The EU-Mercosur Trade Deal Must Be Stopped

In June 2019, nearly two decades of negotiations between the EU and the Latin American Mercosur bloc concluded in the signing of a trade deal. Still to be ratified, the EU-Mercosur agreement has attracted strong criticism from diverse actors, from European farmers to environmentalists and human rights groups. With a focus on Brazil, the Mercosur bloc’s biggest member led by far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, Julia Lagoutte assesses the threats the deal poses to people and planet, and its prospects going forward.

The past two decades have seen a proliferation of free trade deals between the EU and the rest of the world. Twelve trade agreements were agreed between 2000 and 2010, while only 11 were in place before that. The following nine years saw that number double. The latest, signed by both parties in June 2019 but not yet ratified, is with Mercosur, a trade bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

If ratified, the EU-Mercosur trade deal will eliminate tariffs on roughly 90 per cent of Mercosur’s exports to the EU over 10 years – chiefly agricultural products such as beef, poultry, and fruit. In turn, EU companies would pay less tax to export products – mostly machinery, car parts, and dairy products like cheese – to Mercosur. European manufacturers today can pay duties as high as 35 per cent on such products. Both blocs would gain cheaper access to tens of millions of new consumers, and government procurement contracts would be opened up to both sides.

But it is not yet a done deal. Before coming into force, the agreement must be ratified by both the European Parliament and Mercosur, and by each of their member states, in an atmosphere of growing resistance. Campaigners and some politicians have been raising concerns for years about the potential impacts of such a deal on European farmers, as well as on the climate, the environment, and human rights in Latin America. However, the release of the final agreement revealed a deal which would also entrench centuries-old inequality between the two regions.

EU international trade policy has long been criticised for its neoliberal and environmentally destructive bent. While the EU now has more mechanisms at its disposal to protect workers and the environment, this latest agreement is deeply concerning and contradictory to the EU’s stated commitments, as well as being far from socially just or ecologically sustainable. Greens at all levels of government, and civil society more widely, should continue to oppose the deal – and other political groups should join them.


Campaigners and some politicians have been raising concerns for years about the potential impacts of such a deal on European farmers, as well as on the climate, the environment, and human rights in Latin America. However, the release of the final agreement revealed a deal which would also entrench centuries-old inequality between the two regions.

EU trade deals are negotiated by the European Commission, with little input from the European Parliament, which only has a say when it comes to ratification. Trade agreements of this size and scope have huge implications, affecting government and regional policies and economies for decades to come. This agreement follows the general trend of EU free trade deals – centred around economic growth and putting corporate interests before human and environmental wellbeing. Negotiations began in 1999: the content of the agreement, focused on narrow economic objectives with little mention of climate chaos, is of a different era. Its values jar with the recent reawakening of environmental activism worldwide. Only two groups in the European Parliament, the Greens/EFA and the smaller European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL), have challenged this trade model.
Environmental concerns

Since Jair Bolsonaro became president of Brazil in January 2019, the country has veered away from greater environmental protection towards open exploitation of the Amazon rainforest and protected areas such as the tropical Cerrado savanna ecoregion. In June 2019, deforestation was up 88 per cent on the previous year. The Amazon rainforest is now being destroyed at the record-breaking pace of two football pitches an hour.

Rampant forest clearance is already at crisis point in Latin America, yet the trade deal would increase the annual export quotas for land-intensive products such as beef (by 99 000 tonnes), ethanol (by 650 000 tonnes), and poultry (by 180 000 tonnes).

“The more a product is desired by the world market, the greater the misery it brings to the Latin American peoples whose sacrifice creates it.” Uruguayan writer Edouardo Galeano may have been referring to minerals, coffee, and sugar when he wrote this in his 1971 work Open Veins of Latin America, but today it is agricultural products like beef and ethanol that fit the picture.

Beef and ethanol are the biggest drivers of deforestation in the region, with beef production bearing the greatest responsibility: 63 per cent of deforested land in the Brazilian Amazon is used for cattle grazing. The equivalent of up to 500 football pitches of land was cleared in 2018 to feed British meat eaters alone.

The impact on biodiversity is of huge concern, particularly given the contempt Bolsonaro has shown for indigenous land rights, which are key to conservation. Evidence shows that land managed by indigenous communities has the greatest levels of biodiversity in the world (more than “virgin” land with no human presence).


“The more a product is desired by the world market, the greater the misery it brings to the Latin American peoples whose sacrifice creates it.” — Edouardo Galeano

Huge emissions increases are also anticipated. Deforestation produces 25 to 30 per cent of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Forest fires like those which ravaged the Amazon in 2019 are also expected to escalate, turning biodiverse and air-purifying forest into dead and polluting wasteland. The non-profit GRAIN estimates that the deal would increase the emissions linked to EU-Mercosur trade by 34 per cent. While these would mostly arise from farms and deforestation in Mercosur, the emissions linked to cheese exports from Europe to Mercosur would see a colossal 497 per cent increase.

Shipping these products across the Atlantic on fuel-guzzling ships would also increase maritime carbon emissions and pollution. The EU already needlessly imports and exports the same products. For example, it exports around 700 000 tonnes of bovine meat and imports about 300 000 tonnes annually. Importing products that the EU already produces, such as lemons, oranges, beef, and wine, is astounding for a bloc aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050.

The industrial food system is responsible for up to 37 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions according to the International Panel on Climate Change. Supporting different agricultural models is key to reducing global warming by harnessing the soil’s capacity to capture carbon from the atmosphere. But it will not be thesmallholders, cooperatives, or sustainable organic farms who pay their employees fairly and look after the land that will benefit from exports to the EU. This deal will instead boost the expansion of industrial food production in Mercosur countries based on monocultures of genetically modified crops fed with vast amounts of pesticides and fertilisers, tended by exploited workers, and run by huge corporations. This model of agricultural production will increase pressures on peasant and indigenous communities already “being driven from their lands”.

Brazil is one of the top two users of pesticides globally. In 2019, 474 new pesticides were approved and the country is the largest annual buyer of the highly hazardous category of pesticides that cause “disproportionate harm to the environment and human health”. The French sugar industry claims that 74 per cent of pesticides used in Brazil are banned in Europe – and the country also permits the use of glyphosate, just as Greens and campaign groups around Europe are trying to ban the carcinogen. In theory, all products imported into the EU fulfil the same environmental and health standards as those produced within EU borders. But part of the deal includes a reduction in quality assurance checks, which are already “grossly insufficient”. It will be hard to ensure that agricultural production has not involved the use of pesticides or GMOs that are illegal in the EU.
More human rights abuses

It’s not just the environment that is at risk from pesticides – these substances lead to severe health problems in the towns and villages surrounding plantations. Campaigners fighting for alternatives to land grabs, deforestation, and agroindustry face the heavy hand of corporate and state repression. In 2018 alone, 20 environmental defenders, many indigenous, were murdered in Brazil.

Under Bolsonaro, the human rights situation will only get worse. Indigenous peoples will be especially hard hit. In 2016, he vowed to “give a rifle…to every farmer” – a promise to support businesses wanting to expand into indigenous territories. He is openly racist and hostile towards indigenous communities, lamenting in 1998 the incompetence of Brazil’s first colonisers for failing to wipe out indigenous peoples. According to the tribal rights organisation Survival International, Bolsonaro has “declared war” tantamount to genocide on indigenous people. He has been referred to the International Criminal Court by lawyers for inciting the “genocide of indigenous peoples” of Brazil and committing “crimes against humanity.”

Bolsonaro’s anti-indigenous agenda is part old-fashioned racism and part economic strategy. Fourteen per cent of Brazil’s land is indigenous territory. His plans to roll back environmental protection therefore rely on stripping back and delegitimising indigenous land rights.


Under Bolsonaro, the human rights situation will only get worse. Indigenous peoples will be especially hard hit.

The effects have already been felt. Armed groups are invading indigenous territory and attacking communities. One of the largest indigenous reserves, Yanomami Park, near the Venezuelan border and home to the Yanomami people, is now occupied by an estimated 20 000 illegal gold miners after the biggest incursion in decades. Survival International has reported an increase in invasions by land-grabbers, loggers, and farmers. In July 2019, the body of indigenous chief Emyra Waiapi was found with several stab wounds, and sources report invaders roaming Waiapi villages at night, assaulting women and children. Brazil’s indigenous peoples have responded with unprecedented mobilisations against the president.

The Mercosur deal also raises concerns about working conditions in the region. Although EU free trade agreements contain chapters about both parties having to comply with International Labour Organization standards, they are non-enforceable. Brazil has not yet ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (No. 87) and has not complied with the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention (No. 98). The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) named it one of the ten worst countries in the world for workers due to the violent repression of strikes and trade unionists. Slave labour is also a problem. In total, 52 700 workers were released from contemporary slavery in Brazil between 1995 and 2017, with about 32% of these being rescued from the cattle industry.

European producers have to prove they are meeting a minimum level of working conditions and pay, but this is already hard to enforce, as illustrated by recent revelations of sexual abuse and exploitation of Moroccan workers in Spain. In the United Kingdom, an estimated 10 000 to 13 000 people were exploited in the food and farming industry in 2018. With the EU struggling to enforce minimum standards within its own borders, how can it do so for products coming from a country across the Atlantic with a poor track record on workers’ rights and modern slavery?
Regional inequality

If the counter-argument is that Latin Americans will benefit from this deal, the agreement suggests that this will only be true of the region’s economic elite. Part of the reason this agreement has had the longest negotiation period in world history (starting officially in 1999) is that, for years, neither bloc was prepared to make concessions. It was Mercosur that eventually abandoned some of its key demands. For though it is an important deal for both regions, Mercosur makes up only 1.3 per cent of the EU’s exports, whereas almost 21 per cent of its exports go to the EU.

The EU’s place in the global value chain is – like much of the Global North – that of providing high value-added industrial products. Like much of the Global South, Mercosur has been forced to specialise in raw materials, often at great environmental and human cost. This deal would entrench these specialisations, with Mercosur providing mainly raw materials such as beef, honey, ethanol, poultry, fruit, and some protected regional products like wine, while Europe would specialise in industrial and manufacturing goods such as cars and car parts, chemicals, and machinery.


The EU’s dominant economic position – which owes a significant debt to centuries of European colonisation in Latin America – has permitted it to negotiate an agreement more beneficial to itself than to Mercosur.

A huge concession by the Mercosur region in the agreement is the total elimination of export tariffs on their agricultural products. Tariff eliminations benefit companies but not the public purse. This would have a huge effect on national budgets. Export tariffs accounted for 2.4 per cent of Argentina’s GDP in 2017.

The EU’s dominant economic position – which owes a significant debt to centuries of European colonisation in Latin America – has permitted it to negotiate an agreement more beneficial to itself than to Mercosur. Eduardo Galeano’s words, written almost 50 years ago, feel as relevant as ever: “Our region still works as a menial. It continues to exist at the service of others’ needs, as a source and reserve of oil and iron, of copper and meat, of fruit and coffee, the raw materials and foods destined for the rich countries which profit more from consuming them than Latin America does from producing them.”

An ocean away in Europe, farmers and agricultural unions are deeply concerned about the effect of cheap products pouring into the EU. Market experts in Poland, which sells 90 per cent of its exported beef to the EU and whose workforce is 13 per cent agricultural workers, assess the deal as unfavourable for the country’s beef and poultry sectors. Europe’s citrus, garlic, pear, and apple sectors will be damaged by imports from Argentina, while the EU’s main orange juice producer, Spain, will feel the impact of competing with Brazilian oranges and Uruguayan round grain rice, the same as that produced in the Spanish Levante. Farmer protestsprompted the Europe Commission to promise protection for the sector, though exactly how small farmers will compete with cheaper products remains unclear.
Not a done deal

On December 12 2019, the European Council declared that “all relevant EU legislation and policies need to be consistent with, and contribute to” climate neutrality. This deal is anything but. Furthermore, its unfair trade principles, its implications for human, worker, and indigenous rights, and its legitimisation of an authoritarian leader is a far from the sort of trade – and the sort of Europe – that Greens and progressives should be fighting for.

Across Europe, resistance has been strong and growing, from the European Parliament to NGOs and civil society. In June 2019, over 340 civil society and environmental organisations called on the EU to stop the deal, with Greenpeace labelling it a “disaster for the environment on both sides of the Atlantic”. European countries such as France and Ireland look unlikely to ratify it in their national parliaments. Within the European Parliament, the picture is mixed. MEPs from the largest centre-right group, the European People’s Party, have welcomed the deal, while the smaller right-wing groups have had little to say on this issue. The second and third largest groups, the Socialists and Democrats and liberal Renew Europe, have warned that they need more guarantees on environmental and human rights concerns, but have held back from more fundamental criticisms. Only the Greens/EFA Group, fourth largest and made up of Green and regionalist parties, and GUE/NGL, the smallest group of radical-left parties, oppose the deal.

The Greens/EFA group has released an in-depth study outlining the flaws in the agreement, concluding that while this kind of trade deal has “never [been] acceptable”, in the context of the climate crisis it has become “truly scandalous”. The GUE/NGL group has also warned the deal may encourage illicit money flows. Both groups have long criticised the EU’s trade model, which goes against their visions for sustainable trade [see here for more on a green vision for trade], and previously campaigned against the TTIP and CETA deals (with the United States and Canada respectively).


Among the losers will be the environment, Europe’s small farmers, and all those who suffer the effects of extreme weather. The worst consequences, however, will be felt by the Latin Americans.

On the other side of the Atlantic, recent disagreements between Brazil and Argentina (together making up 95 per cent of Mercosur’s GDP and population) are threatening the deal. While Brazil welcomes it, Argentina’s new president Alberto Fernández, who took office in December 2019, campaigned on revising the agreement. During the campaign, Bolsonaro, who reserves particular ire for female politicians, vowed to take Brazil out of Mercosur if former Argentinian president and now vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – running alongside Fernández – won. With a left-leaning government – who appointed the president of Argentina’s Green Party Silvia Vázquez as director of environmental affairs within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – now in power, tensions have grown. The Brazilian president has again threatened to pull out of the bloc if Fernández “causes trouble” with the trade deal.

From European car manufacturers such as BMW to Argentinian cattle ranchers, the agreement holds promise for the economic elites of both regions, but precious few others. Among the losers will be the environment, Europe’s small farmers, and all those who suffer the effects of extreme weather. The worst consequences, however, will be felt by the Latin Americans faced with yet more abuses of power by profit-hungry corporations, human rights abuses, labour exploitation, environmental degradation, and economic disadvantage.

The lobbying and political power of the supporters of the EU-Mercosur deal cannot be underestimated. Politicians, civil society organisations, and campaigners on the ground all must keep exposing the agreement’s many flaws and campaigning against it. With a growing coalition of resistance both within and outside of the European institutions, the Mercosur trade agreement is not yet a done deal.

Special thanks to Seden Anlar and Xilo Clarke who contributed to the piece.
Julia Toynbee Lagoutte
15 May 2020https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/the-eu-mercosur-trade-deal-must-be-stopped/

Basic Income and Pandemic Preparedness

As we think about building societies that can be ready for pandemics and resilient to shocks, basic income needs to be part of the picture. The insecurity and hardship caused by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis have prompted calls for an emergency basic income. The proposal could prove vital for people in many different situations: out of work, on reduced hours, or at-risk working in unsafe conditions. While it is unlikely to join the support announced by governments in the immediate future, the argument for a permanent, universal basic income grows stronger.

Winston Churchill is often credited for insisting that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. While the COVID-19 pandemic understandably forces our attention on the immediate here-and-now, it is opportune to also reflect on how our current predicament will affect our social relations and structures going forward. Areas of life that long seemed untouchable are suddenly open to questioning as the weaknesses and inequalities in the current systems are thrust to the forefront. In particular, insecurity contributes to the pressures many people are facing, undermining attempts to slow the spread of the disease due to the financial necessity of staying at work.

At the start of May, 88 countries around the world have announced 130 cash transfer programmes as part of the pandemic response, representing almost a doubling of pre-COVID levels. Most of the schemes are temporary, with the average duration being 3 months. Around a quarter of the programmes offer only a one-off transfer. Predictably, these programmes are heavily targeted at existing workers and affluence-tested and important coverage gaps remain. One immediate effect of the social and economic fallout of the global pandemic response is a sudden boost in civic, media and political support for what is most commonly called an emergency basic income (EBI). Whether calls from the First Minister of Scotland for the UK to devolve fiscal powers for the country to deliver the policy, pan-European petitions for the idea, or even the media excitement for the Spanish government’s minimum income proposal (not quite a basic income), it is clear that the idea has moved to the centre of policy debate across Europe.

Emergency basic income: flawed but still vital

The idea is simple enough. At a time when a significant portion of the workforce is forced to stay at home and individuals and families, as well as small businesses, are suffering economic hardship, government assistance should directly address the most urgent problem – loss of income. EBI is such an instrument: it offers immediate cash assistance (no delays or lags due to eligibility checks), it targets those most vulnerable to the economic crisis (even a universal payment has the greatest impact on the most disadvantaged), and it boosts pandemic solidarity by offering a burden-sharing mechanism that compensates those who have lost work or business opportunities and those essential workers who are continuing to service us all at considerable personal risk. A critical advantage of the proposal is that it would cover not merely those working in standard employment but also offer urgent income support to the self-employed, the precariously employed, and those with care responsibilities – paradoxically in many cases now deemed “essential workers”.

There is a need to think about the policy responses that promote social and economic resilience and pandemic preparedness. 

The EBI proposal has several drawbacks, however. The first is that it is essentially a temporary measure, meant to cover the period of severe economic fallout provoked by the lockdown measures. The assumption is that EBI would be a short-term response in the order of several months. But there remains serious uncertainty as to how long the economic fallout will last; economists predict COVID-19 will lead us into the most severe economic crisis since the 1930s and so the impact, especially on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our society, may extend years beyond the time frame initially envisaged. This uncertainty undermines the boost to security that an EBI should bring – the temptation for governments to limit support to short-term measures reduces the belief that long-term support will be in place when most needed. In addition, as the economy settles back into whatever the “new normal” will be, the lingering effects will be felt very differently by different individuals and groups. Some may find their lives restored to something resembling their previous quality, but many will face continued hardship and face a cliff edge as soon as the support dries up.

A second drawback is that current calls for an EBI face both practical and political hurdles at a time when immediate remedies are required as a matter of urgency. The political hurdles are obvious and familiar to anyone who has advocated for basic income in pre-pandemic times. Even at a time when workers are effectively forced to reduce hours or give up their jobs, the politicians’ knee-jerk response to unconditional support is to baulk at giving out “money for nothing” and instead insist on relying on existing programmes, irrespective of how fit for purpose they are in current crisis conditions. Practical hurdles that impede the immediate implementation of an EBI exist as well. In many countries, ensuring every individual ends up on a register entitling them to this support is easier said than done, especially in a situation when bureaucratic capability is under severe stress. The same applies to the delivery mechanism of the EBI keeping in mind the surprisingly large number of individuals without bank accounts or fixed abode. These are practical hurdles that can be overcome given time, but time is precisely what is at a premium in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In short, EBI is a good idea and a potentially vital tool in a comprehensive pandemic policy response, but introducing it now is not likely to happen in many jurisdictions. But let us think ahead for a moment. COVID-19 took the world by surprise, despite public health officials, epidemiologists, and many others warning us for many years about the possibility of a pandemic scenario and its disastrous social and economic consequences. In large part because of our continued destructive relationship with the environment and our highly connected societal organisation, the same professionals predict that COVID-19 is but the first – and in fact not even the first, think about SARS and MERS – in a long line of viral epidemics. This means we need to think ahead in terms of preparedness and acknowledge that the new normal may be a world in which the sort of economic shock we experience today is likely to come about again – possibly sooner than expected, and possibly in the form of an even more deadly and destructive disease. There is a need, therefore, to think about the policy responses that promote social and economic resilience and pandemic preparedness. Resilience is about ensuring that society maintains the capability to adequately respond to the sudden shock of a viral pandemic. Resilient policies will ensure that urgent human needs continue to be met during the pandemic crisis in a manner that reflects key social values – compassion, fairness, solidarity.

Basic income as a tool for resilience and readiness

Basic income would play an important role in terms of promoting social and economic resilience as part of pandemic preparedness policy. We can think of basic income and pandemic preparedness in two ways. One way in which society can become more resilient is by getting itself ready to implement an EBI as soon as the situation mandates it. This means having the required political debates now rather than in the midst of the next crisis. The current crisis experience means politicians and other key stakeholders are very much alive to the need for a robust economic support programme. The merits of EBI in this context can be debated in advance and legislation allowing for triggering its introduction in a pandemic context can be voted upon. Similarly, the practical aspects of readying society for the urgent introduction of EBI when needed can be addressed well in advance, with appropriate decision-making on how to deliver the measure in a time of reduced workforce capacity. 

There is a stronger strategy to consider, however. The best way to prepare society for the pandemic is to institute a proper, permanent basic income: a small monthly cash grant paid to all individuals with no strings attached. Having an actual basic income already in place obviates the need for political debate or finding solutions to implementation concerns in the midst of a crisis. It may be that we start off with a low basic income grant that needs “dialling up” to a much higher level in the midst of the pandemic crisis, but that would merely require a political decision on financing while the instrument itself is readily available. We find a real-world example of this strategy in Brazil. At the start of 2020, the municipality of Maricá near Rio de Janeiro had already instituted a low basic income that paid a monthly 130 reais (roughly 21 euros) to around 42 000 residents – not quite universal but with 25 per cent of the population covered and plans to expand over time a close approximation of the basic income ideal. As soon as COVID-19 hit Maricá built on the existing basic income scheme and is now paying the same individuals 300 reais (almost 50 euros) as part of the pandemic emergency response. The Maricá experience offers a prime example of how we can implement a rapid real-time response to an emergency by ratcheting up a pre-existing scheme.

Increased trust and solidarity would also be a critical feature for building resilience into political systems that currently are under thread of populism, polarisation, and partisanship.

Having a basic income in place boosts resilience in many other ways. The effects of economic security on public health are already well documented and are likely to be even greater under the added stress of a pandemic crisis. The existence of, and experience with, a secure income floor will ensure individuals and families enter a possible pandemic crisis – including protracted lockdown restrictions – much better prepared and less worried about their economic security. The expectation of maintaining a secure economic floor will have a critical positive impact on stress and mental health both at the start and during a pandemic crisis. The existence of an economic security floor is also likely to boost social relations by increasing trust and solidarity, which again is a critical feature for dealing with a pandemic on the community level. Increased trust

https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/basic-income-and-pandemic-preparedness/

QUARANTINE AMERICA
Tracking coronavirus cases proves difficult amid new surge

TRACKING WHICH IS MANDATORY IN EU WORKS!

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM MEANS VOLUNTARYIST IDEOLOGY 

WHICH IS WHY IT SHOULD FOREVER BE CALLED COVID-TRUMP 

AND CORONAVIRUSA

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Contact tracers, from left to right, Christella Uwera, Dishell Freeman and Alejandra Camarillo work at Harris County Public Health contact tracing facility Thursday, June 25, 2020, in Houston. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the state is facing a "massive outbreak" in the coronavirus pandemic and that some new local restrictions may be needed to protect hospital space for new patients. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

HOUSTON (AP) — Health departments around the U.S. that are using contact tracers to contain coronavirus outbreaks are scrambling to bolster their ranks amid a surge of cases and resistance to cooperation from those infected or exposed.

With too few trained contact tracers to handle soaring caseloads, one hard-hit Arizona county is relying on National Guard members to pitch in. In Louisiana, people who have tested positive typically wait more than two days to respond to health officials — giving the disease crucial time to spread. Many tracers are finding it hard to break through suspicion and apathy to convince people that compliance is crucial.

Contact tracing — tracking people who test positive and anyone they’ve come in contact with — was challenging even when stay-at-home orders were in place. Tracers say it’s exponentially more difficult now that many restaurants, bars and gyms are full, and people are gathering with family and friends.

“People are probably letting their guard down a little ... they think there is no longer a threat,” said Grand Traverse County, Michigan, Health Officer Wendy Hirschenberger, who was alerted by health officials in another part of the state that infected tourists had visited vineyards and bars in her area.

Her health department was then able to urge local residents who had visited those businesses to self-quarantine.

Hirschenberger was lucky she received that information — only made possible because the tourists had cooperated with contact tracers. But that’s often not the case.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Friday that contact tracing simply isn’t working in the U.S.

Some who test positive don’t cooperate because they don’t feel sick. Others refuse testing even after being exposed. Some never call back contact tracers. And still others simply object to sharing any information.

Another new challenge: More young people are getting infected, and they’re less likely to feel sick or believe that they’re a danger to others.

While older adults were more likely to be diagnosed with the virus early in the pandemic, figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the picture flipped almost as soon as states began reopening. Now, people 18 to 49 years old are most likely to be diagnosed.

On Monday, the United States reported 38,800 newly confirmed infections, with the total surpassing 2.5 million, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. For a few days now, daily reported cases in the U.S. have broken the record set in April. That partially reflects increased testing.

Some states were caught off guard by the surge and are trying to quickly bolster the number of contact tracers.

“Right now we have an insufficient capacity to do the job we need to,” Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said recently, announcing he wanted to use federal coronavirus relief funds to increase the number of contact tracers to 900.

Arkansas already has 200 doing the job, but infections have risen more than 230% and hospitalizations nearly 170% since Memorial Day. Businesses that had closed because of the virus were allowed to reopen in early May, and the state further eased its restrictions this month.

In addition to needing more staff to handle rising case numbers, contact-tracing teams also must build trust with people who might be uneasy or scared, said Dr. Umair Shah, executive director for Harris County Public Health in Houston, where an outbreak threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

That’s difficult to do if infected people don’t return calls.

In Louisiana, only 59% of those who have tested positive since mid-May have responded to phone calls from contact tracers, according to the latest data from the state health department. Just one-third answered within the crucial first 24 hours after the test results. Tracers there get an answered phone call, on average, more than two days after receiving information about the positive test.

Perry N. Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, said COVID-19 spreads so fast that contact tracers need to get in touch with 75% of the potentially exposed people within 24 hours of their exposure to successfully combat the spread.

“Is it as good as we would like? Well, obviously not,” said Dr. Jimmy Guidry, Louisiana’s state health officer. “It’s better than not having it.”

Contact tracers around Utah’s capital of Salt Lake City have seen caseloads double and cooperation wane since the economy reopened, said health investigator Mackenzie Bray. One person who wasn’t answering calls told Bray they didn’t want to waste her time because they and their contacts weren’t high-risk — a dangerous assessment because the person might not know the health history of their contacts, Bray said.

Getting people to act on tracers’ advice also is a challenge. In the Seattle area, only 21% of infected people say they went into isolation on the day they developed symptoms. People, on average, are going three days from time they develop symptoms until they test, said Dr. Matt Golden, a University of Washington doctor who is leading case investigations for King County Public Health Department.

Since people are infectious for two days before symptoms, that means many are spreading the virus for five days, he said.

In hard-hit Maricopa County, Arizona, officials hired 82 people to bolster contact tracing, allowing them to reach 600 people a day, said Marcy Flanagan, executive director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.

But the daily average of confirmed infections has soared, to 1,800 a day from 200 in May, county figures show. That means the county must leave the rest of the cases to be handled by colleges, health agencies and the Arizona National Guard, Flanagan said.

All of them must triage: Each infected person is asked in an automated text to fill out a survey to assess their risk level, and tracers only contact by phone those who appear to be high risk or work in settings that could trigger a dangerous outbreak, such as an assisted living facility.


TRACKING WHICH IS MANDATORY IN EU WORKS!
Contact tracing is key to avoiding worst-case outcomes, said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and current president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit that works to prevent epidemics. But the explosion of U.S. case has made it nearly impossible for even the most well-staffed health departments to keep up, he said.

Contact tracing is “a tried and true public health function,” Frieden said. “If the health department calls, pick up the phone.”

___

Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan, and McCombs from Salt Lake City. Associated Press journalists Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Carla K. Johnson in Seattle; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Terry Chea in San Francisco contributed.

US High Court makes it easier for president to remove CFPB head

The sun rises behind the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, June 29, 2020. The Supreme Court has refused to block the execution of four federal prison inmates who are scheduled to be put to death in July and August. The executions would mark the first use of the death penalty on the federal level since 2003. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday made it easier for the president to fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The justices struck down restrictions on when the president can remove the bureau’s director.

“The agency may ... continue to operate, but its Director, in light of our decision, must be removable by the President at will,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

The court’s five conservative justices agreed that restrictions Congress imposed on when the president can fire the agency’s director violated the Constitution. But they disagreed on what to do as a result. Roberts and fellow conservative justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh said the restrictions could be stricken from the law. The court’s four liberals agreed, though they disagreed the restrictions were improper.

The decision doesn’t have a big impact on the current head of the agency. Kathy Kraninger, who was nominated to her current post by the president in 2018, had said she believed the president could fire her at any time.

Under the Dodd-Frank Act that created the agency in response to the 2008 financial crisis, the CFPB’s director is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term. The law had said the president could only remove a director for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” That structure could leave a new president with a director chosen by the previous president for some or all of the new president’s time in office. The Trump administration had argued that the restrictions improperly limit the power of the president.

Defenders of the law’s removal provision had argued the restrictions insulated the agency’s head from presidential pressure.

“Today’s decision wipes out a feature of that agency its creators thought fundamental to its mission—a measure of independence from political pressure. I respectfully dissent,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for herself and the court’s four liberals.

The agency was the brainchild of Massachusetts senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

US Supreme Court strikes down Louisiana abortion clinic law

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics, reasserting a commitment to abortion rights over fierce opposition from dissenting conservative justices in the first big abortion case of the Trump era.

Chief Justice John Roberts and his four more liberal colleagues ruled that the law requiring doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals violates the abortion rights the court first announced in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

The Louisiana law is virtually identical to one in Texas that the court struck down in 2016.

But Roberts, who had dissented in that Texas case, did not join the opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer for the other liberals in Monday’s decision, and his position left abortion-rights supporters more relieved than elated.

The chief justice explained that he continues to think the Texas case was wrongly decided, but believes it’s important for the court to stand by its prior decisions.

“The result in this case is controlled by our decision four years ago invalidating a nearly identical Texas law,” Roberts wrote.

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “Today a majority of the Court perpetuates its ill-founded abortion jurisprudence by enjoining a perfectly legitimate state law and doing so without jurisdiction.”

President Donald Trump’s two appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, were in dissent, along with Justice Samuel Alito. The presence of the new justices is what fueled hopes among abortion opponents, and fears on the other side, that the Supreme Court would be more likely to uphold restrictions.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said Monday’s decision by no means ends the struggle over abortion rights in legislatures and the courts.

“We’re relieved that the Louisiana law has been blocked today but we’re concerned about tomorrow. With this win, the clinics in Louisiana can stay open to serve the one million women of reproductive age in the state. But the Court’s decision could embolden states to pass even more restrictive laws when clarity is needed if abortion rights are to be protected,” Northup said.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, said, “Today’s ruling is a bitter disappointment. It demonstrates once again the failure of the Supreme Court to allow the American people to protect the well-being of women from the tentacles of a brutal and profit-seeking abortion industry.”

A trial judge had said the law would not provide health benefits to women and would leave only one clinic open in Louisiana, in New Orleans. That would make it too hard for women to get an abortion, in violation of the Constitution, the judge ruled.

But the appeals court in New Orleans rejected the judge’s findings and upheld the law in 2018, doubting that any clinics would have to close and saying the doctors had not tried hard enough to establish relationships with local hospitals.

The clinics filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court, asking that the law be blocked while the justices evaluated the case.

Early last year, Roberts joined with the four liberal members of the court to grant that request and keep the law on hold.

Roberts’ vote was a bit of a surprise because he voted in the Texas case to uphold the clinic restrictions. It may have reflected his new role since Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement as the court’s swing justice, his concern about the court being perceived as a partisan institution and respect for a prior decision of the court, even one he disagreed with. Roberts didn’t write anything explaining his position at the time, but he had never before cast a vote on the side of abortion rights.

The regulations at issue in Louisiana are distinct from other state laws making their way through court challenges that would ban abortions early in a pregnancy. Those include bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as 6 weeks, and the almost total ban passed in Alabama.

Taiwan parade celebrates LGBT Pride, island’s virus success
FINALLY LET OUT ......OF LOCKDOWN 

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Participants march during the "Taiwan Pride March for the World!" at Liberty Square at the CKS Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, Sunday, June 28, 2020. This year marks the first Gay Pride march in Chicago 1970, and due to the COVID-19 lockdown, Taiwan is one of the very few countries to host the world's only physical Gay Pride. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)


TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The Taiwanese capital held its annual LGBT Pride parade on Sunday, making it one of the few places in the world to proceed with such an event in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

The parade in Taipei has drawn tens of thousands of people in the past, but participant numbers Sunday were reduced by both virus concerns and heavy rain. Taiwan’s Central News Agency said that over 1,000 attended.

Those who did take part said it was a testament both to Taiwan’s ability to contain the pandemic and its commitment to rights for people of all sexual orientations.

Taiwan is the only place in Asia where same-sex marriage is legal, and its liberal political system has long promoted human rights, free speech and freedom of assembly.

American student Loren Couse, 28, said Taipei’s ability to hold the parade was “really impressive.”

“I think Taiwan has done a really good job so far, and I am really proud of living here, not only because it’s so open to people like myself, the gay community, but also because I think it’s such an example for the world and how to handle the pandemic so far,” Couse said.

New York was among the cities compelled to cancel its gay Pride parade this year to comply with social distancing measures.

Taiwan has largely dropped such restrictions after quarantines and case tracing helped bring the coronavirus infection rate down radically. In all, the island of 23.7 million people has confirmed 447 cases, including seven deaths.

Paris mayor reelected, green wave in France local elections
By SYLVIE CORBET

1 of 21https://apnews.com/16e161a4349cd2712c5cb084259f1ece 

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo blows a kiss to the audience after her victorious second round of the municipal election, Sunday, June 28, 2020 in Paris. France on Sunday held the second round of municipal elections that has seen a record low turnout amid concerns over the coronavirus outbreak and anger at how President Emmanuel Macron's government handled it. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

PARIS (AP) — Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo declared victory in her reelection bid as municipal elections postponed by the coronavirus crisis have seen a strong breakthrough from the greens across the country.

Sunday’s voting also appears as a setback for French President Emmanuel Macron’s young centrist party, which was fielding municipal candidates for the first time and still lacks local roots across France.

Hidalgo, a Socialist, largely beat conservative candidate Rachida Dati, according to estimates based on partial results. She was first elected as Paris mayor in 2014. Her reelection will allow her to oversee the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Hidalgo is backed by the Europe Ecology-The Greens party, which gained strong influence nationwide.

Green candidates won in France’s major cities including Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg and Bordeaux, often taking the lead in their alliance with the weakened Socialist Party.

The second round of the municipal elections has seen a record low turnout amid lingering worries about the pandemic.

Only 40% of voters cast ballots as people were required to wear masks in polling stations, maintain social distancing while in lines and carry their own pens to sign voting registers.

Poll organizers were wearing masks and gloves for protection, and in some places they were separated from voters by transparent plastic shields. Mail-in voting isn’t allowed in France.

Macron expressed his “concerns” over the low turnout, “which is not very good news,” according to his office.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, in charge of organizing the elections, said that “everywhere across France, health measures ... were able to be respected. That is a satisfaction.”

Sunday’s voting was meant to choose mayors and municipal councilors in about 5,000 towns and cities.

The electoral process was suspended after the first round of the nationwide municipal elections on March 15, which produced decisive outcomes in 30,000 mostly small communes. Macron’s critics say he shouldn’t have allowed the first round to go ahead at all, since it was held just as infections were exploding across Europe and just two days before France introduced sweeping nationwide lockdown measures.

The spread of the coronavirus has slowed significantly in France in recent weeks and almost all restrictions on social and business activity have been gradually lifted over the last month. France has reported nearly 200,000 confirmed cases and 29,781 deaths in the pandemic but experts believe all reported figures are undercounts due to limited testing and missed mild cases.

The elections, though ostensibly focused on local concerns, are also seen as a key political indicator ahead of the 2022 French presidential election.

Macron had said he wasn’t considering the elections as a pro- or anti-government vote.

Yet a government reshuffle is expected in the coming weeks, as Macron seeks a new political boost amid the economic difficulties prompted by the virus crisis. French authorities have faced criticism during the pandemic over mask shortages, testing capacity and for going ahead with the first round of elections instead of imposing a lockdown earlier.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, whose job may be threatened by the reshuffle, won a large victory in his hometown of Le Havre where he was running for mayor.

Philippe has seen his popularity increase significantly in recent weeks. He may appoint someone else to act as mayor if he remains at the head of the government.

Recent opinion polls show Macron’s popularity rating is hovering around 40%, which is higher than from before the virus outbreak.

His party, Republic on the Move, didn’t have candidates in every race and in some instances was backing local politicians from the left or the right instead.

Government spokesperson Sibeth Ndiaye acknowledged the party’s modest result in the elections, stressing that planting local roots “is taking time.”

The conservative Republicans party, which was the big winner in the 2014 municipal election and has a strong network of local elected officials, appeared to do well again.

The anti-immigration, far-right National Rally won a symbolic victory in the southern city of Perpignan, leading Louis Aliot to become the first member of the party to run a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants.

___

Alex Turnbull contributed to this report.

As French Greens notch gains, Macron renews his green agenda

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo gets a bouquet of flowers after her victorious second round of the municipal election, Sunday, June 28, 2020 in Paris. France on Sunday held the second round of municipal elections that has seen a record low turnout amid concerns over the coronavirus outbreak and anger at how President Emmanuel Macron's government handled it. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) https://apnews.com/aaea64ef65bfdf80a876f7d808a244bc

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron, who once declared “Make The Planet Great Again” but whose climate agenda got knocked off course by persistent street protests, is under new pressure to fight climate change after the Green Party did well in Sunday’s local elections.

France’s Green party and its left-wing allies made significant gains in the second round of voting, capturing cities such as Lyon, Strasbourg and Besançon.

To show that he is taking the gains seriously, Macron is meeting Monday with a citizens’ group that he convened earlier this year in response to criticism that he wasn’t doing enough on the climate.

The citizens’ group is giving him a new list of climate proposals drawn from an ambitious report it compiled, which includes recommendations on fighting CO2 emissions by weening the French off solo car rides and proposing alternatives such as electric cars, as well as capping the harmful effects of air travel.

The group reserved most of its fire on travel, which produces 30% of greenhouse gases in France.

The yellow vest economic justice protests that brought France to its knees for months knocked some of Macron’s green agenda off track as it was was triggered by opposition to a new fuel tax that he planned to help in the climate fight.

Earlier this year, Macron tried to woo green voters by calling the battle against climate change and environmental destruction “the fight of the century.” The words came during a February visit to a melting glacier in the French Alps but it was condemned as a hollow electoral stunt by environmental campaigners. Critics accused Macron of using the icy photo-op to burnish his government’s green credentials ahead of the local elections.

Auction of contested African artifacts going ahead in Paris

PARIS (AP) — A Nigerian commission has called for the cancellation of Monday’s auction in Paris of sacred Nigerian statues that it alleges were stolen.

Christie’s auction house has defended the sale, saying the artworks were legitimately acquired and the sale will go ahead.

In recent years, French courts have consistently ruled in favor of auction houses whose sales of sacred objects, such as Hopi tribal masks, were contested by rights groups and representatives of the tribes.

A Princeton scholar, professor Chika Okeke-Agulu, alongside Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, raised alarm earlier this month that the objects were looted during the Biafran war in the late 1960s.

Christie’s wrote earlier this month to the Nigerian commission, saying the sale would go ahead.

Okeke-Agulu, who is a member of the Igbo tribe, said the objects were taken through “an act of violence” from his home state of Anambra and that they should not be sold. An online petition with over 2,000 signatures is demanding that the auction be halted.

The petition said “as the world awakens to the reality of systemic racial injustice and inequality, thanks to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we must not forget that it is not just the Black body, but also Black culture, identity and especially art that is being misappropriated.”

It claims that between 1967 and 1970, as Nigeria’s Biafran civil war raged and while more than 3 million civilians were dying, a renowned European treasure hunter was in Biafra “on a hunting spree for our cultural heritage.”

In a statement to AP Monday, Christie’s said “these objects are being lawfully sold having been publicly exhibited and previously sold over the last decades prior to Christie’s involvement.”

While the auction house said it recognized the “nuanced and complex debates around cultural property,” it said that public sales should go ahead of objects like these to stop the black market flourishing.

Paris has a long history of collecting and selling tribal artifacts, tied to its colonial past in Africa, and to Paris-based groups in the 1960s, such as the “Indianist” movement that celebrated indigenous tribal cultures.

Interest in tribal art in Paris was revived in the early 2000s following two high-profile — and highly lucrative — sales in Paris of tribal art owned by late collectors Andre Breton(FOUNDER OF SURREALISM) and Robert Lebel.

Controversy over sales can be a double-edged sword for an auction house. In the past, such contested sales have served to raise the ultimate selling price of the objects going under the hammer because of media interest, but there has also been instances where buyers have been deterred from purchasing artifacts over fears of a backlash.

Israeli court releases anti-Netanyahu activist after arrest
By TIA GOLDENBERG yesterday

Protesters against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wave flags and banners outside his residence in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 24, 2020. Hundreds of protesters calling him the "crime minister" demonstrated outside his official residence, while hundreds of supporters, including leading members of his Likud party, rallied in support of him at the courthouse. Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes in a series of corruption cases. The signs say "Netanyahu resign," and "Justice shall you pursue." (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)


JERUSALEM (AP) — A court ordered the release of a former Air Force general and leading critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from jail on Sunday, a day after hundreds of people protested outside the Israeli leader’s residence calling for him to be freed.

Retired Brig. Gen. Amir Haskel has been a leader of the protest movement against Netanyahu, demanding that the long-time leader step down while facing charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes. Haskel and several others were detained on Friday in what police said was an “illegal” demonstration because the protesters blocked roads.

The arrest of Haskel, a former top Israeli Air Force general, has turned him into a symbol of the protest movement that opposes Netanyahu’s continued rule. Demonstrations have been held regularly around the country, with protesters waving signs reading “crime minister” and calling for Netanyahu to resign.

“A line was crossed that must not be crossed. The reason for my arrest was a desire to silence the protest against the person accused of a crime, Benjamin Netanyahu,” Haskel told a news conference Sunday evening. “In the moral state of Israel, there is no way a person accused of a crime should be prime minister.”

“If my arrest, and the arrest of two of my friends, lit the flame, the price was worth it,” he added.

The arrests drew angry denunciations from prominent Israelis and sent hundreds out to protest outside Netanyahu’s residence on Saturday, with many slamming the police for making what they viewed as politically motivated arrests.

Police said they offered to release Haskel and others if they agreed to refrain from returning to the scene of the protests. Haskel and two others refused the conditions and remained in detention.

Gaby Lasky, Haskel’s lawyer, told Israeli Army Radio that the court eventually released him without conditions, saying protesting was the foundation of democracy.

The country’s acting police chief said the force would learn from the incident.

“The role of the police is to allow freedom of expression and demonstration to every person and to keep the public peace and security, this regardless of the protest’s subject, the identity of the protesters or their opinions,” acting commissioner Motti Cohen said.

Netanyahu is on trial for a series of scandals in which he allegedly received lavish gifts from billionaire friends and traded regulatory favors with media moguls for more favorable coverage of himself and his family. The trial is set to resume next month.

Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing, calling the charges a witch-hunt against him by a hostile media and a biased law enforcement system.

The scandals, and Netanyahu’s indictment, featured prominently in three Israeli election campaigns over the course of a year. The political stalemate finally ended last month when Netanyahu reached a power-sharing agreement with his chief challenger, retired military chief Benny Gantz.

But tensions were still evident at Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting when Gantz, the defense minister and alternate prime minister, noted Haskel’s arrest and said the right to protest was a “sacred right.”

Netanyahu, seated alongside him, retorted that the right to protest was never in question and that Israel allowed it even amid the most restrictive of times during the recent coronavirus outbreak.

“The argument that we are looking to limit it is absurd,” he said. “ At the same time, the laws and regulations of the state of Israel must be maintained. It is not the prerogative of one side to say they support the rule of law and then to trample it.”

Boris Johnson says COVID-19 has been a disaster for Britain

ACTUALLY IT'S BORIS WHO HAS BEEN THE DISASTER FOR BRITAIN 

By JILL LAWLES   https://apnews.com/c264bede9442cf8ce15a217d4fc54f92

Religion

Israel orders US-based Christian TV channel off air
yesterday



FILE - In this Oct. 1, 2015 file photo, evangelical Christians from various countries wave American flags in Jerusalem. Israeli regulators on Sunday, June 28, 2020, announced they ordered a U.S.-based evangelical broadcaster taken off the air, saying the channel hid its missionary agenda when it applied for a license. The controversy over GOD TV’s “Shelanu” station has put Israel and its evangelical Christian supporters in an awkward position. Evangelicals, particularly in the United States, are among the strongest supporters of Israel, which Israel has long welcomed. But most Jews view any effort to convert them as deeply offensive. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli regulators on Sunday announced they ordered a U.S.-based evangelical broadcaster taken off the air, saying the channel hid its missionary agenda when it applied for a license.

In his decision, Asher Biton, the chairman of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, said he had informed “GOD TV” on Thursday that it had seven days to stop broadcasting.

“The channel appeals to Jews with Christian content,” he wrote. “Its original request,” he said, stated that it was a “station targeting the Christian population.”

The decision was first reported by the Haaretz daily.

The controversy over GOD TV’s “Shelanu” station has put Israel and its evangelical Christian supporters in an awkward position, exposing tensions the two sides have long papered over.

Evangelical Christians, particularly in the United States, are among the strongest supporters of Israel, viewing it as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Some see it as the harbinger of a second coming of Jesus Christ and the end of days.

Israel has long welcomed evangelicals’ political and financial support, especially as their influence over the White House has risen during the Trump administration, and it has largely shrugged off concerns about any hidden religious agenda.

But most Jews view any effort to convert them to Christianity as deeply offensive, a legacy of centuries of persecution and forced conversion at the hands of Christian rulers. In part because of those sensitivities, evangelical Christians, who generally believe salvation can only come through Jesus and preach the Gospel worldwide, rarely target Jews.

In a statement, Shelanu said it was stunned by what it called Biton’s “unprofessional decision.”

It said its existing license “stated unequivocally” that it would broadcast its content in Hebrew to the Israeli public. Most Christians in the Holy Land speak Arabic. “Therefore it is not at all clear what was wrong beyond political considerations,” it said.

Ron Cantor, Shelanu’s Israeli spokesman, said the station would reapply for a license. He said the station’s management hopes the council will approve the request “and thus avoids a severe diplomatic incident with hundreds of millions of pro-Israel evangelical Christians worldwide.”

When GOD TV reached its seven-year contract with Israel’s main cable provider earlier this year, it presented itself as producing content for Christians.

But in a video message that was later taken down, GOD TV CEO Ward Simpson suggested its real aim was to convince Jews to accept Jesus as their messiah.

“God has supernaturally opened the door for us to take the Gospel of Jesus into the homes and lives and hearts of his Jewish people,” Simpson said in the video.

In a subsequent video, Simpson apologized for any offensive remarks and said GOD TV would comply with all regulations.

Freedom of religion is enshrined in Israeli law, and proselytizing is allowed as long as missionary activities are not directed at minors and do not involve economic coercion.

GOD TV was founded in the U.K. in 1995 and eventually grew into a 24-hour network with offices in several countries. Its international broadcasting licenses are held by a Florida-based non-profit. It claims to reach 300 million households worldwide.

Mathematicians behind JPEG files honored by Spanish awardJune 23, 2020

In this May 30, 2019 file photo, Mathematician Ingrid Daubechies is presented with an honorary Doctor of Science degree during Harvard University commencement exercises. An international team of mathematicians whose theories have improved the compression of large digital files of data, including images and sound, will be recognized by one of this year's Princess of Asturias awards, one of the most prestigous in the Spanish-speaking world. The Spanish foundation that organizes the annual awards announced Tuesday that the 2020 prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation will go to Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candes. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
MADRID (AP) — An international team of mathematicians whose theories have improved the compression of large digital files of data, including images and sound, will be recognized with one of the most prestigious awards in the Spanish-speaking world.

The Spanish foundation that organizes the annual Princess of Asturias awards said Tuesday that the 2020 prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation will go to Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candes.

The contributions by Meyer and Daubechies in the mid-80′s on the theory of “wavelets” were key in developing the system that compresses images into JPEG 2000 files, a much more advanced version of the original JPEGs. Among other practical applications in the digital world, their theories also allowed images taken by Hubble, the space telescope, to be received on Earth and the study of the cosmic gravitational waves caused by colliding black holes.

In this Aug. 22, 2006 file photo, mathematician Terence Tao poses for the media before a press conference in Madrid. An international team of mathematicians whose theories have improved the compression of large digital files of data, including images and sound, will be recognized by one of this year's Princess of Asturias awards, one of the most prestigous in the Spanish-speaking world. The Spanish foundation that organizes the annual awards announced Tuesday that the 2020 prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation will go to Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candes. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, FILE)

Building on their fellow scientists’ research, Tao and Candes later developed theories and techniques that were used for health screening with magnetic resonance imaging scanners, or MRIs.

“This award underscores the social contribution of mathematics and its significance as a cross-cutting element in all branches of science,” the jury wrote in a statement.

The annual awards, named after crown heir Princess Leonor, are handed in eight different categories ranging from arts to sports. Recipients are awarded 50,000 euros ($56,000) at a lavish ceremony to be held in October.

In this Aug. 19, 2010 file photo Yves Meyer during an event in Hyderabad, India, Thursday. An international team of mathematicians whose theories have improved the compression of large digital files of data, including images and sound, will be recognized by one of this year's Princess of Asturias awards, one of the most prestigous in the Spanish-speaking world. The Spanish foundation that organizes the annual awards announced Tuesday that the 2020 prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation will go to Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candes. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A., File)

More fragments from 1952 crash in Alaska found in glacier
By MARK THIESSEN June 26, 2020

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In this June 18, 2020, photo provided by U.S. Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations, crash recovery team personnel assigned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, search for crash remains at Colony Glacier, Alaska. A military plane carrying 41 passengers and 11 crew members crashed into a mountain near Anchorage in 1952, but remains of the victims are still being discovered. (Senior Airman Jonathan Valdes Montijo/U.S. Air Force via AP)

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — A lucky Buddha figurine, a flight suit, several 3-cent stamps, a crumpled 1952 Mass schedule for St. Patrick’s Church in Washington, D.C., and 480 bags containing individual human remains.

Those were among the items recovered this month from Alaska’s Colony Glacier, where an annual somber search continues for human remains and debris after a military plane crashed 67 years ago, officials said Friday.

The goal is to identify and return remains from everyone onboard the C-124 Globemaster, which smashed into Mount Gannett north of Anchorage on Nov. 22, 1952, killing all 41 passengers and 11 crew members, military officials sai

The remains of those killed weren’t retrieved at the time, and the plane and all it held slowly fell to the bottom of the mountain, where it eventually became part of Colony Glacier.

The crash was virtually forgotten until a military training mission spotted a yellow life raft on the glacier. Efforts began in 2012 to scour the glacier to see what else may have churned up, including human remains and other debris.

Now, the race is on to identify as many service members as possible before the glacier dumps the wreckage into Lake George, which will become a final resting place for everything that isn’t saved.

So far, remains have been identified for all but nine of those on board the flight from McChord Air Force Base in Washington state to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage.

Capt. Shelby Yoakum, chief of the Readiness and Plans Division at Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operation at Dover Air Force Base, led this year’s three-week recovery effort at the glacier.

She said they might have only several more years of searching the glacier before the debris field calves into the lake.

“I think we can all safely say that there are still remains out there that have yet to melt out of the ice, and that we will be back for at least the next few years to continue this mission, especially since we have not identified all 52 that passed away,” Yoakum said.

The last area they found remains this year was about 656 feet (200 meters) from the toe of the glacier, where the ice falls into the lake.

Officials could not say when all the remains and debris from the glacier would be lost to Lake George.

“The reality of the situation is all of the debris and the remains are constantly falling to crevasses, big and small, and moving down to the toe of the glacier faster than some,” said Army Staff Sgt. Isaac Redmond, who was the mountaineering subject matter expert for the excavation.

The human remains will be respectfully shipped to Dover in transfer cases, about the same size as caskets, and draped with flags. At Dover, the process will begin to match DNA from the remains to samples that surviving family members have provided at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory.

It’s not known how many of the nine service members who have not had matches yet could be among these remains or how long it might take to get results.

“We’re hopeful that we’ll at least get a couple of new IDs out of this,” said Katherine Grosso, a medicolegal investigator with the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System. “There will always be reassociated remains from previously identified service members, and so we’ll be able to provide those, as well, to the families.”

Tonja Anderson-Dell of Tampa, Florida, continues to lobby for the families of the nine service members whose remains haven’t been found, even after her own journey had closure.

For years, she waited for the military to identify the remains of her grandfather, Isaac Anderson, who was 21 when the plane when down.

After years of attending services for others whose loved ones were on the plane and laid to rest, in late 2018, she received word her grandfather’s remains had been found. A memorial service was held the following May.

“That was overwhelming,” she said by telephone Friday. “I finally got to see it. I’ve been to so many services and to now have my grandfather come home — very emotional for myself and for my father.”

She plans to continue being an advocate for the families but says some may never get their loved ones.

“I know that in my heart there may be one or two because it just may be that way, but I’m hoping that all of them get closure, you know, to know that it has been found,” she said.