Afghans to be able to maintain the Black Hawk fleet on their own.

“This plan we have for over the horizon,” the official added, “is not going to work as effectively as we need it to.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2021 The New York Times Company

The Cruel and Twisted Discoveries at Germany’s Stonehenge

Candida Moss

DAILY BEAST
Sat., June 19, 2021

When you think of Stonehenge what do you think of? England? Druids? Partygoers celebrating the solstice? A unique piece of ancient heritage? Chances are that you don’t think of Germany. As it turns out, however, Saxony-Anhalt has its own Early Bronze Age wooden henge—Ringheiligtum Pömmelter—and recent excavations have added more detail to its dark, distinctive history.

The reason that you might not have heard of Ringheiligtum Pömmelter is that it was only discovered in 1991. The monument, which is located near the village of Pömmelte, in the district of Salzlandkreis, was discovered when aerial photography of the region revealed the outline of the structure. Like Wiltshire’s Stonehenge, it is concentric and is made up of seven rings of raised banks, ditches, and palisades in which wooden posts were positioned. If you visit the 380-feet-wide circle today you can see the attractive reconstructed monument. The painted wooden posts erected at the site give tourists a sense of what it was like in its heyday.

Like Stonehenge the orientation of the site appears to have been determined by the summer and winter solstices. Thus, until recently, archaeologists assumed that Ringheiligtum was a ritual site that was used for religious purposes, stargazing, and the celebration of seasonal festivals. It was essentially a sacred flex space. Now excavations begun last month and reported this week by Heritage Daily, have revealed that people actually lived there. During the course of the May 2021 excavations scientists have discovered 130 dwellings (80 of which are complete), 20 ditches, and two burials. The newly discovered structures were built between 2800 BCE and 2200 BCE, with most of the houses dating to the latter period.

What makes the presence of homes especially noteworthy is the character of the religious rituals performed at Ringheiligtum. Between 2005 and 2008 excavations sponsored by the State Office for Cultural Heritage Management in Baden-Württemberg and the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg (both in Germany) probed the secrets of the site. It was these excavations that discovered the 300-year period of use and the post holes for the wooden fences and poles that have since been rebuilt. Other objects—including, grinding stones, millstones, stone axes, ceramic vessels, and animal bones were found in the pits.

The researchers also uncovered more macabre finds, in particular the dismembered remains of 10 children and women. Osteoarcheological analysis of the remains revealed that four of those buried there had suffered trauma to their skulls and ribs close to the time of their deaths, suggesting that they had died violently. While archaeologists uncovered more formal burials of 13 male adults within the east side of the rings of the Ringheiligtum, the internment of the women and children was different. Their bodies were thrown indiscriminately into the pits leading some to suggest that they had been ritually sacrificed as a part of the rituals that took place there.

André Spatzier, one of the lead excavators on the study, told LiveScience that one of individuals had had their hands tied before they were thrown in the pit. In the study itself the team wrote that it remained “unclear whether these individuals were ritually killed or if their death resulted from intergroup conflict, such as raiding.” But the difference between the male and female burials were suggestive: “the gender-specific nature of the adult victims and the ritual nature of the other deposits,” said the press release, “make [ritual sacrifice] a likely scenario.” Regardless of how you read the evidence, there was a clear disjuncture between the respectful burial afforded the men who were buried there, and the more dismissive and traumatic deaths of the women and children who may have been sacrificed (or executed). What the new excavation reveal is that whatever happened at Pömmelte, however violent, took place in close proximity to people’s homes. That the ritual sacrifice of women and children may have been taking place so close to domestic space (which is traditionally conceived of as the domain of women), is thought-provoking and suggestive. It’s easy to imagine the implicit threat that the memory of these violent rituals posed to the women who lived nearby.

What remains unknown, however, is the relationship between the Ringheiligtum at Pömmelte and the Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. If (like me) you grew up thinking that Stonehenge was special, you were wrong. Stonehenge was important and drew visitors from all across Britain, but it was far from unique. Though there are clear differences between the German and British examples the similarities are also apparent: concentric circles, monumental structures, religious rituals, and human remains buried in the system of pits and posts. The larger question of the relationship between and emergence of this symbolic sacred architecture remains unresolved. Stonehenge and the Woodenhenge at Pömmelte are not alone either. There are other circular monuments in the UK (the UK has its own Woodenhenge) and there is the 7,000-year-old Goseck circle in Germany, which also has ringed ditches and wooden palisades and has a strong claim to being the oldest of the Neolithic circles.

In sum, symbolic architecture and Neolithic solar observatories aren’t particular to the British Isles and seem to have originated in mainland Europe. The existence of other henges suggests that Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe was more interconnected than previously realized. As people migrated, they took their symbolic architecture and astrological-religious thought with them to new sites. And at some of those sites people—mostly vulnerable members of the community or outsiders—met grisly ends.

OF COURSE THEY DID

Texas power companies automatically raised the temperature of customers' smart thermostats in the middle of a heat wave

Tyler Sonnemaker
Sun., June 20, 2021

Texas power companies automatically raised the temperature of customers' smart thermostats in the middle of a heat wave

Power companies remotely accessing customers' smart thermostats raised privacy concerns for some residents. 

Texas power companies remotely adjusted customers' smart thermostats, KHOU 11 reported.

Customers said they had unknowingly agreed to let companies raise the temperature to save energy.


Texas regulators asked residents last week to conserve energy amid a heat wave.

Texas power companies heated up some customers' homes last week by remotely controlling their smart thermostats, KHOU 11 reported Thursday.

One resident in the state, which is facing a heat wave that is straining its power grid, told KHOU 11 his family had awoken from a nap sweating and shocked their home had gotten as hot as 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

It turns out they had enrolled their thermostats in an energy-conservation promotion called Smart Savers Texas, run by a company called EnergyHub, in partnership with power companies. The program gives EnergyHub permission to adjust participants' smart thermostats remotely during times of peak energy demand, in exchange for entry into a sweepstakes.

"During a demand-response event, Smart Savers Texas increases the temperature on participating thermostats by up to 4 degrees to reduce energy consumption and relieve stress on the grid," Erika Diamond, EnergyHub's vice president of customer solutions, told Insider, adding that "the ability to reduce energy consumption is critical to managing the grid, in Texas and nationwide."

Thermostat owners typically get an offer to participate in the program from their device manufacturer or energy provider via mobile app or email, Diamond said, and "every participant actively agrees to the terms of the program and can opt out of a demand-response event at any time."

Diamond told USA Today that demand-response events occurred rarely, about two to eight times a summer.

EnergyHub did not immediately have a response to Insider's questions about whether it notified participants before adjusting their thermostats.

CenterPoint Energy, a major energy provider in Texas, told KPRC 2 that it had "conducted a test curtailment event from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m." on Wednesday and that at its direction, EnergyHub "adjusted the thermostat set point for those enrolled customers."

Months after winter storms overloaded Texas' power grid, leaving millions without power or clean water, the state is dealing with a heat wave that led the state's top energy regulator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, to ask residents to conserve power last week.

Smart thermostats allow power companies one way to reduce strain on a power grid at scale, but they also sparked privacy and safety concerns for some residents who said they weren't aware what they had enrolled in.

"Was my daughter at the point of overheating?" Brandon English, a Deer Park, Texas, resident, told KHOU 11, adding: "She's 3 months old. They dehydrate very quickly."

"I wouldn't want anybody else controlling my things for me," English told KHOU 11, saying he unenrolled his thermostat after the event.

Read the original article on Business Insider

FIRST POST BLOGS

Investigating Wuhan 'lab leak theory' is a global imperative and India must be at forefront of the probe

The probe must look at how every single check and balance across every single global health institution got homogenised and drew from the same merry-go-round of medical-bureaucrats.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra

June 08, 2021 

File image of a security person outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during the WHO team's field visit. AP


Scientific progress is intrinsically linked to freedom of expression. The reason is: All science at some point starts out as heresy. Consequently, only countries that encourage and celebrate heresy see a flourishing of the scientific revolution. 

Yet what COVID-19 has highlighted is, that the freedoms of the 1990s and early 2000s we took for granted, the freedoms that supported the information revolution and an unprecedented increase in global and Indian wealth, have now come full circle. Today, the suppression of dissent — especially scientific dissent — by the same players who benefitted from the information revolution have taken us back to the dark days of the suppression of Galileo and Copernicus.

The issue at hand is regarding what now seems as the deliberate scuttling of investigation into the origin of the coronavirus , and the full force of academic and institutional bullying, deplatforming, death threats and information suppression — not just of direct and circumstantial evidence, but also opinions based on said evidence. Normally, this would have merely been the subject of outrage, but we can now conclude that the said information suppression led to significant misdirection of medical efforts to contain the coronavirus . It definitely led to a lot of research, which could have contributed to an early solution up the garden path, and in so doing may have cost thousands if not millions of additional deaths.

Can India lead the probe?

Finding the exact source and nature of the leak was important for a variety of reasons — it had nothing to do with geopolitics and naming/shaming China or to focus international attention on its bio weapons programme. Far from it, the finding of “patient X” or the first person who contracted the virus is one of the key links in establishing the nature of the virus, its mutation and its virulence, all critical elements in finding the solution to it. Yet, it is at this same time that a global medical bureaucracy does everything in its power to suppress and divert the investigation.

From this point on, an investigation cannot merely have narrow terms of reference restricted just to the origins of the virus and the role of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

What we have seen over the last harrowing year is a global systemic failure, made worse by a cover-up, severe conflicts of interest at every stage of the global information, warning and response as well as the complete breakdown of the ability of dissenters and doctors to hold the powers to be to account. Thus, any global investigation has to cover the entirety of these in order to ensure there is no repeat.

India having managed this relatively well, and having the worst of the second wave behind it, can’t fall back on complacency. Far from it, India now needs to take a leadership role in forcing the international community to examine where things went wrong. Indeed, it is precisely the vast web of conflicted interests and institutional incest that led to the current situation that will do everything to stall such a comprehensive investigation. That is why state power — that too, a state that has been relatively untouched by the corrosive influence of the global health cartel — needs to be put behind this investigation. This would ensure both that the right questions are asked and that the terms of reference are not artificially skewed to ensure the exoneration of the transparently guilty.

Questions the world must ask

What would these questions and terms of reference look like? First up, there needs to be an investigation into the academic failure, corruption and research corrosion that happened. How is it that organisations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have through their distribution of grants been able to control and censor not just the publication of medical opinion but also the economic and remedial pathways?

How is it that the entire global public health ecosystem is a web of conflicting interests, where the man tasked by the WHO to investigate the Wuhan Institute of Virology was also the same man who had forwarded the US government funding to the institute for the Gain of Function research, who was simultaneously advising Dr Anthony Fauci to deny what we now know to be true, and who was engaged in a targeted campaign of academic harassment against those who questioned dogma, going so far as to both become a fact checker for social media giants and force editorial policy onto The Lancet?

Why was it that despite early evidence, the “five micron” threshold for labelling a disease as airborne was rejected by the WHO; regardless of presentations from highly qualified physicists, who was responsible for the pushback; why was the information suppressed and who will pay the price for the rejected early warnings? Why were “eminent personalities” like Fauci and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on record first discouraging the use of masks and then turning into mask fanatics, that too when all evidence points to the fact that both these people had access to the airborne nature of the disease in early 2020?

Ultimately the investigation must look at how every single check and balance across every single global health institution — be it medical, academic, policy, media and social media — got homogenised and drew from the same merry-go-round of medical-bureaucrats. We also need to ask how did China manage to work every single lever it could — from the WHO, to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to Dr Fauci, to an assorted set of allegedly diverse global heath NGOs — to deflect criticism away from it by providing the media and social media with talking points, ranging from racism to “misinformation”.

India has defied the global medical consensus frequently. Almost always it has been proven right — be it India’s defiance on generic drugs to taking a firm stand on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation when the opportunity arose, and similarly managing to kick Chinese apps and companies out. Uniquely, it is India’s frustrating resistance to market economics that has made it so willing to defy the global health cartels and China and take them both on. It is now time India utilised this magnificent legacy of resistance into a constructive leadership path and frame the terms of reference and scope of the international investigation into the COVID nightmare.

The author is senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. Views expressed are personal.​

History tells us Himalayas hold key to controlling Asia; India must continue to be wary of China

Tsewang Dorji
Sun., June 20, 2021



For the past few years, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has upgraded its high-tech weapons and conducted a series of live-fire military exercises along the Himalayan borders and in Tibet. For Instance, Global Times reported on 5 January, 2020 that "China's latest weapons including the Type 15 tank and the new 155-millimeter vehicle-mounted Howitzer were deployed in Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) began a first round of exercises in 2020€¦".

After Xi Jinping came to power, a major reorganisation of the PLA was carried out in 2015 and later in February 2016, the seven military regions were reorganised into five theatre commands. During the official flag-conferring ceremony held in Beijing on 1 February, 2016, Xi, also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), "urged the theate commands to improve their ability to command and strengthen joint command and action to complete the tasks of routine combat readiness and military actions".

Since then, there have been different intensive military exercises which also involved joint military exercises between different theatre commands, including the Western Theatre Command, which overlooks the security of East Turkestan (Xinjiang) and Tibet. All this centralisation of the command system indicates that China is planning to create a new front in the Indo-Tibet border.



In other words, China's growing number of military exercises in Tibet increases the threat that India faces.

During the military and diplomatic stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the Galwan Valley in June last year, despite pursuing a negotiation with India, satellite images proved that the PLA has been actively upgrading its military infrastructure. While pressuring India to stop the construction of roads in the Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso, China continues to develop an enhanced transport network and military infrastructure across Tibet bordering India.

This is further proved by the satellite images released by the space technology company Maxar. The structures consisting of bunkers, tents and storage units for military hardware built by the PLA overlooking the Galwan River were not visible in aerial photographs earlier in June. Hence, in dealing with India, there is a dualistic approach from Communist China.

Shishir Gupta, author of the Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and the Indian Riposte, reported in Hindustan Times on 20 November, 2020 that "Military commanders and national security planners who spoke on condition of anonymity said that over the past month they noticed the PLA engage in road construction at Churup village right across Kaurik pass in the central sector and that it has placed new container housing modules around Tunjum La, north of the contested Barahoti plains in Uttarakhand, just 4 km from the 565 km LAC in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand".

However, the construction of a road right across Kaurik pass threatens the security of India. Not only this, the existence of the East Turkestan-Tibet highway, which is closer to Kaurik pass, is one of the important strategic roads for the deployments of PLA's soldiers and military hardware during the time of 1962 border war with India.

On 29 May, Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh Jai Ram Thakur along with Director-General of Police Sanjay Kundu visited the forward areas of Lepcha in Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti districts.

Accompanied by cabinet minister Dr Ram Lal Markanda, after the inspection, the chief minister was quoted in Outlook as saying, "It's true that China is building roads and ramping up other infrastructural projects along the state's borders in the Tibet region. It appears China is planning to set up its surveillance network at some vantage point which is located at a higher elevation so as to keep an eye on our side of the borders".



These continuous Chinese infrastructure developments on the Tibetan Plateau further confirm the importance of Tibet.

From a strategic point of view, Himachal Pradesh is important because it shares a 260-kilometre-long porous border with Tibet in Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti districts. Of the total border length, 140 kilometres lie in the Kinnaur district, while 80 kilometres come under Lahaul and Spiti districts. In addition to this, the outfitting of 5G at the radar station in Tibet will further enhance the military communications and support a sprawling network for the rapid deployment of army and weapons along the India-Tibet border.

For the past decade, in the name of poverty-alleviation programmes, nearly 266,000 Tibetan nomads and farmers have been transferred into 960 new relocations near Tibet's border with India. The long-term plan of these mass relocation programes is to occupy and safeguard the Tibet border. Moreover, in Tibet, the party-state has systematically connected the major isolated border villages to highways and most of the border villages are now brought under the centralised surveillance system network.

In 2017, Communist China released its plan for the 'Construction of Villages of Moderate Prosperity in Border Areas (2017-2020)'. The objective of this plan is guided by Xi's governing strategy for Tibet: "[To] govern the country well we must first govern the frontiers well, and to govern the frontiers well we must first ensure the stability of Tibet".

Despite the 11 rounds of talks between Corps Commander-level between India and China over the Indo-Tibet border, China hasn't given up its expansionist policy towards the Himalayas.



From the military preparedness and strategic calculation, it seems China's "early harvest strategic move" is likely to shift towards the Tibet-Himachal borderland.

Around six decades prior, George Ginsburgs and Michael Mathos aptly summed up the importance of Tibet in the following words: "He who holds Tibet dominates the Himalaya piedmont; he who dominates the Himalaya piedmont threatens the Indian subcontinent; and he who threatens the Indian subcontinent may well have all of South Asia within his reach and, with it, all of Asia".

In short, in future whatever happens inside Tibet may matter for the Indian security environment and also that of Asia as well.

The author is research fellow at the Tibet Policy Institute in Dharamsala. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Madras

DURING THE COLD WAR 1.0 CHINA ALIGNED WITH PAKISTAN, STILL DO, INDIA WAS ALIGNED WITH RUSSIA AND A MEMBER OF THE NONALIGNED NATIONS (SO CALLED)

#NOTOKYOOLYMPICS
Why are Olympics going on despite public, medical warnings?
By STEPHEN WADE

AP

June 17, 2021

1 of 7
FILE - In this May 9, 2021, file photo, people who are against the Tokyo 2020 Olympics set to open in July, march to protest around Tokyo's National Stadium during an anti-Olympics demonstration. Public sentiment in Japan has been generally opposed to holding the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. This is partly based of fears the coronavirus will spike as almost 100,000 people — athletes and others — enter for both events.(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

TOKYO (AP) — Public sentiment in Japan has been generally opposed to holding the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, partly based on fears the coronavirus will spike as almost 100,000 people — athletes and others — enter for both events.

The Japanese medical community is largely against it. The government’s main medical adviser Dr. Shigeru Omi has said it’s “abnormal” to hold the Olympics during a pandemic. So far, only 5% of Japanese are fully vaccinated.

The medical journal The Lancet has raised questions about the health risks and criticized the World Health Organization and other health bodies for not taking a clear stand. The New England Journal of Medicine has said the IOC’s decision to proceed “is not informed by the best scientific evidence.”

The second-largest selling newspaper in Japan, the Asahi Shimbun, has called for the Olympics to be canceled. So have other regional newspapers.

Still, they are going ahead. How have the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga been able to bypass strong opposition?

At the core is the Host City Contract that gives the IOC the sole authority to cancel. If Japan cancels, it would have to compensate the IOC. Of course, the IOC is unlikely to sue a host city. So any deal would be worked out behind the scenes.

And there are billions at stake. Japan has officially spent $15.4 billion but government audits suggest it’s twice that much. Japanese advertising giant Dentsu Inc., a key player in landing the corruption-tainted bid in 2013, has raised more than $3 billion from local sponsors.

Estimates suggest a cancellation could cost the IOC $3 billion-$4 billion in lost broadcast rights income. Broadcast income and sponsors account for 91% of the IOC income, and American network NBCUniversal provides about 40% of the IOC’s total income.

Fans from abroad have been banned already, and a decision on local fans attending Olympic venues should come as early as next week.

Associated Press sought perspectives from inside and outside Japan with the Olympics set to open on July 23.

“It’s a bit like a gambler who already has lost too much. Pulling out of it now will only confirm the huge losses made, but carrying on you can still cling to the hope of winning big and taking it all back. It’s true that public opinion is unlikely to be kind even if Suga decides to cancel at the last minute. He might as well take the chance and hope for the best by going ahead with it. At least there is some chance that he can claim the games to be a success — just by doing it — and saturating the media with pride and glory might help him turn the negative opinion around.”

—Koichi Nakano, political scientist, Sophia University

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“The IOC carries a brand that is powerful. Athletes from around the world coming together to compete in peace is a heart-tugging draw. It takes an entertainment event and infuses it with a certain level of piety and awe. Who is against peace? With this “Olympism” as a goal, it has snagged corporate sponsors willing to pay lots of money. Therefore, the IOC has the leverage to exact contract terms very favorable to it and it certainly has done that in this case. The fact that only the IOC can formally decide to pull the plug on the games — even in the case of unforeseeable health events -- is testament to this.”

—Mark Conrad, lawyer, Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University

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“The host city contract hands over all the power to the IOC. The Olympic industry has had 120-plus years to win hearts and minds around the globe, with obvious success. In the age of the internet, their PR controls the message and protects the brand 24/7. The IOC is also beyond the reach of any oversight agency, including the governments of host countries. It can violate a country’s human rights protections with immunity, including athletes’ right to access domestic courts of law.”

—Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, sociologist, author “The Olympic Games: A Critical Approach”

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“Based on what I am hearing, people within the government have been given their instructions to make the games happen, and that is their singular focus right now — for better or for worse. Their hope is to get through the games with as few missteps as possible. Politicians may well be aware of the risk they are taking but hope that once the games begin the Japanese public will persevere ‘for the good of Japan’ and forget how we got there.”

—Aki Tonami, political scientist, University of Tsukuba

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“The IOC is an elitist club that garners support from other elites and people — and countries — that aspire to joining the elite. From a sports perspective, the IOC represents the custodian of the exclusive medals that athletes in numerous sports aspire to, acts as the chief promoter of the mythology of the healing power of sport, and the organization that most international sports federations and national Olympic committees are reliant on for funding.”

—John Horne, sociologist, Waseda Univeristy, author with Garry Whannel of “Understanding the Olympics”

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“Politically, the opposition is so weak, the government can do pretty much anything it wants. Although a disastrous Olympics would damage the LDP’s credibility, the party likely feels safe because a majority of the public doubts the capability of the opposition to govern. The government may be hoping that once the games start, public opinion will turn. At the very least, producing a distraction, and at most, perhaps a rally round the flag effect.”

—Gill Steel, political scientist, Doshisha University

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“You notice how nobody seems to be in charge. You have all these different entities: the Tokyo organizing committee, the Japanese Olympic Committee, the Prime Minister’s office, the Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike, the Japan Sports Agency, the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Suga is asked in the Diet about canceling the games and says it’s not his responsibility. Nobody wants to lose face. You saw the same in the run up to the 1964 Games. In fact, it wasn’t until Feb. 11, 1963 — some 600 days before the opening ceremony — that Japan finally found somebody willing to accept the presidency of the local organizing committee.”

—Robert Whiting, author of several books on Japan including the latest “Tokyo Junkie”

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“A lot of the opposition is shallow and movable, though of course that’s contingent on the Olympics actually working out. There will be a lot of people (broadcasters, etc.) invested in trying to make it look like a good show, so I think they’ll have the winds at their back if there’s not an appreciable spike in COVID deaths or any heat-related tragedies for the athletes.”

—David Leheny, political scientist, Waseda University

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“If it turns out there is a surge in coronavirus patients and it becomes a catastrophe, that’s not the responsibility of the IOC. It’s the Japanese government that will be stuck with the responsibility.”

—Ryu Homma, author, former advertising agency executive

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Associated Press reporter Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.

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