Exclusive: oil companies’ profits soared to $174bn this year as US gas prices rose



Oliver Milman

THE GUARDIAN
Mon, December 6, 2021

The largest oil and gas companies made a combined $174bn in profits in the first nine months of the year as gasoline prices climbed in the US, according to a new report.

The bumper profit totals, provided exclusively to the Guardian, show that in the third quarter of 2021 alone, 24 top oil and gas companies made more than $74bn in net income. From January to September, the net income of the group, which includes Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP, was $174bn.

Related: Biden to release 50m barrels of oil in effort to bring down rising US gas prices


Exxon alone posted a net income of $6.75bn in the third quarter, its highest profit since 2017, and has seen its revenue jump by 60% on the same period last year. The company credited the rising cost of oil for bolstering these profits, as did BP, which made $3.3bn in third-quarter profit. “Rising commodity prices certainly helped,” Bernard Looney, chief executive of BP, told investors at the latest earnings report.

Gasoline prices have hit a seven-year high in the US due to the rising cost of oil, with Americans now paying about $3.40 for a gallon of fuel compared with around $2.10 a year ago.

The Biden administration has warned the price hikes are hurting low-income people, even as it attempts to implement a climate agenda that would see America move away from fossil fuels, and has released 50m barrels of oil from the national strategic reserve to help dampen costs.

But oil and gas companies have shown little willingness so far to ramp up production to help reduce costs and the new report, by the government watchdog group Accountable.US, accuses them of “taking advantage of bloated prices, fleecing American families along the way” amid ongoing fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Americans looking for someone to blame for the pain they experience at the pump need look no further than the wealthy oil and gas company executives who choose to line their own pockets rather than lower gas prices with the billions of dollars in profit big oil rakes in month after month,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US.

The analysis of major oil companies’ financials shows that 11 of the group gave payouts to shareholders worth more than $36.5bn collectively this year, while a dozen bought back $8bn-worth of stock. This apparent focus, rather than on further drilling, has caused some frustration within the federal government, with Jennifer Granholm, the US energy secretary, stating that “the oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as the demand requires.”

A glut of new oil drilling has made the US awash with oil in recent years, turning the country into a top-level exporter as well as domestic supplier, but this has kept prices low to the displeasure of investors. “A lot of this has been driven by investor sentiment,” said Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, of the current reluctance to expand production. “They don’t want them to spoil the party.”

The situation has left the White House in an awkward position with its commitments to rapidly reduce planet-heating emissions, with environmentalists furious at administration attempts to expand drilling and fossil fuel companies also unhappy over some of its earlier climate-related moves, such as shutting down the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

The oil and gas industry has fought Joe Biden’s attempts to pause new drilling permits on federal land, despite its unwillingness to expand operations in order to reap the returns of costlier oil and the fact the industry currently sits on 14m acres of already leased land that isn’t being used, an area about double the size of Massachusetts.

“It’s not the government that is banning them from drilling more,” Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, told CNN. “It’s pressure from their shareholders.”

Aside from its role in the current high gasoline prices, the oil and gas industry is a leading driver of the climate crisis, the reality of which it sought to conceal from the public for decades, and is a key instigator of the air pollution that kills nearly 9 million a year, a death toll three times that of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

The American Petroleum Institute, a leading industry lobby group, pointed to a blog that blamed the Biden administration for policies that “significantly weaken the incentives to invest in America’s energy future” but did not answer questions on production rates of oil companies.

MEXICO

World's Most Indebted Oil Company to Sell up to $1 Billion in Bonds

Amy Stillman and Nacha Cattan
Mon, December 6, 2021, 



(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos will sell between $700 million and $1 billion in dollar-denominated bonds as part of a government effort to shore up the state oil giant’s finances, Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio said in an interview.

The issuance is part of a government rescue plan announced earlier Monday that includes a $3.5 billion cash injection, which the producer will use to pay down obligations and embark on a series of bond buybacks. The overall deal will result in Pemex’s net debt falling by about $3.5 billion, Yorio said by telephone.

Pemex, the world’s most indebted oil company, plans to sell new debt now to take advantage of relatively low global interest rates, Yorio said. Signs that the U.S. Federal Reserve could start an accelerated tapering of asset purchases may end up raising borrowing costs.

The debt sale will focus on cost efficiency for the company, Yorio said.

Read More: Mexico Gives $3.5 Billion Lifeline to Pemex to Help Finances

In addition to the transaction, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered Pemex to reformulate its five-year business plan, implement financial mechanisms to allow for public sector co-investment in exploration and production projects, and make changes to its management team. Last week, Pemex announced that its former chief financial officer Alberto Velazquez Garcia will be replaced by Antonio Lopez Velarde, its risk management chief. Velazquez will head up a new unit.

Holders of Pemex bonds coming due in 2024 to 2030 will receive cash and new notes in an exchange offer, while investors with securities maturing after 2044 will be paid cash for their holdings, according to a statement from Pemex on Monday.

Lopez Obrador has been criticized by investors for allocating more resources to Pemex’s unprofitable refineries, instead of focusing on its core job of drilling. Industry members are skeptical of the new strategy to develop shallow-water and onshore fields instead of more complex, yet more promising, deep-water reservoirs to boost dwindling reserves.

Mexico Gives $3.5 Billion Lifeline to Pemex to Help Finances

Amy Stillman
Mon, December 6, 2021


(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the world’s most indebted oil company, will get a $3.5 billion cash injection from the government as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador orders a new business plan for the struggling company.

The state-owned producer will use the funds to pay down obligations and also embark on a series of bond buybacks and new issuance to reduce the cost to service its debt. As part of the initiative, Pemex will also overhaul its five-year business plan, according to a statement released by the company Monday.

Lopez Obrador’s latest effort to show support for Pemex, which has a 90-year legacy in the country and for many years provided a huge chunk of the federal budget, comes after more than a decade of declines in output and limited investment in new fields. While the announcement appeared to provide some short-term support for the embattled company, analysts are skeptical that it will be enough to revive operations.

“It seems to be a continuation of what they have been doing: a direct transfer from the Mexican government, and trying to change the debt from the short and medium to the longer term,” said Alejandra Leon, Latin America upstream director at IHS Markit. “The critical part is whether there are changes in the operation that generate sufficient resources to deal with the debt, and that’s still unknown.”

Leon said she couldn’t be sure that the transactions announced today will ultimately reduce Pemex’s debtload, because the details on the plans to buy back some notes and issue new bonds were unclear.

Still investors seemed to be encouraged, with Pemex’s benchmark bonds due in 2031 rising 1.2 cent to 96.5 cents on the dollar, reducing its yield to 6.4%.

The liability management transaction won’t include bonds coming due in 2022 and 2023 since the government has already vowed to cover them, according to the statement. Pemex chief executive officer Octavio Romero had revealed that pledge in October. The government also previously announced plans to reduce the company’s profit sharing duty to 40% next year.

Lopez Obrador and Finance Minister Rogelio Ramirez de la O have promised to do whatever it takes to prop up the oil giant, with the president even saying that its bonds are equivalent to sovereign debt. Lopez Obrador, widely known as AMLO, has made Pemex the focus of his strategy to revive the Mexican economy by trying to make it self-sufficient in gasoline, and he’s rolled back the liberalizing energy reforms of his predecessor to give Pemex a bigger role in the domestic market.

Bond Exchange

Holders of Pemex bonds coming due in 2024 to 2030 will receive cash and new notes in an exchange offer while investors with securities maturing after 2044 will be paid cash for their holdings, according to the statement.

In addition to the transaction, Pemex will reformulate its five-year business plan “to include detailed actions necessary to strengthen its financial position in the medium and long term, as well as to prepare Pemex for the challenges the energy sector will face in the following years,” the statement said.

Also, it will implement financial mechanisms that will allow for public sector co-investment in exploration and production projects, improvements in its debt structure, and changes to Pemex’s management team. Last week, in Pemex’s first C-suite shift in the past three years, the Mexican producer named risk management chief Antonio Lopez Velarde its chief financial officer, replacing Alberto Velazquez Garcia.

AMLO’s energy policies have been criticized by investors for allocating more resources to Pemex’s unprofitable refining business and reducing crude exports in order to send oil to its refineries instead. International credit ratings companies such as Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Corp. have downgraded Pemex’s bonds to junk in recent years, in part because they say it has no clear strategy to reverse production declines.

“There is no meaningful evidence that the ship has been righting, that any of the underlying issues that plague Pemex have been resolved,” said John Padilla, managing director at energy consultancy IPD Latin America. “What I would say is that administration after administration have almost singularly focused on the financial aspects and I think what we are seeing is that the financial aspects are one of the least of its worries.”

(Updates throughout with analyst comments and information from Pemex statement.)

University of Hong Kong researchers develop COVID killing steel

Kalila Sangster
Tue, December 7, 2021

The metal was developed to combat virus transmission via surface touching in public areas. 

Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty

A team at the University of Hong Kong have developed the first anti-pathogen stainless steel that kills infectious viruses, including COVID-19, on its surface.

The high copper content of the new metal means that it "exhibits significant antiviral properties," according to the researchers.

The new metal can reduce 99.75% of viable COVID-19 on its surface within three hours, and 99.99% within six hours, with no trace of the virus present after 24 hours, the scientists found.

The metal also kills the H1N1 influenza A virus — the virus strain behind swine flu — and E. coli bacteria.

The team launched the project as a response to evidence that large virus-laden droplets and direct or indirect contact with touching surfaces contaminated by respiratory secretions can be critical paths for COVID-19 to be transmitted from person to person, posing a high risk of virus transmission via surface touching in public areas.

Stainless steel is used extensively in public areas such as hospitals, schools, and public transport for surfaces which are frequently touched, such as lift buttons, doorknobs, and handrails, because of its excellent mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, and workability.

However, the researchers found that traditional stainless steel does not have antibacterial or antiviral properties. On the contrary, the COVID-19 virus shows "strong stability" on the surface of conventional stainless steel, with infectious virus detected even after two days, according to the University of Hong Kong.

Researchers found that infectious pathogenic viruses and bacterias could still be detected on the surface of traditional stainless steel after typical cleaning procedures such as wiping with water and liquid soap.

The scientists discovered that pure copper exhibits an excellent antiviral efficiency towards COVID-19 and other viruses. But, replacing stainless steel products with pure copper in public areas is impractical due to its high cost, low strength, and lower corrosion-resistant capability.

However, an alloy of stainless steel with 20% weight copper proved to be extremely effective.

Stainless steel is a corrosion-resistant mix of iron, chromium and, in some cases, nickel and other metals. It is also classified as a “green material" as it is infinitely recyclable.

The scientists also tested pure silver and an alloy of stainless steel with silver, as the metal is renowned for its antibacterial properties. However, silver and stainless steel containing silver did not prove to be effective in killing COVID-19.

The team has been liaising with industrial partners to create prototypes of public stainless steel products such as lift buttons, doorknobs, and handrails for further tests and trials, according to the University of Hong Kong.

Watch: UK government secures 114 million more vaccine

UK’s Kabul evacuation effort risked Afghan lives: Whistleblower

A tiny fraction of Afghans who needed help received support and some were left to die at the Taliban’s hands, civil service staffer says.

People gather at the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport a day after US troops withdrew, in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 31, 2021 [Reuters]

Published On 7 Dec 2021

Just five per cent of Afghan nationals who applied for help to flee the country under one UK scheme after the Taliban swept to power received help – with some left behind having been killed since the collapse of Kabul, a whistleblower has claimed.

In evidence published by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, Raphael Marshall – who worked for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) during the evacuation effort – told how at one point he was the only person monitoring an inbox where pleas for help were directed.

The government’s public statements over hopes the Taliban had changed did not tally with the information he was receiving.

Marshall’s written evidence is due to be published by the committee on Tuesday, and its chairman, Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, said the “failures betrayed our friends and allies and squandered decades of British and NATO effort.”

He said it painted the evacuation as “one of lack of interest, and bureaucracy over humanity.”

Marshall worked in the Afghan Special Cases team, which handled the cases of Afghans who were at risk because of their links with the UK, but who did not work directly for the UK government.

He estimated that “between 75,000 and 150,000 people (including dependants) applied for evacuation” to the team under the leave outside the rules (LOTR) category.

He estimated that “fewer than 5 percent of these people have received any assistance” and states that “it is clear that some of those left behind have since been murdered by the Taliban.”

He said that no member of the team working on these cases had “studied Afghanistan, worked on Afghanistan previously, or had a detailed knowledge of Afghanistan.”

Marshall added that junior officials were “scared by being asked to make hundreds of life and death decisions about which they knew nothing.”

His remarks come as officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, are due to give evidence to the committee on Tuesday.

Marshall alleged that then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab “did not fully understand the situation.”

Emails were opened but no action was taken, as Raab felt “the purpose of this system was to allow the prime minister and the-then foreign secretary to inform MPs that there were no unread emails,” Marshall charged.

He said: “These emails were desperate and urgent. I was struck by many titles including phrases such as ‘please save my children’.”

“The contrast between Her Majesty’s Government’s statements about a changed Taliban and the large number of highly credible allegations of very grave human rights abuses HMG has received by email is striking,” he added.

Tugendhat said: “These allegations are serious and go to the heart of the failures of leadership around the Afghan disaster, which we have seen throughout this inquiry.”

“This evidence raises serious questions about the leadership of the Foreign Office, and I look forward to putting these to officials, including former Afghanistan Ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow.”

A government spokesperson pointed out that “UK government staff worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan within a fortnight.”

“This was the biggest mission of its kind in generations and the second-largest evacuation carried out by any country. We are still working to help others leave.”

Raab, now deputy prime minister, told the BBC broadcaster: “It’s inaccurate in certain respects, the suggestion that junior desk officers were making decisions is just not correct.

“There’s a difference between processing and deciding, so I’m afraid I don’t accept that characterisation.”

Black Students Stage Protests and Walkouts In Response to Racism and Bullying In Schools


Vanessa De Luca
Sun, December 5, 2021


In a recently released report issued by the Government Accountability Office, it is noted that about 1.3 million students, ages 12 to 18, were bullied for their race, religion, national origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation in the 2018-2019 school year. In the same school year, the report says, there were 1.6 million students who were subjected to hate speech due to their identity.

Black students in particular are most often victims of this type of harassment, especially in some midwestern cities where the Black student populations are smallest.

“It’s everywhere, it’s not a new thing. This isn’t something that is just now happening. It’s just now getting attention, more than it has (gotten) before,” shares Sean Sorkoram, a high school student in Tigard, Oregon. According to CNN, Sorkoram was part of a walk out staged by Tigard High School students this past Wednesday in protest of a widely circulated video of students using racial slurs posted to Instagram. This posting of this video comes after an October report released by the Tigard-Tualatin School District which stated that hate speech incidents were on the rise.

“Students are reporting that they have been the victim of hate speech or observed firsthand hate incidents happening in our buildings,” Superintendent Sue Rieke-Smith wrote in a letter issued to parents.

While the debate over critical race theory teachings rage on in school board meetings across the country, some students are taking matters of racial discrimination and harassment into their own hands.

In Savage, Minnesota, 14 year old Prior Lake High School student, Nya Sigin was the target of a recent video also shared to social media, where another young girl can be seen spewing hate towards Sigin, and encouraging her to take her own life.

“I really couldn’t comprehend what I was listening to, it was really just a wave of different emotions,” Sigin shared with CNN reporters. “I was angry, I was disgusted, I was sad, I was confused,” she continued, adding that she’s known the girl in the video since elementary school — “basically, my entire life.”

The 14 year old is now turning her newfound passion in fighting racial attacks like the one she experienced, into protest. She recently spoke at a rally at her school addressing the incident.

Chioma Osuoha, a student activist in the region who led a solidarity event with Sigin and other students who have been victims of racial incidents, told CNN that her “heart dropped” and she was “so angry” upon watching the video.

“The power is in the people, we must do things in numbers and (I) believe that’s exactly what happened,” Osuoha, 18, said.

What must be noted is the effects of bullying on the mental health of adults and children alike. In November, the suicide of a ten year old Utah girl, Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor caused an uproar, as the child’s parents cited severe bullying as the reason she took her own life.

Another recent report published by the American Academy of Pediatrics reveals that young adults who experience discrimination about their bodies, race, age or sex have a greater risk of dealing with mental health problems than those who do not.

Psychologist Charity Brown Griffin stated to CNN, “If you have to frequent a place every day where you feel like you don’t belong, that you’re left out and where you don’t don’t feel safe, that is certainly going to take a toll on your mental health.”

“Black students and other students of color are still able to thrive, they’re still able to perform well because they have these buffers — but that doesn’t mean that the systemic issues do not exist,” she said. “The cultural assets have created opportunity for them to rise above and be resilient in spite of.”

Call of Duty: Warzone developers stage walkout over Activision layoffs



Stephen Totilo
Mon, December 6, 2021

Organizers say more than 60 workers at the Call of Duty: Warzone studio Raven Software, owned by Activision Blizzard, walked out today, demanding the reinstatement of a dozen workers from the testing department.

Why it matters: Walkouts, long a maneuver of organized labor, are becoming a tactic in the non-unionized U.S. video game sector.

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Workers from another wing of the company, Blizzard, walked out in July to protest years of alleged abuse at the studio.

The details: On Friday, management began informing a dozen contractors in Raven's quality assurance department their contracts would not be renewed past January.

An Activision Blizzard worker group say the testing team had been told that positive changes were coming to the department and noted some of the dozen had just relocated to Wisconsin, where Raven is based.

The protesting workers are demanding that all testers are offered full-time jobs.

"The end goal of this walk out is to ensure the continued growth of Raven as a studio and to foster a positive community for everyone who works there," the worker group A Better ABK said in a statement.

What they're saying: Activision says the cuts are part of a plan to convert 500 other temporary workers to full-time employees.

"Unfortunately, as part of this change, we also have notified 20 temporary workers across studios that their contracts would not be extended," an Activision rep told Axios.


They have not commented on the protesting workers' demands.

Between the lines: Raven is the lead studio behind Warzone, a popular battle royale game that industry analyst firm Super Data estimates generates over $5 million in revenue a day.

Tesco facing pre-Christmas strikes in Northern Ireland and England

Action is in protest over the supermarket group's offer of a 4% pay rise

The Belfast and Antrim workers will be taking all-out strike action from December 16.

TUE, 07 DEC, 2021 - 09:02

Workers at several Tesco distribution centres across the UK are set to strike in the run-up to Christmas, potentially hitting product availability, the Unite union said.

It said warehouse and truck drivers based at depots in Belfast and Antrim in Northern Ireland, Didcot in southern England and Doncaster in northern England were taking strike action in protest over the supermarket group's offer of a 4% pay rise.

The Belfast and Antrim workers will be taking all-out strike action from December 16. Didcot and Doncaster workers will strike for 48 hours from the same day and for five days from December 20.

Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, said it had made a fair pay offer.

"We welcome the decision by our colleagues at the sites who have voted against industrial action. We are disappointed that some have voted to proceed, and we have contingency plans in place to help mitigate any impacts," said a Tesco spokesperson.

British retailers are already grappling with delays in international supply chains that are being compounded by labour shortages in domestic transport and warehousing networks, with a lack of heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers particularly acute.

But Tesco said in October it was coping well.

Reuters

Oil CEOs clash with U.S. Energy Dept official over energy transition



World Petroleum Congress in Houston

Mon, December 6, 2021, 11:10 PM
By Marianna Parraga and Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Top energy executives this week urged a more cautious transition of energy policy away from oil and gas, but a U.S. Energy Department official said the industry has a moral obligation to address climate change and the economic opportunity it represents.

Executives from Saudi Aramco, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, speaking at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston on Monday, blamed demand for renewables and lack of investment in fossil fuels for recent fuel shortages and price volatility.

The conference was marked by withdrawals of top energy ministers over travel restrictions and concerns over the Coronavirus. The verbal skirmish occurred at a time when oil demand has recovered sharply from a collapse during the coronavirus pandemic even as world governments have stressed the urgency of addressing climate change.

"The volatility in commodity prices and the impact on business and people," said Equinor ASA Chief Executive Anders Opedal, "illustrates the risks we face in an imbalanced transition."

U.S. deputy Energy secretary David Turk pushed back against the industry position, saying addressing climate cannot be put on the back burner.

"There is not an alternative to stepping up and fixing the threat to climate change," he said to an audience in a largely empty hall.

Consumers in Asia and Europe have been dealing with shortages of natural gas, coal and power due to production declines that pushed prices to multi-year highs. In the United States, the Biden administration has criticized oil and gas companies, saying they put profits over consumers.

The tension between investing in oil and gas, carbon reduction technologies and responding to investors demanding higher returns will be a continuing issue for major oil firms, executives said.

"The future of energy is lower carbon from exploration discoveries and production," said Liz Schwarze, vice president of global exploration at Chevron.

Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil producer, said there are too many incorrect assumptions made about the pace at which consumers will shift to renewables from oil and gas.

People "assume that the right transition strategy is in place. It’s not," said Nasser. "Energy security, economic development and affordability are clearly not receiving enough attention."

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga, Erwin Seba, Liz Hampton and Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by David Gregorio)

Opinion | Biden’s Democracy Summit Was Never a Good Idea. But Here’s How To Make It Work.



James M. Goldgeier and Bruce W. Jentleson
Sun, December 5, 2021

President Joe Biden will convene more than 100 world leaders, along with civil society and private-sector representatives, for his much-touted “Summit for Democracy” on Thursday and Friday. The virtual event, focused on “renewing democracy in the United States and around the world,” fulfills a pledge Biden made repeatedly in his presidential campaign — and one that we urged him to ditch shortly after he was elected.

In an article laying out our case last December, we stressed that determining who is sufficiently democratic to make the invite list would inevitably create tensions, and that the entire concept of a democracy summit relies on an overly ideological approach to managing the global agenda. Better, we thought, to skip the summit and get to the work of promoting democracy by working with already existing international institutions and partnerships, while revitalizing our own programs like USAID. Finally, we feared the U.S. had questionable credibility to position itself as a leading democracy, worries that were heightened after January 6 and amid ongoing efforts by many Republicans to undercut our own democratic system.

The Biden team, obviously, chose differently. We still think the summit risks becoming a self-inflicted wound, but given that it is happening anyway, here are four ways in which the administration can mitigate the most likely pitfalls.

First, don’t be afraid to call out your guests. Taking geopolitics into account, even when it means compromising your ideals somewhat, is a fact of life in foreign policy. With a summit billed as being literally “for democracy,” though, this risks going from complication to contradiction. The administration did draw a line by declining to invite NATO allies Hungary and Turkey, whose democratic credentials are in serious doubt. A number of other backsliding democracies that we raised concerns about — Poland, the Philippines, Brazil and India — did get invited. Each has its geopolitical rationale. But their undemocratic practices have grown worse over the past year.

The Biden administration argues that these countries aren’t just being invited for reasons of realpolitik, but that including them provides opportunities for their civil societies to challenge authoritarian trends. (The White House might be looking for inspiration to the 1975 signing of the Helsinki Final Act, which ultimately helped foster the collapse of Eastern Europe’s communist regimes.) Still, the risk is that leaders may walk away able to say the United States recognized them as democratic. Each needs to get the message that their invitation does not mean the Biden team is letting them off the hook regarding their undemocratic trends. While it may be tough for the administration to be too blatantly public during the summit, well-placed leaks to the press can help ensure that behind-the-scenes diplomatic pressure is not so quiet as to lack teeth.

The message to Polish President Andrzej Duda should be that while the U.S. stands with him against Belarus’ weaponization of migrants at the border, it also supports the efforts of the EU Court of Justice, which has been fining Poland more than 1 million Euros per day for violating EU law regarding judicial independence. And though Tucker Carlson may heap praise on Duda, the Biden administration should make clear it will use its leverage to help those working to reverse Poland’s assaults on the courts and a free media.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte needs to be reminded of the crucial role the U.S. played in bringing down Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship and re-establishing Philippine democracy in the 1980s. The U.S. should convey that it is committed to helping ensure next year’s Philippine elections are free and fair, with a particular eye on the autocratic family unity ticket of Marcos’ son and Duterte’s daughter.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, long self-styled as the “tropical Trump,” is already making foreboding statements like “only God can take me from the presidency.” Given the United States' disturbing record of supporting anti-democratic forces in Brazil during the Cold War, it is especially crucial that the Biden administration be clear that its commitment to a “long-term” strategic partnership” with Brazil doesn’t mean the U.S. will ignore the state of Brazilian democracy.

On India, the administration got off to a good start with the March 2021 human rights report from the State Department, which extensively delineated human rights violations and criticized the “lack of accountability for official misconduct … at all levels of government.” But the U.S.-India security partnership has grown closer as part of the enhanced Indo-Pacific Quad, even as the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance recently ranked India as worst among all “backsliding” democracies. This makes it all the more important that the next human rights report be no less frank and the U.S. not be afraid to call out Narendra Modi’s government.

Second, don’t let democracy alone dictate whom you work with. Another challenge for Biden at the summit will be affirming the shared affinities among democracies without further dividing the world into two camps. Ideology and interests do not always align. Democracies often have divergent interests. Democracies and autocracies can have convergent ones.

Fellow democracies are frequently economic and geopolitical competitors, and often have different ideas about how to manage the threats posed by authoritarian states. In that regard, the summit is a good time to reaffirm Secretary Antony Blinken’s assurance to NATO in March that “The United States won’t force allies into an ‘us-or-them’ choice with China.”

Meanwhile, democracies cannot afford to be opposed to autocracies on every issue. In the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union shared interests on issues like arms control and smallpox eradication. Today, the United States and China (as well as Russia) have a shared interest in combating climate change, reducing the risks of nuclear proliferation and fighting pandemics. Moreover, China is intertwined in the global economy in a way the Soviet Union never was.

The administration’s decision to invite Taiwan highlights this delicate balance between values and geopolitical reality. In one sense, Taiwan absolutely belongs on the invitation list; its democracy gets one of Freedom House’s highest rankings. But the invitation is obviously a delicate matter given Chinese concerns. Whatever sense of greater comity the Biden-Xi virtual summit fostered was punctured days later by Beijing’s protests over Taiwan’s summit invitation. The administration is keeping Taiwanese participation at a relatively lower level, but this diplomatic distinction doesn’t fully finesse the challenges.

While showing support for Taiwan and its democracy is an important foreign policy objective, the Biden team also needs to be firm with the Taiwanese government that it cannot use the summit invitation to insinuate support for independence or other goals inconsistent with the One China policy. Otherwise, the invite risks not only further complicating U.S.-China relations but also having Taiwan’s presence — and subsequent China tensions — becoming a main storyline crowding out the summit’s intended narrative. More generally, Biden should emphasize that, framing of the summit notwithstanding, democracies retain practical interests in working with non-democracies.

Third, use civil society groups to hold countries accountable. A common critique of the summit — which we agree with — has been that it will be nearly impossible to force countries to deliver on the democratic commitments they are being asked to make. The Biden administration has compiled an “illustrative menu of options” for initiatives they hope invited countries will choose to sign onto, and they plan to hold another summit a year from now to assess progress. These pledges need to be concrete enough to make the summit more than “just a photo op” — a risk that became clear with how few Paris climate commitments from 2015 were fulfilled, a failure that now hangs over the Glasgow COP-26 summit.

To ensure participants are held accountable, Biden should fully endorse the June 2022 Fifth Copenhagen Democracy Summit, whose more than 500 participants will undertake a “civil society stocktaking of the commitments made” at Biden’s summit. The Copenhagen meeting is a great opportunity to empower a consortium of groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Transparency International and various NGOs in the Global South to provide the kind of accountability scorecards governments on their own will not.

Fourth, use the summit to make real progress on fixing America’s broken democracy. Finally, we expressed concerns last year that this was the wrong moment for the U.S. to host an international gathering focused on democratic values. Since then, those concerns have only been exacerbated by the January 6 insurrection; the refusal of many Americans — fed lies by their political leaders — to accept the results of the 2020 election; rampant political violence against election officials, health care workers and school board officials; and a systematic effort by Republicans in a number of states to curtail voting rights.

We give the administration credit for being humble about the United States' challenges. In announcing the summit, Biden acknowledged that for ourselves and for how the world sees us, “we must openly and honestly grapple with our history of systemic inequity and injustice and the way it still holds back so many in our society.”

Indeed, in the past, foreign policy considerations have spurred crucial domestic political change. Historian Mary Dudziak writes that during the Cold War, “as presidents and secretaries of state. . . worried about the impact of race discrimination on U.S. prestige abroad, civil rights reform came to be seen as crucial to U.S. foreign relations.” Even Hans Morgenthau, the intellectual godfather of power politics, stressed the need to “concentrate efforts upon creating a society at home which can . . . serve as a model for other nations to emulate.” Were Biden to use the summit to launch a major initiative for repairing American democracy so that it is once again emulatable, the summit may prove worthwhile after all.

A ONE MAN SUPERSPREADER EVENT
Trump came into contact with about 500 people from the day he tested positive for COVID-19 in late September 2020, report says
Grace Panetta
Mon, December 6, 2021,

Judge Amy Coney Barrett applauds as President Donald Trump announces Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Washington.

AP Photo/Alex BrandonMore


Trump came into contact with around 500 people from the day he tested positive for COVID-19.


A new Washington Post analysis traced Trump's events and interactions in late September 2020.


Mark Meadows revealed Trump's previously-undisclosed September 26 positive test in his memoir.

Former President Donald Trump came into contact with about 500 people, excluding attendees at his rallies, in the seven days after testing positive for COVID-19 in September 2020, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

Trump's fourth and final chief of staff Mark Meadows disclosed the president's previously-unknown September 26 positive test in his memoir "The Chief's Chief," a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian ahead of publication.

According to Meadows's account, Trump seemed a bit tired and appeared to have a slight cold on September 26, the day he hosted a large ceremony and reception at the White House for then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

But Meadows received some bad news that evening on the way to a Trump rally in Middletown, Pennsylvania, when White House physician Sean Conley called to inform him that Trump had been infected with the coronavirus.

"Stop the president from leaving," Conley told Meadows as Trump was on Marine One. "He just tested positive for Covid."

"Mr President," Meadows recalled saying, "I've got some bad news. You've tested positive for Covid-19."

Meadows, in the book, sums up Trump's response as rhyming with "'Oh spit, you've gotta be trucking lidding me,'" according to the Guardian.

The chief of staff then told Trump that the first positive test came from an older model kit, saying they would do another test with "the Binax system, and that we were hoping the first test was a false positive."

Instead of conducting a new COVID-19 test, officials simply re-ran the same sample through another testing device — not a proper procedure for COVID-19 testing — and got a negative result, according to The Post.

Trump came in contact with 150 people on November 26, the day of the Rose Garden ceremony; 70 people on November 27, when he held a White House ceremony with Gold Star families that he later blamed for infecting him; and 30 people on September 28, according to The Post's analysis.

Trump then had contact with 20 people — including now-President Joe Biden — on September 29, the day of the first presidential debate at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio; 55 people on September 30; and 200 people on December 1, the day he and former first lady Melania Trump both tested positive, per The Post.

Trump issued a statement last week, responding to a story in The Guardian about Meadows' book.

"The story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News. In fact, a test revealed that I did not have COVID prior to the debate," he said.

Ben Williamson, a spokesperson for Meadows, later said, "The book is quite clearly referring to a 'false positive' rapid test the president received," The Post reported. Williamson added that Trump "did not have COVID before or during the debate." And Meadows retweeted Trump's statement, posted by Trump's spokesperson Liz Harrington, decrying the account in his own book as fake news.

Trump doubled down in a Monday morning statement.

"The Fake News continues to push the false narrative that I had Covid prior to the first debate. My Chief of Staff Mark Meadows confirmed I did not have Covid before or during the debate, saying, 'And yet, the way that the media wants to spin it is certainly to be as negative about Donald Trump as they possibly can while giving Joe Biden a pass,'" Trump said, adding, "Biden goes around coughing on people all over the place, and yet the Corrupt News doesn't even cover it."

Meadows did not disclose Trump's positive test to those who attended the Rose Garden ceremony, the organizers of the September 29 presidential debate — where Trump risked exposing Biden and other debate attendees, or the public. Meadows also kept Vice President Mike Pence and senior White House staffers who had been in contact with Trump in the dark about the former president's first positive test, The Post reported.