Journalists and Dissidents Arrested in Coronavirus Crackdowns Across the World

Governments have used the crisis to roll back democracy.

OPENDEMOCRACY.NET

(OD) — Journalists, activists and workers struggling to follow strict lockdown rules have been harassed, arrested and even killed across the world this week, as governments use the coronavirus crisis to roll back democracy and crack down on dissidents.

And it’s not just governments taking advantage of the crisis. openDemocracy revealed this week that Brexit-supporting hedge fund managers are shorting the stock of one of the key companies making personal protective equipment in the UK.

Asia

• China The Beijing and the Hong Kong governments are using the pandemic as a “golden opportunity” to crack down on dissent and the growing pro-democracy movement, according to one of fourteen senior protest leaders who were arrested.
• Papua New Guinea The autonomous region of Bougainville will delay an election scheduled for early June by up to two months because of the pandemic.
• Tajikistan A court invoked coronavirus restrictions to ban reporters from the trial of a journalist. He was jailed on charges of incitement to religious hatred for writing a study arguing that Islam did not justify acts of terrorism.
• Iran Two medical schools have filed criminal suits against journalists over their coverage of the pandemic in the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
• Kazakhstan Rights defenders accused the government of using the health crisis to crack down on dissent after several activists in the Central Asian country were arrested for spreading ‘fake news’ about the pandemic.
• Pakistan The Islam­abad High Court directed the Minis­try of Information Techno­logy to reconnect the Federally Adminis­tered Tribal Areas to the internet.
• Philippines A senator has called for the immediate implementation of a national ID system “to combat future pandemics” by tracing people’s travel history. President Duterte has called for people violating the lockdown to be shot, and those accused of doing so have been put in cages.

Middle East

• Qatar Authorities rounded up and expelled dozens of migrant workers after telling them they were being taken to be tested for COVID-19, Amnesty International reported.
• Israel Several thousand people demonstrated in Tel Aviv against coalition negotiations that extended the premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu, who is awaiting trial for corruption. Protest organisers called the talks “a governmental coup under cover of corona”.
• Lebanon Demonstrations over lockdown measures reignited as protesters accused the government of using the crisis as cover for unpopular economic reforms.
• Iraq The army has been deployed in some residential areas to prevent people from leaving their homes.
• Yemen Houthi courts have sentenced four journalists to death and four others to prison this month.
• Palestine Palestinians wanting to know if they can travel to Israel have been ordered to download an app granting the military wide-ranging access to their devices. Users have to allow Israeli authorities access to the device’s location, any files and to the device’s camera.

Africa

• Liberia The army has intimidated journalists and three soldiers are under investigation for lockdown brutality after a woman was stabbed in the arm.
• Burundi Burundians living abroad will not be able to vote in next month’s polls because of the pandemic, the foreign ministry said.
• Somalia Journalist Abdiaziz Ahmed Gurbiye was detained after criticising the government’s pandemic response on Facebook, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
• Mali A second round of parliamentary elections went ahead after the government ignored appeals for postponement, with turnout expected to be even lower than in the first round.
• Nigeria At least eighteen people were killed by security forces according to a report by the National Human Rights Commission documenting “105 complaints of incidents of human rights violations” by authorities enforcing measures to curb the pandemic.

Europe

• Turkey Political prisoners including journalists and human rights activists were excluded from amnesties that will reduce the prison population by nearly a third in order to protect detainees from the pandemic.
• Russia The independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper deleted its investigation into the republic of Chechnya’s strict anti-coronavirus measures after Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov issued a threat to the journalist who wrote it.
• Belarus Non-governmental groups began crowd-funding campaigns to buy protective equipment for health workers after the president, Alexander Lukashanko, continued to deny the virus was causing deaths in the country.
• UK Journalist Michael Segalov said he was harrassed by police who accused him of “killing people” when he filmed their apparently heavy-handed behaviour towards a woman in a London park.
• UK Two out of three FTSE 100 companies are holding annual meetings behind closed doors this year, with no opportunity for shareholders to hold directors to account by asking them unfiltered questions in real time.
• France Youths in seven towns fought police in violent protests against lockdown enforcement.
• Netherlands Data breaches were discovered within Covid19 Alert, one of numerous apps designed to track people who may be infected with the novel coronavirus. Potentially up to 200 names, email addresses and encrypted passwords were left vulnerable.
• UK The Guardian has seen documents showing US surveillance giant Palantir is involved in an NHS project that “includes large volumes of data pertaining to individuals, including protected health information, Covid-19 test results, the contents of people’s calls to the NHS health advice line 111 and clinical information about those in intensive care”.
• UK A biometric company, Nomidio, is offering its identity verification service to the Department for Work and Pensions free of charge, claiming it will allow smartphone users an easier way to prove their identity.

Americas

• US President Donald Trump said he will sign an executive order temporarily suspending all immigration in order to “protect jobs”.
• Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro joined a march against the lockdown in which protesters called for military intervention.
• Brazil Lawyers and politicians asked the Supreme Court to suspend recently introduced provisional measures that pass on citizens’ and companies’ data to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. According to the government, the data will be used for “interviews in person in the context of home surveys”. The institute stated that the data “will be fundamental to face the health and economic challenges of the Brazilian reality during the COVID-19 pandemic”. The measures are already in force, but need the approval of the National Congress.
• Argentina A 21-year-old man who joked on Twitter about the government’s “pillage plan” was arrested by a government ‘cyberpatrol’ and is being prosecuted for ‘public intimidation’.
• Mexico The government issued a warning against one of Mexico’s main TV broadcasting channels, TV Azteca, as one of its news anchors said not to trust the deputy health minister after a governor said the national death tolls were not up to date.

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openDemocracy.net | Creative Commons

OK I ADMIT IT, I WANT ONE
In Mexico, Pro Wrestlers Sew Lucha Libre Face Masks to Make a Living During Pandemic

The idea didn’t come to him until his wife asked him: “Why don’t we make face masks?”


(TMU) — As Mexico enters the most serious phase of the coronavirus pandemic, many of the country’s activities have ground to a halt. From the country’s museums to its white-sand beaches and open-air artisan markets, Mexico—like many other countries hoping the bend the curve of infections—has hit the pause button on normal life.

Among the myriad entertainment activities that have been suspended by authorities are professional combat sports—including Mexican professional wrestling, or Lucha Libre.

And with the arenas shuttered, the sport’s most popular luchadores or fighters have been deprived of their incomes and the ability to continue practicing their spectacular jump-kicks and flips from the top ropes of the wrestling ring.

So to keep busy and help society in the meantime, a pair of Mexican wrestlers are now making a unique contribution to a different sort of fight by sewing face masks inspired by the great competitors of the traditional sport.

Como El Hijo del Soberano, quien fabrica CUBREBOCA artesanalmente y bajo pedido. Tiene experiencia de 19 años como luchador y 12 confeccionado equipo de lucha libre. Su madre es especialista en alta costura y ha hecho vestidos de novia y para XV años.
Aplausos de pie para ambos pic.twitter.com/SUzwBtZpqr
— ferperezcorona (@ferperezcorona) April 13, 2020

El Hijo del Soberano (the Son of the Sovereign), who belongs to a wrestling dynasty but has faced the loss of his job due to the lockdown, said that the idea was borne of necessity and his family’s loss of a crucial source of revenue.

However, he told ESPN that the idea didn’t come to him until his wife asked him: “Why don’t we make face masks?”

Okay, this rules! Unable to compete due to Coronavirus, El Hijo de Soberano has taken up sewing Lucha Libre inspired facemasks with his family. #LookForTheHelpers #WrestlingTwitter https://t.co/rmvOG8j0Vn pic.twitter.com/mFDRlmwAAU
— the Smark & Friends podcast (@SmarkAndFriends) April 23, 2020

Continuing, El Hijo del Soberano explained:
“So we made some, but using the material we had for the costumes. We use the lycra and the fabrics that are used in the wrestling suit makings. They have double stitching, fabric reinforcement.”

The masks include the motifs and designs typically associated with the most popular wrestlers in the sport, including Blue Demon, El Santo, and others. At $150 Mexican pesos ($6 USD), the masks are a bit more expensive than typical cotton masks, which go for around $20 pesos ($.80 USD) each, but they quickly became popular among wrestling fans and began to ship to various parts of the country.

El Profesor Gato Gris además de confeccionar equipos de lucha libre, también elabora cubrebocas de luchadores famosos.
Si estás interesado en comprar o en cotizar deseños propios, comunícate a su cel. 222 526 329 y así apoyamos la economía local #GrandeGatoGris #TalentoPoblano pic.twitter.com/o5LgVHZVmP
— Carolina Morales (@carolamora75) April 16, 2020

El Hijo del Soberano was eventually joined by retired wrestler Isaías Huerta, formerly known as El Gato Gris (Grey Cat), who used to run a wrestling costume workshop in Puebla. However, the government’s March 30 order that all non-essential businesses must shut down forced Huerta to halt his main job.

Huerta then began making protective masks only for his family before he decided to expand his operations and become an “essential” business by making masks adorned with the designs of such Lucha Libre legends as La Parka, Black Taurus, and Dr. Wagner.

✨Luchando para @24hpue contra el coronavirus y el Gato Gris 🐹👊. pic.twitter.com/Vi7Ch45Af9
— Tere AB (@Tere_Brit) April 22, 2020

Huerta told EFE news agency
“I’ve always loved talking about wrestling, so much so that I started sewing costumes for my teammates, and now it led me to come up with the idea of wrestler masks.”

On Wednesday, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 rose in Mexico by over 1,000 in a single day, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 10,544 and signaling that the curve in infections is rapidly rising, Deputy Healh Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell told reporters.

Mexico has faced criticism over what some claim is a lax approach to managing the pandemic, including a failure to test the population sufficiently and an initial lack of urgency in halting mass activities such as concerts and events at large venues.

Durante años, Moisés Calderón fue un luchador mexicano.
Ahora, durante la epidemia de COVID-19, elabora cubrebocas a partir de máscaras de lucha libre. pic.twitter.com/57aJSIpUWd
— ajplusespanol (@ajplusespanol) April 23, 2020


By Elias Marat | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

THE MAN ON THE TV IS SAYING BAD THINGS AGAIN

TV Preacher Pat Robertson Blames Gay Marriage, Abortion for COVID-19: “God Holds Us Guilty”

Pat Robertson is leading the pack in blaming LGBTQ folks for COVID-19.

EVANGELICALS ARE NOT CHRISTIANS!

THEY ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE POSSESSED
AND CLAIM THEY ARE TALKING TO GOD

ITS CTHULHU YOU IDIOTS!

Dr. CLARK ASH-TON, MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY

(TMU) — Since the coronavirus pandemic began ripping through the United States, causing major human suffering and contributing to spiraling economic distress, certain extremist members of the Christian right have sought to blame the LGBTQ community for the COVID-19.

And sure enough, when gay people are being scapegoated by the evangelical religious right, Christian media mogul Pat Robertson will be there hoping to lead the pack in blaming LGBTQ folks for COVID-19.

In an episode this week of his long-running series, “The 700 Club,” Robertson suggested that God won’t put a stop to the pandemic until people “turn from their wicked ways,” a reference to the alleged sins of homosexuality and other supposedly “terrible things.”

In a clip captured by watchdog group Media Matters for America, the 90-year-old televangelist is asked by a caller:

“How can God heal our land and forgive the sins when abortion and same-sex marriage are laws and many people are anti-Israel. Doesn’t this prevent his healing and forgiveness?”

Unsurprisingly, Robertson agreed with the caller’s recitation of Christian right talking points. He responded:

“You know, I think you put your finger on something very important.

“We are not turning when we have done terrible things. We have broken the covenant that God made with mankind. We have violated his covenant.

“We have taken the life of the innocent, slaughtered them by the tens of millions. Children made in the image of God … I mean, we’ve allowed this terrible plague to spread throughout our society.”

Concluding, he said:

“And it’s a small wonder God would hold us guilty. But the answer is, you know, you confess your sins and forsake them. Then he heals the land. It’s not before. You are right.”

Robertson’s “700 Club” has been airing since 1966, and has long been an outlet where hardcore Christian evangelicals can propagate far-right perspectives on social issues ranging from same-sex marriage to foreign policy, immigration enforcement, reproductive rights, Islam, and feminism.

On Thursday, the flagship program of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) featured the controversial Ret. Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin speaking about society’s alleged “war against men.”

An estimated 650,000 U.S. households tune into “The 700 Club” every day, according to CBN, while the network itself has close ties to the Trump administration and frequently features White House officials as guests.

Rights advocates and LGBTQ activists quickly denounced Robertson’s statements as a homophobic distortion of the Christian gospel.

In a statement, Michael Vazquez, director of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s religion and faith program, said:

“Pat Robertson is once again using tragedy to advance anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that will continue to isolate and harm the LGBTQ community.”

“Jesus never said that being LGBTQ is a sin, and in no way does the Bible correlate the LGBTQ community to natural disasters or other global events and pandemics, including COVID-19. The Bible does, however, give clear instruction to those who adhere to it to ‘do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.’

“At the core of the Christian faith is an ethic of love and justice, and what Robertson is advocating for is an ethic of hate and violence. Christians who continue to use the LGBTQ community, and other marginalized populations, as scapegoats for tragedy betray their God-given duty to be people of love and inclusion, and doers of mercy and justice.”

Robertson isn’t the first evangelical Christian in the U.S. to blame the so-called “sins” of the American people for the massive health crisis that first erupted in Hubei Province, China, before sweeping across the globe.

Last month, Ralph Drollinger—the minister who leads the weekly Bible study group for President Donald Trump’s cabinet—suggested that China, LGBTQ people, environmentalists, and people with “depraved minds” were responsible for God’s judgment being visited upon us in the form of the novel coronavirus.

Prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland, who heads the Kenneth Copeland Ministries megachurch, has also described the coronavirus as a “very weak strain of flu” while, nevertheless, claiming that detractors of President Trump have “opened the door” for the virus through their alleged “displays of hate” against him.

Meanwhile, Christian church leaders such as Pastor Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, Lousiana and Tampa, Florida-based pastor Rodney Howard-Browne have continued holding services in spite of warnings from authorities and health officials that defying physical distancing guidelines could lead to the exponential spread of the deadly disease.

By Elias Marat | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

Air Pollution Has Dropped by as Much as 60% in Major Cities Across the World Due to Lockdown

“The drastic reduction in air pollution during COVID-19 lockdowns shows how our habits and behaviors directly impact the air we breathe."

(TMU) — As the globe continues to grapple with the inexorable spread of the coronavirus pandemic, air pollution has plunged to unprecedented new lows worldwide and especially in some of the most contaminated cities, new research has found.

On Earth Day, Swiss-based air quality technology company IQAir published a COVID-19 Air Quality Report that shows how air pollution levels in 10 major cities around the globe have fallen to as much as 60 percent due to government-mandated shutdowns of non-essential businesses and physical distancing measures meant to curb the novel coronavirus.

The study examined cities’ measurements before and after the COVID-19 outbreak of the harmful fine particulate matter known as PM 2.5. The particulate matter, which lodges deep into the lungs and passes into vital organs and the bloodstream, causes a number of serious risks to people’s health.

The report looked at London, Los Angeles, New Delhi, New York City, Madrid, Mumbai, Rome, São Paulo, Seoul, and Wuhan.

The research revealed a “drastic drop” in air pollution in almost every city facing lockdown compared to a year earlier, with the exception of Rome.

New Delhi experienced a 60 percent fall of PM2.5 from 2019 levels. The metropolis also experienced a sharp drop in hours during which the Indian capital experienced air pollution ratings of “unhealthy,” with the percentage of hours falling from 68 percent in 2019 to 17 percent during the 2020 lockdown. In Mumbai, air pollution dropped by 34 percent.

Seoul, South Korea, saw a 54 percent decrease from last year while soot levels in Wuhan, China, dropped by 44 percent.

Meanwhile, in São Paulo, Brazil, air pollution has dropped by 32 percent.

In sunny Los Angeles, California, which has long been associated with its clogged freeways and dense smog, Angelenos celebrated Earth Day with some of the best air quality the city has ever seen, according to IQAir. With far fewer cars on the road due to the city’s Safer-at-Home order and much-welcomed spring showers, the City of Angels’ fine particle pollution has dropped by 31 percent compared to last year and 51 percent compared to the previous four-year average.

IQAir North America CEO Glory Dolphin Hammes said:

“We saw that L.A. had some of the cleanest air quality in the world.

“About a year ago, Los Angeles was ranked the worst air quality in the entire country- and now we’re seeing some of the best air quality in the world.”


Meanwhile, New York City saw its air pollution drop by 25 percent as a result of its lockdown.

London and Madrid saw far more modest air pollution reductions at 9 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

Frank Hammes, CEO of IQAir Group said in a statement:

“Across the globe, the coronavirus pandemic has had a monumental impact on the way we live.


“While the human and economic costs are devastating, we are also witnessing how much of air pollution comes from human activity. The drastic reduction in air pollution during COVID-19 lockdowns shows how our habits and behaviors directly impact the air we breathe. That’s an important insight [after] this unique Earth Day.”

While this news is more than welcome amid the horrific stream of daily news related to the novel coronavirus that attacks the respiratory system and our bodies’ major organs, the news regrettably will not last.

Air pollution is expected to kick off again with a vengeance once restrictions are loosened and industries churn back into action. Such rebounds impacting air quality and greenhouse gas emissions have been recorded during past crises including the 2008 recession.

However, the dire fears over a prolonged and deep recession with no precedent since the Great Depression of the 1930s could mean that this respite for the air could last much longer than investors and global markets desire.


By Elias Marat | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

Telecommuting Could Outlive the Pandemic, Lowering Emissions

If the coronavirus ushers in a societal shift toward more telework, that could mean fewer cars on U.S. roads

By Scott Waldman, E&E News on April 30, 2020

Credit: Getty Images

The coronavirus pandemic has the potential to permanently boost the popularity of telecommuting, say workplace experts—a societal shift that would have a profound impact on U.S. climate emissions.

Due to the outbreak, millions more Americans are doing their jobs from home. And thanks to advances in technology—and a little nudge from widespread stay-at-home orders—the temporary fix could become much more commonplace.

The shift in lifestyle would represent a major climate victory, said Harriet Tregoning, a former senior official in the Obama administration at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She helped cities plan for climate change.

Fewer daily commuters would lead to a drop in vehicle emissions and traffic congestion, Tregoning said. It also could open up more urban streets for use by bicycle commuters or for public transportation.

“I think it will really change people’s attitudes about what’s possible to get done with remote work, ditto for work travel, and all these things could have a salutary effect on climate change,” said Tregoning, who is now director of the New Urban Mobility project at the nonprofit World Resources Institute.

The pandemic has prompted a number of societal changes—from a rise in bicycle commuting to a relaxation on regulations for telemedicine.

None of those shifts, however, has the climate potential of taking cars off the road. Transportation accounts for about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. And the vast majority of employees around the country—86%—commute to work in a private vehicle, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

But there is still plenty of untapped potential in telecommuting. Much of the country has connected to high-speed Internet in recent years, and yet only a small share of the workforce has shifted to teleworking, said Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics, which tracks telecommuting trends.

Before the pandemic, about 4% of U.S. employees worked from home, according to data collected by the firm. Now more than half the 135-million-strong U.S. workforce is doing so, according to Global Workplace Analytics.

Managers, she said, would be key to whether the trend continues post-pandemic.

“The biggest difference in support are managers that have not done it and those that have done it,” Lister said. “So the longer this goes on, the more managers will be comfortable with seeing, ‘Oh hey, they are really working; I can tell what they’re doing. They’re not going to be sitting on the sofa eating bonbons.”

A greater number of employees and managers are now realizing they don’t have to come to the office every day, she said. But the coming shift to telework also could be driven by simple economics, she said. Employers looking to cut costs amid a recession might see large unused office spaces—which they spent months operating without—as a liability and a place to cut costs.

About half of the U.S. workforce has a job that can be performed at least partially at home, Lister said. Even if, after the pandemic, millions of Americans return to an office, many more will see working from home as a viable option.

By the end of 2021, Global Workplace Analytics estimates that 25% to 30% of the total U.S. workforce would telecommute. If those who hold jobs where it is possible to work from home at least part of the time do so, it would be the greenhouse gas equivalent of taking all of New York’s workforce permanently off the road, she said.

“Sustainability has been made visible; in a very short period of time, we see that the air is cleaner and that the water is cleaner,” Lister said. “It’s just really hard to deny that remote work isn’t a major part of the solution.”

Others feel that the climate implications of increased telework are not so clear-cut.

The presumed emissions cuts could be undermined if they mean more people choose to live in the suburbs because they no longer face long commutes into a city for work, said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at New York University. Suburban life generally means less efficient housing, and it’s often easier to have a low-carbon footprint in a city environment.

“The flip side [of more telecommuting] is that there are lots of us who live in the city near our work for good reason. I can easily see that this means there will be fewer people living in a 400-square-foot walkup studio, because why do it? So here comes the ’burbs—you live out there with a two-car garage and four bedrooms,” he said. “So honestly, the climate impact overall, I have no idea.

Returning to a culture that devalues public transit and increases suburban sprawl is one of the biggest risks of this climate moment, said Brent Toderian, who was the chief city planner for Vancouver, British Columbia.

He said it will be “throwing gas on the fire of the climate emergency” if the reaction to COVID-19 is a new fear of cities—as city living often means a reduced dependence on fossil fuels.

One option is for cities to rethink traffic flow, Toderian said. He pointed to Oakland, Calif., which recently closed off 10% of its streets so they could be used by pedestrians and bicyclists. It is a time for city planners to reimagine public spaces, he said.

Toderian added that an increase in telecommuting also could have an impact on home and office design.

“We’re going to see changes in office space and changes in home space as a result of telecommuting and working from home,” he said. “There’s conversations about how this will change retail design, how it will change office design, how it will change residential design.”

Ultimately, the motivation for a different way of living could be driven by an emotional response to the COVID-19 crisis. “We may just need more breathing space,” he said.

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Waldman

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UN Food Agency Chief Warns Global Famine of “Biblical Proportions” Just Months Away

The world is facing "a perfect storm" due to the pandemic, economic crisis, locust swarms, and numerous war

Photo credit: Kevin Carter, nostri-imago, Flick

(TMU) — David Beasley, director of the United Nations World Food Program, told the U.N. Security Council this week that the world is on “the brink of a hunger pandemic” and we could be facing “multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months.”

Beasley warned that the world is facing “a perfect storm” due to the pandemic, economic crisis, locust swarms, and numerous wars that are still ongoing across the planet.

“It is critical we come together as one united global community to defeat this disease, and protect the most vulnerable nations and communities from its potentially devastating effects,” Beasley said.

According to the 2020 Global Report on Food Crisis, which was published this week, an additional 135 million people will be facing starvation by the end of the year.

“In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries, and in fact, in 10 of these countries we already have more than one million people per country who are on the verge of starvation,” Beasley said.

“There’s a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself,” he added.

Beasley said that places like Haiti, Nepal, and Somalia, where a large number of families depend on income from overseas workers will be hit especially hard. He urged world leaders to set aside their differences and slow down their military adventures to meet the current challenge.


“We need all parties involved in conflicts to give us swift and unimpeded humanitarian access to all vulnerable communities, so they can get the assistance to them that they need, regardless of who they are or where they are. Supply chains have to keep moving if we are going to overcome this pandemic and get food from where it is produced to where it is needed,” he said.

Another concern is that countries will ban exports on certain important foods and medicines, which has already started to happen.

According to Bloomberg, Kazakhstan has banned exports of wheat flour, which is a major concern because the country is one of the world’s biggest producers. Meanwhile, Vietnam, the world’s third-largest exporter of rice, has temporarily suspended rice export contracts.

Politicians and business leaders have insisted that the supply chain is strong and that shelves will continue to be filled to meet the increasing demands at grocery stores. However, there is no doubt that there have been some supply chain disruptions to different parts of the global economy since the outbreak began.

There are also concerns that domestic supply chains will be disrupted if there are continued outbreaks among essential workers.

Last week, meat packaging plants across the U.S. were forced to close as hundreds of workers became sick with the virus. According to a new investigation by USA Today, meatpacking plants are acting as epicenters for the virus and causing further spread to neighboring communities.

According to the report, rates of infection around these meat packaging plants are higher than 75% of other counties in the country.

By John Vibes | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

The Real Reason Farmers Are Dumping Milk Down the Drain and Letting Produce Rot in Fields

Seeing food destroyed at a time when people are going hungry is unsettling for many Americans.

THE CONVERSATION

CAPITALIST CRISIS IS THE CRISIS OF OVERPRODUCTION



(CONVERSATION) — Many Americans may be surprised and confused to see farmers dumping milk down the drain or letting vegetables rot in their fields.

Why would they be destroying food at a time when grocery stores and food pantries struggle to keep pace with surging demand during the coronavirus pandemic?

As sociologists with a specialty in agriculture and food, we study how the structure of the food system affects people’s lives and the environment. Seeing food destroyed at a time when people are going hungry highlights both short- and long-term problems with this system.

A tale of two supply chains

Surprisingly, the supply chain for food bears a striking similarity to that of another product that has experienced shortages: toilet paper.

Like the toilet paper market, the food industry has two separate supply chains for consumer and commercial use. On the consumer side are grocery and convenience stores that focus on small purchases. The commercial side represents restaurants and institutions such as schools, prisons, hospitals and corporate cafeterias that purchase large quantities of foods in bulk. Ultimately, commercial institutions purchase in sizes that exceed the storage capacity of most households and food pantries.

While the commercial and the consumer supply chains are different, there are some commonalities: Both are complex, cover long distances and rely on just-in-time production. Both are also increasingly concentrated, meaning that there are only a few companies between farmers and consumers that process and distribute raw agricultural goods into edible food. For example, on the commercial side, Sysco and U.S. Foods control an estimated 75% of the market for food distribution.

These characteristics make the supply chains more vulnerable to disruptions.

In 2018, over half of all U.S. spending on food was on the commercial side of the supply chain. The introduction of social distancing measures in March forced schools, corporate cafeterias and many restaurants to close. As a result, a lot of food intended for commercial use no longer had a buyer.
Where the supply chains diverge

To understand why this food can’t readily be diverted to consumers, let’s take a closer look at the supply chains for meat, vegetables and milk. With each category, there are different reasons.

Vegetable farmers, for example, have a lot of crops growing in their fields intended for commercial buyers like schools, restaurants and cruise lines, which are no longer purchasing these products.

But a worsening labor shortage makes it a lot harder to harvest or pick their crops and package them for consumers.

So a combination of plunging commercial demand, not enough low-wage yet skilled laborers, falling prices and a short window in which to pick vegetables means it has become cheaper to simply let them rot in the fields.

As for meat, restaurants typically order larger cuts and use more of the pricier parts like tenderloins. In contrast, much of the meat purchased on the consumer side is sold in “case-ready” packages, and ground beef is far more common.

So in general, commercial buyers tend to buy parts of the cow or pig that consumers simply don’t prepare at home. But what’s more, meat plant closures due to COVID-19 outbreaks are creating a bottleneck for slaughtering and processing animals, which also have a short window before they’re past their prime. As a result, producers, particularly pork farmers, are debating whether to feed and care for their animals past their prime or simply euthanize them.

Milk is even more complicated when it comes to how it flows along the food chain.

First, there’s no stopping cows giving milk; udders that are full must be emptied daily. The only question is where that milk will go.

Restaurants and organizations like schools purchase nearly half of all milk, butter and other dairy products processed in the U.S. Pizzerias alone take nearly a quarter of all U.S. cheese production.

With many of these customers closed or cutting their purchases, there’s lots of excess milk. Unfortunately, processors do not have the equipment to package that milk into smaller containers for grocery stories and retail use.

As for converting more milk into dairy products with longer shelf lives like cheese, there was already a glut of mozzarella and other cheese plugging up cold storage space. And despite a rise in takeout pizza, overall demand for cheese has “dropped like a rock,” according to trade industry sources.

That has left dairy farmers with little choice but to dump excess milk into manure ponds and ditches.

A longer-term problem

Many states are working on short-term solutions to bridge the gap between the two supply chains.

Nebraska is temporarily allowing restaurants to sell unlabeled packaged foods to customers, Texas is pushing restaurants to prepare food care packages for at-risk families, and many other states have changed their health regulations to allow restaurants to repackage products into smaller quantities to sell to the public.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to begin purchasing US$3 billion in fresh produce, dairy and meat to support farmers and eventually distribute it to food pantries and other organizations feeding Americans in need.

Although helpful in the short term, we believe a longer-term problem that needs to be addressed is how concentrated food supply chains have become, which has made them less nimble in adapting to disruptions like a health pandemic.

Employee-Owned Supermarket Chain Buys Produce From Farmers, Donates It to Food Banks

Over 150,000 pounds of produce and 43,500 gallons of milk is expected to be donated during the first week

Photo credit: Rusty Clark, Flickr

(TMU) — As the coronavirus pandemic continues to do damage to the United States economy, an increasing amount of working-poor and middle-class families are being pushed to the brink of poverty and food insecurity.

However, the problem has also extended to farmers, who have resorted to dumping produce and milk to cope with a crisis of falling prices and overproduction that could ruin their ability to remain economically viable.

To help cope with the spiraling crisis, employee-owned U.S. supermarket chain Publix has pledged to begin buying fresh fruit, vegetables, and milk from farmers and donating it directly to the food banks of Feeding America, a nonprofit organization devoted to relieving hunger in the United States.

The initiative will primarily benefit produce farmers in Florida, dairy farmers in the southeast, and an ever-growing number of families relying on charities like Feeding America to fill their pantries as jobless claims top 24 million as of this week.

Publix expects that over 150,000 pounds of produce and 43,500 gallons of milk will be donated during the first week of the program, which is expected to continue for several weeks.

Publix CEO Todd Jones said in a press release:

“As a food retailer, we have the unique opportunity to bridge the gap between the needs of families and farmers impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“In this time of uncertainty, we are grateful to be able to help Florida’s produce farmers, southeastern dairies and families in our communities.”

Due to school closures and a virtual freeze in the hospitality and restaurant industries in the wake of COVID-19 outbreaks and the resulting state orders to maintain physical distancing and safer-at-home rules, farmers have faced a ruinous situation that could do long-term damage to U.S. agriculture.

However, Publix hopes that its latest initiative can offer some help to both agriculture producers and local food bank partners in the region.

Pero Family Farms Food Co. CEO Peter F. Pero IV said:

“Like so many others right now, Florida farmers are in a time of need. We are humbled Publix is purchasing additional fresh vegetables from us and other local farms to donate to food banks.”

“Thank you to Publix, the participating food banks and their volunteers for making this initiative possible for those less fortunate while supporting local farms.”

The initiative comes just as Feeding America released new reports warning that the ongoing pandemic could raise the amount of food-insecure Americans to unprecedented heights.

According to the report titled The Impact of the Coronavirus on Child Food Insecurity, the number of food-insecure children could swell to 18 million—a highest-ever total since the USDA began measuring food security 25 years ago. The current record is 17.2 million in 2009 during the peak of the Great Recession.

A separate fact-sheet, The Impact of the Coronavirus on Food Insecurity, also warns that in a worst-case scenario stemming from the pandemic, the number of food-insecure individuals could rise by 17.1 million—which, in turn, can lead to people facing a higher risk of experiencing severe illness and of contracting COVID-19.

However, Publix hopes that its donations totaling $2 million to support Feeding America can help do some good in helping to alleviate hunger in poor communities.

Publix’s Jones said:

“In addition to providing much needed produce and milk to food banks, this initiative provides financial support to farmers during this challenging time.

“We’re honored to be able to work with these groups and do good together for our communities.”


By Elias Marat | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

With Tourists Gone, Australian Scuba Tours Are Planting Coral on Great Barrier Reef Instead

This is awesome!

Image credit: FarbenfroheWunderwelt, Flickr

(TMU) — As Australia’s tourism has come to a crashing halt following the back-to-back tragedies of an unprecedented bushfire season and the coronavirus pandemic, tourism companies are volunteering their time, labor and resources to give back to the ocean environment.

Family-owned diving tour company Passions of Paradise is one such company hoping to nurture and heal the coastal environment by planting coral on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s coast, which has been reeling in recent years due to the devastating impact of human activities.

Passions of Paradise CEO Scott Garden told Karryon that the eco-tourism company has donated an advanced multi-hulled catamaran, the Passions III, as well as fuel and volunteers to the Coral Nurture Program, which was initiated by the tourism industry and scientific community of Australia to bring life back to the Great Barrier Reef.


Garden explained:

“We have been assisting Dr. David Suggett’s team from the University of Technology Sydney who is conducting reef resilience research at one of our 26 reef sites.

“I have been working with Passions of Paradise Environmental Sustainability Coordinator Russell Hosp at the site most weeks recording data for the project and establishing a coral nursery.”


https://www.instagram.com/passionsofparadise/


The expansive Great Barrier Reef comprises about 2,900 reefs and 900 islands. It is home to an incredible array of fish, shrimp, and various other reef denizens.

In recent years, dead coral reefs have become one of the major horrors resulting from the impact of human economic activities, with thousands of miles of coral ecosystem across the globe being transformed into bleached-out graveyards due to the devastating impact of fast-heating ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, pollution, marine pests, and overfishing.

As a result, the Great Barrier Reef—the largest living structure on the entire planet—has rapidly died off, turning massive amounts of once-dazzling coral reef ecosystems teeming with healthy marine life into dead zones.

The bleaching and eventual death of the Great Barrier Reef would not only spell doom for ocean life, but would also be the final nail in the coffin of Australia’s lucrative eco-tourism industry whose essential “product” is the environment itself.

The danger of a further degradation of the reef ecosystem coincides with a drastic and prolonged pause in international and domestic travel to Far North Queensland, which largely relies on billions of dollars in tourism revenue to keep local restaurants, hotels, and businesses running.

For this reason, five tourism companies—Passions of Paradise, Wavelength, Ocean Freedom, Sailaway, and Quicksilver Cruises—have pledged to use the lull in tourism to help clean up corals and help eliminate harmful pests that pose a threat to reef ecosystems, such as the crown-of-thorns starfish which is responsible for a large amount of coral destruction in the Great Barrier Reef.

coralnurtureprogram

A nice example of a coral fragment planted 7 months ago and now self attached and growing well. This fragment was planted using Coralclip by Wavelength Reef Cruises at Opal Reef.


Project coordinator and PhD student Lorna Howlett explained:

“The Coral Nurture Program aims to give operators yet another stewardship activity they can do at their reef sites in addition to Crown-of-Thorns eradication and the Eye on Reef monitoring program.”

The program involves volunteers restoring coral that has been fragmented and re-attaching them to reefs using state-of-the-art technology, such as “coral clips.” Howlett continued:

“We can only use fragments of opportunity found at the site, so Passions of Paradise has installed six frames at the site which can be used as a nursery to grow more corals.

“Once they find a coral fragment they attach it to the nursery to grow and as it grows they can take fragments from it to attach to the reef giving them a continual source of new corals.

“The 12-month project finishes next month, however, the operators can continue to operate the nurseries and outplant the corals.”

exploreroutes

Swipe to know Then and Now.
This #EarthDay pledge to change something about ourselves on our travel journeys in order to leave less #carbonfootprint wherever we go. .
@exploreroutes recommends watching #OurPlanet by #Netflix during Quarantine period. .

Passions of Paradise CEO Garden said that 1,000 pieces of coral have been planted so far on Hastings Reef, one of the most popular reefs for travelers that lies about 30 nautical miles from Queensland’s bustling tourist city of Cairns.

Garden hopes that when the crisis subsides, visitors will be able to indulge in a restored and sustainable ocean environment. He said:

“When tours resume passengers will be able to snorkel over the site which boasts healthy marine life and corals near the nursery.”

By Elias Marat | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com

AMERICAN FREE CHOICE FACE MASK

DURING THE SARS OUTBREAK THE TORONTO SUN NEWSPAPER HAD A COVER PHOTO OF A HOSPITAL WORKER IN A MASK, SMOKING A CIGARETTE DEFEATING THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF THE MASK

Tyson Foods Warns “Food Supply Chain is Breaking” in the United States

"Millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain."



(ZH) — News feeds in April have been inundated with food supply chain disruption stories due to coronavirus-related shutdowns. At least a third of US meatpacking facilities handling hogs have shifted offline this month, other plants that process cows and chickens have also shuttered operations, forcing farmers to cull herds and flocks. This is because each plant closure diminishes the ability for a farmer to sell animals at the market, leaves them with overcapacity issues similar to the turmoil facing the oil industry. Only unlike oil where pumped oil must be stored somewhere (as one can’t just dump it in the nearest river) even if that ends up costing producers money as we saw last Monday when oil prices turned negative for the first time ever, food producers have a simpler option: just killing their livestock.


We previously explained what this imbalance has created: crashing live cattle spot prices while finished meat prices are soaring, which doesn’t just affect farmers but also consumers simultaneously and could spark a shortage of meat at grocery stores as soon as the first week of May.



And in the starkest warning yet that high food prices could last for a long time, Tyson Foods warned in a full-page ad in the New York Times on Sunday that the “food supply chain is breaking.”


“As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain,” wrote Tyson Chairman John Tyson, patriarch of the company’s founding family, in a Tyson Foods website post that also ran as a full-page ad in several newspapers. “The food supply chain is breaking.”



Confirming the worst fears of American pork and bacon consumers, Tyson wrote that the company has been forced to close plants, and that federal, state and local government officials needed to coordinate to allow plants to operate safely, “without fear, panic or worry” among employees. He warned that supply shortages of its products will be seen at grocery stores, as at least a dozen major meatpacking plants close operations for virus-related issues.

Brett Stuart, president of Denver-based consulting firm Global AgriTrends, calls the situation “absolutely unprecedented.”

“It’s a lose-lose situation where we have producers at the risk of losing everything and consumers at the risk of paying higher prices.”

Last week, Smithfield Foods, one of the top pork producers in the world, closed another operation in Illinois. That news came directly after Hormel Foods closed two of its Jennie-O turkey plants in Minnesota. Then it was reported over the weekend that major poultry plants across Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia had reduced hours because of worker shortages due to virus issues. And then on Sunday, JBS USA closed a large beef production facility in Wisconsin.

“During this pandemic, our entire industry is faced with an impossible choice: continue to operate to sustain our nation’s food supply or shutter in an attempt to entirely insulate our employees from risk,” Smithfield said in a statement Friday. “It’s an awful choice; it’s not one we wish on anyone.”

Bloomberg’s map shows the latest closures of meatpacking plants:




Even before the Tyson warnings, last week we cautioned that it was appropriate to label virus outbreaks at meatpacking plants as the “next disaster zones” of the pandemic. This wasn’t just because of workers and USDA inspectors were contracting the virus, and in some cases dying – but because food shortages could also add to social instabilities during a pandemic and economic crisis.

The distress in the agricultural space has not been limited to just livestock. Dairy and produce farmers have had to dump or throw out spoiled products due to a collapse in demand for bulk products, mostly because of shifting supply chains with the closure of restaurants, cruise ships, hotels, resorts, education systems, and anyone else who is not deemed essential in a lockdown.

What this means is that farmers who generally sell bulk products do not have the means at the moment to convert product lines into individual items for direct to consumer selling. This will take time for the conversion. So, in the meantime, with no customers, farmers have to dump.


Politico has outlined some of this disruption:


“Images of farmers destroying tomatoes, piling up squash, burying onions and dumping milk shocked many Americans who remain fearful of supply shortages. At the same time, people who recently lost their jobs lined up for miles outside some food banks, raising questions about why there has been no coordinated response at the federal level to get the surplus of perishable food to more people in need, even as commodity groups, state leaders and lawmakers repeatedly urged the Agriculture Department to step in.”

Tom Vilsack, who served as agriculture secretary during the Obama administration, put it this way: “It’s not a lack of food, it’s that the food is in one place and the demand is somewhere else and they haven’t been able to connect the dots. You’ve got to galvanize people.”

The immediate outcome of this food supply chain collapse will be even more rapid food inflation, hitting Americans at a time of unprecedented economic hardships with at least 26.5 million now unemployed since the pandemic struck the US.

And with a sharp economic recession, if not outright depression unfolding, more Americans are ditching grocery stores for food banks, putting incredible stress on these charities, which has forced the government to deploy National Guard troops at many locations to ensure food security to the neediest.

By Tyler Durden | ZeroHedge.com | Republished with permission