Africa: Transition to Digital Economy Must Ensure Access to Those in the Digital Gap

12 FEBRUARY 2021
Inter Press Service

OPINIONB y Samira Sadeque

It is crucial to ensure that any transition to a digital economy has mechanisms in place that are non-digital to avoid "double exclusion", according to Shahrashoub Razavi, director of the social protection department at the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Razavi spoke with IPS following an ILO panel addressing the issue of social protection and the transition to a green and digital economy -- a side-event of the ongoing United Nations 59th session of the Commission for Social Development (CSocD).

Razavi moderated Wednesday's "Social protection floors for a just transition to the green and digital economy" panel, which hosted social protection advisers and labour directors from different countries.

An important topic during the panel was how social protection systems could have helped societies cope better with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Social protection floors can reduce vulnerabilities and it can protect those impacted by a digital and green transformation," Adrian Hauri, the deputy permanent representative of Switzerland to the UN, said during the opening remarks.

Aileen O'Donovan, the social protection policy lead at Irish Aid, pointed out that there has been a massive rise of social protection responses under the pandemic. More specifically, 209 countries implemented or announced 1,596 social protection measures by end of November 2020.

"It's critical now more than ever to invest in social protection systems," she added.

O'Donovan further highlighted the importance of taking into account the most vulnerable communities when discussing social protection systems -- especially those affected by climate change.

"Our commitment is really around reaching those furthest behind and we know that those who are most vulnerable are also vulnerable to the impact of climate change," she said. "So it's really critical to ensure that social protections are effectively designed to take into [account] mitigating climate impact and supporting adaptations."

O'Donovan concluded by saying it was important to make use of the current momentum.

"The momentum is really behind social protection systems, so it's really about -- how do we take this further and sustain this momentum to build much more resilient communities?" she asked.

But questions remain about the possibility of a successful transition to a digital economy in a world where there's a glaring digital divide -- one that has become even more pronounced under the pandemic.

"The digital gaps are concerning and if social protection transfers rely entirely on digital mechanisms then they are likely to exclude those without adequate access to such technologies," Razavi told IPS when addressing these concerns. "It is important therefore that non-digital mechanisms are also available for those who would otherwise face a double exclusion (ie those without adequate digital literacy and access to the internet, mobile phones, etc)."

Ambassador Valérie Berset Bircher, a member of the labour directorate at the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs, told IPS that the pandemic affected workers differently, based on social protection systems in place in different countries.

"For countries like Switzerland (high-income countries), which have a longstanding social protection system in place, we were able to extend the system to cover more categories of workers and to extend the duration of the protection," she said. "But of course in other parts of the world, countries were not able to invest sufficiently in stimulus packages and therefore were not able to protect jobs and wages."

At the panel talk, she highlighted the need for a "human-centred approach to the future of the world" -- one that would prioritise investing in job skills and social protection, and making sure all workers are protected and can benefit from changes in the labour market.

Bircher, who is also the head of the Swiss delegation to the current session of the CSocD, elaborated what the "human-centred approach" entails.

"It means investing in the institutions of the labour market and adopting policies that promote an enabling environment for sustainable enterprises, economic growth and decent work for all," she said. "Our main objective is to ensure the highest possible participation in the workforce and a good quality of employment, including in the digital age."

She highlighted the importance of designing a social safety net that would be accessible to everyone, and added that flexible labour market regulation, well-functioning social partnership, and active labour market policies would be crucial for structural change.

But some challenges remain to be addressed.

"Going forward, a big question is how effectively they can turn these temporary measures into proper programmes anchored in policies and laws and backed by adequate financing," Razavi told IPS. "This is a big challenge in the context of major economic disruptions and falling taxes and other government revenues."

Despite these questions, Razavi says the social protection responses are "a silver lining" to the crisis.

"If there was a silver lining to the crisis, it was the way in which it mobilised governments to put together social protection responses, sometimes from scratch with no existing systems and programmes," she said.



Read the original article on IPS.

Africa: Facebook Criticises Internet Shutdowns in the Continent

14 FEBRUARY 2021
The Nation (Nairobi)By Faustine Ngila

Facebook has condemned the long internet shutdowns and social media blackouts experienced in Tanzania, Chad, Ethiopia and Uganda between January 2020 and February 2021, terming them counterintuitive and a violation of human rights in the digital age.

The social media giant's East Africa Spokesperson Janet Kemboi decried how internet blackouts in Africa have disrupted access to services like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, hurting democracy in the process and contravening freedom of speech and expression.

"We strongly oppose shutdowns, throttling, and other disruptions of the internet. We are deeply concerned by the trend towards this approach in some African countries. Even temporary disruptions of internet services have tremendous, negative human rights, economic and social consequences," Ms Kemboi told the Nation.

The United Nations recognises access to the internet as an enabler of a broad range of human rights - from freedom of expression, to freedom of information, the right to assembly and association, the right to access health care and the right to an adequate standard of living through economic activity.

Internet disruption

A 2020 internet disruption report by British tech research firm Comparitech has established that internet takedowns in Africa often happen during electioneering periods or civil unrest.

Incumbent governments in Tanzania and Uganda used internet switch offs as a weapon against a rising opposition, to ensure they restrict the flow of information thereby getting reelected against the will of voters.

According to Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, governments are required to adhere to their international human rights commitments.

It requires nations to ensure that any restrictions on freedom of expression--including disruptions of internet service--are only carried out in exceptional circumstances and that they meet the thresholds of legality, necessity, and proportionality.

Facebook said connectivity and access to internet-based apps and services can aid governments in times of crisis but wondered why some African countries were doing the exact opposite.

"Similarly, the internet-- social media and messaging services in particular--helps people know whether their families and friends are safe in the aftermath of natural disasters and other crises. This reduces panic," the company said in a statement.

Ms Kemboi noted that more deleterious to the growth of Africa's digital economy is the impediment of startup culture which largely depends on connectivity to access global markets.

"These shutdowns undermine economic activity and growth of SMEs. They bring the startup ecosystem to a standstill," she remarked.

For John Walubengo, ICT lecturer at MultiMedia University of Kenya, internet interference goes beyond a negative economic impact and abuse of power by governments riding on anarchy.

"The biggest impact actually goes beyond the immediate economic impact. There is the low score on future competitiveness of that country in terms of investor confidence. Investing in any sector in that country will be a weak investment option since operations can be switched off at the will of one individual," he says.

He opines that while national security concerns are valid government reasons to trigger a shutdown, there must be thresholds and processes observed towards effecting any blackout.

"Governments should ensure the nature of the shutdown is commensurate to the threat. You cannot shutdown internet in the whole of Kenya, when maybe riots are only happening in Kibera or Mathare. You only need localized shutdowns and even then for a predictable period of time," Mr Walubengo who is also a data protection officer at Ajua Africa said.

Read the original article on Nation.

Fela Kuti Becomes 1st African Artist

 to Get Nod At Rock Hall of Fame


FelaKuti/Facebook
Fela Kuti

13 FEBRUARY 2021
Leadership (Abuja)

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame midweek announced its long list of nominees for the class of 2021and it was a surprise that the late Afrobeat legendary artiste, Fela Kuti made the list.

Hiphop mogul, Jay-Z and Foo Fighters got nominated in their first year of eligibility. Other first-time nominees include Mary J. Blige, Fela Kuti, the Go-Go's, Iron Maiden, and Dionne Warwick.

To be eligible, an individual artiste or band must have released its first commercial recording at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination.

If the Afrobeat legend Fela gets inducted, he will be the first African artiste in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The top five inductees are selected by public vote and the vote is now open till April 30 via rockhall.com. According to the organisers, the inductees will be announced in May, and the Rock Hall is planning to throw a live ceremony in Cleveland, OH.


Fela Kuti who had almost four decades of an active career with several albums, made Afrobeat genre of music popular gaining international reputation. As regards this feat, visual artist, illustrator and designer of repute, Lemi Ghariokwu who designed original cover images of Fela's songs and albums said, "His (Fela) nomination into the Rock Hall of Fame means that Fela is so well recognised to be nominated at all with all those foreign artistes. It cements his global greatness."

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's Class of 2020 included Nine Inch Nails, Whitney Houston, the Notorious B.I.G., Depeche Mode, T. Rex, and the Doobie Brothers. Due to COVID-19, the live show was delayed and the traditional live ceremony was scrapped in favour of a filmed HBO special.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class of 2021 nominees are: Mary J. Blige, Kate Bush, Devo, Foo Fighters, The Go-Go's, Iron Maiden, JAY-Z, Chaka Khan, Carole King, Fela Kuti, LL Cool J, New York Dolls, Rage Against the Machine, Todd Rundgren, Tina Turner and Dionne Warwick

The Hall of Fame Foundation was established on April 20, 1983, by Ahmet Ertegun, founder and chairman of Atlantic Records.

English guitarist, singer and songwriter, Eric Clapton, is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The first group of inductees, inducted on January 23, 1986, included Elvis Presley, James Brown, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, the Everly Brothers.


Read the original article on Leadership.

HERE IS WHY HE SHOULD BE IN THE

R&R HALL OF FAME

THIS IS FROM 1971 WHEN I FIRST HEARD HIM

  

Covid-19 Vaccines Not Mark of '666', 

Anglican Primate Tells Nigerians


Lisa Ferdinando/U.S. Secretary of Defense/Flickr
A vial of the Covid-19 vaccine.

HAND WITH DEVILS HORNS

USED AGAINST EVIL EYE

14 FEBRUARY 2021
Premium Times (Abuja)

The Anglican Primate urged Nigerians to always observe the protocols as issued by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

The Primate of Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Henry Ndukuba, has urged Nigerians, especially Christians, to ensure that they are inoculated against the deadly COVID-19 pandemic when general vaccination commences in the country.

Mr Ndukuba, a most reverend, said this at the February 2021 Standing Committee meeting of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, which began on Feb. 8 and ended on Feb. 14, with a church service at the All Saints' Cathedral, Onitsha, Anambra.

A full text of the meeting obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday quoted Mr Ndukuba as saying that many Nigerians had become complacent about COVID-19 because of the unfounded campaign against the vaccines.

"COVID-19 is already in our villages and communities; we have lost some members to COVID-19 infections. Many people are very complaisant and careless because they believe it is a rich people's disease or it is not real.

"COVID-19 is real and it kills. Some people are peddling unfounded campaign against the COVID-19 Vaccines; they suggest that anyone receiving the vaccine will receive the anti-Christ number 666.

"Let it be clear that COVID-19 is a virus that is ravaging the world and killing people. We give glory to God that we have higher survival rate in Nigeria," he said.

"This disease is like Polio, Yellow Fever and other virus diseases that we receive vaccines to prevent. Those who are infected are being treated and many recover.

'The medical personnel administer drugs to cure them which does not initiate them with the 666. This vaccine is like any other that we receive to prevent diseases caused by virus.

"The End Time signs are here but the severe persecutions and tribulations have yet to come fully. We should be careful not to propagate stories that are not true and which can only be destructive to the lives of our people."

He urged Nigerians to live in faith and righteousness, and also engage in fasting and prayer to fight the pandemic.

The Anglican Primate also urged Nigerians to always observe the protocols as issued by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

"Everyone should keep the non-Pharmaceutical procedures such as keeping social distance, use of face mask, hand washing with soap under running water, the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers and others.

"It is a virus and an enemy of our lives and at the name of Jesus Christ, COVID-19 must be destroyed; God has preserved our lives till today and He will protect and keep us till the end.

"We plead that the federal and state governments should procure vaccines and give to all our citizens, especially the most vulnerable group. The incidence of the COVID-19 has exposed the poor state of Nigerian healthcare delivery system," he said.

He appealed to Anglican dioceses and parishes to intensify the establishment of health clinics and hospitals that would cater for members, especially the poor and vulnerable.

Mr Ndukuba appreciated all doctors, nurses and frontline health workers who had bravely stood for the sick and citizens infected with coronavirus.

"We commiserate with all those who lost their dear one in this pandemic. May God stand by us and carry us through this challenging period victoriously," he added.

(NAN)
Read the original article on Premium Times.

Cats love murder, but there’s a way you can prevent it

A very surprised cat in the snow. 

Image source: pio3/Adobe

By Mike Wehner @MikeWehner BGR
February 14th, 2021 

Domestic cats are a massive burden on wildlife around the globe, with birds and small mammals being their two favorite targets.

Cats that are allowed to roam free often hunt despite having food available at home, but scientists just figured out a way to prevent them from killing wildlife.

Feeding a cat a diet high in meat protein can help stop domestic cats from feeling the need to hunt.

We love our pets and we like to think they love us, but they’re still animals. Try as we might, it’s impossible to totally erase countless generations of instinct that is hard-wired into their brains and bodies, and when it comes to cats that means accepting the fact that they’re going to probably kill some stuff every now and then.

Cats — especially those that are allowed to roam freely in a neighborhood or countryside — will almost always end up hunting wild game despite having a steady supply of food at home. When your cat leaves a dead bird on your doorstep, it might seem like no big deal, or perhaps even a charming reminder of how brutal nature can be, but cats actually pose a huge threat to bird and small mammal populations, but science may have come up with an answer.

In some countries, domestic cats are such a burden on wildlife that there are laws to mitigate their impact. Some areas even have cat-free wildlife sanctuaries where bird populations can recover from the toll that domestic cats take on them. As it turns out, it’s humans that may be able to stop our feline friends from feeling the need to hunt, and it actually sounds pretty simple.

A new study published in Current Biology focused on some pretty basic lifestyle changes that people can initiate for their cats that appear to have a serious impact on their desire to hunt and kill. The scientists conducted trials of multiple interventions — including instituting a diet high in meat protein and providing up to 10 minutes of stimulating playtime per day — and monitored how those changes affected the hunting habits of cats.

Some of the things they tested, such as cat bells and high-visibility collars, had serious limitations. The cat bells appeared to do very little to change the likelihood of a cat successfully killing wild game, and while the collars did work to limit the number of birds the cats killed, it didn’t prevent them from killing small mammals. The diet and playtime trials, however, were reliably consistent in their ability to cut back the hunting of the cats. Using puzzle feeders, where the cat has to work to get its food, actually increased the likelihood of hunting.

“Households where a high meat protein, grain-free food was provided, and households where 5–10 min of daily object play was introduced, recorded decreases of 36% and 25%, respectively, in numbers of animals captured and brought home by cats, relative to controls and the pre-treatment period,” the researchers write.

That’s a pretty significant change. So, if your four-legged friend has been leaving too many dead mice and birds around your home, feed them some protein and take some time to play with them. The wildlife will thank you.

What Happens When You Swap a Human Gene With a Neanderthal’s?

Now that we’ve gotten a look at the genomes of archaic humans, researchers are trying to determine whether our differences are due to genetics. 

TIMOTHY B. LEE, ARS TECHNICA
SCIENCE 02.14.2021 

PHOTOGRAPH: WERNER FORMAN/GETTY IMAGES


WHAT ARE THE key differences between modern humans and our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans? For the Neanderthals, there doesn't seem to be any sort of obvious difference. They used sophisticated tools, made art, and established themselves in some very harsh environments. But, as far as we can tell, their overall population was never particularly high. When modern humans arrived on the scene in Eurasia, our numbers grew larger, we spread even further, and the Neanderthals and Denisovans ended up displaced and eventually extinct.

With our ability to obtain ancient DNA, we've now gotten a look at the genomes of both Neanderthals and Denisovans, which allows us to ask a more specific question: Could some of our differences be due to genetics?

The three species are close relatives, so the number of differences in our proteins are relatively small. But a large international research team has identified one and engineered it back into stem cells obtained from modern humans. And the researchers found that neural tissue made of these cells has notable differences from the same tissue grown with the modern human version of this gene.

As the first step in their work, the researchers had to decide on a gene to target. As we mentioned above, the genomes of all three species are extremely similar. And the similarity only goes up when you look at those parts of the genome that encode proteins. An added complication is that some of the versions of genes found in Neanderthals are still found in a fraction of the modern human population. What the researchers wanted to do is find a gene where both Neanderthals and Denisovans had one version and nearly all modern humans had another.

Out of tens of thousands of genes, they found only 61 that passed this test. The one they chose to focus on was called NOVA1. Despite the explosive-sounding name, NOVA1 was simply named after having originally been found associated with cancer: Neuro-oncological ventral antigen 1. A look through the vertebrate family tree shows that Neanderthals and Denisovans share a version of NOVA1 with everything from other primates to chickens, meaning that it was present in the ancestor that mammals shared with dinosaurs.

Yet almost all humans have a different version of the gene (in a search of a quarter-million genomes in a database, the researchers were only able to identify three instances of the Neanderthal version). The difference is subtle—swapping in a closely related amino acid at a single location in the gene—but it is a difference. (For those who care, it's isoleucine to valine.)

But NOVA1 is the sort of gene where small changes can potentially have a big impact. The RNAs that are used to make proteins are initially made of a mixture of useful parts separated by useless spacers that need to be spliced out. For some genes, the different parts can be spliced together in more than one way, allowing distinct forms of a protein to be made from the same starting RNA. NOVA1 regulates the splicing process and can determine which form of multiple genes gets made in cells where it's active. For NOVA1, the cells where it's active include many parts of the nervous system.

If that last paragraph was somewhat confusing, the short version is this: NOVA1 can change the types of proteins made in nerve cells. And, since behavior is one area where modern humans may have been different from Neanderthals, it's an intriguing target of these sorts of studies.

Obviously, there are ethical issues with trying to see what the Neanderthal version would do in actual humans. But some technologies developed over the past decade or so now allow us to approach the question in a very different way. First the researchers were able to take cells from two different people and convert them into stem cells, capable of developing into any cell in the body. Then they used Crispr gene-editing technology to convert the human version of the gene into the Neanderthal version. (Or, if you're less charitable, you could call it the chicken version.)

After performing extensive checks that indicated that NOVA1 was the only gene altered by the editing, the researchers induced the stem cells to form the neurons typical of the brain's cortex.

The clusters of neural cells that resulted were smaller when they were formed by cells with the Neanderthal version of NOVA1, although these clusters had a more complex surface shape. The cells with the Neanderthal version also grew more slowly and tended to undergo a process that ends in cell death more often. So it was clear that the Neanderthal version altered the stem cells' behavior as they were converted into nerve cells.

Differences were apparent on the genetic level as well. The research team looked for any genes that had altered activity (as measured by messenger RNA levels) in the cells with the Neanderthal NOVA1. There were quite a number of them, and they included some key regulators of neural development. And, as expected from a splicing regulator, there were hundreds of genes that saw changes to how their protein-coding RNAs were pieced together.

Many of these genes appear to be involved in the formation and activity of synapses, the individual connections among nerve cells that allow them to communicate with each other. Not surprisingly, this altered the behavior of those connections. Normally, nerve cells in culture form connections and coordinate their activity. In cells with the Neanderthal version of NOVA1, there was less coordination and a higher background of nerve cells firing off signals at random.


The results clearly show that having the Neanderthal version of NOVA1 is not a good thing for the nerve cells of modern humans. It will still take some more work, however, to determine whether all of the changes described here are the product of specific differences between the two forms of the protein or simply a consequence of the nerve cells being unhealthy due to the misregulation of genes.

But the researchers also caution against overinterpreting the results in general—while suggestive, these results are not a clear indication that gene changes make our brains fundamentally different from those of our closest relatives.

The evolution of the human version of this gene took place against a backdrop of many other subtle changes in human genes, either in their coding sequences or (more often) in the sequences that regulate their activity. Those changes could potentially offset any harmful effects caused by the differences in activity of the modern human version of NOVA1. Suddenly dropping in the original version of the gene again might only produce differences due to the mismatch between the gene and all of those compensations.

So it's going to take a while to sort out how much this one gene's differences mean for human and Neanderthal brains. But the key thing is that it's now possible to ask these questions at all. The technologies used to produce these results didn't exist before this century—Crispr gene editing is less than a decade old. So the mere fact that we know this much is pretty astonishing.

Science, 2021. DOI: 10.1126/science.aax2537 (About DOIs).

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast.

HOMETOWN PAPER SKEWERS MITCH

McConnell’s speeches won’t save his beloved legacy after he lets Trump off the hook

BY LINDA BLACKFORD
FEBRUARY 14, 2021 

McConnell rebukes election overturn effort. ‘Our democracy would enter a death spiral’

Mitch McConnell took to the chamber’s floor on Wednesday to declare a reality still unaccepted by many in his party: That President Donald Trump lost his re-election bid and it wasn’t “unusually close.” BY C-SPAN

It was no surprise to see Kentucky’s two Senators vote to let their Dear Leader off the hook again. Sen. Rand Paul, who is turning more and more into an ongoing series of jokes on late night TV, is up for re-election in 2022 and has been a steady suck-up since November 2016, when he changed his original opinion on Trump as a “delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag.”

McConnell, however, has now contorted himself into a strange pretzel-shaped politician hated by everyone. For Democrats, his vote to acquit, shortly followed by a fiery speech denouncing Trump is more McConnellian hypocrisy, coming right after his next best in saying he couldn’t convict Trump after his presidency was over when he delayed the trial until his presidency was over. That’s a lot of contorting.

But he’s not fooling the Trumpists, who now call him a RINO. They see through his winks to Trump voters and his nods to corporate donors who now realize that Trump is bad for their brands. Votes that mean one thing and speeches that mean another don’t get you anywhere but stuck.

Everyone sees through him now. He may have helped create the modern Republican party, but when it most needed saving, he was nowhere to be found. He could have given political cover to his colleagues to stand up to Trump and the attack on Jan. 6, but as I wrote before, the monster he helped create was no longer in his control.

Those two speeches — the first in which McConnell finally acknowledged the election results far too late in the process, and the second in which he excoriated Trump for events for which he had earlier in the day excused him — will be put into the Congressional record. But they will not be enough to give him what he wants: A legacy as a great American statesman.

No, the history books will be clear about those who coddled and engendered Trump’s madness in the name of political power. And in the end, he made sure that Trump would face no penalty or justice for whipping up a storm of white supremacist anger that attacked the U.S. Capitol and killed a police officer. As his one-time challenger Charles Booker noted Saturday, “Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul would have voted differently if the people who stormed the Capitol looked like me.”

McConnell gave a pass to white supremacy, a pass on attacking the U.S. Capitol. He gave so many passes to Trump that we are left with a country that is sick in mind and body. His beloved Republican party has turned into a death cult in thrall to a pathetic and pathological egotist. There will be some poetic justice in watching him try to unravel it over the next five years.

Let him try, along with whatever machinations he’s got up his sleeve as the new minority leader, while President Biden and Congress work toward healing the country, both literally and figuratively with vaccinations, COVID relief, a minimum wage increase and a bold plan to ease child poverty. It’s the kind of action that Mitch McConnell has upended, diluted and blocked his entire career in his quest for personal power. The good of the country has always come in second to the good of Mitch McConnell.

Charles Booker said something else on Saturday: “There is not a day that passes where I don’t think about all the progress and healing we could realize if Mitch McConnell was not a member of the United States Senate.”

That’s what history will remember; there aren’t enough fancy speeches in the world to erase McConnell’s true legacy.


President Donald Trump brings Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., on stage during a campaign rally in Lexington, Ky., Monday, Nov. 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) SUSAN WALSH AP



LINDA BLACKFORD
Linda Blackford writes columns and commentary for the Herald-Leader. She has covered K-12, higher education and other topics for the past 20 years at the Herald-Leader.

 

 

NYT reveals that Roger Stone's Oath Keeper bodyguards were part of Capitol riot

STONE INVENTED; 'STOP THE STEAL'

Ray Hartmann  RAW STORY

February 14, 2021

(Screenshot via Twitter.com)

The New York Times is reporting that "At least six people who had provided security for Roger Stone entered the Capitol building during the Jan. 6 attack."

In some epic journalism, the paper "combed through hundreds of videos and photos and drew on research from an online monitoring group called the Capitol Terrorists Exposers to track the security team that surrounded Mr. Stone on Jan. 5 and 6."

Here's what it found:

"Videos show the group guarding Mr. Stone, a longtime friend of former President Donald J. Trump, on the day of the attack or the day before. All six of them are associated with the Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia that is known to provide security for right-wing personalities and protesters at public events.

"Mr. Stone, a convicted felon who was pardoned by Mr. Trump, has a long history as a self-proclaimed "dirty trickster" political operative who has lived by the edicts of attack, admit nothing, deny everything, and counterattack. He posted a message online denying involvement in "the lawless acts at the Capitol."

In videos from the day before the attack, Stone's Oath Keeper pals are seen providing him security at two Washington events to rally Trump supporters. In an evening speech, Stone told the crowd, "We will win this fight or America will step off into a thousand years of darkness."

The New York Times is reporting that "At least six people who had provided security for Roger Stone entered the Capitol building during the Jan. 6 attack."

You can read more here. BEHIND NYT PAYWALL

WHEN WE GOT THERE THE CUPBOARD WAS BARE

Kamala Harris reveals what the new administration discovered about Trump's COVID-19 response plan

Sarah K. Burris
February 14, 2021

Kamala Harris (Shutterstock.com)

In an interview with Axios on HBO, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed 'there was no national strategy or plan for vaccinations' in the Trump administration's COVID-19 plan. Harris claims what many in the Biden administration have surmised after taking over governing.

'We were leaving it to the states and local leaders to try and figure it out," Harris told reporter Mike Allen.

President Joe Biden made a similar claim when he announced the next steps for the vaccine plan.

"There is nothing for us to rework. We are going to have to build everything from scratch," one Biden source told CNN in January.

"In many ways, we are starting from scratch on something that's been raging for almost an entire year," Harris told Axios

Sources told CNN the same thing after the inauguration, saying that during the transition it became clear to the Biden science team that they would have to essentially begin from "square one" because the Trump administration hadn't developed a plan. "Wow, just further affirmation of complete incompetence."

"The process to distribute the vaccine, particularly outside of nursing homes and hospitals out into the community as a whole, did not really exist when we came into the White House," White House chief of staff Ron Klain said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press."

Trump announced in August that his administration was purchasing 100 million vaccinations from Moderna and 100 million of the Pfizer vaccine. Trump was offered more vaccines by both pharmaceutical companies but refused it, said NBC News. It prompted questions about why Trump hadn't purchased enough to fully cover all Americans, which would be over 660 million doses.

"The suffering is so immense in terms of both the public health crisis, the number of people who have died, the number of people who've contracted it, and the economic crisis," the vice president also said.

See the Harris interview clip below:

Column: One way to slow the ticking climate clock

Opinion > Columns
By BOB SCHULTZ and BOB NORMAN
For the Valley News
Published: 2/11/2021 

We human beings have not been kind to Mother Nature — especially since the Industrial Revolution and World War II. The way we live has been particularly damaging to the natural climate. That said, things are beginning to look up lately. The coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress in December contains what’s been called “the most substantial federal investment in green technology in a decade.” President Joe Biden has acted to rejoin the Paris Agreement, agreed to in 2015 with major U.S. leadership. These accords commit most of the nations of the world to reduce greenhouse gases and shift to renewable energy by 2050.

However, committing is not the same as acting. How will the U.S. move from the high-sounding rhetoric of the Paris accords to practical actions that will sharply reduce our carbon emissions into the atmosphere?

One of several proposals is a bill already introduced in Congress and championed by the Citizens Climate Lobby. It’s a bipartisan proposal called the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, dubbed the CF&D — short for “Carbon Fee & Dividend.” If passed, the bill would demonstrate that the U.S. really is serious about the concrete actions necessary to make a difference in carbon emissions.

What is CF&D and how would it work? How would it affect us? And how could we, if we chose, help to persuade Congress to adopt its provisions?

A simple explanation goes like this: As oil and natural gas come out of wellheads, coal comes out of mineshafts and fossil fuel shipments come ashore in seaports across America, the extracting and shipping companies would pay fees for each ton of carbon that the burning of these fossil fuels will emit into the atmosphere. The fees, which would gradually and predictably increase from year to year, would go into a Treasury Department trust fund. This would, of course, force the extracting companies to charge consumers more — at the gas station, in our electric bills, for our heating fuels. But these increased costs to consumers would be offset by dividends paid from the trust fund to every American household every month.

If adopted, this market-based arrangement would give incentives to the carbon-emitting energy companies to turn increasingly to renewable energy sources. As a result, carbon emissions, along with other greenhouse gases, would decrease, thereby protecting human health and many aspects of the environment, and slowing the increase in devastating storms and wildfires, deadly flooding, and punishing droughts that have become commonplace.

This explanation leaves out lots of important details. For example, people will wonder if a “fee” isn’t just another name for a “tax.” Some do use the words interchangeably. But strictly speaking, a tax is for raising revenue (and it tends to grow the government). A fee is a payment in exchange for a service or privilege, such as paying to enter a national park.

People will also wonder how much more fossil energy would cost under this plan. The answer, to cite one example, is about 11 cents on a gallon of gas. But the monthly dividends to every household would help to cover this. Also, because most households (58%) consume less than the average consumption of carbon — because they ride public transportation or use bicycles, for example — they’ll actually get more money back than they spend on fossil energy.

Another concern is that the CF&D system would be complicated and costly to administer. It wouldn’t be, because producers of oil and coal already have to measure the output they sell, and the federal government already has in place commonly used ways to dispense money to households, such as income tax returns and Social Security payments. Also, more than 90% of American adults have bank accounts that can receive electronic payments.

In preparing this introduction to the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, we have relied mainly on the website of the Citizens Climate Lobby, a widely respected nonpartisan and nonprofit organization. Members of its 611 local chapters have been working to persuade members of the U.S. House and Senate to act on climate disruption since 2007.

You can learn more about this proposal on the Citizens Climate Lobby website, citizensclimatelobby.org. For more information about the Upper Valley chapter, email ccluppervalley@gmail.com or call 802-432-8494. To urge your representative to support this policy, call Rep. Annie Kuster at 202-225-2946 or Rep. Peter Welch at 202-225-4115.

Bob Schultz, of Lebanon, is a retired philosophy professor who taught environmental ethics for 30 years at Lycoming College, the University of Denver and the University of Washington.