Nearly 100 people in Ohio got sick after one man infected with the coronavirus attended a church service

Bill Bostock

People pray at St. Michael's Church in Brooklyn, NY, on May 26, 2020. Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Ninety-one people caught COVID-19 after a man infected with the virus attended a church service in Ohio.

Governor Mike DeWine tweeted a graphic from the Ohio Department of Health on Tuesday, which showed how the 56-year-old man was responsible for 91 infections.

The man infected 53 people at the service, and 18 of them then passed the virus to at least one other person, the graphic said.

Experts have previously warned that religious ceremonies are breeding grounds for the virus.
Close to 100 people contracted the coronavirus in Ohio after one person who had the virus attended a church service and spread it to dozens others.

As a warning to religious institutions in the state, Gov. Mike DeWine tweeted a graphic from the Ohio Department of Health on Tuesday to show how the 56-year-old churchgoer essentially infected 91 people.

Fifty-three people who attended the church service fell ill, and 18 of them then gave it to at least one other person, the graphic showed.
—Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) August 4, 2020

The service took place June 14, The Kansas City Star reported. By July 4, a total of 91 people ranging from ages one to 67 across four Ohio counties had tested positive for COVID-19, all stemmed from that one case, the newspaper said.


"It is vital that to control the spread of the virus that any time people gather together, including for religious services, that everyone wear masks, practice social distancing, wash hands, and also while indoors, making sure there is good ventilation and airflow," he said, according to The Kansas City Star.

It is not clear whether anyone at the church service wore masks or practiced social distancing. Ohio's mandatory face-mask only came into effect on July 23.

Ohio has a resurgence in coronavirus cases in recent weeks. As of Wednesday, it has recorded more than 96,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 3,600 deaths.

President Donald Trump holds a Bible while visiting St. John's Church in Washington, DC, on June 1, 2020, after authorities forcibly cleared the area of protesters. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

In late May, President Donald Trump declared religious institutions "essential" services and told state governors to let them start admitting people again.


But religious services have been identified as situations where the coronavirus can spread like wildfire.

Experts have warned that loud talking and singing could spread the coronavirus further than six feet. When people give exhalations that require more energy, the droplets they emit can travel further. Some research has also suggested that louder speech produces more droplets.

"It's an ideal setting for transmission," Carlos del Rio, an infectious-disease expert at Emory University, told The New York Times, referring to church services. "You have a lot of people in a closed space. And they're speaking loudly, they're singing. All those things are exactly what you don't want."

A number of churches have caught headlines after large chunks of their parishioners caught the coronavirus.
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In March, 35 people at a church in Arkansas caught COVID-19 after attending a service. Three of them later died of the virus.
In May, 107 people tested positive for coronavirus after attending a church service in Frankfurt, Germany.
In June, 236 people in Oregon got the coronavirus after a church held multiple services during lockdown.
During the early months of the pandemic, a secretive doomsday church in South Korea was accused of accelerating the outbreak in the city of Daegu. The city is now suing the church for endangering lives.


Do you have a personal experience with the coronavirus you'd like to share? Or a tip on how your town or community is handling the pandemic? Please email covidtips@businessinsider.com and tell us your story.

Get the latest coronavirus business & economic impact analysis from Business Insider Intelligence on how COVID-19 is affecting industries.

Trump Isn’t “Failing” on COVID Testing. He’s Carrying Out a Brutal Plan.

President Trump speaks during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on August 4, 2020, in Washington, D.C.DREW ANGERER / 

GETTY IMAGES

BY William Rivers Pitt, Truthout

PUBLISHED August 6, 2020

The still-potent remnants of a dying hurricane rumbled up from the south on Tuesday night and landed a big wet haymaker on my little corner of the northern woods. Electricity, phones — land and cell — and internet were gone with the crash of falling trees and the howl of a humid wind, and for about 40 hours it was the 19th century around here.

For someone in the RIGHT NOW news biz, this was an unnatural state of affairs, but there was little I could do; I had to drive 25 minutes over broken branches and around closed roads, in fact, to find a signal so I could email my boss and tell her there was little I could do. My deadlines would have to hang fire until the utility workers put Humpty back together again, which they did, and in fine style. That kind of work is an especially hard hustle around here, as most of the power lines run through the woods. Downed lines and bears, o my.

The silence that descended once the storm passed was otherworldly. No braying TV in the corner, no phone beeping alerts for new messages and email, no news input of any kind, and for 40 sweet hours, no new Donald Trump horrors to encompass. For the first time in over five years, I was not getting lashed about in the maelstrom of Trumpian mayhem that my line of work has become. I didn’t know how exhausted and horrified I really was until the screaming stopped, and I was able, finally, to be still.

I saw a few things in that stillness that are probably obvious to others, but when your cerebral cortex is plugged directly into the Niagara Falls of news data that never, ever stops, a big-picture perspective can be elusive.

It has never been clearer to me just how deliberate all of this is. Not COVID-19 itself, but the manner in which Trump and his people have reacted to it. This is many light-years beyond mere incompetence, and even farther beyond anything that resembles cruel indifference. Men like White House adviser Stephen Miller are rolling out their most vivid fascist fantasies as the body count rises, and they are playing Trump like a badly tuned cello to do it.

Take COVID testing and the census, for one example. Aside from masks and social distancing, a rigorous national testing regimen is the only way the country will be able to get a handle on this thing absent an effective vaccine.

It is a week into August, and that national testing regimen still hasn’t come to pass because Donald Trump doesn’t want it to. His gibberish arguments that testing is counterproductive are the stuff of nightmares and very possibly illegal in their official neglect, but behind it all is a simple truth: He does not want testing because he does not want the country to know how sick it is. It is the information he fears most.

This is the same deliberate thinking that has led the Trump administration to trash the census process. As with COVID testing, it is the forthcoming knowledge Trump and his allies fear. They don’t want to know how Black the country really is, how Latinx, how anything but white, how young, how poor. Knowing this would rattle the underpinnings of the white power structure in the U.S., and so that information collection must be thwarted.

The census and COVID testing have failed in spectacular fashion, and neither collapse is due to incompetence or indifference. Both have been wrecked to benefit those in power, to help them stay in power. It is cruel, but it is no accident.

The question as ever with these brigands: cui bono? Who benefits?

This way of being has trickled down to local governments across the country, because if the president does it, so can they. Recently, a student at North Paulding High School, just west of Atlanta, snapped a photo of a hallway in his school packed shoulder-to-shoulder with students. The photo — an appalling example of how COVID safety measures are being ignored in the rush to reopen schools — went viral.

Rather than speak to the conditions captured in the photo, the school administrators threatened the student body. “Anything that’s going on social media that’s negative or alike without permission, photography, that’s video or anything, there will be consequences,” was the announcement at North Paulding High.

Inconvenient data? Make sure it never sees the light of day, even if you have to twist some arms to do it.

The Republican-controlled Senate went home today after once again failing to come up with a compromise stimulus package to help the millions of people whose lives are falling apart around them because of the pandemic. There is still no emergency unemployment benefit even as 1.2 million new unemployment claims were announced this morning.

One of the many looming side effects of mass unemployment is the potential for mass evictions. The longer Congress waits to help people who are about to lose their homes, the more likely it is that a terrifying number of people will be put out on the street.

Losing your home or being forced to move makes it much harder to vote — the change of address, perhaps no address at all, could leave many people unable to cast a ballot in November.

Cui bono? At this point, you don’t even have to ask.

That storm knocked down some trees, but around here, it sure let in the light.


William Rivers Pitt  is a senior editor and lead columnist at Truthout. He is also a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of three books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know, The Greatest Sedition Is Silence and House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America’s Ravaged Reputation. His fourth book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible, co-written with Dahr Jamail, is available now on Amazon. He lives and works in New Hampshire.

Trump executive order seeks to ban TikTok, WeChat 'transactions' in 45 days

The White House tells reporters Tencent's ban only applies to WeChat.

Richard Lawler, @Rjcc

Dado Ruvic / Reuters


A week ago Donald Trump said that he could and would ban the video sharing app TikTok, and on Thursday night he issued an executive order to block “transactions” with its parent company, ByteDance. It’s set to take effect in 45 days, which is just beyond the September 15th deadline Microsoft publicly announced for its negotiations to buy the company. At the same time, the US Senate voted to ban TikTok from government devices.

At same time, Trump also issued an executive order pushing the same ban for WeChat and its parent company Tencent. WeChat allows communication for people inside and outside China, and it’s unclear what a ban could mean for users in the US.

These orders will certainly be challenged in court and it’s unclear exactly what “transactions” means until the Secretary of Commerce explains it, but Tencent has investments in many US companies, including Snapchat’s parent company (update: see below, as the White House states this will only relate to transactions that involve WeChat). It operates games like PUBG Mobile, owns Riot Games which makes League of Legends and Valorant, plus it owns a significant portion of Fortnite developer Epic Games. Its ownership stake in Activision Blizzard became an issue last year when a Hearthstone esports player was banned for supporting the Hong Kong protests.

Tencent Films has also had a hand in producing many major movies recently, like Wonder Woman, Top Gun: Maverick, Terminator: Dark Fate and Venom. The same applies for music, as Tencent has a stake in Spotify after the companies swapped equity in 2018, recently closed a $3.3 billion deal to take an ownership stake in Universal Music Group and also owns a share of Warner Music.

In the orders, a justification given for the ban is “national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain.” It also claims they could “be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party.” As we noted previously, they also claim to be concerned about how TikTok “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories.”

We’ve contacted many of the companies potentially affected by this order and will update the article when more details are available.

Update (8/7 12:05 AM ET): LA Times reporter Sam Dean has heard from a White House spokesperson who says that despite the EO’s wording, it only applies to Tencent transactions that involve WeChat.


Same 45 days order to #WeChat and its owner #Tencent pic.twitter.com/C0ZPEURrH2— Jane Tang 唐家婕 (@ccjanetang) August 7, 2020


Trump also signed an EO related to WeChat, saying: “WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users —threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information.“— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) August 7, 2020


Video game companies owned by Tencent will NOT be affected by this executive order!

White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the EO only blocks transactions related to WeChat

So Riot Games (League of Legends), Epic Games (Fortnite), et al are safe

(pending updates)— Sam Dean 🦅 (@SamAugustDean) August 7, 2020

Exclusive: BP poised to sell 'stranded assets' even if oil prices rally

LONDON (Reuters) - BP (BP.L) is preparing to sell a large chunk of its oil and gas assets even if crude prices bounce back from the COVID-19 crash because it wants to invest more in renewable energy, three sources familiar with BP’s thinking said.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of BP is seen at a petrol station in Kloten, Switzerland October 3, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

The strategy was discussed at a BP executives meeting in July, the sources said, soon after the oil major lowered its long-term oil price forecast to $55 a barrel, meaning that $17.5 billion (13 billion pounds) worth of its assets are no longer economically viable.

But even if crude prices bounce back to $65-$70 a barrel, BP is unlikely to put those assets back into its exploration plans and would instead use the better market conditions as an opportunity to sell them, the three sources said.

Major oil companies typically hold assets for the long term, even when crude prices plunge, with a view to start bringing more marginal production online when market conditions improve.

However, BP’s new divestment strategy, which has not previously been reported, means there will be no way back for the British energy company once it has offloaded its so-called stranded oil and gas assets.


BP did not respond to requests for comment.

The new strategy also sheds more light on chief executive Bernard Looney’s plan to reduce BP’s oil and gas production by 40%, or at least 1 million barrels per day, by 2030 while expanding into renewable energy.

“It is a simple calculation of natural production decline and planned divestment,” said a BP source, explaining how BP became the first big oil company to pledge a large cut in its oil output.

For decades, BP and rivals such as Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) have promised investors that production would continue to rise.

But as climate activists, investors, banks and some governments raise pressure on the industry to reduce emissions to help cool the planet, European oil firms are changing tack and pledging to invest more in renewable energy sources.


U.S. rivals are under less government pressure and have not made similar commitments on renewables.

“As we look at the outlook for BP over the next few years and as we see production declining by 40% it is clear we no longer need exploration to fund new growth,” Looney said this week. “We will not enter new countries to explore.”

He said BP would continue to explore for oil near its existing production infrastructure as those barrels would be low cost - and help boost BP’s cash flow to fund its transition to cleaner energy.
FROM CANADA TO ANGOLA

BP also raised its target this week for returns from asset sales to $25 billion between 2020 and 2025, of which about $12 billion has already been lined up.

It has yet to name the other assets it wants to sell.



FILE PHOTO: BP's new Chief Executive Bernard Looney gives a speech in central London, Britain February 12, 2020. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

Sources have previously told Reuters that BP has identified Canadian oil sands assets and projects in deep water off Angola as being uneconomical under its new oil price scenario.

For a graphic of BP's stranded assets, click on tmsnrt.rs/3fNShQX

One of the three sources said BP’s divestment targets could easily be exceeded if it sells most of its assets currently viewed as stranded.

Parul Chopra, analyst at Rystad Energy, said in addition to Angola, he expected BP to move out of Azerbaijan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq.

“In Iraq, the rates of returns are quite low. That fits into that profile, with high greenhouse gas emissions, they would want to exit that,” he said.

BP is planning a 10-fold increase in investment in low carbon energy sources to about $5 billion per year by 2030 and wants to deliver a 20-fold increase in renewables capacity to generate 50 gigawatts through new projects and acquisitions.


But with debt of close to $50 billion, BP will essentially be moving from one capital intensive business - oil - to another capital intensive business with lower margins - renewables.

At the moment, such a shift might be attractive to BP investors demanding the company move away from fossil fuels, but analysts say they should be prepared for lower margins.

Oil majors generally target a 12% to 15% return on their investments in oil. BP has said it is aiming for a return of 8% to 12% for renewables.

“Investors are pushing for a faster transition, but weak balance sheets mean the pivot is a challenge, leading companies to dismantle core businesses in order to facilitate the ramp up in capex (capital spending),” said Biraj Borkhataria at RBC Capital Markets.

Borkhataria said he expected BP to divest as much as 500,000 barrels a day of production while losing a similar amount through the natural decline in output from oilfields.

Trailing in election polls, Trump says rival Biden opposes God and guns 

AKA WHITE MALE EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTS

THESE HOME GROWN PROTESTANTS ARE VEHEMENTLY ANTI PAPISTS

Lisa Lambert


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican President Donald Trump asserted on Thursday that his Democratic opponent in November’s election, Joe Biden, is “against God,” even though Biden frequently discusses how his Catholic faith has guided his actions as a public official.

With Trump trailing Biden in four recent polls in Ohio, the president is fighting to win voters in the traditional swing state as the coronavirus pandemic threatens his chances of a second term. After addressing a small crowd at a Cleveland airport on Thursday, Trump went on to deliver a campaign-style speech at a Whirlpool plant in Clyde, Ohio.

“He’s following the radical-left agenda: take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God,” Trump said about Biden in his Cleveland speech. “He’s against God.”

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives Americans the right to keep and bear arms.

Trump did not explain what he meant. His accusation, though, could solidify support from his party’s sizable conservative Christian bloc and also damage voters’ view of Biden, the first Catholic Vice President in U.S. history.

John Kennedy was the first and only Catholic elected President when he won in 1960.
In a statement on Thursday night, Biden said Trump’s attack was “shameful” and that faith had been the bedrock foundation of his life.

“President Trump’s comments reveal more about him than they do about anyone else. They show us a man willing to stoop to any low for political gain, and someone whose actions are completely at odds with the values and teachings that he professes to believe in,” Biden said.

More than three-fourths of Americans practice Christianity or another religion, according to the Pew Research Center. Trump has been hurt politically by his response to the coronavirus pandemic that has recently killed on average more than 1,000 Americans each day.

While he speaks very little about his own Presbyterian faith and rarely attends church, Trump works closely with evangelical Christians and puts their causes of restricting abortion and preserving gun ownership at the top of his policy agenda.

After a school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, killed 20 children in 2012, Biden pushed for some restrictions on gun ownership, but he has not called for confiscating firearms.

He has said he would seek to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, let people who own assault weapons sell them back voluntarily, and expand background checks.


Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by Lisa

Beirut port manager among 16 held in blast probe, judicial source says


A soldier stands at the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut, Lebanon August 6, 2020. Thibault Camus/Pool via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese authorities have arrested 16 people in an investigation into the Beirut port warehouse explosion, state news agency NNA said on Thursday, and a judicial source and local media said the port’s general manager was among those being held.

NNA did not name the individuals, but quoted Judge Fadi Akiki, a government representative at the military court, as saying authorities had so far questioned more than 18 port and customs officials and others involved in maintenance work at the warehouse.

“Sixteen people have been taken into custody as part of the investigation,” NNA quoted Akiki as saying. He said the investigation was continuing.

A judicial source and two local broadcasters said Beirut Port General Manager Hassan Koraytem was among those held. Earlier, the central bank said it froze the accounts of seven people including Koraytem and the head of Lebanese customs.


Reporting by Hesham Abdul Khalek and Ghaida Ghantous; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Leslie Adler and Daniel Wallis

Beirut explosion: 2013 legal note confirms tanker offloaded ammonium nitrate in port

The abandoned Moldovan-flagged Rhosus tanker pictured in October 2013. (Photo credit: Kozanitis Leonardos via Marrine Traffic)

Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English Thursday 06 August 2020

Explosive material that may have been the cause of the devastating blast in Beirut on Tuesday had been stored in the port since 2013 after a tanker was impounded there, according to a verified legal note circulating online.

Authorities have pointed to large quantities of the highly explosive ammonium nitrate as the cause of the massive blast that killed over 135 people and injured thousands in Lebanon's capital on Tuesday, but observers have asked where this material came from and why it was being stored in such large quantities so close to densely populated central Beirut.

Read more: Blame game for Beirut blasts begins among Lebanon officials

Based on a verified legal note from a Lebanese law firm, one theory has emerged that the blast was caused by 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that was offloaded by a Moldovan-flagged tanker in 2013 and had been kept in the port ever since.

Lebanese law firm Baroudi & Associates drafted the note after issuing three arrest orders against the Rhosus tanker, which was impounded by Lebanese authorities in November 2013 and subsequently offloaded the ammonium nitrate in Beirut port.

The letter, dated sometime in 2015 and posted online by two lawyers from the firm acting on behalf of “various creditors,” detailed what happened to the Rhosus after its Ukrainian crew and Russian owner abandoned the vessel off Beirut.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

Satellite images released the day after a devastating explosion erupted at #Beirut port show a portion of the land - where a warehouse that housed 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded - carved out due to the sheer force of the blast.https://t.co/8KYzX25cnr pic.twitter.com/U8lQjBOIUA— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) August 6, 2020

“On 23/9/2013, m/v Rhosus, flying the Moldovian flag, sailed from BatumiPort, Georgia heading to Biera in Mozambique carrying 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in bulk. En route, the vessel faced technical problems forcing the Master to enter Beirut Port. Upon inspection of the vessel by Port State Control, the vessel was forbidden from sailing. Most crew except the Master and four crew members were repatriated and shortly afterwards the vessel was abandoned by her owners after charterers and cargo concern lost interest in the cargo. The vessel quickly ran out of stores, bunker and provisions,” read the legal note published by the lawyers identified as Charbel Dagher and Christine Maksoud.

The legal note in question has been verified by Al Arabiya English after its initial publication in a newsletter published in October 2015 by ShipArrested.com, a website that identifies itself as an extensive network that facilitates the fast and efficient arrest or release of ships with coverage in over 1,000 ports around the globe.




Legal note from Lebanese law firm Baroudi & Associates acting on behalf of “various creditors” against the Rhosus vessel. (Photo via ShipArrested.com)

“Various creditors came forward with claims against her. Our firm acting on instruction of these creditors obtained three arrest orders against the vessel. Efforts to get in touch with the owners, charterers and cargo owners to obtain payment failed,” both Dagher and Maksoud said in their legal note after the ship was impounded by authorities.

A heatmap of the “Rhosus” cargo vessel that reportedly offloaded the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate at Beirut Port in 2013 showed its past routes across the several countries in the Mediterranean prior to its abandonment in the Lebanese capital a year later, according to ship tracking service Marine Traffic.


Lots of talk about the Rhosus, its movements in 2013 and 2014, and its possible involvement in yesterday's explosion in #Beirut. We've put together a heat map of the vessel’s movements during that time period.#BeirutExplosion pic.twitter.com/zzeDKRRcwY— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) August 5, 2020

According to the legal note, both Lebanese lawyers Dagher and Maksoud attested that Beirut port authorities had discharged the cargo of ammonium nitrate onto the port's warehouses.

“The vessel and cargo remain to date in port awaiting auctioning and/or proper disposal,” Dagher and Maksoud wrote in the conclusion of the letter released in 2015.

Al Arabiya English could not independently verify whether the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that was offloaded by the Rhosus in 2013 or 2014 was behind the devastating explosions on Tuesday at Beirut port from hanger 12.




Map shows the last recorded location of the Rhosus in 2014 located opposite the hanger which exploded in Beirut port on Tuesday. (Photo via GPS Coorindates)

According to information provided by Marine Traffic, the last recorded location of the Rhosus was located at Mediterranean at position 33° 54' 18.036" N, 35° 30' 55.512" E as more than six years ago on August 7, 2014. The GPS coordinates placed the Rhosus docked exactly opposite the hanger which exploded on Tuesday at Beirut port.

While the Rhosus sailed under the Moldovan flag, it was actually owned by a Russian man named by Igor Grechushkin and was manned by a crew of both Russians and Ukrainians. According to an investigation by the Globe and Mail newspaper, Grechushkin’s known address was placed in Cyprus. The Siberian Times, Grechushkin still lives in Limassol, Cyprus, with the newspaper posting reportedly exclusive images of him.


Colonel who died suspiciously had asked for removing ammonium nitrate: Lebanese media

Former Chief of the drug control division at the Lebanese Customs Colonel Joseph Skaf (L), and signed 2014 document (R) warning of the danger of the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate at the Port of Beirut. (Al Arabiya)

Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English Friday 07 August 2020

A Lebanese official who died under suspicious circumstances in 2017 had called for the removal of the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate which arrived at the Port of Beirut in 2013, according to a 2014 document shared by Lebanese media on Thursday.

Colonel Joseph Skaf, Chief of the drug control division at the Lebanese Customs, wrote at the time: “We inform you that this division received information about the presence of the Rhosus ship at the Port of Beirut. It is loaded with ammonium nitrate, which is used in explosives, is highly dangerous and constitutes a threat to public safety.”

He asked the authorities to move the ship away from the port’s docks and to place it under supervision, according to the document.

Skaf died in 2017, but the cause of death wasn’t determined definitively as there were two conflicting autopsy reports.

Major Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar reported at the time: “Did the retired Colonel Joseph Skaf’s foot slip or was he thrown off a height of three meters? A question which remains unresolved, especially after the two contradictory forensic reports commissioned by the Public Prosecution from two medical examiners,” citing a source in Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF).

The ISF source said at the time: “One of the two reports rules the incident an accident, and the other confirms that it was deliberate due to finding bruises on the deceased’s head.”

The ammonium nitrate stockpile at Port of Beirut exploded on Tuesday, killing at least 137 people and injuring more than 5,000.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun said the explosion was due to the stockpile being stored at the port for years without safety measure

Beirut explosion had 10 pct of Hiroshima atomic bomb’s explosive power: UK experts

This picture taken on August 4, 2020 shows a general view of the scene of an explosion at the port of Lebanon's capital Beirut. (AFP)

Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English Thursday 06 August 2020

The deadly explosion at the Port of Beirut had approximately 10 percent of the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II, UK specialists estimate.

Tuesday’s explosion in Lebanon which has killed at least 137 people and injured more than 5,000 was "unquestionably one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history,” specialists at UK’s University of Sheffield Blast and Impact Engineering Research Group said, according to the BBC.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun said the explosion was due to a stockpile of 2,750 tons of the industrial chemical ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and explosives, catching fire after having been stored for six years at the port without safety measures.

“This is unquestionably one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, far bigger than any conventional weapon,” Sheffield’s professor Andrew Tyas, an expert on blast protection engineering, told the Evening Standard.

Watch: The closest footage of the devastating blasts that rocked #Beirut a day earlier has emerged, according to live video shot by two Lebanese citizens living in an apartment opposite the port where the explosions erupted.#Lebanonhttps://t.co/9zqOn4zRCR pic.twitter.com/bzMv3Z9XzR— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) August 5, 2020

The Beirut blast’s shockwaves smashed masonry, shattered windows, sucked furniture out of apartments onto the streets and left up to a quarter of a million people without homes fit to live in, Lebanese officials said.

“The intensity of the shockwave is equivalent to 20 to 30 percent of the shockwave caused by Hiroshima. It’s astonishing,” Tyas told Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star.

The Beirut blast was felt in Cyprus, a Mediterranean island more than 160 kilometers across the sea from the Lebanese capital.

The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1964 was a 4,536-kilogram uranium 235 bomb. It exploded approximately 600 meters above the center of the city and instantly killed 78,000 people.

TOP LEBANON BOTTOM HIROSHIMA 

Watch: Closest footage yet of Beirut blasts from apartment balcony opposite port

Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English Wednesday 05 August 2020

The closest footage of the devastating blasts that rocked Beirut a day earlier has emerged, according to live video shot by two Lebanese citizens living in an apartment opposite the port where the explosions erupted.

The footage, shot by an unidentified woman and another man named Imad, appeared to have been shot from an apartment’s balcony opposite the hanger which exploded due to ammonium nitrate on Tuesday.

“So unfortunate, hopefully, nothing happened to anyone, dear God. Dear God, hopefully, no one is harmed. Can’t they extinguish it? Those two have to escape But there’s no one inside,” the unidentified woman can be heard saying while smoke was billowing from the first smaller explosion at the port.

The two can be heard joking with each other about being the only one’s live recording the incident, with the man, Imad, mistakenly calling the location of the fire at Beirut’s airport instead of the seaport.

Moments later, a loud sound can be heard in the background, alerting the two to the severity of the situation when the second explosion erupted.

Read more:

Death toll in Beirut blasts rises to 135, around 5,000 injured: Health Minister

Aid offers flood in after Beirut blasts leave 100 dead, thousands injured in Lebanon

‘It’s a catastrophe, Lebanon is gone’: Survivors recount Beirut blasts

The two Lebanese citizens, unseen in the video’s entirety, seem to have been blown from the impact of the second explosion, their camera lying on the ground. No further conversations or sound can be heard from the two.

The fate of the two persons who caught the moment is not yet known.

The number of deaths in the Beirut blasts continued to rise on Wednesday, with the latest figures at 135 deaths, around 5,000 wounded, Lebanon’s Health Minister Hamad Hassan said Wednesday.

Last Update: Thursday, 06 August 2020 KSA 08:12 - GMT 05:12

Beirut explosion: Missing port worker found alive in sea 30 hours after Lebanon blast

Missing Port of Beirut worker Amin al-Zahed was found alive in the sea nearly 30 hours after the explosion. (Twitter)Joanne Serrieh, Al Arabiya EnglishThursday 06 August 2020A Port of Beirut worker, who went missing after the explosion in the Lebanese capital, has been found alive at sea nearly 30 hours after the blast, local media reported on Thursday.

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Amin al-Zahed, whose photo was published on an Instagram page created to locate missing people, was found bloodied in the Mediterranean Sea, according to local media.

Al-Zahed was reportedly admitted to the Rafic Hariri University Hospital in Beirut after a rescue team pulled him into their boat, however, several social media posts claim that his family was not able to reach him.

No further details have been released on how he managed to survive or his current condition.

Amin Al Zahed has been found alive but his family can’t find him in any hospital!! If someone knows anything please call his brother 03/090234 RTs are appreciated

— Nou (@29_nou) August 6, 2020

An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the explosions that killed at least 137 people as of Thursday and injured at least 5,000 others. Prime Minister Hassan Diab said that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were stored in the warehouse that exploded.

Beirut explosion: Lebanon’s police fire tear gas at anti-government protestors

Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English Friday 07 August 2020

Lebanese security forces on Thursday fired tear gas to disperse dozens of demonstrators gathered in front of the parliament building protesting the government’s incompetence in the wake of the deadly Beirut explosion.

Several protestors were injured as demonstrators threw stones at the security officers, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.


They also set fire to wooden panels and advertisement billboards and vandalized stores in central Beirut.

The protestors called for the resignation of the government and demanded those responsible for the explosion at the Port of Beirut to be held accountable.

Tuesday’s blast killed at least 137 people and injured more than 5,000, and Lebanese President Michel Aoun said the explosion was due to a stockpile of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate being stored at the port since 2013 without safety measures.

The explosion came as Lebanon was already knee-deep in its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

It added to the grievances of a protest movement that emerged in October to demand the removal of a political class deemed inept and corrupt.

Thursday's scuffles erupted as Lebanon's ambassador to Jordan resigned, saying 'total negligence' by the country's authorities signaled the need for a leadership change.

It is the second such resignation over Tuesday's blast, after lawmaker Marwan Hamadeh also stepped down on Wednesday.

- With AFP

Read more:

Beirut explosion had 10 pct of Hiroshima atomic bomb’s explosive power: UK experts

Cost of damages to exceed $5 billion, Beirut governor reveals as Lebanon grieves

Sixteen arrested in connection with Beirut blasts: State-run news agency

Nuclear weapons cannot solve the crises of our time

It’s time to step up our campaigning for peace and disarmament, 

writes JEREMY CORBYN MP

ON Hiroshima Day each August we remember the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which indiscriminately killed over 100,000 civilians and military personnel.

Still today, many survivors live with the horrific humanitarian consequences, including cancer caused by the exposure to nuclear radiation.

We must never forget these atrocities, and we must never give up on the mission to rid our world of nuclear weapons.

Hiroshima Day is so important because it involves us collectively thinking about what a nuclear weapon actually is.

It is a weapon of mass destruction that if ever used can only kill large numbers of civilians.

If a nuclear war ever again took place, there would be mass destruction on both sides of the conflict and the humanitarian effects would be disastrous.

Within this context, for those of us campaigning for peace and disarmament we should see the 2021 review of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as an opportunity to push our demands back up the agenda.

The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated many things in a way that years of campaigning could not.

It has shown that people across our planet are interdependent on each other and there is no complete hiding place from a hitherto unknown virus.

Crucially it has shown how all the weapons in the world are useless in the face of a dangerous virus.

Alongside this, the economic impact of Covid-19 is enormous. Even in the better-off Western societies the inequalities have been stark. A huge increase in foodbank usage is but one example.

In poorer societies the extremely poor have become destitute and in the refugee camps around the world the fear of the unknown future is compounded by the fear of a virus with no defence.

With this new reality the next NPT will be held and we must put the issue of nuclear disarmament back on the agenda in the run-up to it.

The NPT, groundbreaking in the 1960s, was designed to create, ultimately, a world without nuclear weapons.

Obviously at the grand level of the elimination of nuclear weapons it has not succeeded, but enormous progress has been made.

I was part of a fascinating Zoom conference with the UN disarmament commissioner Itzumi Nakamitsec and Jonathan Granoff from the American Bar Association in discussion about global security.

Jonathan made the point that the NPT of 1968, done at an intense period of the cold war, had succeeded in creating nuclear-free zones in Africa, Latin America and central Asia.

The conference next year will be faced with huge issues. The six-party talks on Korea were at least engagement, and bizarre as the circumstances were, Donald Trump meeting Kim Jong Un was a form of progress and one hopes that there can be progress towards a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

This would require a significant reduction in the tensions between the US and China, and Trump pulling back from his inflammatory anti-Chinese rhetoric when it comes to the coronavirus crisis.

The denuclearisation of the conflict between India and Pakistan must be accompanied by a peace process over Kashmir, and the rights and needs of the people of Kashmir must be secured as part of that process.

The Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone has been an active debating point at every NPT review conference since 2010 and is given more urgency by the Trump administration continuing to impose sanctions on Iran and end the multilateral agreement.

A strong declaration in support of the agreement will give impetus to a wider conference including Israel and its nuclear weapons.

Article VI of the NPT requires the five declared nuclear weapons states to take steps towards disarmament.

The UN general assembly has voted by a huge majority on the principle of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

The baton now passes back to the five permanent members of the security council.

Despite the binding obligation under the NPT to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and technology, many nuclear weapons states including Britain are failing to live up to this commitment and some are even attempting to undermine efforts.

This is hard to justify when we reflect on the horrors of nuclear mass destruction.

All the nuclear weapons states and members of the security council face huge economic issues, as does the whole world, post-Covid.

It would be a strange sense of priorities for all countries if — at a time of desperate need for an effective global health system, support for the 65 million refugees around the world and attention needed on the environment — the result was yet another round of rearmament.

Now more than ever we must redouble our efforts to build a world that genuinely meets the security needs of its people.

Poverty, human rights abuses, environmental destruction, cyber-terrorism and disease are all security threats. None of these issues can be solved by nuclear weapons or the threat of their use.

When the NPT reconvenes next year, surely there must be a realisation that an interdependent world needs to direct resources and skills at saving, preserving and extending life in addition to addressing the global environmental challenge.

Here in Britain the next strategic defence and security review is due this year, and we need to argue for an end to wasteful spending on nuclear weapons, through defence diversification and with greater public procurement in Britain to protect jobs and industries.

I first joined CND when I was 16 years old and I’m still a member today. It is up to all of us to ensure the debate in the year ahead is focused on peace and disarmament, and the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons for good.

UPDATED
Coronavirus latest: Government contracts for PPE worth millions including 50m unusable face masks to be investigated
One £252m contract for PPE included 50 million face masks subsequently deemed unusable in the NHSBy Katie Grant, Jane Merrick
August 6, 2020 10:28 pm

Investigation into Government PPE contracts to be launched, following i’s investigation (Photo: Jacob King/PA Wire)


The National Audit Office (NAO) is to investigate government contracts for personal protective equipment (PPE) handed out at the height of the pandemic after an i report earlier this week revealed desperate attempts to source the vital kit.

One £252m contract for PPE included 50 million face masks subsequently deemed unusable in the NHS. It is believed more than £150m was spent on the masks, ordered by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) from investment firm Ayanda Capital, but the coverings were rejected when it became clear they had ear loops, which are less safe than head loops. Tim Horlick, CEO of Ayanda Capital, insisted the masks were not unsafe or unusable, claiming none of the firm’s products have ever been rejected by the DHSC.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer demanded an inquiry into the contract, saying: “For months, we were told that the Government was purchasing the right equipment for the front line. Yet again it hasn’t happened. There needs now to be an investigation, an inquiry, into what went wrong with this particular contract because it’s just not good enough to people who need that protective equipment that we find ourselves in this position.”

The i politics newsletter cut through the noise


Calls to investigate

Rachel Reeves, shadow minister for the Cabinet Office (Photo: Michael Drummond/PA Wire)

It has since emerged that the NAO is to launch an investigation. In a letter to Rachel Reeves, shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, sent on 31 July, the Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove wrote that “the NAO has already written to DHSC to inform the department of its wish to start such an investigation,” according to The Times. “The Government looks forward to working closely with the NAO on this.” Mr Gove also expressed his belief that officials “balanced the urgent need for PPE with the requirement to obtain value for public money”.

The development comes after an investigation by i revealed that, at the height of the coronavirus outbreak, desperate NHS trusts paid huge sums of money to suppliers ranging from an artisan gin distiller to a costume jewellery company to secure PPE for staff and patients. The Good Law Project and EveryDoctor, which are suing the Government over its Ayanda contract, estimate the 50 million masks would have cost more than £150m.


Read More
PPE chaos: Layla Moran demands Government set out ‘clear and transparent’ strategy to avoid fresh shortages for NHS and care homes

Mr Horlick said his company supplied DHSC with the masks they requested, approved and ordered, adding that it may be that the internal NHS requirements changed as things were moving fast at the time.

Court papers show the Government awarded the £252.5m contract to Ayanda on 29 April, with £41.25m payable on commencement to secure the manufacturing capacity.

NHS outsourcing and the 50 million faulty face masks fiasco

NHS staff protest over pay and working conditions
THE wretched saga of the government’s purchase of 50 million unusable face masks has all the hallmarks of a classic Tory scandal.

 https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/nhs-outsourcing-and-50-million-faulty-face-masks-fiasco

Wearily we note that ministers insist there is no conflict of interest when the person who brokered the sale, Andrew Mills, is both a government adviser and sits on the board of Ayanda Capital, the firm that sold the substandard equipment to the state and made between £25 and £50 million doing so.

The revelation that the masks could not be used over concerns they were unsafe comes as part of the Good Law Project’s lawsuit against the government over the Ayanda Capital contract and others.

The lawsuit is driven by concerns that the Tories are handing contracts to cronies without any relevant experience in delivering what they say they will: project director Jolyon Maugham, previously more famous for repeated bids to have the EU referendum overturned in the courts and for boasting about beating a fox to death while wearing a kimono, points out reasonably enough that there is “cause for alarm” when PPE contracts of over £100m each are signed with “a pest control company, a confectioner and a family hedge fund.”

Labour calls for an inquiry. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves says the National Audit Office ought to investigate the government’s mishandling of personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies.

A ticking off from the National Audit Office will no doubt force ministers to change their ways, as it did when it condemned universal credit in 2018, or pointed out that benefit sanctions cost more than they save in 2016, or slapped George Osborne on the wrist for pretending loss-making sales of public assets were actually profitable in 2013.

Setting in motion the tired constitutional machinery by which ministers’ decisions are scrutinised and criticised after the fact is not an adequate response to this sordid deal, because its roots lie — as Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy points out — in the government’s entire outsourcing strategy.

Asking a wealth advisory firm like Ayanda to supply face masks is typical of a government that awards Brexit ferry contracts to a company with no ships, or gives serial outsourcers Serco a lucrative test-and-trace contract despite it having no track record in the field and having been fined over £1m just months before for bungling its last government contract. (Junior health minister Edward Argar used to be a lobbyist for Serco, but, of course, there is no conflict of interest).

The catastrophic failure to supply front-line workers with PPE, which has cost uncounted lives, has been exposed by campaign group We Own It as a consequence of the impact of privatisation and outsourcing on the NHS supply chain, creating “a chaotic mish-mash of private contractors managing the purchasing process,” in the words of director Cat Hobbes.

The campaign group’s investigation study Privatised and Unprepared: the NHS Supply Chain, published in May, pointed out that “this isn’t just a story about bad apples. It is a story of a flawed system that has helped turn the pandemic into an utter disaster.”

Labour remains theoretically committed to cleansing our NHS of private-sector providers, whose creeping infestation of the service undermines quality and accountability, enables the superexploitation of outsourced workers and puts patients at risk.

But like so much that was bold and ambitious in the party’s prospectus, that demand is no longer raised, with criticism of the government carefully kept from implying criticism of the system itself.

Even if the courts demonstrate wrongdoing over a handful of contracts, such abuses are written into the process, especially given the revolving door between government and the businesses that bid for government contracts.

Cleaning the Augean stables requires a rather more radical challenge to the status quo, one that insists that public services should be publicly owned, publicly controlled and publicly delivered.