CANUCKS IN SPACE

SpaceX is literally sending Dogecoin to the moon in upcoming mission

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket preparing for launch. Image source: SpaceX

By Jacob Siegal @JacobSiegal
May 11th, 2021 

The cryptocurrency Dogecoin was created as a joke in 2013, and as of this January, it was worth less than a penny per coin. By the end of the month, it had hit 5 cents, and in May, it reached a new high of 74 cents. This meteoric rise uncoincidentally coincided with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk repeatedly talking about the cryptocurrency on his Twitter account, and its value peaked just days before Musk was set to host SNL for the very first time.

By the time the episode was over, dogecoin’s value had tanked, as many owners likely cashed out. The coin’s value is so volatile that it’s hard to predict what will happen next, but it’s clear that the billionaire’s interest has yet to abate, as CNN reports that SpaceX will accept dogecoin as a form of payment for an upcoming mission.

Canada’s Geometric Energy Corporation announced in a press release on Monday that it will launch a commercial lunar payload on one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets in the first quarter of 2022, and it plans to pay for its spot aboard the rocket entirely with dogecoin. The 88-pound satellite that the company is putting on the rocket will appropriately be called DOGE-1, and once the rocket launches, DOGE-1 “will obtain lunar-spatial intelligence from sensors and cameras on-board with integrated communications and computational systems.”

“This is not a joke,” Geometric Energy Corporation CEO Samuel Reid told CNN of the deal.

The press release from Geometric Energy Corporation goes on to explain the significance of the mission:


Indeed, through this very transaction, DOGE has proven to be a fast, reliable, and cryptographically secure digital currency that operates when traditional banks cannot and is sophisticated enough to finance a commercial Moon mission in full. It has been chosen as the unit of account for all lunar business between SpaceX and Geometric Energy Corporation and sets precedent for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

Dogecoin has been hovering around 50 cents since Musk’s Saturday Night Live appearance, but the fact that it still hasn’t dropped further seems to suggest that plenty of owners have held on to their coins. Dogecoin is still up more than 10,000% compared to last May, and its market cap is sitting around $65 billion.

As CNN notes, Geometric Energy Corporation was founded in 2015, and mainly focuses on intellectual property, manufacturing, and logistics. Its focus has expanded over the years to include energy, space, software, and medicine, which led to the development of four subsidiaries: Geometric Space, GeometricLabs, Geometric Medical, and Geometric Gaming. Geometric Space is the group that will be working with SpaceX on this mission.

In related news, Tesla recently began accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for its cars, and on Tuesday, Elon Musk asked his followers in a tweet if the company should accept dogecoin as well. “Yes” is winning.

   

SpaceX will launch a moon mission funded by Dogecoin in 2022

By Elizabeth Howell 6 days ago

The company Geometric Energy Corp. bought the flight in meme cryptocurrency.

SpaceX accepted Dogecoin as a payment to launch a mission to the moon. (Image credit: Saul Martinez/Getty Images)

SpaceX books a mission to the moon funded entirely by Dogecoin just days after SpaceX founder Elon Musk joked on Saturday Night Live about his role in spreading memes about the cryptocurrency.

Geometric Energy Corp. has planned a rideshare mission to the moon aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which usually costs about $62 million to book, or about 129 million Dogecoin (at the cryptocurrency's $0.48 value as of 2:30 p.m. on Monday (May 10)). How much money or crypto will actually change hands, however, has not yet been revealed, nor has information about what other missions will fly on the rocket.

Musk tweeted about the deal on Sunday, saying this is the first time that cryptocurrency will be used in space, and that it will also be the first meme used in space. "To the mooooonnn!!" he added. (We couldn't immediately verify his claims about being the first (with either crypto or memes), but it is important to note that the cryptocurrency Blockstream has a satellite network that broadcasts the Bitcoin blockchain as a backup for ground network interruptions.)

Related: Elon Musk says he's going to put Dogecoin on 'the literal moon'

Click here for more Space.com videos...

00:00 of 02:01Volume 0%

 

PLAY SOUND

The mission, which is set to launch in the first quarter of 2022, follows an announcement Musk made April 1 promising to put Dogecoin "on the literal moon." Now, since he tweeted about this on April Fool's Day, not everyone took it seriously at first.

But the mission continues to solidify, and currently it is designed to be orbital. With the mission, SpaceX aims to send an 88-pound (40-kilogram) CubeSat (appropriately named Doge-1) on a mission to gain "lunar-spatial intelligence … with integrated communications and computational systems," according to a Geometric press release. The payload will also include sensors and cameras, the details of which are not yet public. 

Geometric CEO Samuel Reid further stated in the release that the deal "solidified DOGE as a unit of account for lunar business in the space sector." The company also pledged to transact all future missions in Dogecoin, touting benefits such as its security and the fact that trades can happen even outside of business hours.

That said, publications such as Barron's see some potential risks, and point to mitigating valuation factors in cryptocurrencies and their volatility. There have also been some industry reports musing about the stability of cryptocurrency infrastructure, and its role in funding illegal activities.

Cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin, according to Investopedia, are digital or virtual currencies secured using cryptography. Many of these currencies are based on blockchain technology that distributes a ledger or record of the currency across a computer network, independent of government regulation. At least two forms of cryptocurrency, Dogecoin and Etherum, have hit all-time highs in recent weeks, according to media reports.

Dogecoin was launched in 2013 as a joke by two software engineers, Billy Markus (from IBM) and Jackson Palmer (from Adobe), according to Business Insider. They put together two big discussion topics of the day — Bitcoin and a widely memed Shiba Inu dog meme nicknamed "doge" — to create Dogecoin. When released, Dogecoin became popular quickly, in part, because it is easier to use than Bitcoin, Business Insider added.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

Commentary: Dogecoin and why we should quit taking cryptocurrency seriously

The success of the joke currency has lessons for cryptocurrency investors and business analysts, says the Financial Times' Jemima Kelly.

Cryptocurrency representations are seen in front of the Dogecoin logo in this illustration picture taken April 20, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration)

By Jemima Kelly13 May 2021

LONDON: It has often been hard to make sense of financial markets in 2021.

First there was the 1,500 per cent rally in flailing video game retailer GameStop, then there was the US$100 million valuation of a New Jersey deli, and then there was a 15,000 per cent surge in dogecoin, a cryptocurrency designed as a joke.

“Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?” the electric car company’s chief executive and self-styled “technoking” Elon Musk asked his Twitter followers on Tuesday (May 11).

The tweet was just the latest of several Musk shout-outs to the digital coin, which is based on a meme showing the face of a Shiba Inu dog overlaid with an imaginary inner monologue: “Wow”; “so scare”; “keep ur hands away from me”.

Dogecoin functions the same way as bitcoin — it’s a digital token underpinned by a decentralised network of computers that process and keep track of transactions via a digital ledger called a blockchain.

But unlike the original cryptocurrency, whose backers use highbrow arguments to justify and shore up its value, dogecoin has been a joke from the outset.

Yet while few people are claiming that dogecoin will “democratise finance”, or become “the global reserve currency”, or fundamentally change the world, since its creation in December 2013 it has hugely outperformed bitcoin.

This illustration photo shows the Coinbase logo in the background as a person checks cryptocurrencies prizes on a smartphone in Los Angeles on April 13, 2021 (Photo: AFP/Chris DELMAS)

While the latter has climbed a remarkable 7,700 per cent during that period, dogecoin has rocketed by an almost unfathomable 200,000 per cent.

In other words, if you wanted to make some money on crypto over the past seven-and-a-half years and chose to buy bitcoin rather than dogecoin, the joke’s sort of on you.

HOW TO TREAT CRYPTO SERIOUSLY?

Dogecoin gives the lie to the idea that we should take bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies terribly seriously.

While crypto evangelists might want everyone to buy into the notion that bitcoin is going to take over from the dollar one day, and that we all need to hold some of it in order to protect ourselves from the evil central bankers who want to inflate away the value of our money, the reality is that their arguments are largely just a self-interested attempt to boost the price of cryptocurrencies.

Much like a pyramid scheme, those who got in early on bitcoin have a huge financial incentive to draw in others by any means necessary.

But while getting rich is clearly the main motivating factor — and some people have indeed managed to become incredibly rich from crypto — it is not the only one.

READ: Commentary: Amid record high value, Tesla's bitcoin bet raises uncomfortable questions

LIKE GAMBLING

Buying into crypto should be considered akin to gambling and, like gambling, people get into it not just because they might make money, but also because it’s entertaining.

It’s no coincidence that cryptocurrencies and “meme-stocks” have surged in a year in which much of the world has been locked up indoors.

It is the result of what Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine has called the “boredom markets hypothesis”.

Crypto trading is often more accessible than gambling, particularly in places where betting is heavily regulated, such as in the US. It allows buyers to feel like they’re in some kind of tribe.

And while the “LOL” factor might not be considered a traditional metric for working out the value of an asset, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be: Clearly, the extent to which it is fun to buy into something has an impact on how much it is bought, and nowhere can that be seen more clearly than in dogecoin.

MAYBE TAKE IT LESS SERIOUSLY

The joke-coin makes a mockery of the idea that crypto investing should be considered a serious pursuit. Its very existence undermines the notion that bitcoin derives value from its scarcity.

While bitcoin’s total supply will eventually be capped at 21million, as written into its original source code, there is no limit to the number of copycat cryptocurrencies that compete with it — there are now almost 10,000, and dogecoin itself has no hard supply cap.

Dogecoin’s success makes just as much sense as the rest of the crypto market — people buy into these coins because doing so is exciting, it gives them something to do and discuss with their friends, and of course because it can allow them to make a quick buck.

But perhaps it can also allow us to stop taking the crypto project quite so seriously. While we’re at it, we might do the same with the stock market.

If none of what happened with GameStop made sense to you, listen to financial veterans break down how different players powered the surge and which listed company could see copycat attacks in CNA's Heart of the Matter podcast:

HOW BAD ARE BITCOIN AND DOGECOIN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?

Elon Musk says Telsa will suspend taking Bitcoin until its mining uses ‘more sustainable energy’

Graeme Massie
Los Angeles@graemekmassie 

Elon Musk has become one of the world’s richest and most successful entrepreneurs with his commitment to reinventing the electric car and to renewable energy.

The billionaire Tesla CEO’s flirtations with cryptocurrency was therefore always problematic.

For the Bitcoin industry as a whole is estimated to use the same amount of energy as a the annual amount used by a country the size of Malaysia, according to industry observers.

“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” Mr Musk tweeted on Wednesday.

“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment,” he added.

And Musk vowed to start using Bitcoin again “as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.”

The industry is environmentally unsound because the process of mining for Bitcoin, or the complex mathematical calculations that are computed for every new Bitcoin, is highly energy-intensive.

The University of Cambridge’s Centre for Alternative Finance estimates that as of Wednesday the industry had reached 147.8 terawatt hours.

Sign up to our free weekly climate newsletter by clicking here and it will arrive in your inbox every Friday

And that is a significant increase from around 121.9 terawatt hours, or as much energy as a country like Argentina uses each year, when Tesla bought $1.5bn worth of Bitcoin in February.

The Centre for Alternative Finance says that Bitcoin now represents an estimated 0.59 per cent of global electricity production, or enough to power all the kettles in Britain to boil water for 33 years.

If renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, was used to drive the energy consumption it may not have become such an issue for Mr. Musk.

But the majority of Bitcoin is mined in China and is largely fuelled by cheap coal power in the Xinjiang region, according to reports.

According to the University of Cambridge researchers almost two-thirds of Bitcoin generation as of April 2020 took place in China, with one-third of that being done in Xinjiang.

It is the same region that has become notorious in recent years for the treatment of the Uighur Muslim minorities by the Chinese government.

Industries that are heavily dependent on cheap electricity are often drawn to Xinjiang, which has vast natural reserves of coal that is hard to ship around China, by its cheap power rates, according to Bloomberg.

While experts say that all cryptocurrencies are relatively environmentally damaging, some do have less of an impact than others, according to statistics from TRG Datacenters.

The company, which is based in Houston, Texas, says that XRP is the least damaging, using 0.0079 of a Kilowatt hour (KWh) per transaction.

Dogecoin, which is a favourite of Mr Musk and which he plugged during his recent Saturday Night Live appearance, is rated by the firm at 0.12 KWH.

Litecoin, which has been described as silver to Bitcoin’s gold, is rated at 18.522 KWh, while Ethereum uses 62.56 KWh, according to TRG.

Bitcoin, the most successful of all the cryptocurrencies, is bottom of their list at 707 KWh.

However, some people disagree with the TRG Datacenters’ analysis. The Independent has contacted the company for an explanation of their methodology.

This article was amended on 17 May 2021 to ensure that TRG Datacenters’ figures were clearly attributed to the firm, and to say that some people disagreed with their analysis.

A Shortage of Workers in the US? Not So Fast
By Rob Garver

VOA
May 15, 2021 


FILE - A hiring sign is displayed outside a restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic in Glenview, Ill., May 8, 2021.

On the surface, the surprise announcement Thursday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it would reverse mask mandates and limits on gathering sizes for people vaccinated against COVID-19 looks like great news both for Americans looking for work and for those employed and looking for a pay increase.

News stories across the country have been full of business owners and executives bemoaning their inability to fill open positions in recent weeks.

Restaurants and travel and entertainment companies, in particular, were preparing for a ramp up in business by scrambling to bring in more staff, and the news from the CDC, some said, just gave further impetus to a welcome trend.

FILE - Guests walk along Main Street USA at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., April 30, 2021. Los Angeles and San Francisco have reopened more businesses under California's least restrictive coronavirus safety rules.

Disney CEO: CDC change is ‘big catalyst’

In an interview with Bloomberg television, Bob Chapek, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, said that the CDC announcement would go a long way toward getting the company’s theme park business back to normal and getting the company’s theme park workers back on the job.

“We are really encouraged by what we're seeing in terms of not only current attendance but forward bookings,” he said. “Today, with the CDC guidance in terms of relaxation of a mask requirement, we think it's again going to be a big catalyst for growth and actually being able to put the number of people in our parks that we're more accustomed to. So it's very, very positive. Our future bookings are working really great in Walt Disney World. In fact, they're already back up to fiscal year 2019 levels.”

The announcement came at the same time that Amazon announced that it would be hiring 75,000 people in the U.S. and Canada in the coming months, in some cases offering $1,000 signing bonuses and additional $100 bonuses for workers with proof of their COVID-19 vaccinations.

Chain restaurants like McDonald’s and Chipotle have also begun offering wage increases and hiring bonuses to lure people back into the workforce.

FILE - Hiring signs are posted outside a gas station in Cranberry Township, Butler County, Pa., May 5, 2021.

Supply vs. demand

The laws of supply and demand suggest that companies competing for scarce workers will have to pay more to attract the help they need, which is good news for the labor force. However, the impact on wages might not be as pronounced as current levels of employer desperation suggest.

That’s because while the new CDC guidance is likely to boost demand for labor, it could also have the countervailing effect of expanding supply, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

It is important to remember that there are between 9 million and 11 million fewer jobs in the United States now than there would have been if the economy had not been sidelined by the pandemic last year. The workers who held those jobs may have disappeared from the workforce, but they haven’t disappeared.

Essentially, as the danger of being infected by the coronavirus declines, multiple factors contribute to a more willing labor force.

“What is also happening is that schools are opening up — that makes more people able to enter the workforce,” she said. “And more people are getting vaccinated. That means that more people feel safe reentering the workforce.”

FILE - Job seekers enter the New Hampshire Works employment security center, May 10, 2021, in Manchester. States are pushing the unemployed to get back to work to help businesses find the workers they need to emerge from the COVID recession.

A resurgent workforce

Gould and other economists believe that as the country approaches something like pre-pandemic normalcy, many of those workers will move back into actively seeking employment, easing the supply-demand mismatch currently plaguing U.S. firms.

So while there may be some temporary efforts by employers to attract workers, it is by no means certain that a reinvigoration of the economy over the next few months will result in large or lasting gains for the labor force.

“Maybe for a time we're seeing a bit of an increase in wages,” Gould said. “Particularly in leisure and hospitality — you're not seeing it across the economy. If employers have to entice those workers in a tighter economy, they would certainly have to provide better working conditions, better wages and better benefits. But it's hard to see that there's going to be that much pressure.”

She said, “It's hard to imagine a normal labor market when you have such a huge, huge number of unemployed, predominantly lower-wage workers, in these kinds of sectors. Employers will be able to find people to hire as those things are resolved.”

FILE - Crystal Dvorak shops at WinCo Foods, May, 7, 2021, in Billings, Mont. Dvorak was getting ingredients to make a soup with potatoes and onions she got from a food bank after recently losing her job as an audiologist.

Another contributing factor to a growing workforce is likely to be the decision by governors in more than two dozen states to eliminate the federal unemployment insurance subsidy that has added $300 per week to the benefits that out-of-work Americans are receiving. Although there is no hard evidence the supplement is keeping a large percentage of workers on the sidelines, for a certain percentage of workers on the margins, the difference could be decisive in sending them back to the workforce.

So any workers looking to leverage the current labor shortage for better pay or conditions may be in a position to do so for the time being, but that window is expected to start closing soon.

 

IRGC Quds Force cmdr., Hamas chief discuss latest development on Gaza

May 15, 2021 - 11:53 PM News Code : 1141245 Source : MehrLink: 

IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani held a phone talk with the Political Leader of Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Ismail Haniyeh on Sat. to discuss the latest developments on Gaza.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani held a phone talk with the Political Leader of Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Ismail Haniyeh on Sat. to discuss the latest developments on Gaza.

During the phone talk, Brigadier General Ghaani hailed the unique and successful response of the resistance movement to the aggression of the Zionist regime’s military forces and the defense of the Palestinian nation.

The commander of IRGC Quds Force strongly condemned the brutality of the occupying regime of Israel.

For his part, Hamas Political Leader Haniyeh said that the battle of Quds was the battle of all children of the Palestinian nation and praised Iran's position in support of the Palestinian people.

The clashes between the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, and the Zionist regime broke out on Monday after the end of the resistance movement’s deadline to Tel Aviv over the need for an end to the Zionist regime's aggression on the occupied lands and territories as well as Al-Aqsa Mosque.

While the Zionist regime continues to kill the Palestinian people in front of the eyes of the world, the United States and European countries have thrown their weights behind the fake regime of Israel.

According to the Civil Defense Organization in Gaza, the number of Palestinian people martyred since the beginning of the Zionist regime's attacks and bombings against various parts of Gaza until today has hit more than 140 people including 39 children and 22 women.

ARYAN NATIONALIST HINDUISM IS FASCISM

Indian mosque bulldozed in defiance of high court order

Local officials in Uttar Pradesh demolish mosque that had stood since time of British rule

Images of rubble taken in the aftermath of the destruction 

of the mosque in Ram Sanehi Ghat, Uttar Pradesh, India. Photograph: Supplied


Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Mohammad Sartaj Alam
Tue 18 May 2021

A local administration in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has defied a state high court order and bulldozed a mosque, in one of the most inflammatory actions taken against a Muslim place of worship since the demolition of the Babri Mosque by a mob of Hindu nationalist rioters in 1992.

The mosque, in the city of Ram Sanehi Ghat in Uttar Pradesh, had stood for at least six decades, since the time of British rule, according to documents held by its committee.

On Monday, police and security services moved into the area and cleared it of people, then brought in bulldozers and demolished the mosque. Debris was then thrown into a river. Security services have been deployed to prevent anyone coming within a mile of where the mosque stood.

The state government of Uttar Pradesh is controlled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which also governs at national level. The chief minister is a hardline Hindu nationalist called Yogi Adityanath, who is known for his vitriol against Muslims. He has made speeches laced with Islamophobia, referred to Muslims as terrorists, and passed legislation openly discriminatory to Muslims.

A local imam, Maulana Abdul Mustafa, who is on the mosque committee, said the mosque was “hundreds of years old” and that “thousands of people have been coming here five times a day to offer namaz [prayer]”.

“All Muslims were scared, so no one went near the mosque or dared to protest when the mosque was being demolished. Even today, several dozen people are leaving their homes and hiding in other areas out of the fear of the police.”

Adarsh Singh, a district magistrate, said: “I do not know any mosque. I know there was an illegal structure. The Uttar Pradesh high court declared it illegal. That’s why the regional senior district magistrate took action. I will not say anything else.”

The scene after the demolition of the mosque. Photograph: Supplied

The demolition was in violation of a high court order issued on 24 April, which stated that the mosque building should be protected from any eviction or demolition until 31 May.

The mosque’s presence has been contested by the local administration, which on 15 March issued a “show cause” notice to the mosque committee asking it to explain how the building’s location was chosen and citing an intention to demolish it on the grounds that there were illegal structures on the land.

The mosque committee sent a detailed response, including documents demonstrating the building had an electricity connection from 1959, but the local administration did not take the response on to official record.

On 18 March, the mosque committee went to the Uttar Pradesh high court citing concerns that the mosque faced “imminent demolition”, and an order was given for the local administration to file a reply about the grounds on which it had established that the mosque had been illegally built and was obstructing traffic, even though the structure did not sit on a road.

However, in the following days, the local administration began building a permanent structure to block access to the mosque.

On 19 March, local Muslims were prevented from entering the mosque for Friday prayers, causing tension and protests in the area. Over 35 local Muslims who were protesting were arrested and put in jail, where many are still held, and police reports were filed against the demonstrators.

The mosque committee became concerned at the actions of the local administration, and in April filed a public interest litigation in the high court. In a further ruling on 24 April, the high court ordered that “any orders of eviction, dispossession or demolition …shall remain in abeyance until 31.05.21”.

However, the administration went ahead with the demolition of the mosque on Monday. Local Muslims in the area, including members of the mosque committee, said they had gone into hiding over fears they would be targeted and arrested.

The district where the mosque is located is adjacent to Ayodhya, where the Babri Mosque stood before its demolition in 1992. In a significant court ruling in 2019, judges declared that the land legally belonged to Hindus, rather than Muslims, and a new Ram Temple is under construction on the site where the Babri Mosque stood formerly.

‘It’s hard to look at’: Donald Trump makes National Portrait Gallery debut


Photo of ex-president will make way for a painted portrait as gallery says Trump’s team is considering artists

A photo of Donald Trump at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images



David Smith in Washington
@smithinamerica

THE GUARDIAN
Fri 14 May 2021 

A picture is worth a thousand tweets. Donald Trump gained immortality of sorts on Friday when he made his debut at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. But he also ran into some “good trouble”.


Rightwingers tried to discredit Trump ‘foes’ with honey trap plot – report

Canny curators have placed the 45th president face-to-face with a painting of John Lewis, the late congressman and civil rights hero whose habit of making what he called “good trouble” included boycotting Trump’s inauguration.

“Keeping him honest!” remarked Eric Bargeron, 40, a book editor from Columbia, South Carolina, as he observed Lewis in an exhibition called The Struggle for Justice, staring across the room at Trump in the popular America’s Presidents show.

The photo of Trump was taken by New York–based Pari Dukovic for Time magazine on 17 June 2019, the day before the president officially announced he would seek re-election. It shows him sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, wearing his trademark long red tie.

A man takes a selfie with the photo of Trump at the National Portrait Gallery. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

The picture is accompanied by a caption in neutral museum language, noting that Trump was elected “after tapping into populist American sentiment” and that he “put forth an ‘America First’ agenda”. It records his two impeachments and says the coronavirus pandemic “became a key issue during his re-election campaign”.
Advertisement

The caption adds: “Trump did not concede [defeat], and a mob of his supporters, who refused to accept the results, attacked the US Capitol complex on 6 January 2021, when Congress was working to certify [Joe] Biden’s win.”

The caption also appears in Spanish, a policy rarely seen at the Trump White House.

In another symbolic twist, the Trump picture has supplanted Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of Barack Obama, which is embarking on a year-long, five-city tour. Trump is now back-to-back with the famous Hope poster featuring Obama, by the artist Shepard Fairey.

The gallery, part of the Smithsonian Institution, reopened to timed pass holders on Friday after a six-month pandemic shutdown. It includes a special exhibition of portraits of first ladies, from Martha Washington to Melania Trump.

A trickle of visitors made their way to see Trump, whose likeness never quite made it to Mount Rushmore, join the pantheon of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt on the gallery walls.

Ben Freedman, a British documentary maker based in Louisville, Kentucky, was celebrating his 40th birthday but did not see Trump at first.

“I deliberately averted my eyes,” he said. “It’s cool they put Obama behind the bad guy.”

A bronze-looking emblem with the number 45 is visible next to the photo of Trump. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

Freedman made a noble sacrifice for the Guardian, walking across the room to study the Trump portrait.

“He looks like an insecure man holding the desk to believe in himself,” he reported. “He doesn’t look very humble.”

Fellow Brit Fran McDonald, a professor at the University of Louisville, agreed: “It’s hard to look at. I started to take a picture of it and then decided I don’t want it on my phone. I’m so relieved we don’t have to look at him or listen to him any more. It was a relentless assault on the senses to have him in the 24-hour news cycle.”

The gallery draws visitors from all over America but judging by Friday’s crowd there will be few Trump worshippers eager to turn this into a “Make America Great Again” shrine ahead of a potential White House run in 2024.

Kevin Newman, 38, a police sergeant from Chicago, said he was “not a fan” of Trump.

“I was interested in how they would portray him because he was a controversial president,” he said. “They have made him look good. If they had made him look bad it would have inflamed the controversy. They didn’t make him look orange.”

The photo will make way for a painted portrait – the gallery says Trump’s team is considering artists. Newman added: “He obviously cares very much about his image so it be interesting to see who he picks.”

Trump could look to the 1968 painting of Richard Nixon for a template. The artist, Norman Rockwell, admitted that, finding Nixon’s appearance elusive, he decided to err on the side of flattery.

Meg Krilov and James Fogel were visiting from Trump’s birthplace, New York. Krilov, 65, a retired physician, said of his portrait: “He looks very unhappy. I don’t think he really wanted to be president. He wanted to be king.”

Her husband Fogel, 70, a retired judge, added: “He was treasonous. He tried to overthrow the government. And I guess he’s still trying.”

Did it feel strange to see a former reality TV host, credibly accused of paying off a porn star, enshrined in the same room as Lyndon Johnson and George HW Bush?

“It felt strange the entire time,” Fogel said. “It continues to feel strange.”

A raid, a march, a court case: how Israel spiralled into a deadly conflict

Emma Graham-Harrison Harriet Sherwood and Sufian Tahain Jerusalem 

THE GUARDIAN 16/5/2021

Abd al-Fattah Iskafi, 71, has lived in his house on a tree-lined street near the historic Damascus Gate entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City since he was six years old. But he has spent decades locked in a court battle with hardline Jewish settlers over whether he has the right to stay.

Families in his Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood who also face losing their homes have been “destroyed psychologically” by the long legal fight, he says. But as lawyers prepared this month for a final showdown in Israel’s highest court, fallout from the case spread far beyond their neighbourhood.

For many Palestinians, the battle has become emblematic of what they see as a campaign to force them out of East Jerusalem. Anger at potential evictions fuelled broader tensions that over the last week exploded into communal violence inside Israel and a new war with Hamas.

Two different religious calendars and the slow-moving wheels of court bureaucracy all conspired to make 10 May a deadly flashpoint

 Provided by The Guardian The funeral of an Israeli soldier Omer Tabib, 21, in Elyakim in northern Israel, on May 13. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

That day, Israel’s supreme court was due to hear the Sheikh Jarrah case. Also on that Monday, the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyer, Israeli nationalists were planning to hold a controversial annual “Jerusalem Day” march through Muslim quarters of the Old City, marking Israel’s capture of Jerusalem during the Six Day war in 1967

.

© Photograph: Nasser Nasser/AP The funeral of Husam Asayra, 20, in the West Bank village of Asira al-Qibliya, near Nablus, on May 15.

Meanwhile Muslims were nearing the end of the holy month of Ramadan, with large crowds gathered every night to pray and celebrate in the Haram al-Sharif compound, site of the al-Aqsa mosque, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.


Fury and grief over the evictions, the decision to ban traditional Ramadan gatherings in the square beside Damascus Gate, and other incidents including riots by the far-right Jewish group Lehava, had spurred weeks of clashes between Palestinians and police in the city, including at one of the most sacred sites in Islam.

“[Violence at] al-Aqsa mosque is probably the number one reason for most of the escalation,” said Raviv Drucker, a political analyst for Channel 13 television. “Even though Israel is aware of the sensitivity of the place, for some reason we make the same mistake over and over again. To break into the mosque with grenades and all of these things, it adds to the fire when you have this tension all around, of Ramadan, and Eid al-Fitr and Jerusalem Day, all together.”

There were tensions among Jewish Israelis too. A TikTok video of a Palestinian teen hitting a Jewish man on a train had gone viral in mid-April, generating copycat attacks and widespread outrage.

The court hearing on Sheikh Jarrah was ultimately delayed, when the state attorney general made a last-minute request for more time to study the case. It looked like a tacit step back from the government’s insistence that the case was just a “real-estate dispute between private parties”. The Jerusalem Day march was also re-routed from Muslim areas by police, after appeals from both the military and the Shin Bet security agency. But by then the spiral of violence had gathered a momentum of its own.

Video: Israeli and Palestinian officials address UN (Sky News)

Early on Monday, Israeli police stormed the Haram al-Sharif compound, firing stun grenades and teargas and clashing with Palestinians inside following days of worsening violence. That evening Hamas fired rockets into Israel from Gaza, just minutes after passing an ultimatum for Israel to withdraw its security forces from the Haram al-Sharif compound and Sheikh Jarrah. The group’s military wing claimed it struck Jerusalem in response to Israel’s “crimes and aggression in the Holy City, and its harassment of our people in Sheikh Jarrah and al-Aqsa mosque”.

© Provided by The Guardian A fire rages at sunrise in Khan Yunis following an Israeli airstrike on targets in the southern Gaza strip, early on May 12. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The Sheikh Jarrah case is incendiary for many Palestinians because would-be settlers cite an Israeli law allowing Jews to reclaim ownership of property lost before 1948. Palestinians have no equivalent legal means to reclaim property that became part of the state of Israel at the same time. “The law is written to privilege Jews over non-Jews. It is house-by-house, neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood apartheid,” said Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian political analyst.

The families at the heart of the dispute have lived there since the 1950s, after being forced to abandon or flee their homes in the fighting that preceded the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948. They were rehoused in Sheikh Jarrah by the UN.

“The settlers are thieves supported by the government. We will not leave our homes,” said Muhammad al-Sabbagh, 71, a plumber who has lived in Sheikh Jarrah for 56 years.

That anger, and resentment of life as second-class citizens, also contributed to an unprecedented and devastating wave of communal violence that erupted in Israeli towns with mixed Jewish and Arab populations over the last week. It included mobs rampaging through businesses and destroying places of worship, street beatings and attempted raids on homes. It was a disturbing new dimension to a conflict whose other aspects, including Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and rockets from Gaza falling into Israel, have played out before during previous outbreaks of hostilities.

© Provided by The Guardian Palestinians clash with Israeli security forces at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City on May 10. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean/AP

Rights groups in Israel have long documented systemic discrimination against Palestinian citizens of the country. Most live in Arab-majority towns that are poorly resourced, with higher levels of unemployment and overcrowded housing. In 2018, the Knesset passed a “Jewish nation-state” law, which declared only Jews had the right to self-determination in Israel and stripped Arabic of its status as an official language alongside Hebrew.

At the time, Ayman Odeh, the head of the Israeli Arab Joint List group of parties, said the Knesset had passed “a law of Jewish supremacy and told us that we will always be second-class citizens”. Before a general election the following year, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on Instagram: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens … Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people – and them alone.” Yet nearly two million Israelis, or 20% of the population, are Palestinian – mainly Muslim, but some Christians and some Druze. Nearly all are descendants of people who remained in Israel after the state was declared in May 1948. Most were offered citizenship of the new state.

They have family in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza or among the refugee communities of Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere.

Many fear the wounds of communal violence will take years to heal, but Prof Gideon Rahat, senior fellow in the political reform programme at the Israel Democracy Institute, said the attacks had horrified most of Israeli society, and he believed deep economic integration would help restore faith between communities.

“We are mixed in everyday life more than ever before, and most of the people are not part of this violence,” Rahat said, citing demonstrations against the violence by both Jews and Arabs and a range of politicians speaking out. “Even people from the right wing are trying to put the fire out. Of course the extreme right are happy about the situation as they want to have a zero-sum game, but many of the other forces are trying.”

© Provided by The Guardian Israeli settlers take cover as projectiles are thrown at them in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied east Jerusalem, on May 5. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

Even without the fallout from communal violence, the conflict has reshaped the Israeli political landscape overnight.

Long-serving prime minister Netanyahu was on the brink of losing his post to a nearly formed coalition government, after failing to secure a majority in the fourth general election in two years. The deal being brokered by Yair Lapid, centrist leader of the opposition, would have brought an Arab Israeli party into government for the first time in Israel’s history. The negotiations have all but collapsed; the Islamist party Raam has withdrawn.

The conflict has also partly neutralised Benny Gantz, who is defence minister but also one of Netanyahu’s main rivals for power and key to any coalition. He is now focused on the military campaign, and working closely with the prime minister.

“Netanyahu was days away from getting ousted. [The new coalition] was already set up and ready to go,” said Drucker, the Channel 13 analyst.

“Surely this escalation served him very, very well, because this government that was formed just collapsed. And he will be staying in office in the coming months, maybe for a few years.”

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA

India police jail 21 Kashmiris amid pro-Palestinian rallies

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir said Saturday that 21 people were arrested for disturbing public order by expressing solidarity with Palestinians and holding protests against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Police said in a statement they were keeping a “close watch on elements who are attempting to leverage the unfortunate situation in Palestine to disturb public peace and order” in Kashmir. The statement said police were “sensitive to public anguish” but wouldn't allow those sentiments to "trigger violence, lawlessness and disorder.”


The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety. Kashmiris have long shown strong solidarity with Palestinians and have often staged anti-Israel protests when fighting broke out in Gaza.

Police inspector-general Vijay Kumar told reporters that 20 people were arrested in Srinagar, the region’s main city, and one from a village in southern Kashmir.

A police officer, speaking anonymously in line with department policy, said the 21 were arrested for social media posts, taking part in anti-Israel protests and making graffiti in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and Jerusalem.

Some of the arrested could be soon released after “counseling and assurances from their parents that they would desist from such acts in future,” the officer said.

The officer said the arrested include Sarjan Barkati, a Muslim cleric and a prominent anti-India activist, as well as an artist. The artist was arrested for painting pro-Palestinian graffiti on a bridge in Srinagar on Friday showing a woman wearing a scarf made of a Palestinian flag and a tear tricking from her eye, with the words: “WE ARE PALESTINE.” The graffiti was later painted over by police.

Since Monday, Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip with airstrikes and Palestinian militants have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. The latest round of fighting between the bitter enemies has already begun to resemble — and even exceed — a devastating 50-day war in 2014.

During that war, large anti-Israel protests erupted in Kashmir, which often morphed into clashes with demands of an end of India’s rule over the region and causing dozens of casualties.

Relations between Hindu-majority India and Israel have long been viewed with suspicion and hostility in Kashmir, and Israel has also emerged as a key arms supplier to India.

Aijaz Hussain, The Associated Press  16/5/2021

Bangladesh arrests journalist known for unearthing graft

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A journalist in Bangladesh known for her strong reporting on official corruption was arrested on charges of violating a colonial-era official secrets act which carries a possible death penalty, authorities said Tuesday.© Provided by The Canadian Press

Rozina Islam, a senior reporter for the leading Prothom Alo newspaper, allegedly used her cellphone without permission to photograph documents related to government negotiations to buy coronavirus vaccines while she waited in the room of an official involved in the process, according to case documents seen by The Associated Press.

Islam is known for reporting on corruption involving the Ministry of Health and others. Several of her recent stories have drawn attention to the millions of dollars spent procuring health equipment to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

She was held for more than five hours late Monday in the room of a personal assistant of the secretary of the Ministry of Health, said her sister, Sabina Parvin. Her family said she was physically and mentally harassed while being held.

Islam was then handed over to police and faces charges under the Penal Code and Official Secrets Act for alleged theft and photographing of sensitive state documents, said Harun-or-Rashid, an additional deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

The charges carry a possible death penalty, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement.

Maidul Islam Prodhan, a spokesman for the health ministry, said Islam took photos of “important” documents.

“She was also taking away some documents. An additional secretary and a policeman challenged her at the time. Later, the policewomen were called in,” he said.

On Tuesday, she appeared in court, where police sought to hold her for interrogation for five days and defense lawyers sought her release on bail. The magistrate rejected both appeals and sent her to jail until her next court appearance on Thursday, defense lawyer Ehsanul Haque Shomaji said.

Journalists groups in Bangladesh and the CPJ demanded her release.

“We are deeply alarmed that Bangladesh officials detained a journalist and filed a complaint under a draconian colonial-era law that carries ridiculously harsh penalties,” said Aliya Iftikhar, CPJ’s senior Asia researcher.

“Bangladesh police and authorities should recognize that Rozina Islam is a journalist whose work is a public service and should immediately drop the case against her and allow her to go free.”

Earlier this month, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch said Bangladeshi journalists are risking arbitrary arrest, torture and harassment under a widely used Digital Security Act.

It said at least 247 journalists were reportedly subjected to attacks, harassment and intimidation by state officials and others affiliated with the government in 2020. More than 900 cases were filed under the Digital Security Act, with nearly 1,000 people charged and 353 detained, many of them journalists, it said.

Julhas Alam, The Associated Press