UK CAPITALIST

Calls for Covid windfall tax as billionaires enjoy bumper year during pandemic

Phones 4u founder John Caudwell said Rishi Sunak should levy a 90 per cent tax on excess profits made during lockdownA prominent billionaire has called on Rishi Sunak to levy a Covid windfall tax Tolga Akmen/Pool via REUTERS

By Sam Clark
May 23, 2021 

Business and economics figures have called for the super-rich to be subject to a Covid-19 windfall tax as Britain’s billionaires experienced a record money-making year.

The Sunday Times Rich List revealed that the UK’s super-rich had a bumper year, with the combined wealth of the country’s top 250 wealthiest people growing by 21.7 per cent to £597.3 billion in the last year.

That equates to an average wealth growth of more than £1 million per day for each person on the 250-strong list, which was topped this year by investor Sir Leonard Blavatnik.

The boosted figures come at a time when millions of people have been furloughed and hundreds of thousands have lost jobs, triggering calls for a special tax on the super-rich.

Billionaire mobile phones mogul John Caudwell told The Sunday Times that chancellor Rishi Sunak should levy a one-off tax on those people who have benefited from the pandemic.

“If I were Rishi Sunak, I would say to those who have profited massively: ‘We want a major contribution from you for this year, a tax on the excess profits you made because of lockdowns.’

“They won’t have to worry about tax overall in the UK because the windfall tax would only apply to excess profits for the past year. It wouldn’t damage their share price. What it would do is raise hundreds of billions of extra tax, to help to fix the short-term crisis from which these companies have hugely benefited,” Mr Caudwell said.

Mr Caudwell suggested a one-off 90 per cent tax, saying such a measure would leave affected businesses “as well off as they would have been without the lockdowns”.

E-commerce businesses have benefitted from the lockdowns because high-street competitors were unable to bring in cash. The owners of online retailers like Boohoo, The Hut Group, Asos and Farfetch did particularly well in this year’s Rich List.

Mr Caudwell was joined in calls for a change to the tax system by George Dibb, head of thinktank the IPPR Centre for Economic Justice, who said: “This year’s Sunday Times Rich List shows the rich got richer just as millions of people were struggling to make ends meet. This only bolsters our view that the UK tax system simply isn’t fair.”

According to a Sunday Times analysis, a one-off tax of 5 per cent on all wealth over £1 billion would raise £19 billion for UK government coffers.

Experts or 'grifters'? Little-known firm runs Arizona audit

In early March, a Boston-based vote-counting firm called Clear Ballot Group sent a bid to Arizona's state Senate to audit the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County

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The firm has conducted more than 200 such audits over 13 years in business. “Our level of comparison data is unmatched,” Keir Holeman, a Clear Ballot Group vice president, wrote to the Republican-controlled Senate. He never heard back, he says.


Instead, the state Senate hired a small Florida-based cybersecurity firm known as Cyber Ninjas that had not placed a formal bid for the contract and had no experience with election audits. Senate President Karen Fann says she can't recall how she found the firm, but her critics believe one credential stood out: Cyber Ninjas' chief executive officer had tweeted support for conspiracy theories claiming Republican Donald Trump, and not Democrat Joe Biden, had won Maricopa County and Arizona.

Now the untested, little-known cybersecurity firm is running a partly taxpayer-funded process that election experts describe as so deeply flawed it veers into the surreal. Its chief aim, critics say, appears to be testing far-fetched theories, rather than simply recounting votes — an approach that directly undermines the country's democratic traditions.

“If I give you 20 M&Ms, and you want 30, you can keep counting it, but you did not get 30 M&Ms,” said David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a former Department of Justice voting rights attorney and elections expert. “This is not an effort to find the truth."

Experienced vote counters have watched the process in shock. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said this week Maricopa County will need to replace all of its election machines because their security has been permanently compromised by the auditors. Experts note the review isn’t following standard recounting procedures and, unlike with other election audits in Arizona, members of each major political party are not at each table observing the counting.

The auditors are checking for bamboo fibers to test a theory that tens of thousands of fake ballots were shipped from Asia. A onetime treasure hunter who claims to have invented a new method to automatically spot ballot fraud says his technology is being used in the review.

It's become too much for some Republicans. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, all but one of whom are Republicans, this week accused Republicans in the Senate of having “rented out the once-good name of the Arizona Senate” to “grifters.”

“Your ‘auditors’ are in way over their heads,” the board wrote in a letter.

Cyber Ninjas' defenders say they're creating a template for a re-examination of the election in every battleground state Biden won. Trump allies have already called for similar operations in Georgia. And criticisms about the firm's lack of election experience are hollow, its advocates argue, because the Arizona audit is unprecedented.

“This is an audit like none that has ever been performed,” said Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive officer of Overstock.com who has been raising money for the audit. “This audit is an audit check for all forms of mischief.”

The man running the operation, Cyber Ninjas chief executive officer Doug Logan, declined through his spokesman to be interviewed. He has only answered questions from reporters in public once, during a contentious press conference last month.

“There's a lot of Americans here, myself included, that are really bothered at the way our country's being ripped apart right now,” Logan said. “If we go through here and we don't find any fraud, I will be ecstatic.”

Maricopa County has already conducted two audits, which found no problems with the count in the state's most populous county. At the urging of Trump supporters, the Senate insisted on a third and subpoenaed more than 2 million ballots from the county.

When the Senate leader went looking for an elections firm to do the work, she did not put together a formal request for proposal, as is typical for government contracts. Fann said she and her staff reached out to several firms and got two bids back — the one from Clear Ballot Group for $450,000 and the other from a cybersecurity group called Intersec Worldwide. Fann said she preferred the Intersec proposal, but balked at an $8 million price tag.

In an interview, she said she could not recall who had referred her to Cyber Ninjas. “To be honest with you I can’t even tell you exactly what path led me there,” Fann said.

But Fann had tapped into a loose network of computer security experts who had become active in pro-Trump election conspiracy theories. In a self-published book written this year, Byrne dubbed the group “cyber ninjas” — a term used by so-called “white hat” hackers who defend against online intrusions. Byrne told AP that, in December, he and Logan “crossed paths in a few places.” But Byrne said he wasn't involved in the audit bid and does not know Logan well.

Logan, 42, in December had tweeted and retweeted references to the conspiracy theory that voting machines were hacked to switch votes from Trump. “The parallels between the statistical analysis of Venezuela and this year’s election are astonishing,” Logan tweeted, with a #StoptheSteal hashtag that referenced the pro-Trump movement seeking to overturn the election.

Logan also served as an expert witness in a pro-Trump lawsuit raising conspiracy theories about the election in Antrim County, Michigan. Another cybersecurity professional who filed an expert witness affidavit in that case, Ben Cotton, was a partner on the Intersec proposal. Cotton's own firm, CyFIR, which did not respond to a request for comment, is now a subcontractor on the Arizona audit.

The Senate agreed to pay Cyber Ninjas $150,000 in state money, but it is not clear how much more the audit will cost and who is paying for it. The pro-Trump One America News Network raised $150,000 in a single day in April and has continued to ask for donations. Byrne has also started a fundraising drive with a group that says it has raised $1.7 million with a goal of $2.8 million. Neither will have to disclose donors or account for how the money is spent, and Logan has declined to detail financial information.

Byrne's organization is also involved in recruiting volunteers. The audit's liaison with the Senate sent an email to local Republicans last week asking for more volunteers and referring them to the website of Byrne's organization's to apply. Byrne said his group simply refers volunteers to Cyber Ninjas for “vetting.” The email was first reported by The Arizona Republic.

Logan started Cyber Ninjas in 2013 in Indiana after working for two years for a cybersecurity firm called Cigital, according to his LinkedIn profile and Cyber Ninja press releases. He moved his firm from Indiana to Sarasota in 2014, according to the Cyber Ninjas website, which quotes Logan describing the firm as a “Christian company.” Last year, when Cyber Ninjas received $98,000 in federal COVID relief money, it claimed five employees.

At a public presentation last week, Logan cited as part of his qualifications that his firm “worked with some of the largest names in the financial services space.” Two of the companies he lists as former clients in his expert witness statement, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase, said through spokespeople that they have no record of hiring Cyber Ninjas.

Logan's scant public record before the audit was a history of volunteering for the U.S. Cyber Challenge, a training event for internet security amateurs and professionals. In 2015, Logan received an award from the security firm SANS for his volunteerism with the event,

John Pescatore, the SANS employee who oversees the award program, said Logan was cited mainly for designing an online “capture the flag” game where players try to hack into an opponent's base. “It takes a lot of work,” said Pescatore of Logan's volunteering. He added he doesn't know Logan but Cyber Ninjas has a good reputation for testing companies' systems for vulnerabilities, its market niche.

A spokesman for the U.S. Cyber Challenge did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Logan is not the only person associated with the effort to overturn the 2020 election who is working on the audit. Jovan Pulitzer, an inventor who unsuccessfully pushed for a post-election audit in Georgia, has said his technology is being used to detect altered ballots.

Pulitzer is also a former treasure hunter and author of a series of books on lost treasures, including one titled “How to Cut Off Your Arm and Eat Your Dog.” In 2000, he developed a barcode scanner called Cuecat that purported to link print magazine ads to the internet. It was later named one of the 50 worst inventions of all time by Time magazine.

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Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press

W. Kamau Bell: Few things say 'the US economy is broken' more than this

Opinion by W. Kamau Bell CNN

As many of us excitedly toss off our masks, freshly vaccinated (or freshly faking being vaccinated), and in a hurry to get back to "normal," there is something decidedly "not normal" going on. We're in an era of historic job loss, and yet there are jobs available. Except it looks like no one wants them.

© Spencer Platt/Getty Images People walk through the streets of Manhattan on March 01, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

These are the kind of jobs that usually aren't hard to fill ... or at least the kind of jobs that people have no other choice but to take. I'm talking about fast-food gigs, and the entry-level positions that traditionally can fill quickly with just a "Help Wanted" sign. But right now, so few people seem interested in these types of roles that IHOP hosted a "National Recruiting Day" in many locations, and Taco Bell made it easier for applicants to interview from their car. A McDonald's in Florida is said to have even offered people $50 -- not as a "hiring bonus," but just to show up for the interview.

The problem, as we talk about on tonight's episode of "United Shades of America," has to do with wealth inequality, which the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief. (Remember the pandemic? I hope you do, since it's still happening.)

Over the past year, "The Haves" have worked "The Have-Nots" overtime, just so "The Haves" could have even more while the "Have-Nots" are fighting for a better minimum wage. And this isn't just some college dropout comedian saying this. At his first address to Congress, President Joe Biden sounded like he'd just finished watching a Sen. Bernie Sanders speech: "Twenty million Americans lost their jobs in the pandemic -- working and middle class Americans," he said in April. "At the same time, roughly 650 billionaires in America saw their net worth increase by more than $1 trillion ... and they're now worth more than $4 trillion."

Few things say "The United States economy is broken" more than the idea that while we're in a global pandemic -- with nearly 600,000 Americans dead, almost 10 million jobs lost, and the population of unhoused people higher for the fourth year in a row -- there's at least one billionaire somewhere going, "2020 was a great year!"

And they may not be billionaires, but people who invest in the stock market are certainly another group who made money during the pandemic. At the end of 2020, the stock market hit record highs -- and keep in mind that more than 80% of the stocks in this country are owned by the richest 10%. (Now I sound like Bernie Sanders.)

So all of those publicly traded companies having a hard time finding employees? All they need to do is take some of that "record high" profit and, instead of giving it to stockholders, offer their applicants more -- an extra dollar, or two, or three, or whatever it takes -- onto their starting wage. Maybe the "dollar menu" becomes the "two dollar" menu. Pay those workers more and offer those workers better benefits and worker protections (or just let them unionize), and voila! We can get back to "Would you like fries with that? What size? Large or jumbo?"

To be clear, this isn't just about the currently unemployed. Increasingly, there are people who work for these companies that don't want these positions, either. Around the country, people are walking off the job to protest low wages and working conditions, and on their way out the door some are posting new signs. But instead of "help wanted" these signs basically read, "these jobs are not wanted."

To talk about this issue, "United Shades" traveled to South Carolina. Sen. Lindsey Graham's state is one of the poorest in the country, but it also has oceanfront properties, scenic views and historic mansions that are being gobbled up by the rich and the even richer. And all that property gobbling is happening in a state that puts more pressure on the poorest people who were already feeling the pressure.

Before the pandemic, economic advocacy group Prosperity Now estimated that 40% of Americans were a missed paycheck or unexpected bill away from being out on the streets. And now that we're in the pandemic, folks are missing all the paychecks. How do we call the US a civilized society when the people at the top of the economy are doing better and better, while the people at the bottom are doing worse? On top of that, we live in a culture that frames it as their fault, when all the evidence shows it's the system that's failing. And the people at the top could make it a wee bit better for the people at the bottom. All they would need to do is to do the same thing rich people from previous generations did: not be so historically greedy, and pay a fair share of their taxes.

In the episode, I took a Zoom class with Professor Richard Wolff, a Marxian economist who shared how the leaders of the country thought about wealth back in the day. "In both World Wars I and II, the United States' President and Congress passed what was called an excess profits tax. And here's what it said: If, during a war, when we're asking young men and women to risk their lives, their health, their bodies to fight for this country, it is unconscionable that others who are not risking make money off this war."

And then, like a good teacher (or even a good TV host) Professor Wolff tied history into the present moment. "Here we are in a war; it's not a war with a military adversary, it's a war with a disease. And by the way, it has already killed more people than some of the wars this country has been involved in. And we haven't done anything, we haven't even seen a proposal to say the people who made money during the pandemic, that money has to go to help the society."

Before you think I skewed the findings of this episode by talking to an admitted expert in Marxism, I also talked to Stephen Prince, an admitted wealthy person. How wealthy? He wouldn't tell me, but he did let it slip that he owns a plane. So, he's doing all right. Stephen is a part of a group called Patriotic Millionaires. They believe that rich people should pay a higher tax rate. And he doesn't just think that the higher tax rate should stop with rich people. He told me, "Ninety-one of the top 500 companies in America [in 2018] paid zero in income taxes. Zero. But that's not right. We can't rebuild the highway system. We can't house the homeless. We can't do those things if large corporations aren't paying any taxes." And the reason why those corporations are able to pay so little of an already low corporate tax rate (lowered to 21% under President Trump) is because of the loopholes.

Hearing about how all these super wealthy people are working so hard to keep so much really made me question the nature of American capitalism. Other countries have rich people, but they also have free healthcare and free or inexpensive higher education. They have a social safety net that keeps people from falling off the economic cliff. They have things like state-sponsored childcare and parental leave. And let me be clear, I'm not talking about the super wealthy people of one particular party. All the billionaires are complicit here, from the right-wing ones to the left-wing ones to the ones who get to host "Saturday Night Live" for no good reason.

One person who I talked to about this is Germaine Jenkins. Germaine runs Fresh Future Farm, a farm that is smack-dab in the middle of an economically struggling neighborhood. Germaine didn't start this farm to be rich. She started it to help people like her, people who don't have access to affordable and healthy food. And she really cares about her people. During the height of the pandemic when her customers weren't leaving their homes, Germaine and her crew would drop off care packages of not only food but toilet paper and PPE. And here's the key part: It was all free. She even helped with financial assistance. And again: It was free.

Germaine knew that people who were struggling before a pandemic would be struggling even more during one. Imagine if Amazon, Wal-Mart, Instacart, or any of the chain grocery stores had that approach. Imagine how much better the poorest people would be today if all those successful companies had said, "If you are struggling right now, we will give you what you need."

Throughout the episode, I asked people a question inspired by a social media post from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She makes the case that, by definition, you can't have billionaires without inequality. I was curious what Germaine thought about that idea. Germaine kept it simple.

"We should have a society where everybody who's born here can eat, live, be educated. So if one has to be lost in that mix, my vote is for taking care of the masses." I asked if she was worried about the billionaires in her ideal society. She replied, "They'll be all right."

I agree with Germaine

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© Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images Food is loaded as drivers in their vehicles wait in line on arrival at a "Let's Feed LA County" food distribution hosted by the Los Angeles Food Bank on December 4, 2020 in Hacienda Heights, California. - While coronavirus cases continue to surge nationwide and shutdowns return, the US economic recovery stalls with just 245,000 jobs in the final report of 2020 as the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent, according to Bureau of Labour Statistics. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

IOC  VP gets backlash saying Olympics are on, no matter virus

TOKYO (AP) — If John Coates was trying to stir controversy, he succeeded.

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An International Olympic Committee vice president, Coates was asked a few days ago by a Japanese reporter at an online news conference if the Tokyo Olympics would go ahead, even if a state of emergency were in force in Japan.

Coates replied: “Absolutely, yes.”

Coates said what the IOC and local organizers have been trying to persuade the Japanese public about for months: The postponed Olympics with 11,000 athletes from 200 nations and territories will open on July 23 and will be “safe and secure.”

But his defiant tone has stirred a backlash in Japan where 60-80% in polls say they do not want the Olympics to open in two months in the midst of a pandemic.

Just over 12,000 deaths in Japan — good by global standards, but poor in Asia — have been attributed to COVID-19. But Tokyo and Osaka and several other areas are under a state of emergency until May 31. And it's likely to be extended.

There is fear of new variants spreading with only a tiny percentage of Japanese vaccinated. Estimates range between 2% and 4%.

“Right now, more than 80% of the nation’s people want the Olympics postponed or canceled," Japanese billionaire businessman Masayoshi Son said over the weekend. He is the founder and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. He also owns the SoftBank Hawks baseball team.

“Who is forcing this to go ahead, and under what rights?” Son added.

Technically, the games belong to the International Olympic Committee and only it has the power to cancel. Of course, any move would have to be negotiated with Japanese organizers.

There is no suggestion this will happen.

Social media criticized Coates, and also went after IOC President Thomas Bach who has said repeatedly that everyone must “sacrifice” to pull off these Olympics, which have already banned fans from abroad. A decision on local fans attending — if any — will be made next month.

The IOC relies on selling television rights for 75% of its income, and Japan has officially spent $15.4 billion to prepare the games. Government audits suggest the figure is much higher. All but $6.7 billion is public money.

The Shukan Post magazine said in its latest issue that organizers have booked all the rooms during the Olympics in at least four of Tokyo's most expensive hotels. The magazine called the accommodations “fitting or royalty" for the IOC and others.

Tokyo organizing committee president Seiko Hashimoto said Friday the “Olympic family, IOC and international federations” would amount to 23,000 visitors.

The magazine said the IOC would pay up to $400 per night for rooms, with local organizers making up any difference.

Many of Japan's newspapers are among more than 60 local Olympic sponsors that have contributed more than $3 billion to local organizers. They have been restrained in their criticism, although one of them — the Hokkaido Shimbun — did call for unspecified action from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. Suga has said it's the IOC that must determine the fate of the Olympics.

“That inaction itself is forfeiting the responsibility over people's lives and health. Those in charge should take that to heart.”

The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun, which is not a sponsor, called for a cancellation in an editorial on Sunday.

“We are in no mood to celebrate an event filled with fear and anxiety," the newspaper said. "The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics should be canceled ... The government must make the decision to protect the lives and livelihood of the people.”

Organizers and the IOC say that the games will be safe because of extensive testing and building a bubble around the athletes. It says more than 80% of the residents in the Olympics Village, located on Tokyo Bay, will be vaccinated.

The comments of Atsuko Saitoh, who identifies herself as midwife and former university professor, are representative of the criticism on social media. She has run unsuccessfully for Japan's upper house and is running in the next lower house election.

“Bach and Coates do not value the lives of the athletes, others involved or the people of the host nation. It’s tantamount to predicting terrorism to say that the games will be held under an emergency, despite the overwhelming opposition in public opinion.”

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Stephen Wade And Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press

Bangladeshi journalist known for unearthing graft gets bail


DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A Bangladeshi journalist who is known for her strong reporting on official corruption was released from jail Sunday, hours after a court in the nation's capital awarded conditional bail amid protests at home and abroad calling for her release

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Rozina Islam, a senior reporter for the leading Prothom Alo newspaper, had been held in detention since her arrest Monday.

“I will most certainly continue working as a journalist,” Islam told a small crowd of supporters and journalists after leaving the jail outside Dhaka. Her family said she would go to a hospital for a health checkup.

Islam was arrested after she 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.

She faces charges of violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a possible death penalty. Media and human rights groups criticized the arrest and demanded her unconditional release.

Her lawyer, Ehsanul Haque Shomaji, said Islam had to surrender her passport before bail was granted.

Prosecution lawyer Abdullah Abu did not object to the bail request, and both sides told reporters that Magistrate Baki Billah mentioned in his order that mass media plays a supporting role in democracy.

Bangladesh's Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen on Thursday said he regretted the arrest and said Islam would receive fair justice.

Several of Islam's hard-hitting reports on corruption involving the Health Ministry and others have drawn attention to the millions of dollars spent on procuring health equipment to deal with the pandemic.

Her family said Islam was held for more than five hours on Monday in the room of a personal assistant of the secretary of the Health Ministry — a top bureaucrat. Her sister said Islam was physically and mentally harassed before she was handed over to police.

“Bangladesh authorities should produce evidence of wrongdoing or immediately release Rozina Islam and stop arresting journalists for doing their job, which is also to highlight governance flaws,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

“Instead of locking up critics, encouraging a free press should be central to the government’s strategy to strengthen health services in combatting the pandemic,” he said.

The New York-based rights watchdog 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

Thousands rally at ‘obscene’ motorcade for Jair Bolsonaro

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro 

THE GUARDIAN 23/5/2021

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has led a raucous column of motorcycle enthusiasts through the streets of Rio in an attempt to reenergise his flagging far-right movement as public anger grows over his handling of the country’s Covid outbreak.

Thousands of flag-waving Bolsonaristas gathered outside the Olympic Park in west Rio on Sunday morning for the two-wheeled show of support before roaring east towards the southern beach districts and city centre, with Bolsonaro near the front.

As defenders of the Brazilian president assembled under a white banner reading, “Legend, you are not alone!,” Bolsonaro’s detractors bashed pans and hurled profanities from their balconies in protest. Many dissenters denounced as “genocidal” his handling of a Covid epidemic that has killed nearly half a million Brazilians, nearly half of the total lost in Latin America and the Caribbean.

© Photograph: Andre Coelho/EPA President Bolsonaro (right) and his minister of infrastructure, Tarcisio Freitas, at the head of the motorcade on Sunday.

Supporters said they had come from across the country to endorse the 66-year-old leader.

“He represents freedom, order and progress and the end of corruption,” saod José Antônio do Nascimento, a 57-year-old who had travelled south from the city of Belo Horizonte and was wearing a white and read T-shirt that read: “We’re down with Bolsonaro”.

Nearby a group of leftwing and LGBT demonstrators had turned out to voice their disgust and show the Bolsonarian bikers their middle fingers.

© Provided by The Guardian Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro attend a rally in Rio as part of Sunday morning’s event. Photograph: António Lacerda/EPA

“I feel profound sorrow,” said Marcio Vellozo, a 48-year-old law graduate. “We’ve lost nearly 500,000 lives and people are hitting the streets to celebrate. What are they celebrating?”

The crowded motorcade – which Bolsonaro’s critics called an obscenity given Brazil’s relentless coronavirus emergency – looked like an attempt to wrest back the political initiative after a dismal few weeks for the rightwing populist. Bolsonaro’s political standing has taken a severe hit since his main rival, the former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, burst back on the political scene in March with the restoration of his political rights.

“His popularity ratings are in freefall,” said Thaís Oyama, the author of a book about Bolsonaro, who believed that the president’s response to coronavirus was largely to blame.

With a congressional Covid inquiry currently examining the Bolsonaro administration’s failure to control the epidemic or acquire sufficient vaccines, Oyama said that even Bolsonaro voters were now wondering whether their relatives would have survived had Bolsonaro responded differently.

She claimed that Sunday’s motorcycle rally was designed to project strength but actually betrayed “a certain despair” over his tumbling popularity and Lula’s reemergence.

Lula, a former union leader who has been the country’s main left-wing leader since the late 1980s, looks set to challenge Bolsonaro for the presidency in the 2022 election, with polls suggesting the leftist is in pole position.

Speaking to the Guardian last week, Lula claimed that Bolsonaro would eventually be held to account for his calamitous Covid response but recognised that his rival still had the support of a hardcore of “fanatics” representing between 15% and 20% of voters.

© Provided by The Guardian 

The motorcade at Copacabana beach in Rio on Sunday. Photograph: Lucas Landau/Reuters

“These people have always existed, in any society. You have such people in England. They exist in Germany, they exist in the US and they exist in Brazil too,” Lula said of those radicals. “What we need to ensure is that the majority has the right to govern this country.”

Bolsonaristas may be a minority but they are a noisy one. Thousands of right-wing and predominantly white and male bikers, some wearing Donald Trump face masks or waving the flags of Israel and Brazil, turned out for Sunday’s procession, revving their engines all the way to its conclusion at a second world war monument near downtown Rio.

It took more than nine minutes for the entire cavalcade to pass the Guardian’s position, where street hawkers sold Bolsonaro-themed paraphernalia including anti-Covid face masks stamped with Bolsonaro’s likeness and the words: “My president”.

Bolsonaro was not wearing one when he addressed the throng from the top of a sound truck and claimed he was on a God-given mission to save Brazil. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy but all of us have a mission here on Earth,” he told his acolytes. “It’s a heavy cross to bear but He helps us to do so, as do all of you”.

Brazil’s president, who has been internationally condemned for undermining Covid containment measures and calling the disease “a little flu”, said he regretted “every single death, of whatever cause”. “But we must be strong. We have got to face this challenge. We must live and we must survive.”

Shaking his fists at the Bolsonaro-supporting bikers nearby, Vellozo said: “Our president is a 100% denialist. Trump is now out of the picture and so he is seeking to become the global leader of denialism.

“I’m not surprised by the size of [the protest],” he added. “But as a Brazilian it disappoints me.”

WHITE RIGHT RIOT

Red Star Belgrade fans riot during Serbian title celebration

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Several people have been injured and more than 100 Red Star Belgrade fans were arrested after violent clashes during boisterous celebrations of the club’s Serbian national league soccer title.  

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The fans first set off fireworks from the bridges and banks of the Sava River in downtown Belgrade on Saturday evening and then went on a rampage through a Belgrade district where several popular restaurants are located.

Customers ran in panic or locked themselves inside the restaurants as fans demolished chairs and tables, broke windows and clashed with restaurant security guards who the Red Star fans claimed are supporters of the rival Partizan Belgrade club.

Serbia’s Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin told the national RTS television station that about 130 mostly Red Star fans were arrested and that several people were injured during the riots.

“This will no longer be tolerated,” Vulin said. “This scum that shamed our city, Red Star and its celebration deserves to be sharply punished.”

The celebration by thousands of Red Star fans was announced in advance and was tolerated by authorities despite a ban on large gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Serbia has a history of tolerating hooliganism that often resulted in violence and outbursts of nationalism.

With the return of nationalists to power in Serbia nine years ago, far-right soccer supporters were often seen at pro-government rallies, acting as security while promoting a nationalist political agenda. In exchange, analysts say, the hooligans have been allowed to pursue their illegal business activities.

Several members of a radical Partizan fan group have been arrested since February and accused of murder, kidnapping and drug trafficking in what officials say is a major crackdown against crime.

The Associated Press

Leftist Castillo builds lead over Fujimori ahead of Peru presidential vote -poll

LIMA (Reuters) - Socialist candidate Pedro Castillo continued to regain ground among voters, a poll showed on Sunday, boosting his lead over conservative contender Keiko Fujimori two weeks ahead of Peru's presidential election.

© Reuters/SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA FILE PHOTO: Peruvian presidential candidates Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori, who will face each other in a run-off vote on June 6, gesture, in Lima

Castillo, an elementary school teacher seeking to implement new taxes and royalties on the mining sector, obtained 44.8% support in the survey of the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP), while Fujimori, a business-friendly conservative, netted 34.4%.

The poll of 1,208 people was conducted for Peru's La Republica newspaper on May 20-21 and had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

Castillo, who had begun to flounder in polls earlier in May, has gained significant ground since the same IEP survey in mid-May, in which he obtained 36.5% among intended voters and Fujimori 29.6%.

On Saturday, protesters marched in Lima and other major Peruvian cities toting banners and shouting the slogan "Fujimori never again." Fujimori's father, the former president Alberto Fujimori, is in prison over corruption charges.

Castillo, who stormed into the run-off with Fujimori following a win in a shock first-round election, has strong support among Peru´s largely poor, interior rural communities. Marketwatchers, however, view his candidacy as a potential threat to industry in the world´s No.2 copper producer.

© Reuters/SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA FILE PHOTO: Protest against Peru's right-wing presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori in Lima

The Sunday poll also indicated that 13% intend to vote blank or annul their vote in the June 6 ballot, while 5.1% were still undecided.

(Reporting by Marion Giraldo, Writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Renault-Nissan fights court battle with Indian workers on operations during COVID-19 surge

By Sudarshan Varadhan and Aditi Shah 

© Reuters/Christian Hartmann The logos of car manufacturers Renault and Nissan are seen in front of dealerships of the companies in Reims

CHENNAI (Reuters) - Renault-Nissan has told an Indian court it needs to continue production at its car plant to meet orders, rejecting claims from an employee union that COVID-19 safety protocols were being ignored at the factory, legal filings show.

Renault-Nissan India and workers at its plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu have been locked in a legal tussle after workers petitioned a court to halt operations because social distancing norms were being flouted and company-provided health benefits were outweighed by the risk to their lives.

In response, Renault-Nissan has argued in a court filing - which is not public - that there was a "compelling need" to continue operations to fulfil domestic and export orders. It said all COVID-19 norms were being followed.




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The case will next be heard on Monday at the Madras High Court when the state government, which is also party to the case, is expected to file its response.

A top Tamil Nadu state official told Reuters on Sunday automobile companies will be allowed to continue operations, but action will be taken against violations of social distancing protocols by any company.

The legal battle highlights the challenges big companies are facing to keep operating in India amid heightened worries from employees who fear for their health and safety.

"It is a question of life versus livelihood," M Moorthy, general secretary of Renault Nissan India workers union which represents all 3,500 permanent factory workers, told Reuters. "We just want social distancing protocols to be followed and the management to be responsible for any risks to the workers or their family members."

The factory, which produces Nissan, Renault and Datsun cars, also employees 3,000 contract workers, 2,500 staff members and 700 apprentices.

Nissan, which has a majority stake in the Renault-Nissan India plant, declined to comment for this article.

India is currently facing its second wave of coronavirus infections. Tamil Nadu is one of the worst hit states recording more than 30,000 cases each day.

The state, an auto hub dubbed as India's "Detroit", has imposed a full lockdown until May 31 but has allowed some factories, including automobiles, to continue operating.

Renault-Nissan's May 16 court filing shows it has pending export orders of about 35,000 vehicles for the May-October period, which if not fulfilled could lead to penalties and loss of business. It also has 45,000 pending domestic bookings for the recently launched Nissan Magnite and Renault Kiger cars.

The company's petition says it has always prioritised employee safety and "has left no stone unturned" to ensure the infection does not spread.

"The travelling public consider private vehicles as a safe mode of travel ... there is a compelling need for the state to ensure the continued operations of the automobile manufacturers," the petition said.

(Reporting by Aditi Shah and Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Lincoln Feast.)

REST IN POWER SISTER
'Head lesbian,' singer and feminist, Alix Dobkin, dies at 80

© Provided by The Canadian Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The lesbian singer and feminist activist who appeared in an iconic and recently resurgent 1975 photo wearing a t-shirt that read “The Future is Female,” has died. Alix Dobkin of Woodstock, New York, was 80.

An early leader in the music scene for lesbians and women, she passed away at her home from a brain aneurysm and stroke, according to Liza Cowan, her friend and former partner.

“Everything that she did was about being a public lesbian in the world,” said Cowan, who also took the striking photo.

In 1973, Dobkin formed the group Lavender Jane with musician Kay Gardner. With an all-women team of musicians, engineers and even vinyl pressers, they recorded the album “Lavender Jane Loves Women” — the first ever to be entirely produced by women, Cowan said.

Dobkin had been performing in the folk music scene in Philadelphia and New York in the 1960s, where she mingled with future superstars like Bob Dylan, according to her 2009 memoir “My Red Blood.” The title references her parents' and her own membership in the Communist party.

When she came out as a lesbian, she forged ahead musically as an early leader and then mainstay of Women's Music, a genre made by, for and about women. The genre fostered a whole network of publications, recording labels, venues and festivals starting in the 1970s.

“She became an iconic, kind of bigger-than-life figure for women who identified as lesbians,” said Eileen M. Hayes, author of the book "Songs in Black and Lavender," a history of Black women’s involvement in the movement.

Dobkin sang songs like “Lesbian Code,” that playfully lists the many ways women interested in women identify each other. She also had a version of the alphabet song that begins, “A, you’re an Amazon.” Dobkin, who was Jewish, often played Yiddish songs during her performances and told stories she had heard growing up in Philadelphia.

She often performed for all-women audiences. An undated flyer advertising one of Dobkin’s shows explained all-women concerts offered women the opportunity “to come together to develop our culture as part of the process of taking control of our lives.” It asked men who supported the struggle against sexism not to attend.

A friend and collaborator, Kathy Munzer, produced shows for lesbians in Chicago for more than 30 years and called Dobkin “The Head Lesbian,” saying in a Facebook post that she inspired others to take pride in who they were.

Before the AIDS epidemic, lesbian and gay organizations operated separately, Hayes said. A prominent women's festival where Dobkin played for years, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, excluded transwomen from attending. In 2000, Dobkin wrote in defense of cis-women-only spaces while also seeking out conversations with transwomen and defending the right of everyone to love and be themselves.

“I especially worry about the narrowing of women’s identity and the erasure of women’s history. For voicing these considerations we have been attacked as ‘bigoted,’ ‘transphobic’ and worse, but are these not credible concerns?” she wrote in a column in the Windy City Times.

Reflecting on the fight about cis-women-only spaces, Hayes said at the beginning of the women's movement, “it was a statement about, who is this movement supposed to benefit the most?”

The choice to create a parallel media ecosystem also reflected how difficult it was for women to break into the mainstream music industry, Hayes said.

“It didn’t support women as performers, and singers, and engineers and advertising people," Hayes said. "It’s still very hard for women to break into the industry.”

Hayes called the newfound fame of the slogan “The Future is Female” and the reemergence of the photo of Dobkin “fabulous.”

The slogan originated from a woman’s bookstore in New York, Labyris Books, that had screenprinted a small run of the shirts, Cowan said. She photographed Dobkin wearing one for an article she was writing about lesbian fashion. An Instagram post in 2015 by @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y, an account that chronicles lesbian history, featured the image. That inspired an unaffiliated company to print the T-shirts again and eventually introduced the slogan to a new generation, according to the New York Times.

“What we’ve learned through the women’s movement is that, yeah, the future is female, but it’s not a uni-dimensional female," Hayes said. “It’s a female identity that is constructed with various threads, various backgrounds, and that is the corrective our new generation makes to the failings of earlier generations.”

In the weeks before her death, Dobkin's family kept a public diary about her health that drew thousands of comments from friends and fans. They wrote of how Dobkin's music provided them comfort, guidance and community.

“And still you bring us together again, wonderous woman you are!!!” read one comment.

Before coming out as a lesbian, Dobkin married Sam Hood, whose father owned a folk music venue in New York where she had played. Dobkin is survived by him, their daughter, Adrian, and three grandchildren, among other family members, former partners and fans.

As a historian and witness to the women's movement, Hayes said she was grateful to have had Dobkin's musical and political leadership.

“I think that the death of Alix Dobkin just reminds us of how far we’ve come in terms of LGBTQ right to life," she said. "And right to life as in the right to be.”

___

The spelling of Liza Cowan's last name has been corrected.

Thalia Beaty, The Associated Press