ALBERTA |
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
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MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M
Amazon opens online pharmacy, shaking up another industry
By JOSEPH PISANI and TOM MURPHY
FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2020 file photo, an Amazon logo appears on an Amazon delivery van, in Boston. Amazon opened an online pharmacy Tuesday, Nov. 17 giving shoppers the chance to buy their medication and order refills on their phones and computers and have it delivered to their doorsteps in a couple of days. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Now at Amazon.com: insulin and inhalers.
The retail colossus opened an online pharmacy Tuesday that allows customers to order medication or prescription refills, and have them delivered to their front door in a couple of days.
The potential impact of Amazon’s arrival in the pharmaceutical space rippled through that sector immediately. The stocks of CVS Health Corp., Walgreens and Rite Aid all tumbled Tuesday.
The big chains rely on their pharmacies for a steady flow of shoppers who may also grab a snack or shampoo or groceries on the way out. All have upped online services and touted their abilities to deliver prescriptions and other goods as the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more consumers to stay home. But Amazon.com has mastered these things, and its online store is infinitely larger, with millions of loyal shoppers already buying books, TVs and just about anything else.
“The news represents a disruption to the system and competitive threat that will likely shift scripts away from the retail channel,” analysts at Citi Research said in a note.
Amazon has a history of disruption. Launched in 1995 as an online book store, it pushed other booksellers to sell online. But those that couldn’t keep up went out of business, like the Borders bookstore chain, which disappeared in 2011.
Its purchase of Whole Foods three years ago sent supermarket stocks spiraling, but many have been able to hold their own against Amazon, offering home delivery and curbside pickup of groceries.
Amazon has also become a threat to shipping companies, delivering more than half of its own packages itself. Vans stamped with the Amazon logo have become as common a sight as the UPS truck.
The company said its online pharmacy will offer commonly prescribed medications in the U.S., including creams, pills, as well as medications that need to stay refrigerated, like insulin. Shoppers have to set up a profile on Amazon’s website and have their doctors send prescriptions there. It won’t ship medications that have a high risk of being abused, like some opioids.
Most insurance is accepted, Amazon said. But Prime members who don’t have insurance can also buy generic or brand name drugs from Amazon for a discount. They can also get discounts at 50,000 physical pharmacies around the country at Costco, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and other stores.
Health economist Craig Garthwaite sees several reasons Amazon may become an attractive option for patients looking to fill prescriptions.
The retailer is a known entity that many people already use. It may be able to make price shopping for prescriptions more pleasant, and it might be competitive on the pricing of generic drugs, said Garthwaite, who teaches at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Amazon’s prescription business could be appealing to the uninsured or people who have plans that make them pay a high deductible first before their coverage starts, added John Boylan, an analyst who covers Walgreens for Edward Jones.
He said Amazon’s move will mostly affect smaller drugstores that don’t have either the retail giant’s purchasing power or deals that major drugstore chains have with insurers to funnel patients to their stores for prescriptions.
Amazon has eyed the health care industry for some time. Two years ago, it spent $750 million to buy online pharmacy PillPack, which organizes medication in packets by what time and day they need to be taken.
Separately, it also has formed a venture named Haven with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on improving the care their employees receive and managing the expense.
CVS and Walgreens, which had opened thousands of drugstores nationwide to get closer to customers, have been been trying to adjust to the rise of online shopping by offering same-day deliveries in many markets.
Walgreens also has a partnership with FedEx for a delivery service that takes a day or two. Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina told analysts in July that the company has seen “unprecedented demand” for both home delivery and online services as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded earlier this year.
Both companies also are providing more care and helping customers monitor chronic conditions like diabetes with services that can’t be delivered by competitors such as Amazon.
CVS Health also operates one of the nation’s largest health insurers — Aetna — and a big pharmacy benefit management, or PBM, business that runs prescription drug plans. Spokesman T.J. Crawford said in a statement that new pharmacy competition is no surprise, but he noted that CVS Health has evolved into “so much more” than a corner drugstore.
Amazon may continue to evolve as well, said the economist Garthwaite.
“We could think of this one day as the first step toward Amazon becoming a PBM,” he said.
Shares of CVS closed Tuesday nearly 10% lower and Walgreens shed nearly 9%. Rite Aid Corp.’s stock plunged more than 16%, while Amazon’s shares finished slightly higher.
Amazon opens online pharmacy, shaking up another industry
By JOSEPH PISANI and TOM MURPHY
FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2020 file photo, an Amazon logo appears on an Amazon delivery van, in Boston. Amazon opened an online pharmacy Tuesday, Nov. 17 giving shoppers the chance to buy their medication and order refills on their phones and computers and have it delivered to their doorsteps in a couple of days. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Now at Amazon.com: insulin and inhalers.
The retail colossus opened an online pharmacy Tuesday that allows customers to order medication or prescription refills, and have them delivered to their front door in a couple of days.
The potential impact of Amazon’s arrival in the pharmaceutical space rippled through that sector immediately. The stocks of CVS Health Corp., Walgreens and Rite Aid all tumbled Tuesday.
The big chains rely on their pharmacies for a steady flow of shoppers who may also grab a snack or shampoo or groceries on the way out. All have upped online services and touted their abilities to deliver prescriptions and other goods as the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more consumers to stay home. But Amazon.com has mastered these things, and its online store is infinitely larger, with millions of loyal shoppers already buying books, TVs and just about anything else.
“The news represents a disruption to the system and competitive threat that will likely shift scripts away from the retail channel,” analysts at Citi Research said in a note.
Amazon has a history of disruption. Launched in 1995 as an online book store, it pushed other booksellers to sell online. But those that couldn’t keep up went out of business, like the Borders bookstore chain, which disappeared in 2011.
Its purchase of Whole Foods three years ago sent supermarket stocks spiraling, but many have been able to hold their own against Amazon, offering home delivery and curbside pickup of groceries.
Amazon has also become a threat to shipping companies, delivering more than half of its own packages itself. Vans stamped with the Amazon logo have become as common a sight as the UPS truck.
The company said its online pharmacy will offer commonly prescribed medications in the U.S., including creams, pills, as well as medications that need to stay refrigerated, like insulin. Shoppers have to set up a profile on Amazon’s website and have their doctors send prescriptions there. It won’t ship medications that have a high risk of being abused, like some opioids.
Most insurance is accepted, Amazon said. But Prime members who don’t have insurance can also buy generic or brand name drugs from Amazon for a discount. They can also get discounts at 50,000 physical pharmacies around the country at Costco, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and other stores.
Health economist Craig Garthwaite sees several reasons Amazon may become an attractive option for patients looking to fill prescriptions.
The retailer is a known entity that many people already use. It may be able to make price shopping for prescriptions more pleasant, and it might be competitive on the pricing of generic drugs, said Garthwaite, who teaches at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Amazon’s prescription business could be appealing to the uninsured or people who have plans that make them pay a high deductible first before their coverage starts, added John Boylan, an analyst who covers Walgreens for Edward Jones.
He said Amazon’s move will mostly affect smaller drugstores that don’t have either the retail giant’s purchasing power or deals that major drugstore chains have with insurers to funnel patients to their stores for prescriptions.
Amazon has eyed the health care industry for some time. Two years ago, it spent $750 million to buy online pharmacy PillPack, which organizes medication in packets by what time and day they need to be taken.
Separately, it also has formed a venture named Haven with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on improving the care their employees receive and managing the expense.
CVS and Walgreens, which had opened thousands of drugstores nationwide to get closer to customers, have been been trying to adjust to the rise of online shopping by offering same-day deliveries in many markets.
Walgreens also has a partnership with FedEx for a delivery service that takes a day or two. Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina told analysts in July that the company has seen “unprecedented demand” for both home delivery and online services as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded earlier this year.
Both companies also are providing more care and helping customers monitor chronic conditions like diabetes with services that can’t be delivered by competitors such as Amazon.
CVS Health also operates one of the nation’s largest health insurers — Aetna — and a big pharmacy benefit management, or PBM, business that runs prescription drug plans. Spokesman T.J. Crawford said in a statement that new pharmacy competition is no surprise, but he noted that CVS Health has evolved into “so much more” than a corner drugstore.
Amazon may continue to evolve as well, said the economist Garthwaite.
“We could think of this one day as the first step toward Amazon becoming a PBM,” he said.
Shares of CVS closed Tuesday nearly 10% lower and Walgreens shed nearly 9%. Rite Aid Corp.’s stock plunged more than 16%, while Amazon’s shares finished slightly higher.
NATO chief warns of high price if troops leave Afghanistan
By LORNE COOK
FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 11, 2020 file photo, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a ceremony marking the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, at NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020 that the military organization could pay a heavy price for leaving Afghanistan too early, after a U.S. official said President Donald Trump is expected to withdraw a significant number of American troops from the conflict-ravaged country in coming weeks. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, Pool, File)
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO could pay a heavy price for leaving Afghanistan too early, its chief warned Tuesday after a U.S. official said President Donald Trump is expected to withdraw a significant number of American troops from the conflict-ravaged country in the coming weeks.
NATO has fewer than 12,000 troops from dozens of nations in Afghanistan helping to train and advise the country’s national security forces. More than half are not U.S. troops, but the 30-nation alliance relies heavily on the United States for transport, air support, logistics and other assistance. It’s unlikely that NATO could even wind down its operation without U.S. help.
“We now face a difficult decision. We have been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years, and no NATO ally wants to stay any longer than necessary. But at the same time, the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement Tuesday.
He said Afghanistan still “risks becoming once again a platform for international terrorists to plan and organize attacks on our homelands. And ISIS (Islamic State) could rebuild in Afghanistan the terror caliphate it lost in Syria and Iraq.”
The U.S. decision comes just days after Trump installed a new slate of loyalists in top Pentagon positions who share his frustration with the continued troop presence in war zones. The expected plans would cut U.S. troop numbers almost in half by Jan. 15, leaving 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials said military leaders were told over the weekend about the planned withdrawal and that an executive order is in the works but has not yet been delivered to commanders.
NATO took charge of the international security effort in Afghanistan in 2003, two years after a U.S-led coalition ousted the Taliban for harboring former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. In 2014, it began to train and advise Afghan security forces, but has gradually pulled troops out in line with a U.S.-brokered peace deal.
Stoltenberg said that “even with further U.S. reductions, NATO will continue its mission to train, advise and assist the Afghan security forces. We are also committed to funding them through 2024.”
NATO’s security operation in Afghanistan is its biggest and most ambitious undertaking ever. It was launched after the military alliance activated its mutual defense clause — known as Article 5 — for the first time, mobilizing all the allies in support of the United States in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
“Hundreds of thousands of troops from Europe and beyond have stood shoulder to shoulder with American troops in Afghanistan, and over 1,000 of them have paid the ultimate price,” Stoltenberg said.
“We went into Afghanistan together. And when the time is right, we should leave together in a coordinated and orderly way. I count on all NATO allies to live up to this commitment, for our own security,” he said.
The United States is by far NATO’s biggest and most influential ally. It spends more on defense than all the other countries combined. But Trump’s term in office has marked a particularly tumultuous time for the organization. He has routinely berated other leaders for not spending enough on defense, and has pulled out of security agreements that European allies and Canada consider important for their security, such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Open Skies aerial surveillance pact.
French President Emmanuel Macron said last year that NATO was suffering from “brain death,” in part due to a lack of U.S. leadership.
Stoltenberg has refrained from publicly criticizing Trump or his decisions since Trump came to power in 2016.
TRUMPS AMERICA HAS NO ALLIES
By LORNE COOK
FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 11, 2020 file photo, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a ceremony marking the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, at NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020 that the military organization could pay a heavy price for leaving Afghanistan too early, after a U.S. official said President Donald Trump is expected to withdraw a significant number of American troops from the conflict-ravaged country in coming weeks. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, Pool, File)
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO could pay a heavy price for leaving Afghanistan too early, its chief warned Tuesday after a U.S. official said President Donald Trump is expected to withdraw a significant number of American troops from the conflict-ravaged country in the coming weeks.
NATO has fewer than 12,000 troops from dozens of nations in Afghanistan helping to train and advise the country’s national security forces. More than half are not U.S. troops, but the 30-nation alliance relies heavily on the United States for transport, air support, logistics and other assistance. It’s unlikely that NATO could even wind down its operation without U.S. help.
“We now face a difficult decision. We have been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years, and no NATO ally wants to stay any longer than necessary. But at the same time, the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement Tuesday.
He said Afghanistan still “risks becoming once again a platform for international terrorists to plan and organize attacks on our homelands. And ISIS (Islamic State) could rebuild in Afghanistan the terror caliphate it lost in Syria and Iraq.”
The U.S. decision comes just days after Trump installed a new slate of loyalists in top Pentagon positions who share his frustration with the continued troop presence in war zones. The expected plans would cut U.S. troop numbers almost in half by Jan. 15, leaving 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials said military leaders were told over the weekend about the planned withdrawal and that an executive order is in the works but has not yet been delivered to commanders.
NATO took charge of the international security effort in Afghanistan in 2003, two years after a U.S-led coalition ousted the Taliban for harboring former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. In 2014, it began to train and advise Afghan security forces, but has gradually pulled troops out in line with a U.S.-brokered peace deal.
Stoltenberg said that “even with further U.S. reductions, NATO will continue its mission to train, advise and assist the Afghan security forces. We are also committed to funding them through 2024.”
NATO’s security operation in Afghanistan is its biggest and most ambitious undertaking ever. It was launched after the military alliance activated its mutual defense clause — known as Article 5 — for the first time, mobilizing all the allies in support of the United States in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
“Hundreds of thousands of troops from Europe and beyond have stood shoulder to shoulder with American troops in Afghanistan, and over 1,000 of them have paid the ultimate price,” Stoltenberg said.
“We went into Afghanistan together. And when the time is right, we should leave together in a coordinated and orderly way. I count on all NATO allies to live up to this commitment, for our own security,” he said.
The United States is by far NATO’s biggest and most influential ally. It spends more on defense than all the other countries combined. But Trump’s term in office has marked a particularly tumultuous time for the organization. He has routinely berated other leaders for not spending enough on defense, and has pulled out of security agreements that European allies and Canada consider important for their security, such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Open Skies aerial surveillance pact.
French President Emmanuel Macron said last year that NATO was suffering from “brain death,” in part due to a lack of U.S. leadership.
Stoltenberg has refrained from publicly criticizing Trump or his decisions since Trump came to power in 2016.
US Public health programs see surge in students amid pandemic
Kelsie Campbell, a student at Florida International University in Miami, poses for a photo on campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020. When Campbell, who is part Jamaican and part British, heard in both the British and American media that Black and ethnic minorities were being disproportionately hurt by the pandemic, she wanted to focus on why. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
Among the more than 100 schools and public health programs that use the common application — a single admissions application form that students can send to multiple schools — there was a 20% increase in applications to master’s in public health programs for the current academic year, to nearly 40,000, according to the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health.
COVID-19 is driving a surge of new students to pursue a public health degree, even as the pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to those in the profession, including overwhelming demand and threats to workers’ safety. (Nov. 17)
Some programs are seeing even bigger jumps. Applications to Brown University’s small master’s in public health program rose 75%, according to Annie Gjelsvik, a professor and director of the program.
Demand was so high as the pandemic hit full force in the spring that Brown extended its application deadline by over a month. Seventy students ultimately matriculated this fall, up from 41 last year.
“People interested in public health are interested in solving complex problems,” Gjelsvik said. “The COVID pandemic is a complex issue that’s in the forefront every day.”
It’s too early to say whether the jump in interest in public health programs is specific to that field or reflects a broader surge of interest in graduate programs in general, according to those who track graduate school admissions. Factors such as pandemic-related deferrals and disruptions in international student admissions make it difficult to compare programs across the board.
Magnolia E. Hernández, an assistant dean at Florida International University’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, said new student enrollments in its master’s in public health program grew 63% from last year. The school has especially seen an uptick in interest among Black students, from 21% of newly admitted students last fall to 26.8% this year.
Kelsie Campbell is one of them. She’s part Jamaican and part British. When she heard in both the British and American media that Black and ethnic minorities were being disproportionately hurt by the pandemic, she wanted to focus on why.
“Why is the Black community being impacted disproportionately by the pandemic? Why is that happening?” Campbell asked. “I want to be able to come to you and say, ‘This is happening. These are the numbers and this is what we’re going to do.’”
The biochemistry major at Florida International said she plans to explore that when she begins her MPH program at Stempel College in the spring. She said she hopes to eventually put her public health degree to work helping her own community.
“There’s power in having people from your community in high places, somebody to fight for you, somebody to be your voice,” she said.
Public health students are already working on the front lines of the nation’s pandemic response in many locations. Students at Brown’s public health program, for example, are crunching infection data and tracing the spread of the disease for the Rhode Island Department of Health.
Some students who had planned to work in public health shifted their focus as they watched the devastation of COVID-19 in their communities. In college, Emilie Saksvig, 23, double-majored in civil engineering and public health. She was supposed to start working this year as a Peace Corps volunteer to help with water infrastructure in Kenya. She had dreamed of working overseas on global public health.
The pandemic forced her to cancel those plans, and she decided instead to pursue a master’s degree in public health at Emory University.
“The pandemic has made it so that it is apparent that the United States needs a lot of help, too,” she said. “It changed the direction of where I wanted to go.”
These students are entering a field that faced serious challenges even before the pandemic exposed the strains on the underfunded patchwork of state and local public health departments. An analysis by The Associated Press and Kaiser Health News found that since 2010, per capita spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16%, and for local health departments by 18%. At least 38,000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession.
And the workforce is aging: Forty-two percent of governmental public health workers are over 50, according to the de Beaumont Foundation, and the field has high turnover. Before the pandemic, nearly half of public health workers said they planned to retire or leave their organizations for other reasons in the next five years. Poor pay topped the list of reasons. Some public health workers are paid so little that they qualify for public aid.
Brian Castrucci, CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, which advocates for public health, said government public health jobs need to be a “destination job” for top graduates of public health schools.
“If we aren’t going after the best and the brightest, it means that the best and the brightest aren’t protecting our nation from those threats that can, clearly, not only devastate from a human perspective, but from an economic perspective,” Castrucci said.
The pandemic put that already stressed public health workforce in the middle of what became a pitched political battle over how to contain the disease. As public health officials recommended closing businesses and requiring people to wear masks, many, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top virus expert, faced threats and political reprisals, AP and KHN found. Many were pushed out of their jobs. An ongoing count by AP/KHN has found that more than 100 public health leaders in dozens of states have retired, quit or been fired since April.
Those threats have had the effect of crystallizing for students the importance of their work, said Patricia Pittman, a professor of health policy and management at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health.
“Our students have been both indignant and also energized by what it means to become a public health professional,” Pittman said. “Indignant because many of the local and the national leaders who are trying to make recommendations around public health practices were being mistreated. And proud because they know that they are going to be part of that frontline public health workforce that has not always gotten the respect that it deserves.”
Saksvig compared public health workers to law enforcement in the way they both have responsibility for enforcing rules that can alter people’s lives.
“I feel like before the coronavirus, a lot of people didn’t really pay attention to public health,” she said. “Especially now when something like a pandemic is happening, public health people are just on the forefront of everything.”
___
KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber and KHN senior correspondent Anna Maria Barry-Jester contributed to this report.
___
This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and Kaiser Health News, which is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
By MICHELLE R. SMITH and KATHY YOUNG
1 of 6 PHOTOS
1 of 6 PHOTOS
University of Illinois student Sarah Keeley poses for a portrait on the college campus in Urbana, Ill., Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. As the coronavirus was emerging in the news in January, Keeley was working as a medical scribe and considering what to do with her biology degree. In August, she began studying to become an epidemiologist. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — As the novel coronavirus emerged in the news in January, Sarah Keeley was working as a medical scribe and considering what to do with her biology degree.
By February, as the disease crept across the U.S., Keeley found her calling: a career in public health. “This is something that’s going to be necessary,” Keeley remembered thinking. “This is something I can do. This is something I’m interested in.”
In August, Keeley began studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to become an epidemiologist.
Public health programs in the United States have seen a surge in enrollment as the coronavirus has swept through the country, killing more than 247,000 people. As state and local public health departments struggle with unprecedented challenges — slashed budgets, surging demand, staff departures and even threats to workers’ safety —- a new generation is entering the field.
By February, as the disease crept across the U.S., Keeley found her calling: a career in public health. “This is something that’s going to be necessary,” Keeley remembered thinking. “This is something I can do. This is something I’m interested in.”
In August, Keeley began studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to become an epidemiologist.
Public health programs in the United States have seen a surge in enrollment as the coronavirus has swept through the country, killing more than 247,000 people. As state and local public health departments struggle with unprecedented challenges — slashed budgets, surging demand, staff departures and even threats to workers’ safety —- a new generation is entering the field.
Among the more than 100 schools and public health programs that use the common application — a single admissions application form that students can send to multiple schools — there was a 20% increase in applications to master’s in public health programs for the current academic year, to nearly 40,000, according to the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health.
COVID-19 is driving a surge of new students to pursue a public health degree, even as the pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to those in the profession, including overwhelming demand and threats to workers’ safety. (Nov. 17)
Some programs are seeing even bigger jumps. Applications to Brown University’s small master’s in public health program rose 75%, according to Annie Gjelsvik, a professor and director of the program.
Demand was so high as the pandemic hit full force in the spring that Brown extended its application deadline by over a month. Seventy students ultimately matriculated this fall, up from 41 last year.
“People interested in public health are interested in solving complex problems,” Gjelsvik said. “The COVID pandemic is a complex issue that’s in the forefront every day.”
It’s too early to say whether the jump in interest in public health programs is specific to that field or reflects a broader surge of interest in graduate programs in general, according to those who track graduate school admissions. Factors such as pandemic-related deferrals and disruptions in international student admissions make it difficult to compare programs across the board.
Magnolia E. Hernández, an assistant dean at Florida International University’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, said new student enrollments in its master’s in public health program grew 63% from last year. The school has especially seen an uptick in interest among Black students, from 21% of newly admitted students last fall to 26.8% this year.
Kelsie Campbell is one of them. She’s part Jamaican and part British. When she heard in both the British and American media that Black and ethnic minorities were being disproportionately hurt by the pandemic, she wanted to focus on why.
“Why is the Black community being impacted disproportionately by the pandemic? Why is that happening?” Campbell asked. “I want to be able to come to you and say, ‘This is happening. These are the numbers and this is what we’re going to do.’”
The biochemistry major at Florida International said she plans to explore that when she begins her MPH program at Stempel College in the spring. She said she hopes to eventually put her public health degree to work helping her own community.
“There’s power in having people from your community in high places, somebody to fight for you, somebody to be your voice,” she said.
Public health students are already working on the front lines of the nation’s pandemic response in many locations. Students at Brown’s public health program, for example, are crunching infection data and tracing the spread of the disease for the Rhode Island Department of Health.
Some students who had planned to work in public health shifted their focus as they watched the devastation of COVID-19 in their communities. In college, Emilie Saksvig, 23, double-majored in civil engineering and public health. She was supposed to start working this year as a Peace Corps volunteer to help with water infrastructure in Kenya. She had dreamed of working overseas on global public health.
The pandemic forced her to cancel those plans, and she decided instead to pursue a master’s degree in public health at Emory University.
“The pandemic has made it so that it is apparent that the United States needs a lot of help, too,” she said. “It changed the direction of where I wanted to go.”
These students are entering a field that faced serious challenges even before the pandemic exposed the strains on the underfunded patchwork of state and local public health departments. An analysis by The Associated Press and Kaiser Health News found that since 2010, per capita spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16%, and for local health departments by 18%. At least 38,000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession.
And the workforce is aging: Forty-two percent of governmental public health workers are over 50, according to the de Beaumont Foundation, and the field has high turnover. Before the pandemic, nearly half of public health workers said they planned to retire or leave their organizations for other reasons in the next five years. Poor pay topped the list of reasons. Some public health workers are paid so little that they qualify for public aid.
Brian Castrucci, CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, which advocates for public health, said government public health jobs need to be a “destination job” for top graduates of public health schools.
“If we aren’t going after the best and the brightest, it means that the best and the brightest aren’t protecting our nation from those threats that can, clearly, not only devastate from a human perspective, but from an economic perspective,” Castrucci said.
The pandemic put that already stressed public health workforce in the middle of what became a pitched political battle over how to contain the disease. As public health officials recommended closing businesses and requiring people to wear masks, many, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top virus expert, faced threats and political reprisals, AP and KHN found. Many were pushed out of their jobs. An ongoing count by AP/KHN has found that more than 100 public health leaders in dozens of states have retired, quit or been fired since April.
Those threats have had the effect of crystallizing for students the importance of their work, said Patricia Pittman, a professor of health policy and management at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health.
“Our students have been both indignant and also energized by what it means to become a public health professional,” Pittman said. “Indignant because many of the local and the national leaders who are trying to make recommendations around public health practices were being mistreated. And proud because they know that they are going to be part of that frontline public health workforce that has not always gotten the respect that it deserves.”
Saksvig compared public health workers to law enforcement in the way they both have responsibility for enforcing rules that can alter people’s lives.
“I feel like before the coronavirus, a lot of people didn’t really pay attention to public health,” she said. “Especially now when something like a pandemic is happening, public health people are just on the forefront of everything.”
___
KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber and KHN senior correspondent Anna Maria Barry-Jester contributed to this report.
___
This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and Kaiser Health News, which is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
BACKGROUNDER UPDATES
Ethiopia's Tigray conflict: What's behind the fighting?
Issued on: 17/11/2020 -
By:Eve IRVINE
In recent weeks, the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia has become a bloody battlefield. Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has launched a military offensive in the region, accusing the Tigray ruling party of trying to destabilise the democracy he wanted to build. Already, the fighting has forced more than 20,000 people to flee their homes for neighbouring Sudan. Adem Abebe, an advisor and commentator on the African Union, gives us his perspective on the situation and on the danger of it spreading beyond Ethiopia's borders and destabilising the wider region.
Ethiopia's spiraling conflict threatens regional stability
The Ethiopian government's armed conflict in semi-autonomous Tigray threatens the future of federalism in the country. With violence spilling into Eritrea, there's a potential for a security vacuum in the Horn of Africa.
Mass forced migration to Sudan is becoming a reality due to the ongoing violence in Tigray
Deadly fighting between Ethiopian federal forces and the regional government of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has already claimed hundreds of military and civilian lives, according to the scarce reports coming from the region.
Internationally, there are fears that the conflict, which is quickly escalating into a civil war, will threaten regional security in the Horn of Africa.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military operation against the TPLF on November 4, accusing the Tigray militia of attacking a government military base.
Read more: The dangers behind Ethiopia's Tigray conflict
Meanwhile, Ethiopia's defense minister, Dr Kenna Yadeta, remained bullish about the government's ability to quickly end the violence.
"All the TPLF's actions testify to their high level of frustration.They have no more strength, capability and time to intensify wars in the region. The Tigray junta has only a very short time left to be captured," according to Kenna Yadeta, who was appointed defense minister in August 2020 as part of a major — and controversial — cabinet reshuffle by Ahmed.
"We can achieve a crushing victory any day from now," Yadeta told DW.
Read more: Ethiopia: PM Abiy Ahmed reshuffles cabinet amid Tigray fighting
Refugees have been flowing into Sudan to avoid fighting in the Tigray region
Regional stability under threat
The victory may come at a severe cost to stability in the Horn of Africa, though.
To win it, there is a danger that the federal government's focus on Tigray could weaken its involvement in backing the government in Ethiopia's western neighbor, Somalia, against al-Shabab militants.
Ethiopia has already withdrawn about 600 soldiers from Somalia's western border. However they were not part of the African Union's Mission in Somalia (Amisom), which Ethiopia also supports.
"Now, this is going to severely affect the efforts of the African Union mission that's currently involved in stabilizing Somalia and ensuring there is a functional government, and organize the elections in the next few months,” said Hassan Khannenje of the Nairobi-based think-tank the Horn Institute.
The huge numbers of refugees likely to cross the borders of an already volatile region and the likely proliferation of light weapons and small arms could lead to a "catastrophe," according to Khannenje.
Refugees have fled the fighting in Ethiopia and have descended on the Sudanese town of al-Fashqua
"If Ethiopia goes, then there goes the Horn of Africa region. And that's something they should worry everybody, both regionally and internationally," Khannenje told DW.
Read more: Ethiopia has 'entered into war' with Tigray region
THE GRAND ETHIOPIAN RENAISSANCE DAM: A NEVER-ENDING SAGA
A concrete colossus
At 145 meters high and almost two kilometers long, the Grand Renaissance Dam is expected to become Ethiopia's biggest source of electricity. As Africa's largest hydroelectric power dam, it will produce more than 15,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity, beginning in 2022. It will source water from Africa's longest river, the Blue Nile. PHOTOS12345678
Thousands marched against a war in Ethiopia's Tigray region
'No more brother wars'
But many Eritreans want peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Over the weekend, hundreds of Eritrean refugees in the Tigray city of Mekelle protested against the war between Tigrayan and Ethiopian government forces.
They demanded both sides end the conflict immediately and strike up dialogue.
The demonstrators also demanded a solution for the growing refugee crisis, saying military violence threatened refugee camps in western Tigray.
"The war is unnecessary. We know war. It's destructive. War between brothers is the worst. People have been persecuted and killed. The Eritreans here are against the war. It's enough!" said one male demonstrator.
Protests against the war have started in Tigray
"It's very sad that people speaking the same language and sharing the same language are fighting," another protester told DW on condition of anonymity.
Others fear Eritreans living in Tigray could also become targets.
"Since we've been in Ethiopia, especially Tigray, we have found shelter and live like every other citizen," a protestor told DW. "This war doesn't just affect civilian life, it also affects us, the refugees."
Regional rivals launch military exercise
Perhaps worryingly from an Ethiopian perspective, and further complicating matters, regional rivals Sudan and Egypt started joint military exercises over the weekend.
Both countries are in dispute with Ethiopia, over its Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.
Sudan and Egypt both claim the structure will adversely affect their water supply.
The exercises include planning and running combat activities, as well as commando groups conducting search and rescue missions, according to an Egyptian defense ministry statement.
The Ethiopian government's armed conflict in semi-autonomous Tigray threatens the future of federalism in the country. With violence spilling into Eritrea, there's a potential for a security vacuum in the Horn of Africa.
Mass forced migration to Sudan is becoming a reality due to the ongoing violence in Tigray
Deadly fighting between Ethiopian federal forces and the regional government of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has already claimed hundreds of military and civilian lives, according to the scarce reports coming from the region.
Internationally, there are fears that the conflict, which is quickly escalating into a civil war, will threaten regional security in the Horn of Africa.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military operation against the TPLF on November 4, accusing the Tigray militia of attacking a government military base.
Read more: The dangers behind Ethiopia's Tigray conflict
Meanwhile, Ethiopia's defense minister, Dr Kenna Yadeta, remained bullish about the government's ability to quickly end the violence.
"All the TPLF's actions testify to their high level of frustration.They have no more strength, capability and time to intensify wars in the region. The Tigray junta has only a very short time left to be captured," according to Kenna Yadeta, who was appointed defense minister in August 2020 as part of a major — and controversial — cabinet reshuffle by Ahmed.
"We can achieve a crushing victory any day from now," Yadeta told DW.
Read more: Ethiopia: PM Abiy Ahmed reshuffles cabinet amid Tigray fighting
 |
Refugees have been flowing into Sudan to avoid fighting in the Tigray region
Regional stability under threat
The victory may come at a severe cost to stability in the Horn of Africa, though.
To win it, there is a danger that the federal government's focus on Tigray could weaken its involvement in backing the government in Ethiopia's western neighbor, Somalia, against al-Shabab militants.
Ethiopia has already withdrawn about 600 soldiers from Somalia's western border. However they were not part of the African Union's Mission in Somalia (Amisom), which Ethiopia also supports.
"Now, this is going to severely affect the efforts of the African Union mission that's currently involved in stabilizing Somalia and ensuring there is a functional government, and organize the elections in the next few months,” said Hassan Khannenje of the Nairobi-based think-tank the Horn Institute.
The huge numbers of refugees likely to cross the borders of an already volatile region and the likely proliferation of light weapons and small arms could lead to a "catastrophe," according to Khannenje.
Refugees have fled the fighting in Ethiopia and have descended on the Sudanese town of al-Fashqua
"If Ethiopia goes, then there goes the Horn of Africa region. And that's something they should worry everybody, both regionally and internationally," Khannenje told DW.
Read more: Ethiopia has 'entered into war' with Tigray region
THE GRAND ETHIOPIAN RENAISSANCE DAM: A NEVER-ENDING SAGA
A concrete colossus
At 145 meters high and almost two kilometers long, the Grand Renaissance Dam is expected to become Ethiopia's biggest source of electricity. As Africa's largest hydroelectric power dam, it will produce more than 15,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity, beginning in 2022. It will source water from Africa's longest river, the Blue Nile. PHOTOS12345678
Conflict spills over into Eritrea
Also complicating the Ethiopian government's conflict with the TPLF is the involvement of Ethiopia's northern neighbor, Eritrea, which borders Tigray.
Over the weekend, multiple rockets — fired from Ethiopia's Tigray region — hit the Eritrean capital, Asmara.
The TPLF's leader, Debretsion Gebremichael, said his troops fought Eritrean forces "on several fronts" for the past few days. He accused Eritrea of providing military support to the Ethiopian government and sending troops across the border, allegations that Eritrea denied.
TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael
"Asmara has been accused of allowing the Ethiopian Air Force to use its base in undertaking strikes," said Hassan Khannenje, from Nairobi-based think tank, The Horn Institute.
"And so, the TPLF sees Eritrea as a fair target because of its alliance or perceived alliance currently with Abiy Ahmed's government in Addis Ababa."
Tigrayan forces and leaders were instrumental in bringing peace and relative prosperity to Ethiopia as part of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) by removing the brutal Derg military regime from power in 1991.
However, under its rule, Eritrea seceded in 1993, and the 1998–2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea followed.
When Abiy Ahmed swept to power in 2018, he made it a priority to normalize relations and make peace with Eritrea — a feat that won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
The TPLF's resentment stems from a sense of being sidelined by Abiy's government when he formed a new coalition government — known as the Prosperity Party — which excluded the TPLF. Abiy's overtures to Eritrea are also seen as a betrayal.
Read more: Abiy Ahmed: Ethiopia's first Nobel laureate
Also complicating the Ethiopian government's conflict with the TPLF is the involvement of Ethiopia's northern neighbor, Eritrea, which borders Tigray.
Over the weekend, multiple rockets — fired from Ethiopia's Tigray region — hit the Eritrean capital, Asmara.
The TPLF's leader, Debretsion Gebremichael, said his troops fought Eritrean forces "on several fronts" for the past few days. He accused Eritrea of providing military support to the Ethiopian government and sending troops across the border, allegations that Eritrea denied.
TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael
"Asmara has been accused of allowing the Ethiopian Air Force to use its base in undertaking strikes," said Hassan Khannenje, from Nairobi-based think tank, The Horn Institute.
"And so, the TPLF sees Eritrea as a fair target because of its alliance or perceived alliance currently with Abiy Ahmed's government in Addis Ababa."
Tigrayan forces and leaders were instrumental in bringing peace and relative prosperity to Ethiopia as part of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) by removing the brutal Derg military regime from power in 1991.
However, under its rule, Eritrea seceded in 1993, and the 1998–2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea followed.
When Abiy Ahmed swept to power in 2018, he made it a priority to normalize relations and make peace with Eritrea — a feat that won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
The TPLF's resentment stems from a sense of being sidelined by Abiy's government when he formed a new coalition government — known as the Prosperity Party — which excluded the TPLF. Abiy's overtures to Eritrea are also seen as a betrayal.
Read more: Abiy Ahmed: Ethiopia's first Nobel laureate
Thousands marched against a war in Ethiopia's Tigray region
'No more brother wars'
But many Eritreans want peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Over the weekend, hundreds of Eritrean refugees in the Tigray city of Mekelle protested against the war between Tigrayan and Ethiopian government forces.
They demanded both sides end the conflict immediately and strike up dialogue.
The demonstrators also demanded a solution for the growing refugee crisis, saying military violence threatened refugee camps in western Tigray.
"The war is unnecessary. We know war. It's destructive. War between brothers is the worst. People have been persecuted and killed. The Eritreans here are against the war. It's enough!" said one male demonstrator.
Protests against the war have started in Tigray
"It's very sad that people speaking the same language and sharing the same language are fighting," another protester told DW on condition of anonymity.
Others fear Eritreans living in Tigray could also become targets.
"Since we've been in Ethiopia, especially Tigray, we have found shelter and live like every other citizen," a protestor told DW. "This war doesn't just affect civilian life, it also affects us, the refugees."
Regional rivals launch military exercise
Perhaps worryingly from an Ethiopian perspective, and further complicating matters, regional rivals Sudan and Egypt started joint military exercises over the weekend.
Both countries are in dispute with Ethiopia, over its Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.
Sudan and Egypt both claim the structure will adversely affect their water supply.
The exercises include planning and running combat activities, as well as commando groups conducting search and rescue missions, according to an Egyptian defense ministry statement.
AUDIOS AND VIDEOS ON THE TOPIC
Ethiopia's Tigray conflict: What's behind the fighting?
Issued on: 17/11/2020 -
By:Eve IRVINE
In recent weeks, the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia has become a bloody battlefield. Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has launched a military offensive in the region, accusing the Tigray ruling party of trying to destabilise the democracy he wanted to build. Already, the fighting has forced more than 20,000 people to flee their homes for neighbouring Sudan. Adem Abebe, an advisor and commentator on the African Union, gives us his perspective on the situation and on the danger of it spreading beyond Ethiopia's borders and destabilising the wider region.
Peace was swift in Ethiopia under Abiy.
But for some, it was hard to miss a warning amid his calls for unity in Ethiopia, where some ethnic groups have pushed hard for more autonomy, sometimes with violence.
Speaking specifically to his countrymen from the Nobel lectern, Abiy said: “The evangelists of hate and division are wreaking havoc in our society using social media. They are preaching the gospel of revenge and retribution.”
He added that Ethiopia and Eritrea made peace because they were the “victims of a common enemy,” which was poverty.
But now Tigray regional leaders assert that Ethiopia and Eritrea have instead found a common enemy in them.
Terrible accounts have begun to emerge from shaken refugees. “These people are coming with knives and sticks, wanting to attack citizens. And behind them is the Ethiopian army with tanks,” said one refugee, Thimon Abrah. “And we’re here, waiting, for any sort of solution.”
Abiy on Monday said his government would welcome, protect and reintegrate those who have fled. But those fleeing are wary of any promises from his government, which they say attacked them. The government has repeatedly denied that.
For Ethiopians at home and in the diaspora, there is anger, sadness and suspicion as the United Nations warns of alarming rhetoric and the targeting of ethnic groups.
Abiy has vowed to limit the conflict to combatants. But he also rejects compromise, promising that the fighting will only end once the region’s leaders from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front are arrested and their arsenal destroyed.
“Abiy overreached,” Tsedale Lemma, the editor of the Addis Standard newspaper, wrote last week in The New York Times, calling the prime minister’s sidelining of the region’s leadership his first “cardinal mistake.”
But the official overseeing the new state of emergency in Tigray defended the prime minister’s unyielding stance.
“He faces the very threat to his own nation,” Redwan Hussein told reporters late last week. “The only thing he has to do is to defend it. So if there is a second Nobel Peace Prize, then he has to win it again because he is still salvaging his country.”
War was, too.
By CARA ANNA
1 of 11 PHOTOS
FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020, file photo, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, center, arrives for the opening session of the 33rd African Union (AU) Summit at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ahmed left Ethiopians breathless when he became the prime minister in 2018, introducing a wave of political reforms in the long-repressive country and announcing a shocking peace with enemy Eritrea. Now, Abiy is waging war in the defiant Tigray region.
By CARA ANNA
1 of 11 PHOTOS
FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020, file photo, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, center, arrives for the opening session of the 33rd African Union (AU) Summit at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ahmed left Ethiopians breathless when he became the prime minister in 2018, introducing a wave of political reforms in the long-repressive country and announcing a shocking peace with enemy Eritrea. Now, Abiy is waging war in the defiant Tigray region.
(AP Photo/File)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Abiy Ahmed left Ethiopians breathless when he became the prime minister in 2018, introducing a wave of political reforms in the long-repressive country and announcing a shocking peace with enemy Eritrea.
The young prime minister was cheered as he toured Ethiopia in his feverish first days, including when he visited the powerful Tigray region, whose leaders had dominated the national ruling coalition for decades. The international community, dazzled, showered Abiy with praise. Not even two years after taking power, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Now — a year later — Abiy is waging war in Tigray, accusing its forces of a deadly attack on a military base after what he said was a series of provocations. His shine is threatening to wear off as his country’s long-brewing troubles explode onto the world stage, and he rejects international pressure for dialogue.
Abiy contends there’s no one to talk to, asserting that the Tigray regional leaders are criminals who recently held an election his government called illegal and that their actions have threatened Ethiopia’s sovereignty.
Well over 25,000 refugees have fled the fighting into Sudan, bringing word of vicious attacks by armed forces and even rival ethnic groups.
Abiy on Tuesday vowed a “final and crucial” military offensive as he tries to hold together a nation of 110 million people with scores of ethnic groups, some of which might try to defy him as the Tigray leaders have.
“If Tigray is not solved somehow, I don’t think the situation of the country will be solved,” Mekonnen Gebreslasie Gebrehiwot, who leads an association of ethnic Tigrayans, told The Associated Press from his home in Belgium.
On Tuesday, the Nobel committee said in a statement that it is “deeply concerned” about the situation in Ethiopia, and it called for all parties involved to “end the escalating violence.” The United States, the African Union, Pope Francis and the United Nations secretary-general all have expressed their deep concern and urged a peaceful resolution.
But there is no clear path back to peace in a region that’s seen little of it. “This conflict dashes our hopes for the region,” prominent Horn of Africa citizens wrote in a letter circulated late last week.
For much of the world, Abiy’s transformation from peacemaker to war-wager was as swift as his rise to power.
But for months, human rights groups had warned that Abiy’s administration was beginning to embrace the repressive ways of the past, including locking up critics and shutting off the internet.
Even as the Nobel committee awarded Abiy last year, it defended its choice. “No doubt some people will think this year’s prize is being awarded too early,” it said, noting “troubling examples” of ethnic violence. But it believed “it is now that Abiy Ahmed’s efforts deserve recognition and need encouragement.”
For many, Abiy represented a welcome break from the past when he rose to power in one of Africa’s most powerful countries, a key U.S. security ally in the strategic Horn of Africa.
His government welcomed opposition figures home from exile, and released others from prison, including some who had been sentenced to death. He swept through the region, brokering peace, and toured the United States to excited diaspora crowds.
He was seen by many as a unifier, the son of a Christian and Muslim and of mixed ethnic heritage. He surprised Ethiopians by apologizing for the government’s past abuses. He appeared to be drawing from his painful past.
In his Nobel address, the former soldier recalled his fighting experience on the Eritrean border two decades ago. “War is the epitome of hell for all involved,” he said.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Abiy Ahmed left Ethiopians breathless when he became the prime minister in 2018, introducing a wave of political reforms in the long-repressive country and announcing a shocking peace with enemy Eritrea.
The young prime minister was cheered as he toured Ethiopia in his feverish first days, including when he visited the powerful Tigray region, whose leaders had dominated the national ruling coalition for decades. The international community, dazzled, showered Abiy with praise. Not even two years after taking power, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Now — a year later — Abiy is waging war in Tigray, accusing its forces of a deadly attack on a military base after what he said was a series of provocations. His shine is threatening to wear off as his country’s long-brewing troubles explode onto the world stage, and he rejects international pressure for dialogue.
Abiy contends there’s no one to talk to, asserting that the Tigray regional leaders are criminals who recently held an election his government called illegal and that their actions have threatened Ethiopia’s sovereignty.
Well over 25,000 refugees have fled the fighting into Sudan, bringing word of vicious attacks by armed forces and even rival ethnic groups.
Abiy on Tuesday vowed a “final and crucial” military offensive as he tries to hold together a nation of 110 million people with scores of ethnic groups, some of which might try to defy him as the Tigray leaders have.
“If Tigray is not solved somehow, I don’t think the situation of the country will be solved,” Mekonnen Gebreslasie Gebrehiwot, who leads an association of ethnic Tigrayans, told The Associated Press from his home in Belgium.
On Tuesday, the Nobel committee said in a statement that it is “deeply concerned” about the situation in Ethiopia, and it called for all parties involved to “end the escalating violence.” The United States, the African Union, Pope Francis and the United Nations secretary-general all have expressed their deep concern and urged a peaceful resolution.
But there is no clear path back to peace in a region that’s seen little of it. “This conflict dashes our hopes for the region,” prominent Horn of Africa citizens wrote in a letter circulated late last week.
For much of the world, Abiy’s transformation from peacemaker to war-wager was as swift as his rise to power.
But for months, human rights groups had warned that Abiy’s administration was beginning to embrace the repressive ways of the past, including locking up critics and shutting off the internet.
Even as the Nobel committee awarded Abiy last year, it defended its choice. “No doubt some people will think this year’s prize is being awarded too early,” it said, noting “troubling examples” of ethnic violence. But it believed “it is now that Abiy Ahmed’s efforts deserve recognition and need encouragement.”
For many, Abiy represented a welcome break from the past when he rose to power in one of Africa’s most powerful countries, a key U.S. security ally in the strategic Horn of Africa.
His government welcomed opposition figures home from exile, and released others from prison, including some who had been sentenced to death. He swept through the region, brokering peace, and toured the United States to excited diaspora crowds.
He was seen by many as a unifier, the son of a Christian and Muslim and of mixed ethnic heritage. He surprised Ethiopians by apologizing for the government’s past abuses. He appeared to be drawing from his painful past.
In his Nobel address, the former soldier recalled his fighting experience on the Eritrean border two decades ago. “War is the epitome of hell for all involved,” he said.
But for some, it was hard to miss a warning amid his calls for unity in Ethiopia, where some ethnic groups have pushed hard for more autonomy, sometimes with violence.
Speaking specifically to his countrymen from the Nobel lectern, Abiy said: “The evangelists of hate and division are wreaking havoc in our society using social media. They are preaching the gospel of revenge and retribution.”
He added that Ethiopia and Eritrea made peace because they were the “victims of a common enemy,” which was poverty.
But now Tigray regional leaders assert that Ethiopia and Eritrea have instead found a common enemy in them.
Terrible accounts have begun to emerge from shaken refugees. “These people are coming with knives and sticks, wanting to attack citizens. And behind them is the Ethiopian army with tanks,” said one refugee, Thimon Abrah. “And we’re here, waiting, for any sort of solution.”
Abiy on Monday said his government would welcome, protect and reintegrate those who have fled. But those fleeing are wary of any promises from his government, which they say attacked them. The government has repeatedly denied that.
For Ethiopians at home and in the diaspora, there is anger, sadness and suspicion as the United Nations warns of alarming rhetoric and the targeting of ethnic groups.
Abiy has vowed to limit the conflict to combatants. But he also rejects compromise, promising that the fighting will only end once the region’s leaders from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front are arrested and their arsenal destroyed.
“Abiy overreached,” Tsedale Lemma, the editor of the Addis Standard newspaper, wrote last week in The New York Times, calling the prime minister’s sidelining of the region’s leadership his first “cardinal mistake.”
But the official overseeing the new state of emergency in Tigray defended the prime minister’s unyielding stance.
“He faces the very threat to his own nation,” Redwan Hussein told reporters late last week. “The only thing he has to do is to defend it. So if there is a second Nobel Peace Prize, then he has to win it again because he is still salvaging his country.”
Ethiopia: African leaders seek mediation as conflict escalates
African leaders are trying to alleviate tensions in Tigray as Ethiopia said it had seized another town. But Addis Ababa said mediation was a long way off and denied suggestions it had targeted civilian locations.
Leaders from across Africa attempted Monday to initiate some form of reconciliation in Ethiopia's escalating internal conflict, two days after rocket strikes on Eritrea's capital.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni held talks with Ethiopia's Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen in Gulu, northern Uganda. He said discussions "focused on the peace and security issues affecting Ethiopia currently. Being one of the oldest countries that was not colonized in Africa, Ethiopia is the pride of the continent."
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday left for the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to mediate in the crisis, his spokesman said.
Watch video 01:42 Ethiopia crisis: Tigray missiles target Eritrean capital
What is the background to the conflict?
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared on November 4 he had ordered military operations in its northern Tigray region in a dramatic escalation of a long-running feud with the local ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
On Monday, Ethiopia said it had captured another town. Defense Minister Dr Kenna Yadeta told DW: "All their [TPLF's] actions testify to their high level of frustration. They have no more strength, capability and time to intensify wars in the region."
He also accused the TPLF of giving out misinformation. "They claimed to have shot down air force jets, and to have won over about ten thousand government forces. It turned out a lie, as they were known to lie during their rule over the past 27 years."
"We [the Government of Ethiopia] can achieve a crushing victory any day from now," he concluded.
Meanwhile, TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael called on the United Nations and African Union to condemn Ethiopia's troops, accusing them of using of high-tech weaponry, such as drones, to carry out attacks.
Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed so far in the conflict, some in atrocities as documented last week by Amnesty International.
More than 25,000 Ethiopians have fled into neighboring Sudan as a result of the conflict, according to Sudanese officials.
The conflict could jeopardize the recent opening up of Ethiopia's economy, antagonize ethnic tensions elsewhere, and tarnish the reputation of Prime Minister Abiy who only last year won a Nobel Peace Prize for a peace pact with Eritrea.
jsi/rt (AFP, Reuters)
African leaders are trying to alleviate tensions in Tigray as Ethiopia said it had seized another town. But Addis Ababa said mediation was a long way off and denied suggestions it had targeted civilian locations.
Leaders from across Africa attempted Monday to initiate some form of reconciliation in Ethiopia's escalating internal conflict, two days after rocket strikes on Eritrea's capital.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni held talks with Ethiopia's Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen in Gulu, northern Uganda. He said discussions "focused on the peace and security issues affecting Ethiopia currently. Being one of the oldest countries that was not colonized in Africa, Ethiopia is the pride of the continent."
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday left for the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to mediate in the crisis, his spokesman said.
Watch video 01:42 Ethiopia crisis: Tigray missiles target Eritrean capital
What is the background to the conflict?
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared on November 4 he had ordered military operations in its northern Tigray region in a dramatic escalation of a long-running feud with the local ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
On Monday, Ethiopia said it had captured another town. Defense Minister Dr Kenna Yadeta told DW: "All their [TPLF's] actions testify to their high level of frustration. They have no more strength, capability and time to intensify wars in the region."
He also accused the TPLF of giving out misinformation. "They claimed to have shot down air force jets, and to have won over about ten thousand government forces. It turned out a lie, as they were known to lie during their rule over the past 27 years."
"We [the Government of Ethiopia] can achieve a crushing victory any day from now," he concluded.
Meanwhile, TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael called on the United Nations and African Union to condemn Ethiopia's troops, accusing them of using of high-tech weaponry, such as drones, to carry out attacks.
Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed so far in the conflict, some in atrocities as documented last week by Amnesty International.
More than 25,000 Ethiopians have fled into neighboring Sudan as a result of the conflict, according to Sudanese officials.
The conflict could jeopardize the recent opening up of Ethiopia's economy, antagonize ethnic tensions elsewhere, and tarnish the reputation of Prime Minister Abiy who only last year won a Nobel Peace Prize for a peace pact with Eritrea.
jsi/rt (AFP, Reuters)
Ethiopia's Abiy vows 'final' phase in Tigray conflict
Ethiopia's prime minister has said government troops will launch a major offensive in the Tigray region after a surrender deadline elapsed. His remarks came after the army carried out airstrikes on the regional capital
Ethiopian government troops will soon launch a "final and crucial" offensive in the country's northern Tigray region after security forces there failed to respond to a deadline to surrender, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Tuesday.
"The three-day deadline given for Tigray special forces and the greedy junta to surrender themselves has expired today," Abiy said in a statement. "Now the deadline has expired so that the final and crucial law enforcement operation will be conducted in the coming days," he added.
Fighting between the Addis Ababa administration and the Tigray region began in early November after Abiy ordered soldiers to put down an uprising by the region's ruling political party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The party is now classed as a rebel group by the government.
Ethiopia aim to end the final operation within seven days, Ethiopian Defense Minister Kenea Yadeta told DW. He said the operation will end once the TPLF is "under control" and "willing to surrender."
"It is not a matter of victory, but a matter of ensuring the rule of law and bringing this group to the court of law," Yadeta said in an interview with DW News.
Read more: The dangers behind Ethiopia's Tigray conflict
TPLF forces have fired rockets at airports in Ethiopia's Amhara region and the Eritrean capital
Long-running tensions
Since taking office in 2018, Abiy — who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his work to improve relations with neighboring Eritrea — has been at loggerheads with the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for a long time. Among other things, he has purged Tigray elites from government and state institutions amid differences fueled by ethnic tensions.
In particular, the Ethiopian government was angered after the TPLF held a local election in September in defiance of Addis Ababa. In its turn, the regional government in Tigray considers the federal government illegal, saying its mandate has expired after national elections were postponed until next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ongoing conflict has already resulted in the massacre of "scores, and likely hundreds" of civilians in Tigray, according to rights group Amnesty International. Some 25,000 have fled to Sudan.
Abiy won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize — but the Nobel Committee has said it is now 'deeply concerned'
'Surgical' strikes
Abiy's remarks come after the Ethiopian army on Monday carried out fresh airstrikes on the regional capital of Mekele. A government statement on Tuesday said "precision-led and surgical air operations" had targeted "specific critical TPLF targets."
Ethiopia has denied reports of there being civilian casualties.
The UN has warned that the conflict could "spiral totally out of control" with disastrous consequences for the Horn of Africa.
The Ethiopian government has thus far been unwilling to accept external mediation. Defense Minister Yadeta insisted that the conflict in Tigray is "an internal affair."
"It doesn't need external institutions to intervene in Ethiopian sovereignty," Yadeta told DW.
The TPLF has accused Ethiopia of enlisting Eritrean soldiers to help in the conflict, which Ethiopia also denies.
Abiy has so far rejected all appeals by the international community to resolve the conflict with dialogue.
Watch video
Thousands flee violence in northern Ethiopia
tj/msh (AFP, Reuters)
Ethiopia's prime minister has said government troops will launch a major offensive in the Tigray region after a surrender deadline elapsed. His remarks came after the army carried out airstrikes on the regional capital
Ethiopian government troops will soon launch a "final and crucial" offensive in the country's northern Tigray region after security forces there failed to respond to a deadline to surrender, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Tuesday.
"The three-day deadline given for Tigray special forces and the greedy junta to surrender themselves has expired today," Abiy said in a statement. "Now the deadline has expired so that the final and crucial law enforcement operation will be conducted in the coming days," he added.
Fighting between the Addis Ababa administration and the Tigray region began in early November after Abiy ordered soldiers to put down an uprising by the region's ruling political party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The party is now classed as a rebel group by the government.
Ethiopia aim to end the final operation within seven days, Ethiopian Defense Minister Kenea Yadeta told DW. He said the operation will end once the TPLF is "under control" and "willing to surrender."
"It is not a matter of victory, but a matter of ensuring the rule of law and bringing this group to the court of law," Yadeta said in an interview with DW News.
Read more: The dangers behind Ethiopia's Tigray conflict
TPLF forces have fired rockets at airports in Ethiopia's Amhara region and the Eritrean capital
Long-running tensions
Since taking office in 2018, Abiy — who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his work to improve relations with neighboring Eritrea — has been at loggerheads with the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for a long time. Among other things, he has purged Tigray elites from government and state institutions amid differences fueled by ethnic tensions.
In particular, the Ethiopian government was angered after the TPLF held a local election in September in defiance of Addis Ababa. In its turn, the regional government in Tigray considers the federal government illegal, saying its mandate has expired after national elections were postponed until next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ongoing conflict has already resulted in the massacre of "scores, and likely hundreds" of civilians in Tigray, according to rights group Amnesty International. Some 25,000 have fled to Sudan.
Abiy won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize — but the Nobel Committee has said it is now 'deeply concerned'
'Surgical' strikes
Abiy's remarks come after the Ethiopian army on Monday carried out fresh airstrikes on the regional capital of Mekele. A government statement on Tuesday said "precision-led and surgical air operations" had targeted "specific critical TPLF targets."
Ethiopia has denied reports of there being civilian casualties.
The UN has warned that the conflict could "spiral totally out of control" with disastrous consequences for the Horn of Africa.
The Ethiopian government has thus far been unwilling to accept external mediation. Defense Minister Yadeta insisted that the conflict in Tigray is "an internal affair."
"It doesn't need external institutions to intervene in Ethiopian sovereignty," Yadeta told DW.
The TPLF has accused Ethiopia of enlisting Eritrean soldiers to help in the conflict, which Ethiopia also denies.
Abiy has so far rejected all appeals by the international community to resolve the conflict with dialogue.
Watch video
Thousands flee violence in northern Ethiopia
tj/msh (AFP, Reuters)
Financially troubled startup helped power Trump campaign
By GARANCE BURKE
FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Circleville, Ohio. Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign was powered by a cell phone app that allowed staff to monitor the movements of his millions of supporters, and offered intimate access to their social networks. The app lets Trump’s team communicate directly with the 2.8 million people who downloaded it and if they gave permission, with their entire contact list as well. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign was powered by a cellphone app that allowed staff to monitor the movements of his millions of supporters, and offered intimate access to their social networks.
While the campaign may be winding down, the data strategy is very much alive, and the digital details the app collected can be put to multiple other uses — to fundraise for the president’s future political ventures, stoke Trump’s base, or even build an audience for a new media empire.
The app lets Trump’s team communicate directly with the 2.8 million people who downloaded it — more than any other app in a U.S. presidential campaign — and if they gave permission, with their entire contact list as well.
Once installed, it can track their behavior on the app and in the physical world, push out headlines, sync with mass texting operations, sell MAGA merchandise, fundraise and log attendance at the president’s rallies, according to the app’s privacy policy and user interface.
Yet the enterprise software company that built a tool to propel Trump’s mass movement is in financial distress and has been sustained at key points by the administration and the president’s campaign, according to interviews with former employees, financial filings and court documents.
Austin-based Phunware Inc., whose stock is trading for pennies, recently agreed to pay Uber $4.5 million as part of a settlement over claims of fraudulent advertising and earlier this year risked being delisted from the Nasdaq. In April, the company got a $2.9 million loan under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act as it was building the Trump campaign app.
Campaign watchdogs and former employees alike marvel at how a struggling startup known more for building apps for hospitals and a Manhattan-based astrologer became a juggernaut in Trump’s reelection bid, facilitating an ongoing data and fundraising effort that threw the company a financial lifeline.
Even after major media outlets called the election for his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, the app kept pushing out content supporting Trump’s bid.
“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed,” read a statement attributed to Trump posted earlier this month. “I will not rest until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve.”
On Tuesday, the app pushed out fresh content defending the campaign’s vote-counting litigation in Georgia.
Last week, the app posted a fundraising appeal asking for donations to Trump’s newly formed Election Defense Fund, which will send most of the money raised to a new political action committee Trump formed called Save America. That PAC has few spending restrictions and could pay for lavish personal expenses or give money to other candidates.
While activity on the app has slowed recently, the enriched data it gathered on the president’s supporters — which can include everything from their contacts to their IP address to their location data — can serve many purposes going forward, said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who works for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
Congress and the FEC have not set rules governing how campaigns can use people’s personal data and or limits on the number of entities to whom the campaign can sell its list, he added.
“I’m assuming that what he is going to do is transfer the assets of the campaign,” Noti said. “You can definitely buy the data and the campaign can sell it to you, the trickier question is how much do you have to pay for it.”
Phunware declined to respond to questions about the app, the company’s financial status, its internal culture and its relationship to the campaign.
“Phunware has absolutely no role in the constitutional processes tied to US elections at any level ... and also has no role in the content created or used by our customers specific to our mobile software or enterprise cloud platform for mobile,” CEO Alan Knitowski said in an email.
A senior Trump campaign official declined to answer questions about possible future uses for the rich supporter data the campaign collected via digital platforms, including the Phunware app.
“The data is owned by the campaign and limited whatever hit their servers,” said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss campaign specifics.
As Phunware has hit challenging financial times in recent years, it has shed employees, clients and investors, 10 of whom agreed to speak with The Associated Press, some on condition of anonymity because they signed non-disclosure agreements or feared retaliation.
Phunware sued its client Uber in 2017, accusing the ride-sharing company of failing to pay its invoices, according to court records.
But after Uber filed suit against Phunware, alleging the software company committed fraud by among other things, allowing ads for the ride-sharing app to show up on porn sites, former employees said the startup looked for new ways to diversify its revenue stream.
Into the picture stepped Karl Rove, former advisor and Republican strategist for President George W. Bush.
Long before reaching the White House, Rove made his name in Texas politics as a specialist in direct mail, a form of political advertising he once said was effective because it was largely “immune from press coverage,” or near invisible to the public.
In an interview with the AP, Rove said a lobbyist who was friendly with his wife introduced him to Phunware executives, who told him the company had built apps for sports teams and Fortune 100 companies that integrated geofencing technology, which can track people’s movements through their cellphones.
Ex-Phunware employees and the lobbyist’s staff gave Rove a presentation, showing off how the company could use cellphone data to send out customized political ads that also were hard to trace.
By GARANCE BURKE
FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Circleville, Ohio. Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign was powered by a cell phone app that allowed staff to monitor the movements of his millions of supporters, and offered intimate access to their social networks. The app lets Trump’s team communicate directly with the 2.8 million people who downloaded it and if they gave permission, with their entire contact list as well. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign was powered by a cellphone app that allowed staff to monitor the movements of his millions of supporters, and offered intimate access to their social networks.
While the campaign may be winding down, the data strategy is very much alive, and the digital details the app collected can be put to multiple other uses — to fundraise for the president’s future political ventures, stoke Trump’s base, or even build an audience for a new media empire.
The app lets Trump’s team communicate directly with the 2.8 million people who downloaded it — more than any other app in a U.S. presidential campaign — and if they gave permission, with their entire contact list as well.
Once installed, it can track their behavior on the app and in the physical world, push out headlines, sync with mass texting operations, sell MAGA merchandise, fundraise and log attendance at the president’s rallies, according to the app’s privacy policy and user interface.
Yet the enterprise software company that built a tool to propel Trump’s mass movement is in financial distress and has been sustained at key points by the administration and the president’s campaign, according to interviews with former employees, financial filings and court documents.
Austin-based Phunware Inc., whose stock is trading for pennies, recently agreed to pay Uber $4.5 million as part of a settlement over claims of fraudulent advertising and earlier this year risked being delisted from the Nasdaq. In April, the company got a $2.9 million loan under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act as it was building the Trump campaign app.
Campaign watchdogs and former employees alike marvel at how a struggling startup known more for building apps for hospitals and a Manhattan-based astrologer became a juggernaut in Trump’s reelection bid, facilitating an ongoing data and fundraising effort that threw the company a financial lifeline.
Even after major media outlets called the election for his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, the app kept pushing out content supporting Trump’s bid.
“We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed,” read a statement attributed to Trump posted earlier this month. “I will not rest until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve.”
On Tuesday, the app pushed out fresh content defending the campaign’s vote-counting litigation in Georgia.
Last week, the app posted a fundraising appeal asking for donations to Trump’s newly formed Election Defense Fund, which will send most of the money raised to a new political action committee Trump formed called Save America. That PAC has few spending restrictions and could pay for lavish personal expenses or give money to other candidates.
While activity on the app has slowed recently, the enriched data it gathered on the president’s supporters — which can include everything from their contacts to their IP address to their location data — can serve many purposes going forward, said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who works for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
Congress and the FEC have not set rules governing how campaigns can use people’s personal data and or limits on the number of entities to whom the campaign can sell its list, he added.
“I’m assuming that what he is going to do is transfer the assets of the campaign,” Noti said. “You can definitely buy the data and the campaign can sell it to you, the trickier question is how much do you have to pay for it.”
Phunware declined to respond to questions about the app, the company’s financial status, its internal culture and its relationship to the campaign.
“Phunware has absolutely no role in the constitutional processes tied to US elections at any level ... and also has no role in the content created or used by our customers specific to our mobile software or enterprise cloud platform for mobile,” CEO Alan Knitowski said in an email.
A senior Trump campaign official declined to answer questions about possible future uses for the rich supporter data the campaign collected via digital platforms, including the Phunware app.
“The data is owned by the campaign and limited whatever hit their servers,” said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss campaign specifics.
As Phunware has hit challenging financial times in recent years, it has shed employees, clients and investors, 10 of whom agreed to speak with The Associated Press, some on condition of anonymity because they signed non-disclosure agreements or feared retaliation.
Phunware sued its client Uber in 2017, accusing the ride-sharing company of failing to pay its invoices, according to court records.
But after Uber filed suit against Phunware, alleging the software company committed fraud by among other things, allowing ads for the ride-sharing app to show up on porn sites, former employees said the startup looked for new ways to diversify its revenue stream.
Into the picture stepped Karl Rove, former advisor and Republican strategist for President George W. Bush.
Long before reaching the White House, Rove made his name in Texas politics as a specialist in direct mail, a form of political advertising he once said was effective because it was largely “immune from press coverage,” or near invisible to the public.
In an interview with the AP, Rove said a lobbyist who was friendly with his wife introduced him to Phunware executives, who told him the company had built apps for sports teams and Fortune 100 companies that integrated geofencing technology, which can track people’s movements through their cellphones.
Ex-Phunware employees and the lobbyist’s staff gave Rove a presentation, showing off how the company could use cellphone data to send out customized political ads that also were hard to trace.
“His mind was blown. He was like ‘this is extremely powerful data,’” a former employee recalled.
Rove said he brokered a relationship for Phunware with Trump’s 2016 campaign digital director Brad Parscale.
“I thought it had lots of implications for politics so in a subsequent conversation I mentioned it to Brad Parscale,” Rove. “He said ‘interesting’ and that was it, he never told me he had hired them.”
Knitowski said in an email that he built the relationship with the Trump campaign.
“Phunware met the Trump Campaign through me directly after a 1:1 introduction from a Silicon Valley CEO who requested our consideration and participation in an RFP that also had Salesforce as a finalist,” Knitowski said.
Stung by the Cambridge Analytica controversy -- the company was accused of using data improperly obtained from Facebook to predict voter behavior in the 2016 election -- and perceived bias from social media platforms, Parscale wanted to bypass Big Tech and reorient the reelection campaign to connect directly with supporters.
After Trump’s 2016 victory, Parscale worked with consultants and an ex-Cambridge Analytica data scientist to build out a data storehouse that could better microtarget audiences with specialized ads, former collaborators said.
Phunware, meanwhile, started marketing its tools to campaigns, saying it could reach likely voters through geofencing, by drawing virtual boundaries around areas of interest “such as event appearances, polling centers, sporting events – even an opponent’s campaign rally,” a blog post said.
Two former employees said Knitowski told engineers to embed invisible tracking software to follow users’ behavior inside each app they built to boost Phunware’s offerings to campaigns.
“We were told they needed to be in every app to collect information for whatever we did, and the political vertical was one of those reasons,” an ex-employee said. “It would still go in even if the customer said they didn’t want it.”
Knitowski declined to comment on the allegation. A former manager said he worked to keep the software out of apps whose clients didn’t want it.
At monthly meetings, Knitowski would brief staff on the startup’s prospects for getting bought by another company or attracting angel investors, another former manager recalled.
The Republican National Committee, in turn, had hired a private company to build a centralized hub for voter data for right-leaning campaigns called Data Trust, and Parscale joined its board. All the while, his team kept amassing mobile phone numbers, and offering Trump supporters MAGA swag in exchange for their digits.
“This is how Donald Trump stays president for four more years,” Parscale said, holding up his iPhone on stage at a 2018 rally supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s reelection. “Now this phone is how we connect with you. It’s how we turn you into the army of Trump.”
By early 2019, after Phunware had gone public, former colleagues said Knitowski started talking about his efforts to court the Trump campaign. In April, 15 percent of the staff was laid off due to “organizational restructuring and cost reductions,” according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
In July of that year, Knitowski rang the bell at the Nasdaq. But by then revenue was dropping and major clients were threatening to leave.
New York-based astrologer Susan Miller, whose glittery horoscope app had been one of Phunware’s most successful, said she would ask for features to be updated, and no one would call back.
“Have you ever talked to someone at a party who is always looking at the door and not at you because they want to talk to someone else more? It felt like that,” Miller said. “They just treated me like an old shoe.”
An investor said Knitowski stopped returning his calls, too.
“The guy seems very shady. He is all your best friend when he’s looking to raise money and once you have questions he is nowhere to be seen,” said Scott Walker, who said he lost more than $200,000 after Phunware’s stock tanked.
In August, there was something new to announce: work with American Made Media Consultants, “otherwise known as the ‘Trump-Pence 2020’ and ‘Keep America Great’ Campaign,” Knitowski said in an earnings call.
According to a document filed with Federal Communications Commission two months later, the company’s directors included campaign operations director Sean Dollman and campaign counsel Alex Cannon.
Phunware would later reveal more details about its work on the Trump app, which would include location-based tools and other features to help the campaign crowdsource new users. Plus, there would be a gamified loyalty system, where supporters could accumulate points to spend on signed MAGA hats or pose for a picture with Trump.
By September 2019, 18 percent of the remaining staff was laid off after client Fox Networks Group left, taking a large percentage of Phunware’s sales with them, according to filings.
Managers asked engineers in Phunware’s Newport Beach office if they wanted to work on the Trump app, and some engineers who were opposed resigned, a former employee said.
Then in April, as coronavirus cases surged and stay-at-home orders shut down business, Phunware received a $2.9 million loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, a relief fund that Congress created to help small businesses keep workers employed through the pandemic.
Phunware COO Randall Crowder denied political favoritism helped Phunware get the loan.
“We got no help from the Trump campaign — boy I wish we could have, what a great way to have friends in high places — but that didn’t have any implication on what we did,” Crowder said in a recorded interview.
Phunware declined to return the money after the administration demanded that public companies that received more than $2 million give it back.
The next month, Nasdaq notified the company it could be delisted over its finances. To stay listed, companies must meet a set of standards to reassure investors that since the initial public offering, they remain a credible company.
SEC records revealed that by July, American Made Media Consultants accounted for one-third of Phunware’s sales, paying Phunware more than $1.6 million in the first half of the year. The Campaign Legal Center filed an FEC complaint alleging that the Trump campaign and a major PAC supporting it had shielded their spending on Phunware and other subcontractors through American Made Media Consultants.
As the pandemic kept many supporters at home, Trump’s campaign used the app to acquire new users remotely, and Parscale touted how the app was retooled to support virtual events. According to online data provider Apptopia, nearly 860,000 people downloaded the Trump app in July, the same month Biden’s campaign abandoned its first app, Team Joe, and asked followers to download an entirely new app, Vote Joe (only 11,075 did).
By mid-November, 2.8 million people had downloaded the Trump app, which Apptopia CEO Eliran Sapir estimated could give the campaign hundreds of millions of phone numbers, enabling it to reach people whose numbers were stored in their friends’ contact lists but never consented to being contacted. A Carnegie Mellon University researcher, however, estimated the total would be closer to 27 million due to duplicate phone numbers.
By then, the app had already laid the groundwork for a coordinated final months, allowing campaign officials to model supporters’ behavior under quarantine and incentivize them to appear at rallies.
“Why is that app so valuable? Because people like sharing messages with their friends from the campaign and getting news and updates,” said Republican consultant Eric Wilson. “But it’s not just an extractive resource. It’s also generating contacts and mindshare on behalf of the campaign.”
Phunware’s financial troubles hadn’t abated, however.
In a Thursday SEC filing, Phunware suddenly stopped disclosing its top customers by name. But by matching the accounting figures to past filings, AP derived that American Made Media Consultants is Phunware’s single biggest customer, and paid Phunware $2.4 million over the first 9 months of this year, accounting for nearly one-third of Phunware’s revenue. Two former employees concurred. The app developer also disclosed sizable debt and expressed “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”
On an earnings call with analysts last week, the company never mentioned its work for the Trump campaign, instead focusing on its future growth potential. Despite the company’s uncertainties, some analysts say it has a positive long-term outlook due to the growth in mobile usage.
Last month, its stock rose slightly after the company announced it had finished two contracts for Honeywell. Honeywell fired back on Twitter, saying it had asked Phunware to retract its release, and that the industrial conglomerate “does not have an ongoing relationship with Phunware and does not plan to work with Phunware in the future.”
A second company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, told AP Phunware had publicized a partnership between the companies where none existed. Knitowski declined to comment on either instance.
“We never had a relationship with Phunware, we don’t have any formalized partnership with them,” said spokesman Adam Bauer. “We didn’t authorize them to issue that press release and we asked them to take it down.”
————-
Associated Press writer Bernard Condon and researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.
Rove said he brokered a relationship for Phunware with Trump’s 2016 campaign digital director Brad Parscale.
“I thought it had lots of implications for politics so in a subsequent conversation I mentioned it to Brad Parscale,” Rove. “He said ‘interesting’ and that was it, he never told me he had hired them.”
Knitowski said in an email that he built the relationship with the Trump campaign.
“Phunware met the Trump Campaign through me directly after a 1:1 introduction from a Silicon Valley CEO who requested our consideration and participation in an RFP that also had Salesforce as a finalist,” Knitowski said.
Stung by the Cambridge Analytica controversy -- the company was accused of using data improperly obtained from Facebook to predict voter behavior in the 2016 election -- and perceived bias from social media platforms, Parscale wanted to bypass Big Tech and reorient the reelection campaign to connect directly with supporters.
After Trump’s 2016 victory, Parscale worked with consultants and an ex-Cambridge Analytica data scientist to build out a data storehouse that could better microtarget audiences with specialized ads, former collaborators said.
Phunware, meanwhile, started marketing its tools to campaigns, saying it could reach likely voters through geofencing, by drawing virtual boundaries around areas of interest “such as event appearances, polling centers, sporting events – even an opponent’s campaign rally,” a blog post said.
Two former employees said Knitowski told engineers to embed invisible tracking software to follow users’ behavior inside each app they built to boost Phunware’s offerings to campaigns.
“We were told they needed to be in every app to collect information for whatever we did, and the political vertical was one of those reasons,” an ex-employee said. “It would still go in even if the customer said they didn’t want it.”
Knitowski declined to comment on the allegation. A former manager said he worked to keep the software out of apps whose clients didn’t want it.
At monthly meetings, Knitowski would brief staff on the startup’s prospects for getting bought by another company or attracting angel investors, another former manager recalled.
The Republican National Committee, in turn, had hired a private company to build a centralized hub for voter data for right-leaning campaigns called Data Trust, and Parscale joined its board. All the while, his team kept amassing mobile phone numbers, and offering Trump supporters MAGA swag in exchange for their digits.
“This is how Donald Trump stays president for four more years,” Parscale said, holding up his iPhone on stage at a 2018 rally supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s reelection. “Now this phone is how we connect with you. It’s how we turn you into the army of Trump.”
By early 2019, after Phunware had gone public, former colleagues said Knitowski started talking about his efforts to court the Trump campaign. In April, 15 percent of the staff was laid off due to “organizational restructuring and cost reductions,” according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
In July of that year, Knitowski rang the bell at the Nasdaq. But by then revenue was dropping and major clients were threatening to leave.
New York-based astrologer Susan Miller, whose glittery horoscope app had been one of Phunware’s most successful, said she would ask for features to be updated, and no one would call back.
“Have you ever talked to someone at a party who is always looking at the door and not at you because they want to talk to someone else more? It felt like that,” Miller said. “They just treated me like an old shoe.”
An investor said Knitowski stopped returning his calls, too.
“The guy seems very shady. He is all your best friend when he’s looking to raise money and once you have questions he is nowhere to be seen,” said Scott Walker, who said he lost more than $200,000 after Phunware’s stock tanked.
In August, there was something new to announce: work with American Made Media Consultants, “otherwise known as the ‘Trump-Pence 2020’ and ‘Keep America Great’ Campaign,” Knitowski said in an earnings call.
According to a document filed with Federal Communications Commission two months later, the company’s directors included campaign operations director Sean Dollman and campaign counsel Alex Cannon.
Phunware would later reveal more details about its work on the Trump app, which would include location-based tools and other features to help the campaign crowdsource new users. Plus, there would be a gamified loyalty system, where supporters could accumulate points to spend on signed MAGA hats or pose for a picture with Trump.
By September 2019, 18 percent of the remaining staff was laid off after client Fox Networks Group left, taking a large percentage of Phunware’s sales with them, according to filings.
Managers asked engineers in Phunware’s Newport Beach office if they wanted to work on the Trump app, and some engineers who were opposed resigned, a former employee said.
Then in April, as coronavirus cases surged and stay-at-home orders shut down business, Phunware received a $2.9 million loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, a relief fund that Congress created to help small businesses keep workers employed through the pandemic.
Phunware COO Randall Crowder denied political favoritism helped Phunware get the loan.
“We got no help from the Trump campaign — boy I wish we could have, what a great way to have friends in high places — but that didn’t have any implication on what we did,” Crowder said in a recorded interview.
Phunware declined to return the money after the administration demanded that public companies that received more than $2 million give it back.
The next month, Nasdaq notified the company it could be delisted over its finances. To stay listed, companies must meet a set of standards to reassure investors that since the initial public offering, they remain a credible company.
SEC records revealed that by July, American Made Media Consultants accounted for one-third of Phunware’s sales, paying Phunware more than $1.6 million in the first half of the year. The Campaign Legal Center filed an FEC complaint alleging that the Trump campaign and a major PAC supporting it had shielded their spending on Phunware and other subcontractors through American Made Media Consultants.
As the pandemic kept many supporters at home, Trump’s campaign used the app to acquire new users remotely, and Parscale touted how the app was retooled to support virtual events. According to online data provider Apptopia, nearly 860,000 people downloaded the Trump app in July, the same month Biden’s campaign abandoned its first app, Team Joe, and asked followers to download an entirely new app, Vote Joe (only 11,075 did).
By mid-November, 2.8 million people had downloaded the Trump app, which Apptopia CEO Eliran Sapir estimated could give the campaign hundreds of millions of phone numbers, enabling it to reach people whose numbers were stored in their friends’ contact lists but never consented to being contacted. A Carnegie Mellon University researcher, however, estimated the total would be closer to 27 million due to duplicate phone numbers.
By then, the app had already laid the groundwork for a coordinated final months, allowing campaign officials to model supporters’ behavior under quarantine and incentivize them to appear at rallies.
“Why is that app so valuable? Because people like sharing messages with their friends from the campaign and getting news and updates,” said Republican consultant Eric Wilson. “But it’s not just an extractive resource. It’s also generating contacts and mindshare on behalf of the campaign.”
Phunware’s financial troubles hadn’t abated, however.
In a Thursday SEC filing, Phunware suddenly stopped disclosing its top customers by name. But by matching the accounting figures to past filings, AP derived that American Made Media Consultants is Phunware’s single biggest customer, and paid Phunware $2.4 million over the first 9 months of this year, accounting for nearly one-third of Phunware’s revenue. Two former employees concurred. The app developer also disclosed sizable debt and expressed “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”
On an earnings call with analysts last week, the company never mentioned its work for the Trump campaign, instead focusing on its future growth potential. Despite the company’s uncertainties, some analysts say it has a positive long-term outlook due to the growth in mobile usage.
Last month, its stock rose slightly after the company announced it had finished two contracts for Honeywell. Honeywell fired back on Twitter, saying it had asked Phunware to retract its release, and that the industrial conglomerate “does not have an ongoing relationship with Phunware and does not plan to work with Phunware in the future.”
A second company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, told AP Phunware had publicized a partnership between the companies where none existed. Knitowski declined to comment on either instance.
“We never had a relationship with Phunware, we don’t have any formalized partnership with them,” said spokesman Adam Bauer. “We didn’t authorize them to issue that press release and we asked them to take it down.”
————-
Associated Press writer Bernard Condon and researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.