Myanmar junta accused of crimes against humanity six months on from coup


Human Rights Watch says army’s suppression of protests has included torture and murder, as small protests mark milestone

Protesters burn Myanmar flags during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on 29 July. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Reuters
Sat 31 Jul 2021 

Human Rights Watch has accused Myanmar’s military junta of crimes against humanity as small groups of protesters marked six months since the armed forces seized power.

Bands of university students rode motorbikes around the country’s second-largest city Mandalay on Saturday waving red and green flags, saying they rejected any possibility of talks with the military to negotiate a return to civilian rule.

“There’s no negotiating in a blood feud,” read one sign.

Myanmar’s army seized power on 1 February from the civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.


Myanmar junta frees more than 2,000 anti-coup protesters

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the armed forces’ violent suppression of protests against the coup and arrests of opponents included torture, murder and other acts that violate international humanitarian conventions.

“These attacks on the population amount to crimes against humanity for which those responsible should be brought to account,” Brad Adams, the group’s Asia director, said.

The spokesman for the military authorities, Zaw Min Tun, could not be reached on Saturday to respond to the Human Rights Watch allegations.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group says at least 6,990 people have been arrested since the coup. The group says the armed forces have killed 939 people, a number the military says is exaggerated.

The army has branded its opponents terrorists and says its takeover was in line with the constitution.

Myanmar junta accused of ‘weaponizing’ COVID-19 by withholding vaccines, oxygen and attacking doctors

DAVID RISING
BANGKOK
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Buddhist monk wearing a face mask holds an oxygen tank for refill outside the Naing oxygen factory at the South Dagon industrial zone in Yangon, Myanmar, on July 28.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

With coronavirus deaths rising in Myanmar, allegations are growing from residents and human rights activists that the military government, which seized control in February, is using the pandemic to consolidate power and crush opposition.

In the past week, the per capita death rate in Myanmar surpassed those of Indonesia and Malaysia to become the worst in Southeast Asia. The country’s crippled health care system has rapidly become overwhelmed with new patients sick with COVID-19.

Supplies of medical oxygen are running low, and the government has restricted its private sale in many places, saying it is trying to prevent hoarding. But that has led to widespread allegations that the stocks are being directed to government supporters and military-run hospitals.

At the same time, medical workers have been targeted after spearheading a civil disobedience movement that urged professionals and civil servants not to co-operate with the government, known as the State Administrative Council.

“They have stopped distributing personal protection equipment and masks, and they will not let civilians who they suspect are supporting the democracy movement be treated in hospitals, and they’re arresting doctors who support the civil disobedience movement,” said Yanghee Lee, the UN’s former Myanmar human rights expert and a founding member of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar.

“With the oxygen, they have banned sales to civilians or people who are not supported by the SAC, so they’re using something that can save the people against the people,” she said. “The military is weaponizing COVID-19.”

Myanmar’s Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun did not respond to questions about the allegations, but with growing internal and external pressure to get the pandemic under control, the leadership has been on a public relations offensive.

In the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper this week, several articles highlighted the government’s efforts, including what it called a push to resume vaccinations and increase oxygen supplies.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the military commander who heads the SAC, was cited as saying that efforts were also being made to seek support from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and unspecified “friendly countries.”

“Efforts must be made for ensuring better health of the state and the people,” he was quoted as saying.

Myanmar reported another 342 deaths Thursday, and 5,234 new infections. Its seven-day rolling average of deaths per 1 million people rose to 6.29 – more than double the rate of 3.04 in India at the peak of its crisis in May. The figures in Myanmar are thought to be a drastic undercount due to lack of testing and reporting.

“There is a big difference between the actual death toll from COVID-19 of the military council and reality,” a physician from the Mawlamyine General Hospital in Myanmar’s fourth-largest city told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal. “There are a lot of people in the community who have died of the disease and cannot be counted.”

Videos proliferate on social media showing apparent virus victims dead in their homes for lack of treatment and long lines of people waiting for what oxygen supplies are still available. The government denies reports that cemeteries in Yangon have been overwhelmed but announced Tuesday they were building new facilities that could cremate up to 3,000 bodies per day.

“By letting COVID-19 run out of control, the military junta is failing the Burmese people as well as the wider region and world, which can be threatened by new variants fuelled by unchecked spread of the disease in places like Myanmar,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “The problem is the junta cares more about holding on to power than stopping the pandemic.”

Myanmar is one of the region’s poorest countries and already was in a vulnerable position when the military seized power, triggering a violent political struggle.

Under the civilian former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar had weathered a coronavirus surge last year by severely restricting travel and sealing off Yangon. Vaccines were secured from India and China, but Suu Kyi’s government was ousted less than a week after the first shots were given.

As civil disobedience grew after Suu Kyi’s removal, public hospitals were basically closed as doctors and other staff refused to work under the new administration, instead running makeshift clinics for which they faced arrest, if caught.

Some have returned to public hospitals, but the Mawlamyine doctor interviewed by AP said it was too dangerous.

“I could be arrested by the junta any time if I returned to the hospital,” added the doctor, who was part of the disobedience movement and has been treating patients with supplies he has scrounged.

According to Tom Andrews, the UN Human Rights Council’s independent expert on human rights in Myanmar, government forces have engaged in at least 260 attacks on medical personnel and facilities, killing 18. At least 67 health care professionals had been detained and another 600 are being sought.

Military hospitals kept operating after Suu Kyi’s ouster but were shunned by many people and the vaccination program slowed to a crawl before apparently fizzling out completely until this past week. There are no solid figures on vaccinations, but it’s believed that about 3 per cent of the population could have received two shots.

The rapid rise in COVID-19 illnesses is “extremely concerning, particularly with limited availability of health services and oxygen supplies,” said Joy Singhal, head of the Red Cross’ Myanmar delegation.

“There is an urgent need for greater testing, contact tracing and COVID-19 vaccinations to help curb the pandemic,” he told AP. “This latest surge is a bitter blow to millions of people in Myanmar already coping with worsening economic and social hardships.”

Earlier this week, Mr. Andrews urged the UN Security Council and member states to push for a “COVID-19 ceasefire.”

“The United Nations cannot afford to be complacent while the junta ruthlessly attacks medical personnel as COVID-19 spreads unchecked,” he said. “They must act to end this violence so that doctors and nurses can provide lifesaving care and international organizations can help deliver vaccinations and related medical care.”

After a long lull in humanitarian aid, China recently began delivering vaccines. It sent 736,000 doses to Yangon this month, the first of two million being donated, and reportedly more than 10,000 to the Kachin Independence Army, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in a northern border area where the virus has spilled over into China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian declined to comment directly earlier this week on the report of the delivery to the KIA, noting instead “the epidemic is a common enemy to all mankind.”

The Global New Light reported Myanmar received another one million doses purchased from China.

COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported as widespread in Myanmar’s prisons. On Wednesday, state-run MRTV television showed what it said were 610 prisoners from Yangon’s Insein Prison being vaccinated. The report was met with skepticism and derision on social media.

Ms. Lee said if the government is trying to use vaccines and other aid to its advantage by positioning itself as the solution to the pandemic, it’s too late.

“The people know now and it’s been too long,” she said. “COVID-19 was not man-made but it got out of proportion because of complicity and deliberate blockage of services – there’s no going back.”

 

Mexican Journalist Ricardo Lopez Murdered in Sonora

 July 30, 2021

Ricardo Dominguez Lopez

HAVANA TIMES – The Committee to Protect Journalists today urged Mexican authorities to immediately and credibly investigate the killing of reporter Ricardo Domínguez López, who went professionally by Ricardo López.

López, the founder and editor of news website InfoGuaymas, was shot and killed in the late afternoon on July 22, his 47th birthday, by an unknown assailant using a .38 caliber handgun in a parking lot of a convenience store in the city of Guaymas, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, according to news reports and the Sonora state prosecutor (FGJE), who spoke to regional newspaper El Imparcial.

In a statement on FGJE’s Facebook page, state prosecutor Claudia Indira Contreras said that her office is investigating whether López was targeted because of his work as a journalist.

“The brazen and brutal killing of Mexican journalist Ricardo López, in broad daylight on his birthday, cements Sonora’s woeful status as one of the most violent states for reporters in a country where impunity in crimes against the press reigns supreme,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “Unless state and federal authorities become serious about protecting reporters and pursuing their killers, these attacks will continue at an alarming pace.”

On March 29, López told reporters in a press conference, a video of which was published on the Facebook page of Sonora outlet Agencia ICE Cazando la noticia, that he had received death threats from criminal gangs over his reporting, but did not say which publications may have provoked the threats. He also said he was subject to a smear campaign when local police in Guaymas used a Facebook page to falsely accuse him of having ties to organized crime.

CPJ was unable to locate the Facebook page López referred to in the news conference, but two reporters based in the region who knew López personally and asked to remain anonymous due to security concerns confirmed the existence of the page via phone. They also told CPJ that journalists in the region, especially those who cover crime and security, are often subject to threats and violence by criminal gangs.

CPJ called the Guaymas local police several times but no one picked up the phone.

CPJ was unable to determine whether López’s killing was related to the threats he described in the press conference or what, if any, of his works of journalism may have drawn the attention of his killers. InfoGuaymas, a news website with a Facebook page counting more than 300,000 followers, covers a broad range of topics including municipal, state, national, and international news as well as crime and security. According to CPJ’s review of the website, the majority of the articles have no byline; the most recent article carrying López’s name was published on July 17 and covered the regional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, he covered a deadly shootout in Guaymas in a video posted on InfoGuaymas’ Facebook page.

Before founding the website, he contributed reporting to television broadcaster Televisa Sonora, radio station Grupo Larsa, and newspaper Diario Yaqui, according to news reports. At the time of his death he was president of the local Association of Independent Journalists in Guaymas and Empalme, the reports said.

CPJ sent several messages to InfoGuaymas’ editorial staff via messaging app and email, but did not receive any replies.

An official of the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which operates under the auspices of the federal interior secretariat and provides government-sanctioned protection to journalists at risk of violence, did not answer several telephone calls by CPJ to determine whether the agency was aware of threats against López’s life and whether he was enrolled in a government protection program. CPJ called FGJE several times but no one picked up. 

CPJ has documented several recent violent incidents against journalists in Sonora. Last year, at least two reporters, Jorge Armenta and Jesús Alfonso Piñuelas, were killed in the municipality of Cajeme, while unknown attackers firebombed the car of another reporter, Marco Antonio Duarte Vargas, in Ciudad Obregón. On March 17, journalist Jorge Molontzín disappeared in Santa Ana, a town in Sonora near the border with the United States. According to CPJ research, Mexico is the deadliest country in the Western Hemisphere for journalists.

According to news reports, the number of murders in Sonora has soared in recent years, especially in the region bordering the United States in the north and the coastal region south of the state capital of Hermosillo, where the municipalities of Guaymas, Empalme, and Cajeme are located, due to territorial disputes involving criminal gangs.

Read more news here on Havana Times.

UK

Labour MP cleared of fraud says case ‘driven by malicious intent’ leading to ‘Islamophobic abuse’

“As a survivor of domestic abuse facing these vexatious charges, the last 18 months of false accusations, online sexist, racist, and Islamophobic abuse, and threats to my safety, have been exceedingly difficult."

 by Joe Mellor
31 July 2021 09:07

LONDON ECONOMIC EYE
in Politics

Credit;PA

A Labour MP said she has been “vindicated” after being cleared of charges of housing fraud she claimed were “driven by malicious intent”.

Apsana Begum, 31, was on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London for three counts of dishonestly failing to disclose information relating to her council housing application during three periods between January 2013 and March 2016.

Tower Hamlets Council, which brought the prosecution, alleged the cost to the local authority was £63,928, because someone else on the housing list had to be given accommodation elsewhere.

Jurors found the Poplar and Limehouse MP not guilty of all charges on Friday afternoon.

Ms Begum collapsed and wept in the dock as the verdicts were delivered, saying afterwards the trial had caused her “great distress and damage to my reputation”.

She added: “I would like to say a sincere thank you to all my legal team and all those who have shown me solidarity, support and kindness.

Abuse

“As a survivor of domestic abuse facing these vexatious charges, the last 18 months of false accusations, online sexist, racist, and Islamophobic abuse, and threats to my safety, have been exceedingly difficult.

“I also thank the jury for vindicating me and the judge for presiding over this trial.

“I will be consulting and considering how to follow up so that something like this doesn’t happen again to anyone else.”

Supporters in the court’s public gallery burst into applause after the verdicts, before being quickly reprimanded by the judge Mrs Justice Whipple.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted his congratulations to Ms Begum, writing: “Always knew you to be a woman of amazing strength and fortitude and yet again that has been proven.”

A spokesperson for Tower Hamlets said the council accepted the jury’s verdict.

A Tower Hamlets spokesperson said: “We have a duty to investigate any allegations of housing fraud in order to ensure public money is spent correctly and that those waiting on our housing register are treated fairly.

“After reviewing the evidence with the benefit of independent legal advice, it was found it to be strong enough to bring the matter to court where it was agreed there was a case to answer.

“We fully accept the verdict, that justice has run its course and that the matter is now closed.”

During the trial the court heard Ms Begum had applied to go on the council’s social housing register on July 22 2011.

She was placed on the priority housing list after claiming to be living in an “overcrowded” three-bedroom house in Poplar with five members of her family and without her own room.

However, the prosecution said the property in Woodstock Terrace had four bedrooms, according to both a housing application made by Ms Begum’s aunt in 2009 and a council tax form submitted by her mother in 2013.

Prosecutor James Marsland said Ms Begum had deliberately lied about the number of bedrooms in order to move higher up the housing register and also failed to tell the council that by January 2013 there were only four people living at the address after her father died and her aunt moved out.

Ms Begum maintained there had only ever been three bedrooms in the house and that she had never had her own bedroom while living there, and could not explain why her family members had said there were four bedrooms.

She also said it was a period of turmoil during which she was struggling to come to terms with her father’s death and her Bangladeshi-heritage family’s disapproval of her relationship with her then-partner, Tower Hamlets councillor Ehtasham Haque.

Ms Begum’s defence lawyer Helen Law also claimed the complaint which triggered the investigation, made in 2019 by Sayed Nahid Uddin – Mr Haque’s brother-in-law – was “false”.

Hostility

The court heard she left the property in May 2013 due to her family’s growing hostility towards her desire to marry Mr Haque, who was seven years her senior and twice divorced.

Giving evidence during the trial, an emotional Ms Begum said she had visited a police station to make a report about her brother following her to work and said she feared becoming the victim of honour-based violence.

She told the court she returned home on the same day and was locked in the living room by her brother, who said he thought she should visit an imam because he believed she was “possessed”.

Ms Begum said she managed to call 999 and fled the house with only her handbag. Days later she was told to pick up her belongings, which had been put in black bin bags outside the house.

Ms Begum and Mr Haque then were married in an Islamic ceremony before she moved in with him.

Mr Marsland had argued Ms Begum had been fully aware of the housing register policies and the fact she was no longer eligible for social housing due to her experience working in the town mayor’s office and then as a housing adviser for Tower Hamlets Homes.

But Ms Law said her client had only worked at a low level in both jobs, mainly as a call handler, and had no special knowledge of the housing register.

House Democrat slams lawmakers 'on vacations' as eviction moratorium set to end


By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Updated 9:57 PM ET, Sat July 31, 2021

(CNN)Rep. Cori Bush slammed her House colleagues for adjourning for August recess without passing an extension of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's eviction moratorium for renters, which is set to expire Saturday night.

"The House is at recess. People are on vacations. How are we on vacation when we have millions of people who could start to be evicted tonight?" Bush, a Missouri Democrat, told CNN's Jessica Dean on "Newsroom" Saturday afternoon. "There are people already receiving and have received pay or vacate notices that will have them out on tomorrow. People are already in a position where they need help, our most vulnerable, our most marginalized, those who are in need."

"How can we go vacation? No, we need to come back here," said Bush, speaking from the steps of the US Capitol where she had slept overnight in an effort to appeal to her colleagues to extend the moratorium.

With just hours remaining until the eviction moratorium deadline, Bush and a growing number of her supporters remained on the Capitol steps.

They are not allowed to lay down on the steps, Bush said, so they are perched in chairs and wrapped in blankets.

All day Friday, Democratic leaders scrambled to find enough votes to extend the moratorium beyond the July 31 deadline to no avail, even attempting to pass a bill to extend the eviction moratorium by unanimous consent.

Bush, who had been unhoused and evicted before she joined Congress, urged House leadership to reconvene and pass the legislation that would allow Americans to stay in their homes through the end of the year.

The congresswoman said she's been in communication with House leadership, but has not "heard any assurances right now that that can happen. But we're holding out hope."

Eviction moratorium to expire Saturday as House leaves town without passing extension

Bush called on the Senate to extend the moratorium before the chamber is slated to start its recess at the end of next week. She also called on the CDC and White House to extend the moratorium, but the White House has cited a Supreme Court opinion last month that said congressional action would be needed to extend it past July 31.

On Friday, Bush invited members of her party to join her on the Capitol Plaza, and was joined by her progressive colleagues Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota during the night, and visited by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, as well as Rep. Jim McGovern on Saturday.

McGovern, chairman of the House Rules Committee, told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux that if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has the votes to call back the House and reconvene on an eviction moratorium extension, he's ready to support her.

Pelosi made clear Saturday night in a letter to her House Democratic colleagues that even if the House passed legislation to extend the eviction moratorium, "it was obvious that the Senate would not be able to do so" as well.

Pelosi wrote that "some in our Caucus have now chosen to focus instead on how we could get the money allocated in the December Omnibus and the Biden American Rescue Plan in the hands of the renters and landlords."

"Overwhelmingly, our Members support extending the moratorium," the Speaker continued. "Universally, our Members demand that the $46.5 billion provided by Congress be distributed expeditiously to renters and landlords."

The Senate is still in town but is working on passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill. House members left for the August recess after failing to garner enough support to pass the moratorium on the House side.

On the Capitol steps Saturday, Pressley told CNN that the looming expiration is a "nightmare scenario" for desperate families. The lawmaker referred to her overnight stay outside the Capitol as the "next step" of her ongoing "activism to fight for the poor."

However, Pressley did not commit to sleeping on the steps again Saturday night, citing previously arranged ongoing commitments that she and other lawmakers have in their home states.

"It was a moral imperative to act to disrupt and prevent this crisis, and it is a moral failing that we did not act," Pressley told CNN's Ryan Nobles Saturday.

"Eviction is already violent, but to evict people in the midst of a pandemic is cruel, inhumane, unacceptable and 100% preventable," she said.

Pressley also called out her own party's handling of the impending deadline.
"We absolutely should have received word from the White House much earlier than we did. We simply ran out of time," Pressley said.

Yet, she added, "There is still time, though, to right this wrong."

"I do believe that the White House and the CDC can act, should act, unilaterally," she continued. "And if we are challenged by the courts, that will still buy these families time, and that is what we need."



Bush wrote in a letter to her colleagues Friday that she "cannot in good conscience leave Washington tonight while a Democratic-controlled government allows millions of people to go unhoused as the Delta variant is ravaging our communities."

She vowed to keep fighting for the millions of Americans who will be affected by the moratorium's expiration.

"I plan to be here until something happens," she told CNN on Saturday. "Hopefully something happens today. I don't have an end moment or time. I didn't know this time yesterday I would be here tonight. We're just taking it one step at a time."

Bush told CNN's Daniella Diaz earlier Saturday that she knows "what it's like to wonder if I'm going to get that eviction notice."

"The hope that when you show up at that door, just hoping that when you get a glimpse of that door, that there's no piece of paper from the sheriff," she said. "Your whole life turns upside down."

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

CNN's Daniella Diaz, Annie Grayer, Phil Mattingly, Kristin Wilson, Melanie Zanona, Suzanne Malveaux, Rachel Janfaza, Ryan Nobles and Vanessa Price contributed to this report.

WE ELECTED YOU, WHY?!

Frustration as Biden, Congress allow eviction ban to expire

By LISA MASCARO, JOSH BOAK and KEVIN FREKING

1 of 9

People from a coalition of housing justice groups hold signs protesting evictions during a news conference outside the Statehouse, Friday, July 30, 2021, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anger and frustration mounted in Congress as a nationwide eviction moratorium expired at midnight Saturday — one Democratic lawmaker even camping outside the Capitol in protest as millions of Americans faced being forced from their homes.

Lawmakers said they were blindsided by President Joe Biden’s inaction as the deadline neared, some furious that he called on Congress to provide a last-minute solution to protect renters. The rare division between the president and his party carried potential lasting political ramifications.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the chair of the Financial Services Committee, said Saturday on CNN: “We thought that the White House was in charge.”

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., camped outside the Capitol, said: “I don’t plan to leave before some type of change happens.”

“We are only hours away from a fully preventable housing crisis,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during a floor speech in a rare Saturday session as senators labored over an infrastructure package.



“We have the tools and we have the funding,” Warren said. “What we need is the time.”

More than 3.6 million Americans are at risk of eviction, some in a matter of days. The moratorium was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of the COVID-19 crisis when jobs shifted and many workers lost income.

The eviction ban was intended to prevent further virus spread by people put out on the streets and into shelters. Congress approved nearly $47 billion in federal housing aid to the states during the pandemic, but it has been slow to make it into the hands of renters and landlords owed payments.

The day before the ban was set to expire, Biden called on local governments to “take all possible steps” to immediately disburse the funds.

“There can be no excuse for any state or locality not accelerating funds to landlords and tenants that have been hurt during this pandemic,” he said in a statement late Friday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pointed Democratic House members in the same direction, urging them in a letter Saturday night to check into how the money already allocated has been distributed so far in their own states and localities. She said the Treasury Department, which transferred the funds earlier in the year, offered to brief lawmakers next week.

Biden set off the scramble by announcing Thursday he would allow the eviction ban to expire instead of challenging a recent Supreme Court ruling signaling this would be the last deadline.

The White House has been clear that Biden would have liked to extend the federal eviction moratorium because of the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. But there were also concerns that challenging the court could lead to a ruling restricting the administration’s ability to respond to future public health crises.



People from a coalition of housing justice groups hold signs protesting evictions during a news conference outside the Statehouse, Friday, July 30, 2021, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)


On a 5-4 vote in late June, the Supreme Court allowed the broad eviction ban to continue through the end of July. One of those in the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, made clear he would block any additional extensions unless there was “clear and specific congressional authorization.”

Biden, heeding the court’s warning, called on Congress on Thursday to swiftly pass legislation to extend the date.

Racing to respond, Democrats strained to draft a bill and rally the votes. Pelosi implored colleagues to pass legislation extending the deadline, calling it a “moral imperative,” to protect renters and also the landlords who are owed compensation.

Waters quickly produced a draft of a bill that would require the CDC to continue the ban through Dec. 31. At a hastily arranged hearing Friday morning to consider the bill she urged her colleagues to act.

But Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the top Republican on another panel handling the issue, said the Democrats’ bill was rushed.

“This is not the way to legislate,” she said.

Landlords, who have opposed the moratorium and challenged it repeatedly in court, are against any extension. They, too, are arguing for speeding up the distribution of rental assistance.

The National Apartment Association and several others this week filed a federal lawsuit asking for $26 billion in damages because of the impact of the moratorium.

Despite behind-the-scenes wrangling throughout the day, Democratic lawmakers had questions and concerns and could not muster support to extend the ban.

Revising the emergency legislation to shorten the eviction deadline to Oct. 18, in line with federal COVID-19 guidelines, drew a few more lawmakers in support — but still not enough for passage.

House Democrats, leaders tried to simply approve an extension by consent, without a formal vote, but House Republicans objected.

Democratic lawmakers were livid at the prospect of evictions in the middle of a surging pandemic.

Bush, who experienced homelessness as a young mother of two in her 20s, said that, at the time, she was working in a low-wage job.

“I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what I went through, ever,” said Bush, now 45, wiping away tears during an interview at the Capitol, where dozens had joined her protest. “I don’t care what the circumstances are and so I’m going to fight now that I’m in a position to be able to do something about it.”

Waters said House leaders should have forced a vote and Biden should not have let the warnings form one justice on the Supreme Court prevent him from taking executive action to prevent evictions.

“The president should have moved on it,” Waters said. She vowed to try to pass the bill again when lawmakers return from a recess.

By the end of March, 6.4 million American households were behind on their rent, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.

Some places are likely to see spikes in evictions starting Monday, while other jurisdictions will see an increase in court filings that will lead to evictions over several months.

The administration is trying to keep renters in place through other means. It released more than $1.5 billion in rental assistance in June, which helped nearly 300,000 households. The departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs extended their foreclosure-related eviction moratoriums through the end of September on households living in federally insured, single-family homes late Friday, after Biden had asked them to do so.

Aides to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the chair of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, said the two were working on legislation to extend the moratorium and were asking Republicans not to block it.

___

Associated Press writers Alexandra Jaffe, Mark Sherman and Alan Fram contributed to this report.

 

Tenants prepare for unknown as eviction moratorium ends

By MICHAEL CASEY
AP

1 of 7
Roxanne Schaefer holds a photograph in the living room of her apartment, in West Warwick, R.I., Tuesday, July 27, 2021. Schaefer, who is months behind on rent, is bracing for the end to a CDC federal moratorium Saturday, July 31, 2021, a move that could result in millions of people being evicted just as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

BOSTON (AP) — Tenants saddled with months of back rent are facing the end of the federal eviction moratorium Saturday, a move that could lead to millions being forced from their homes just as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading.

The Biden administration announced Thursday it would allow the nationwide ban to expire, saying it wanted to extend it due to rising infections but its hands were tied after the U.S. Supreme Court signaled in June that it wouldn’t be extended beyond the end of July without congressional action.

House lawmakers on Friday attempted, but failed, to pass a bill to extend the moratorium even for a few months. Some Democratic lawmakers had wanted it extended until the end of the year.

“August is going to be a rough month because a lot of people will be displaced from their homes,” said Jeffrey Hearne, director of litigation Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc. “It will be at numbers we haven’t seen before. There are a lot of people who are protected by the ... moratorium.”

The moratorium, put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, is credited with keeping 2 million people in their homes over the past year as the pandemic battered the economy, according to the Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. Eviction moratoriums will remain in place in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, California and Washington, D.C., until they expire later this year.

Elsewhere, the end of the federal moratorium means evictions could begin Monday, leading to a years’ worth of evictions over several weeks and ushering in the worst housing crisis since the Great Recession.

Roxanne Schaefer, already suffering from myriad health issues, including respiratory problems and a bone disorder, is one of the millions fearing homelessness.

In a rundown, sparsely furnished Rhode Island apartment she shares with her girlfriend, brother, a dog and a kitten, the 38-year-old is $3,000 behind on her $995 monthly rent after her girlfriend lost her dishwasher job during the pandemic. Boxes filled with their possessions were behind a couch in the apartment, which Schaeffer says is infested with mice and cockroaches, and even has squirrels in her bedroom.

The landlord, who first tried to evict her in January, has refused to take federal rental assistance, so the only thing preventing him from changing the locks and evicting her is the CDC moratorium. Her $800 monthly disability check won’t pay for a new apartment. She only has $1,000 in savings.

“I got anxiety. I’m nervous. I can’t sleep,” said Schaefer, of West Warwick, Rhode Island, over fears of being thrown out on the street. “If he does, you know, I lose everything, and I’ll have nothing. I’ll be homeless.”

More than 15 million people live in households that owe as much as $20 billion to their landlords, according to the Aspen Institute. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.

 

Parts of the South and other regions with weaker tenant protections will likely see the largest spikes, and communities of color, where vaccination rates are sometimes lower, will be hit hardest. But advocates say this crisis is likely to have a wider impact than pre-pandemic evictions, reaching suburban and rural areas and working families who lost their jobs and never before experienced an eviction.

“I know personally many of the people evicted are people who worked before, who never had issues,” said Kristen Randall, a constable in Pima County, Arizona, who will be responsible for carrying out evictions starting Monday.

“These are people who already tried to find new housing, a new apartment or move in with families,” she said. “I know quite a few of them plan on staying in their cars or are looking at trying to make reservations at local shelters. But because of the pandemic, our shelter space has been more limited.”

“We are going to see a higher proportion of people go to the streets than we normally see. That is unfortunate.”

The crisis will only get worse in September when the first foreclosure proceedings are expected to begin. An estimated 1.75 million homeowners — roughly 3.5% of all homes — are in some sort of forbearance plan with their banks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. By comparison, about 10 million homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure after the housing bubble burst in 2008.

The Biden administration had hoped that historic amounts of rental assistance allocated by Congress in December and March would help avert an eviction crisis.

But so far, only about $3 billion of the first tranche of $25 billion had been distributed through June by states and localities. Another $21.5 billion will go to the states. The speed of disbursement picked up in June, but some states like New York have distributed almost nothing. Several others have only approved a few million dollars.

“We are on the brink of catastrophic levels of housing displacement across the country that will only increase the immediate threat to public health,” said Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest University and the chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Eviction, Housing Stability and Equity.

Some places will see a spike in people being evicted in the coming days, while other jurisdictions will see an increase in court filings that will lead to evictions over several months.

“It’s almost unfathomable. We are on the precipice of a nationwide eviction crisis that is entirely preventable with more time to distribute rental assistance,” Benfer said.

“The eviction moratorium is the only thing standing between millions of tenants and eviction while rental assistance applications are pending. When that essential public health tool ends on Saturday, just as the delta variant surges, the situation will become dire.”

Many beleaguered tenants will be forced out into a red-hot housing market where prices are rising and vacancy rates have plummeted.

They will be stuck with eviction records and back rent that will make it almost impossible to find new apartments, leaving many to shack up with families, turn to already strained homeless shelters or find unsafe dwellings in low-income neighborhoods that lack good schools, good jobs and access to transportation. Many will also be debt-ridden.

Evictions will also prove costly to the communities they reside in. Studies have shown evicted families face a laundry list of health problems, from higher infant mortality rates to high blood pressure to suicide. And taxpayers often foot the bill, from providing social services, health care and homeless services. One study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and Innovation for Justice Program at the University of Arizona found costs could reach $129 billion from pandemic-related evictions.

In Rhode Island, Schaefer has struggled to grasp why her landlord wouldn’t take federal rental assistance. Landlords, many of whom have successfully challenged the moratorium in court, argue the economy is improving and coronavirus cases are down in most places. Those who don’t take rental assistance refuse for a variety of reasons, including a desire to get the tenant out.

“It’s not that I wanna live here for free,” Schaefer said. “I know wherever you go and live, you gotta pay. But I’m just asking to be reasonable.”

“Why can’t you take the rent relief? You know, they pay,” she added. “In the paperwork it says they’re gonna pay, like, two months in advance. At least by then, two months, I can save up quite a bit of money and get to put a down payment on somewhere else to move, and you’ll have your money that we owe you and will be moving out.”

___

Associated Press reporter Rodrique Ngowi in West Warwick, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

Charlotte Worthington produces new move to win Olympic gold in BMX freestyle

Worthington fell in her first run but landed a front flip and a huge backflip on her way to a first-place finish.

Great Britain’s Charlotte Worthington during the Women’s

 Cycling BMX Freestyle (Marijan Murat via DPA) / PA Media

By Alexander Britton
1 hour ago

Former cook Charlotte Worthington served up a gold medal for Team GB in the BMX freestyle as British success in Tokyo continued on Sunday.

Worthington, from Manchester, landed the first-ever 360 backflip to be performed in women’s competition, having worked in a Mexican restaurant as she trained for this year’s Games.

The 25-year-old’s gold was followed by a bronze for Declan Brooks in the men’s freestyle, while a British quartet snared a silver in the last swimming event in the pool, the 4×100 men’s medley.

Worthington fell in her first run but landed a front flip and a huge backflip on her way to a first-place finish, with Britain’s most successful female Olympic track cyclist Laura Kenny saying: “I think that’s one of my favourite ever Olympic golds!”

Speaking afterwards, she said: “In 2018, I was working in a restaurant.

“At that time it was the Racconto Lounge in Bury, but I started working in restaurants in the Beagle in Manchester.

“In 2018, I went to a couple of events and contests and got speaking to people and found out about BMX being in the Olympics and British cycling were putting together a team.

“At the time, I was just taking a lot of really cool opportunities that I enjoyed doing and it just kind of snowballed from there.”

Her victory came after Bethany Shriever secured the Olympic title in the BMX racing, while Kye Whyte finished second in the men’s event.

Brooks’ bronze means Team GB finished on the podium in all four BMX competitions in Tokyo.

Stephen Park, British Cycling’s performance director, said people should remember her name.

He tweeted: “The route hasn’t been smooth but to nail @Tokyo2020 this after the 1st run fail is huge testimony to her belief & resilience.

“@chazworther A Top @TeamGB @BritishCycling athlete. Remember her name.”

Adrenaline Alley in Corby, where both Worthington and Brooks train, posted of their pride at the BMX performances on social media, saying: “This is unbelievable!! 2 medals are coming home! We are so proud @chazworther @declanbrooks.”

Olympics-Cycling-Britain’s Worthington, Australian Martin win memorable BMX freestyle golds
By Martyn Herman
Posted on August 1, 2021

BMX Freestyle - Women's Park - Final

TOKYO (Reuters) -Former chef Charlotte Worthington served up the ride of her life as the Briton became the first-ever Olympic champion in BMX freestyle at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on Sunday.

The 25-year-old recovered from a crash landing in the first of her two runs in the final on a baking hot BMX park but produced a sensational range of tricks in her second to shoot to the top of the leaderboard with a score of 97.50.

American favourite Hannah Roberts, who scored 96.10 in a superb opening run and looked set for gold, could not improve in her second and had to make do with silver.

Swiss Nikita Ducarroz took the bronze.

Men’s favourite Logan Martin won the men’s event later, beating Venezuelan veteran Daniel Dhers to the top of the podium with Britain’s Declan Brooks in third place.

Martin soared off the ramps to score 93.30 in his first run and that proved sufficient for gold.

“I have no words. This is crazy. It’s been such a long journey to get here,” the 27-year-old world champion, who built a BMX park in his back garden on the Gold Coast, told reporters.

While Martin’s victory was expected, Worthington was not considered the gold medal favourite, having only taken up BMX seriously in 2017 while she was working in the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant in her native Manchester.

But she had a special ingredient to throw into the mix — a backward flip with a 360 degree rotation, a trick no woman had ever successfully pulled off in competition.

She stacked her first attempt to sit in seventh place in the leaderboard, but with each of the nine riders allowed to scratch their worst run, she still had a shot at gold.

And at the second time of asking, with no margin for error if she were to displace Roberts, she executed the head-spinning trick that she said had left her giddy earlier.

With a daring forward flip thrown in near the end it wowed the judges and she shot to the top of the leaderboard. That piled pressure on Roberts who had celebrated her first ride with the statement that it was “one of the best I’ve ever done”, and then tossing away her bike as if to say ‘job done’.

Roberts, limping from a crash in training this week, was faced with finding something extra, but baled early in her second run, sparking wild celebrations in the British camp where Worthington was hugged by coach Jamie Bestwick, a BMX great, and team mate Brooks who was preparing for his rides.

“I’m over the moon. I’m still sitting here waiting to wake up,” Worthington said. “It feels like a dream.”

Asked how she had managed to compose herself after crashing on her first attempt at the 360 backflip, a stunt she had pulled off for the first time on wooden boards this week, she said there was no way she would not try it again.

“All I wanted to do was just give myself the best chance of landing it,” she said. “It was a huge relief to do it and after that I feel like I probably zoned out the rest of the ride.”

World champion Roberts was magnanimous in defeat.

“Charlie did some crazy things,” she said. “I’m super stoked for her. She absolutely killed it.”

Worthington’s win and Brooks’ bronze shortly afterwards continued an incredible few days for Britain at the BMX park after Bethany Shriever won racing gold and Kye Whyte silver.

BMX freestye was making its debut at the Olympics after being voted onto the programme in 2017.

(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Himani Sarkar & Shri Navaratnam)

BMX Freestyle – Women’s Park – Final

BMX Freestyle – Women’s Park – Final

BMX Freestyle – Women’s Park – Final

North Korea's economy contracts most in 23 years, bank figures show


The coronavirus pandemic, climate change and economic sanctions had an impact on North Korean economic growth in 2020, Seoul’s Bank of Korea said in a report Friday.

 File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

July 30 (UPI) -- North Korea's economy shrank 4.5% in 2020, registering the greatest contraction in 23 years, according to South Korea's central bank.

Bank of Korea said Friday that the negative growth in North Korea's gross domestic product could be attributed to Pyongyang's decision to close its borders last year amid the global coronavirus pandemic and international sanctions, Newsis reported.

North Korea is estimated to have witnessed the greatest decrease in economic activity and output in 1997, during the Great Famine. The South's central bank has said the North's economy that year shrank 6.5% as hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions of people, died amid a food shortage.

The regime's economy was exhibiting signs of negative growth before the pandemic, the Bank of Korea said.

North Korea's economic growth rate was -0.5% in 2010, and then grew about 1% annually for four years starting in 2011.

The economy shrank by 1.1% in 2015m but posted a 3.9% gain in 2016. It then declined for two consecutive years before recording a positive 0.4% growth rate in 2019.

The Bank of Korea's numbers generally correspond to estimates from Seoul's National Statistical Office, which compiles its own numbers. North Korea's economy registered negative growth in 2017 and 2018 before recovering in 2019, the statistical office said last year.

Choi Jung-tae, head of the National Income Statistics Team of the Bank's Economic Statistics Desk, said the North's economy contracted in 2017 and 2018 because of "strong international sanctions," Kyunghyang Shinmun reported Friday.

Choi also said that COVID-19, flooding and typhoons have had an impact on North Korean economic growth.

North Korea's gross national income per capita in 2020 was $1,197.50, or 3.7% of South Korea's, the Bank said.

The Bank of Korea has estimated North Korea's GDP growth since 1991 and uses South Korean relative prices to estimate real GDP, according to reports.

Orca stranded on rocks during Alaska's low tide, returns to sea


A 13-year-old killer whale was stranded along the Alaskan coast for 6 hours before floating back into the ocean at high tide. File photo by qingqing/Shutterstock


July 31 (UPI) -- A 20-foot orca that was stranded on a rocky southeast Alaskan beach floated back to sea later the same day during high tide, local officials said.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration said a ship off Prince of Wales Island called in the marine mammal -- also known as a killer whale -- to the U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday morning.


They authorized the crew to keep pumping seawater on the animal to keep it wet and keep birds away from it. People gathered on the shore, taking pictures and dumping water on the whale.

A NOAA officer reached the beach early Thursday afternoon, asking people to stay away from the whale.

"This animal is in a situation where it is exceedingly stressed," NOAA spokeswoman Julie Speegle said, according to Anchorage Daily News. "The more humans nearby, the more it will be stressed."

Speegle said the whale was making clicks, whistles and pulsing calls. More killer whales were seen near the area offshore. A high tide came in around 2 p.m. and the whale floated away.

Bay Cetology marine biologists identified the whale as a 13-year-old part of a transient population last seen off the Haida Gwaii archipelago on July 3.


Altogether, five whales have been recorded as stranded on the West Coast in the past two decades, according to The New York Times.

Without genetic variation, asexual invasive species find other ways to adapt


Some species of white fringed beetles, a common invasive weevil, reproduce asexually. 

Photo by Analia Lanteri/Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo de La Plata, Argentina

July 30 (UPI) -- Invasive all-female weevils pass along epigenetic changes to their offspring, helping them adapt to new environs, according to a new study.

Across most of the animal kingdom, an organism's ability to adapt and evolve is largely dependent on genetic variation.

Sufficient genetic diversity makes it more likely that favorable traits will emerge and proliferate as the fittest specimens populate subsequent generations.

Some species, however, reproduce asexually, which means their genetic reservoir is limited. So how do they adapt to new environs?

RELATED Competition leaves a permanent genetic imprint on the brains of songbirds

To find out, researchers collected specimens of two asexually reproducing, invasive weevil species, Naupactus cervinus and N. leucoloma, from Florida, California and Argentina.

Despite sharing the exact same DNA, researchers found the weevil populations in each place produced different proteins to help them digest local plants.

Gene expression analysis -- detailed Friday in the journal Plos ONE -- showed some plants elicited a more pronounced epigenetic response than others

.
RELATED New grafting technique yields more productive, resilient plants, crops

"We found that some host plant groups, such as legumes, appear to be more taxing for weevils and elicit a complex gene expression response," study co-author Andrea Sequeira, professor of biological sciences at Wellesley College, said in a press release.

"However, the weevil response to taxing host plants shares many differentially expressed genes with other stressful situations, such as organic cultivation conditions and transition to novel hosts, suggesting that there is an evolutionarily favorable shared gene expression regime for responding to different types of stressful situations," Sequeira said.

Researchers also found weevil mothers, which practice clonal reproduction, are able to "prime" their offspring with these epigenetic changes.

RELATED Stickleback study shows epigenetic changes key to climate change adaptation

"Originally, we thought that these changes would only be seen in a single generation," said lead study author Ava Mackay-Smith, a 2020 graduate of Wellesley College.

"When we studied larvae, who do not yet have mouths or eat plants, we found evidence of the same proteins and adaptations from their mothers," Mackay-Smith said.

The findings undermine previous assumptions that epigenetic instructions are lost between generations.

Researchers hope that by studying the mechanics of epigenetic inheritance, researchers can develop better strategies for protecting ecosystems from invasive, asexual species.

"Knowing what is in this insect's repertoire, you could imagine that since we've now identified the proteins that are regulated differently, you could target a specific protein and design a targeted pesticide that removes only that species of weevil, without harming other native insects or fauna," Sequeira said.

Study: Understanding negative vaccine view of skeptics could get more people vaccinated


Understanding the concerns of vaccine-hesitant people could help to convince more of them 

 Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

July 30 (UPI) -- Survey data collected at an anti-vaccine conference in Poland suggests most vaccine skeptics and antagonists are motivated by a generalized negative attitude to vaccines, not direct experience.

Previous studies suggests those opposed to vaccines are unlikely to be persuaded otherwise, at least in the short term, but the latest findings -- published Friday in the journal Social Psychological Bulletin -- may help public health officials get through to those who are "vaccine hesitant."

For the study, scientists surveyed attendees of a conference where speakers presented anti-vaccine arguments.

Researchers found most survey participants reported their antagonism was based on their own or observed negative experiences with vaccines. However, the same participants were vague when citing those experiences and the sources of their information.

RELATED Study: COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy holding constant among some groups

Most critics of vaccines cited concerns about autism, allergies or children getting sick from vaccines, though were unable to cite evidence of correlation.

Psychological research suggests it is common for negative reports to stand out in people's minds. As well, when negative misinformation spreads, people who receive said misinformation from multiple sources are likely to forget where it came from.

Instead, people misattribute their negative beliefs about vaccines to direct experience or the experiences of close friends and relatives.

"Confirmation bias consists of an individual actively seeking information consistent with their pre-existing hypothesis, and avoiding information indicative of alternative explanations," researchers wrote in their paper.

"Therefore, a pre-existing negative attitude toward vaccines may cause individuals to interpret negative symptoms as consequences of vaccines, further reinforcing the negative attitude," the researchers wrote.

In addition to harboring fears about negative side effects, vaccine opponents claim vaccines are insufficiently tested and fail to protect society against infectious diseases. They also believe anti-vaccine leaders are more devoted to protecting the public than physicians who advocate for vaccines.

Those who identified as vaccine hesitant were more confident about efficacy of vaccines, as well as the reliability of research and testing, but these skeptics were still sympathetic to claims made by the anti-vaccine proponents about side effects and the "Big Pharma conspiracy."

Surprisingly, opponents of vaccines were more confident than those who were vaccine hesitant about the ability of modern medicine to handle the pandemic.

The findings suggest public health officials may be able to get through to those that are hesitant about vaccines by addressing their specific concerns about side effects, the researchers said.

The authors of the new study also suggest vaccine outreach should feature positive, prosocial arguments, such as the reasons medical professionals recommend vaccines.