‘This is the end of Hong Kong’: Reactions pour in as Beijing proposes security law

by RACHEL WONG 22ND MAY 2020 HKFP

Beijing is to discuss introducing national security legislation in Hong Kong following almost 12 months of protest and unrest. The move comes 17 years after such plans were scrapped following city-wide demonstrations. HKFP rounds up reactions…

Photo: May James/HKFP

Activist Joshua Wong

I know everyone is panicking and worrying. I also wonder what will become of Hong Kong after the National Security Law has passed. How many will be prosecuted? How many [political] groups will be replaced? To what extend will the oppression be? Will we be transferred to China? Arrest or imprisonment?…

The calm before the storm is often depressing and overwhelming. The Chinese Communist Party is definitely trying to wipe out Hong Kong’s connection with the international community with a catch-all tactic. But no matter what, I think I have the duty to stand firm with my position. There is no reason to give up on fostering possibilities for gaining international support. I never regret pushing the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act forward. Even though this could someday incriminate us and be the excuse to wipe us out, Demosisto takes pride in our devotion to connect Hong Kong and the world.

It’s normal to be frustrated. I am still fathoming, but I wish to continue standing in solidarity with everyone and fight this battle towards the end. It’s not even a year yet and surrender is never an option for Demosisto and I. The democracy movement is at a juncture to test our determination.

US senator Marco Rubio

By proposing national security laws for Hong Kong, the Chinese government and Communist Party will push Hong Kong’s autonomy to the breaking point… Congress provided the U.S. government with powerful tools when it passed my bipartisan Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and the administration should use this law to hold Beijing accountable for its interference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs and violations of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. It is in the interest of the United States to respond swiftly to Beijing’s repeated attacks on Hong Kongers, their autonomy, and their basic rights.
Pro-democracy lawmaker Tanya Chan of the Civic Party

Today I think is the saddest day in Hong Kong history. It confirms “One Country, One System.” It’s so clear that it’s a huge setback. In 2020, we can see that the Chinese government intervenes in Hong Kong matters in all aspects…the Chinese government can’t wait and they can’t really stand the freedom and rights that we have in Hong Kong. So they try to take [them] away as quickly as possible…

Patrick Poon, human rights researcher

It’s the most alarming development I have seen in the past 20 years. It’s yet another sign further declaring the death of ‘One Country, Two Systems’. It actually means Beijing no longer cares about the system. Where is the notion of ‘Two Systems’ here? It’s particularly appalling to see this when we have experienced jaw-dropping incidents threatening freedom of speech and the rule of law in Hong Kong
Alliance Canada Hong Kong

Beijing’s complete disregard for the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a binding international agreement, is reflective of their agenda. The Chinese State has demonstrated that they have no interest in adhering to international norms, but plans to rewrite the rules and reshuffle the international order in their favour. Hong Kong is no longer an autonomous region, and therefore must be treated as such. We demand the Canadian government and the international community to immediately revoke Hong Kong’s special administrative status. We must consider Hong Kong’s democratic future outside of the confines of the One-China fantasy.

Activist Nathan Law

It is a battle we must fight – Article 23 legislation is not a matter of “yes or no,” but “how and when.” We are blessed with an ideal battlefield nonetheless…

One of the major reasons the Chinese Communist Party has opted for doing it now is to restrain the international community from standing with Hong Kong, but we must strive for the world’s support. Using Twitter, Facebook, sharing news, personal commentary, signing petitions, raising concerns are basic freedoms on the Internet. If the autocracy unreasonably stifles Hongkongers’ mildest acts, it will definitely fuel resistance…

We need the strongest determination to confront the most evil era in history.

EU security spokesperson Virginie Battu-Henriksson

[The] EU is following very closely developments related to #HongKong. We attach great importance to ‘One Country Two Systems’ principle. Democratic debate in Hong Kong and respect for rights & freedoms are the best way to preserve it in [the] context of poss. national security legislation.
European Union

The EU considers that democratic debate, consultation of key stakeholders, and respect for protected rights and freedoms in Hong Kong would represent the best way of proceeding with the adoption of national security legislation, as foreseen in Article 23 of the Basic Law, while also upholding Hong Kong’s autonomy and the ‘One Country Two Systems’ principle.
US State Dept. spokesperson

Any effort to impose national security legislation that does not reflect the will of the people of Hong Kong would be highly destabilizing, and would be met with strong condemnation from the United States and the international community.

Consulate General of Japan in Hong Kong

There is a close economic relationship and human exchange between Japan and Hong Kong and Hong Kong is an extremely important partner for us. We would like to reiterate the importance of a free and open Hong Kong to continue to thrive stably under the principle of “One Country, Two Systems”.


Pro-Beijing New People’s Party

As a matter of fact, Hong Kong has been returned to the motherland for 23 years. As a Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong has the constitutional duty to defend national security, ensure territorial integrity and protect interests with regards to the country’s long-term development.

Over the past year, there has been all kinds of violence, terrorism and separatism with a hint of subverting the country and the SAR government, but Hong Kong lacks the legislation to tackle it… Therefore, the New People’s Party supports the country to take the initiative to enhance national security and perfect “One Country, Two Systems.”

Legal expert Johannes Chan, speaking to Citizen News

If Article 23 can be legislated in such a way, can we possibly avoid other laws? It means that all laws in China can be applicable in Hong Kong. They [the NPCSC] made it explicit that it is a law imposed by them. There is no “One Country, Two Systems” in it…

If we accept everything Beijing mandates, the judiciary can barely play its role. If the court insists on ruling under common law jurisdiction, will the NPCSC interpret the law? If the case involves national security, should we allow the People’s Liberation Army military court to handle it inside the high-speed railway station?

Maya Wang, Human Rights Watch

The end of #HongKong is alarming not only for its people but also for the world. Today’s Hong Kong, tomorrow’s the world: #HongKong has been the safe habor [sic] for dissent; it’s the light, the conscience, the voice that speaks truth to an increasingly powerful China.
Joshua Rosenzweig, Amnesty International

China routinely abuses its own national security framework as a pretext to target human rights activists and stamp out all forms of dissent. This dangerous proposed law sends the clearest message yet that it is eager to do the same in Hong Kong, and as soon as possible.

The Hong Kong government has progressively embraced the mainland’s vague and all-encompassing definition of ‘national security’ to restrict freedom of association, expression and the right to peaceful assembly. This attempt to bulldoze through repressive security regulations poses a quasi-existential threat to the rule of law in Hong Kong and is an ominous moment for human rights in the city.

Hu Xijin, state-run Global Times

Hong Kong surely needs a national security law, which is the cornerstone of “one country, two systems.” The entire society of Chinese mainland is willing to see HK maintains a capitalist system and unique social customs based on it. We don’t want the mainlandization of HK.

China expert Bill Bishop
This move affirms that Hong Kong as we knew it is gone and rule of law is now rule by law, with the CCP determining what the laws are and how they will be enforced. The legal complexities of how they justify imposing this law from Beijing will not get in the way of the brutal political reality. The reaction in Hong Kong could be intense, and violent.
Simon Cheng, activist in exile

My fear of being kidnapped from Hong Kong to China becomes an undeniable reality. After Beijing promulgates the National Security Law in Hong Kong, my enforced confession tape on “treason” would be the “evidence”, and our pro-democracy activists could be also in danger. I hereby urge the UK Government and international societies to reckon the death of “One Country Two Systems”, the CPC essence of totalitarianism and expansionism, to accept and grant asylums to Hong Kongers in exiles, and to protect our lives and rights of Hong Kong citizens. We will continue to work on the international front by grouping Hongkongers overseas, engaging in community service and charities globally, and setting up Shadow Parliament of Hong Kong, until the end.

Eric Cheung, law scholar

The Central Government is enacting a tailor-made law designed for the situation in Hong Kong under the guise of enforcing a nationwide law through the use of Appendix III of the Basic Law, which indicates that the Central Government is legislating laws on Hong Kong’s behalf. This act would utterly violate the Basic Law, and annul the One Country Two Systems model.

Activist Ventus Lau

It may be better to implement the National Security Law now than in the future. At least Hongkongers at this stage are not yet completely replaced by new immigrants. At least we have trained ourselves with the determination to resist. At least the world still has its attention on Hong Kong. At least Hong Kong still has its value to the Chinese Communist Party. If we slowly wait until the future, Hongkongers may even lose the edge to threaten “burning with China.”

We have waited long enough for the moment of an endgame. We are not doing a bad job if our opponents have to use their ace card. Hongkongers shouldn’t be overwhelmed by fear.
US President Donald Trump

I don’t know what it is, because nobody knows yet. If it happens, we’ll address that issue very strongly.

Pro-democracy lawmaker Dennis Kwok
When the world is not watching they are killing Hong Kong, killing one country, two systems, and using social distancing rules to keep people from coming out to protest… This is the most devastating thing to happen to Hong Kong since the Handover.

State-run China Daily editorial
The overreaction of those rioters and their foreign backers, who see such legislation as a thorn in their side, only testifies to the pertinence of the decision and the urgent need for such legislation, which will accelerate the construction and improvement of China’s legal system regarding national security, and enhance the efficiency of the country’s response to national security concerns. Thus it is an integral component of the country’s overall efforts to modernize its governing capacity and system.

When rolled out, those who challenge national security will necessarily be held accountable for their behavior, and with the backing of the State, the SAR will have sufficient means to make each word of the legislation count

RACHEL WONG
Rachel Wong previously worked as a documentary producer and academic researcher. She has a BA in Comparative Literature and European Studies from the University of Hong Kong. She has contributed to A City Made by People and The Funambulist, and has an interest in cultural journalism and gender issues. More by Rachel Wong

Beijing reveals its Orwellian plan to shackle Hong Kong, but can they kill an idea?

by STEPHEN VINES 22ND MAY 2020 HKFP

Beijing did not send in the tanks to crush Hong Kong’s protests. Instead, it mobilised its grey men (and a few women) in the capital to put down the revolt excruciating-step-by-excruciating-step. All with a weaponised law that threatens to make protest illegal and will bring the Orwellian prospect of thought crimes to the SAR.

The names of the Hong Kong Quislings who gathered in the capital to cheer on the death of One Country Two Systems will live in infamy. When Hong Kong is freed from the shackles, as it will be, they will go down in history as the Wang Jingweis of the second decade of the 21st century. Like Wang, who headed the Japanese puppet government of occupied China, they will be reviled for their betrayal.

Police surrounded student protests at the Civic Square on September 27, 2014. File Photo: Occupy Central with Love and Peace.

The hard, unflinching face of the Chinese Communist Party has now been revealed without the smallest attempt at disguise. The idea of Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong has been swept away while Chief Quisling Carrie Lam stood there blinking and applauding.

The high degree of autonomy that was consistently promised has also been flicked aside as so much dust lingering on the sleeves of the Beijing Mandarins.

The Party knows that this move to crush Hong Kong will not come without cost but, as ever, it believes that no price is too high to pay for exerting control and exacting obedience.

Before the Quislings even get to “vote” on the new national security law at the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress, the usual suspects have been lining up to airily proclaim that although there will inevitably be protests and widespread international condemnation, it is far better to bring matters to a head, suffer some short term pain before clamping down and extinguishing the flame of liberty.

File photo: Lukas Messmer/HKFP.

Look what happened after the Tiananmen Square massacre, they say. Sure, China went into diplomatic deep freeze, the economy took a bashing and yes, there was blood but, they add, we bounced back.

The memory of foreigners is short, the blood can be washed away and the mighty engine which fires the economy was fired up to produce even more spectacular results.

However the world has changed since 1989. China has propelled itself far higher up the international agenda, attracting fear and admiration in unequal ways. Fear has now triumphed over admiration as nations throughout the world reassess their relationship with the PRC and start seeing it as more of an enemy than a friend.

The implications for this are not merely political, it will also impact an economy highly dependent on exports

.

File Photo: May James/HKFP.

It is fair to say that even China’s most implacable opponents would not, in the last analysis, risk their own interests for those of the people of Hong Kong. But they are more than prepared to add this latest attack on liberty to the list of reasons why they need to stand up to Beijing.

Meanwhile, three decades on from the Tiananmen massacre, much has changed in Hong Kong itself. Indeed it can be argued that Hongkongers’ response to this event gave birth to the mass protest movement that, despite enormous setbacks, has stubbornly refused to go away. On the contrary, it has grown bigger and stronger.

Popular support for the democracy movement is at an all-time high. That support is even more tenacious among the younger generation, proudly identifying as Hongkongers and not even slightly convinced by the barrage of propaganda telling them that the best way to survive is to shut up and accept their fate.

Armed with fearsome powers under the new national security legislation, the state will not hesitate to mount a crackdown on dissent. It will be brutal and could well cow the people to an extent that they dare not venture out to defy the government.Tiananmen Massacre Vigil, Victoria Park 2019. Photo: Dan Garrett.

But, is this it? Is this the end?

Channelling the great American civil rights leader Medgar Evers, the slain Pakistani President, Benazir Bhutto said, ‘you can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.’

Who seriously believes that the idea of liberty can be extinguished in Hong Kong? The answer is only those who despise this place and its people.

The defenders of autocracy really believe that dictatorships are impregnable and will live forever. History tells another story which is that they are brittle and have a relatively short shelf life.

The Chinese dictatorship has lasted longer than most, even exceeding the life of its mentor, the Soviet Union.

In tiny Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party had a unique opportunity to show the world that it is big and strong enough to accommodate an island of freedom within its sovereign borders. But it was scared by this challenge and ended up revealing its weakness by reverting to the only means of control it knows and really trusts.

STEPHEN VINES
Stephen Vines is a Hong Kong-based journalist, writer and broadcaster and runs companies in the food sector. He was the founding editor of 'Eastern Express' and founding publisher of 'Spike'. In London he was an editor at The Observer and in Asia has worked for international publications including, the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, BBC, Asia Times and The Independent. Vines is the author of several books, including: Hong Kong: China’s New Colony, The Years of Living Dangerously - Asia from Crisis to the New Millennium and Market Panic and most recently, Food Gurus. He hosts a weekly television current affairs programme: The Pulse. More by Stephen Vines

Asians in the US least likely to get coronavirus infection despite racist assumptions of many, data suggests

Data on Covid-19 infections and mortality in New York City broken down by ethnicity suggests Asians have the lowest infection and mortality rates of any group

Similar figures from Los Angeles found Asians had the lowest infection rate among all groups


Mark Magnier in United States 18 May, 2020 SCMP

A woman walks by closed shops in Brooklyn, New York City on May 5. Photo: AFP

Cindy Song, a retired government employee living in Washington, saw the Covid-19 storm coming and hunkered down.

Alerted by Chinese friends on social media about the danger, by early March she had cancelled all travel plans and doctor’s appointments, was avoiding restaurants, acquaintances or supermarkets and wore masks and kept her distance on the rare times she ventured out.

“We already knew the disease, the virus, was really lethal, really bad stuff,” said Song, a native of Jiangsu province. “But whenever we got out and saw other people, and people we knew, they would give us this feeling that we were just overreacting.”

In one of many ironies involving the coronavirus, data suggests that Asian-Americans – who have weathered bigotry and attacks as suspected disease carriers – are the least likely to be infected or die from the scourge out of all ethnic groups in the US.

Cindy Song had cancelled all travel plans and doctor’s appointments by early March after being warned by Chinese friends on social media about the coronavirus. Photo: Willam Zarit

“This kind of xenophobia is never a rational thing, it’s based on stereotypes,” said Merlin Chowkwanyun, a sociomedical professor at Columbia University. “So it’s often not surprising to see that a place that you thought of for a long time to be this kind of cauldron of disease is actually not.”

Available data on Covid-19 infections and mortality in New York City broken down by ethnicity suggests that Asians have the lowest infection and mortality rates of any group, including Caucasians, and often by a significant margin.

Asian deaths in America’s most populous and hardest-hit city as of May 14, according to the most recent data available, were 122 per 100,000 people compared with 265 for African-Americans, 259 for Hispanics and 130 for whites. Similar figures from Los Angeles found Asians had the lowest infection rate among all groups and a slightly higher death toll than whites.

A Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation study drawing on nationwide data found that minorities were hit disproportionately hard by the disease linked to lower incomes, greater job exposure and more pre-existing conditions. But people of Asian ethnicity had the lowest risk of serious illness of any ethnic group including the white majority.

Several factors may help explain this, say experts, even as they emphasise that the data is preliminary, and there is still a great deal that is unknown about the virus.

Covid-19 rate in Canada’s most Chinese city isn’t what racists might expect
30 Apr 2020


One factor seems to be the “WeChat factor”, a reference to the omnipresent Chinese social media platform.

According to social scientists, knowing someone who contracted the disease is often a prerequisite for changing your behaviour, and Chinatown residents heeded warnings early contained in personal messages racing across the Pacific, in some cases even before Beijing tipped its hand.

Image: New York City government

“As early as January, before even the restaurants were dealing with low customer visits in New York City, many families and friends had already warned us about the tremendous need,” said Van Tran, an urban sociologist at the City University of New York. “This was not completely and honestly communicated by the Chinese government to the world.”

Reinforced by memories of the 2002-03 severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak, Asians stockpiled food early and many Asian groceries and other businesses started social distancing well before it was mandated by local authorities.

How British Columbia is beating the virus: luck and a shrewd Chinese community?
8 Apr 2020

Asians also tended to cover up early, despite “maskaphobia” among the general population.

“Mask wearing was something done by Asians well before the beginning of this pandemic,” said Scott Frank, a public health expert at Case Western Reserve University’s medical school.

“There’s recognition that individual concerns should be subsumed for the good of the whole, rather than the more individualistic ethic that is oriented towards freedom and choice that is part of the white American privilege mentality.”

As discrimination, verbal and physical attacks mounted, many Asian-Americans avoided crowds out of fear of being singled out, also minimising infection.
Song said in recent weeks she had a Caucasian man spit in her direction and a grocery clerk tried to prevent her from touching vegetables. “I was afraid people would target me,” she said.

Asian women have been attacked in North America over the past two weeks for wearing face masks.


But the early shunning of Chinatowns that saw business devastated – despite high-profile campaigns by mayors to bring customers back – also meant that people-to-people contact in the ethnic enclaves was greatly reduced.


“You could say that it was a silver lining,” said Tran. “In the end, it truly saved not just the workers in the community, but also the businesses, and everyone else.”

A high percentage of Chinese living in New York City are recent immigrants, a group that tends to be more fit than Americans on average as their diet generally includes less fried food, red meat and sugar, epidemiologists say.

Chinatowns become ghost towns as Covid-19 fight shuts down US

Their children tend to acclimate, however. “It’s called second-generation decline,” said Chowkwanyun.

By the third generation, often their high-blood pressure, obesity and diet are all but indistinguishable from the American majority, health experts say.

Socio-economic factors also helped Asians, experts said. While Asian-Americans in New York and nationally include many blue collar workers, on balance the community is better off economically and more educated than other ethnic groups.

That translates generally into more medical insurance, more savings to weather stay-at-home restrictions and larger living spaces to accommodate social distancing.

At the lower end of the ladder, Chinese, Hispanics and African-Americans tend to have poorly paid service jobs. But Chinese are more heavily concentrated in restaurants, which shut down early, while Hispanics and blacks more commonly work as drivers, government employees and supermarket employees on the front lines, Tran said.

And while those in the lower socioeconomic tier in all three groups tend to live in close quarters with several people, Chinese are more often in several-generation households, relative to Hispanics who are more likely to live with unrelated roommates coming and going for work, Tran said.

Asians on the whole also tend to more often be in the US legally, relative to the Hispanic community that is more likely to avoid hospitals to avoid detection. According to data from the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, some 90 per cent of unauthorised immigrants in US counties with the highest concentration of migrants were from Mexico and Central America.

Some things worked against the Asian community, however. Many older first-generation Chinese who do not speak English avoided hospitals, given a cultural desire to die with family rather than alone and difficulties getting translation help in the overwhelmed medical system.

Raw data from Wisconsin, another jurisdiction to break out its statistics by ethnicity, shows that Asians suffered lower levels of infection and mortality than other ethnic groups except native Americans.

One possible explanation for Asians having a higher death toll than whites in Los Angeles may be that they tend to be second-, third- or fourth-generation Americans living in well-integrated suburban communities rather than ethnic enclaves, experts say. That often means they have fewer social media ties to China and less communal pressure to change their behaviour early on.

Public health experts emphasise that these are all early results with a better picture emerging in coming months.

“Put in a billion caveats,” said Chowkwanyun, including that “Asian” often covers very diverse communities, from Chinese and Koreans to Afghans and Pacific Islanders.

As Song remains at home under Washington’s social distancing guidelines, she reflects on the disquiet she has sometimes felt being Asian in the US during the pandemic. “I’m thinking of dyeing my hair blond, wearing big sunglasses and covering my face,” she joked. “It’s time for a change.”

China’s LGBT activists step up push for gay marriage after official rejects change

Legislative Affairs Commission official dismissed public comments on legalising same-sex unions as ‘copied and pasted’

Campaigner calls her remarks ‘an excuse’ and says more messages will be sent as lawmakers review draft civil code

Phoebe Zhang in Shenzhen
Published 22 May, 2020

A parliamentary official this week said the country “insisted on heterosexual marriage” only. Photo: AFP

China’s LGBT activists have stepped up their campaign to have same-sex unions legalised after a parliamentary official said the country “insisted on heterosexual marriage” only and dismissed public comments on the issue.
The legislature began its annual meeting in Beijing on Friday and is
expected to enact the country’s first civil code. It had sought public opinions on the marriage and family section of the code in November, receiving more than 200,000 suggestions.

But on Monday, Huang Wei, an official with the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, said comments about legalising same-sex marriage had been sent in “an organised act”.


“The letters sent to us came in the same envelope, with the same content, and the online messages were the same – it’s all been copied and pasted,” she told news website Thepaper.cn.


Huang added that there would no change to the existing marriage law, “between a man and a woman”.


LGBT activist Sun Wenlin said he was not satisfied with the parliamentary official’s justification for rejecting gay marriage.

“I think Huang was just using this as an excuse – ‘copied and pasted’ or ‘organised acts’ – these are not reasons to reject same-sex marriage,” Sun said. “She should’ve talked about what research they did, what discussions and analysis there had been, and what kind of debates remained

He added that many people in the LGBT community were disappointed with her “discriminatory and oppressive” remarks.

Why are so few LGBT Chinese couples taking advantage of laws that could protect their rights?
13 Sep 2019


Sun said he and other activists were increasing their efforts to push for change. They launched a programme on messaging app WeChat on Wednesday that allows people to hold a “virtual wedding” – generating invitations and photos, with a section for people to leave their blessings and comments.

“We’ll also be sending more messages via the Communist Youth League, through channels that may reach the prime minister, and through [the official] Xinhua News Agency [comment sections and social media],” Sun said.

The draft civil code provisions will go through a final review by NPC deputies during
this year’s meeting. The civil code was announced in 2014 and has been through five rounds of review, with more than 1 million suggestions received from the public. Its provisions are wide-ranging, covering areas including protection of personal information, sexual harassment, divorce and property rights.

Sun has had a personal battle to bring about change. After he was unable to legally marry his partner, Hu Mingliang, in 2015, he took the matter to a court in Changsha, Hunan province. He lost the case – the country’s first on gay marriage – but has since devoted himself to activism.

During the review period for the marriage and family section of the civil code, Sun and other activists rallied people to write letters and send messages to the lawmakers. Those messages included their personal stories, parents writing about accepting their gay children, and many referred to the legal stance on gay marriage taken by other countries.

Sun said the campaign for China to embrace same-sex marriage had been going for years, and they had lobbied legal experts and lawmakers in the past. They would continue their efforts during the legislative meeting, he said.

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Taiwan holds Asia’s first legal gay weddings, in a boost for LGBT communities




Phoebe Zhang
is a society reporter with the Post. She has a master's degree in journalism.

How coronavirus is changing access to abortion
AROUND THE WORLD
Health care practitioners are struggling to maintain access to contraception and abortions during the pandemic.

Women, wearing masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus, protest against a draft law tightening Poland's strict anti-abortion law in April. | Czarek Sokolowski/AP


By MIRIAM WEBBER
POLITICO
05/21/2020

As the coronavirus steamrolls the global order, reproductive health care practitioners and advocates are struggling to maintain access to contraception and abortions.

Lockdowns and disrupted supply chains have prompted a flurry of action in the sector as governments, practitioners and advocates react to a crisis that has highlighted the often tenuous access to sexual health care products and services.

A recent joint report based on two separate surveys carried out by the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual & Reproductive Rights and the International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network warns that the pandemic "is endangering the sexual and reproductive health and safety of women and girls and vulnerable people across Europe."

Since the outbreak, 94 percent of IPPF EN members responding to the survey "reported a decrease in the number and frequency of services and outreach activities," according to the report.

It also takes to task governments, such as those in Poland and Romania, that have used the outbreak "to undermine women’s health and safety just when this most needs to be protected."

The EPF and IPPF EN are among the many groups calling on governments to recognize sexual and reproductive health care services as "essential, life-saving and often time-sensitive services."

Advocates and practitioners stress the time-sensitive nature of abortion, whereby barriers can increase health risks either by necessitating surgical procedures or barring access altogether.

One key factor is that supply chain delays have affected operations, according to Chris Purdy, CEO of DKT International, a non-profit that operates in 60 countries outside Europe and distributes contraception and abortion services and technology.

“Pretty much every single link of the supply chain is being affected by the strain connected to coronavirus," he said.

Delays can start with manufacturers, who depend on raw material suppliers, as they experience “slow-downs, shut-downs [and] closures of their factories” due to the virus, he said. These suppliers would ordinarily be the providers of everything from active pharmaceutical ingredients to packaging, he added.

These delays continue as export opportunities shrink; quarantines of products on arrival lengthen; and internal supply chains are disrupted.

UNFPA Supplies reported at the end of March that European "suppliers are manufacturing at full capacity at this time, although they expect increased prices and challenges sourcing packaging and APIs [active pharmaceutical ingredients] if the crisis persists."

That report, which is the most recent accounting, also includes a projection for coming months.

"Mindful of anticipated challenges, suppliers are seeking 'free carrier' contract arrangements under which UNFPA would arrange transportation for deliveries in the third and fourth quarters of 2020," the report said.

While supply issues in Europe don't look too dire for now, “there will be a greater demand for women who are interested in limiting, or controlling or terminating their pregnancies, because usually that's what happens at times of uncertainty,” Purdy noted.

In a climate in which people are confined to their homes and apprehensive about visiting medical staff, difficulties in maintaining access to reproductive health care services and products extend beyond supply chains.

“You're trying to move toward tele-health visits and really encouraging self-care as much as possible where that is feasible,” said Daniel Grossman, an ob-gyn and professor at the University of California San Francisco.

"Contraception is one area ... where it would be safe and effective to make these methods available without a prescription," he said. "This crisis is a good argument for expanding that kind of access, at least during the pandemic."

In March, France implemented temporary measures allowing women to use expired scripts to renew their oral contraceptive prescriptions. In neighboring Belgium, the government pushed ahead with existing plans to make the morning-after pill free, as well as other forms of contraception for those aged 18 to 25.

That measure "will be key to continue ensuring access to contraception given the social and economic impact the crisis will have on women," the EPF and IPPF EN report said.

But the group also noted that its members in Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, North Macedonia, Portugal and Spain "have reported that they have been forced to scale back contraceptive care."

Reduced attendance at medical clinics "due to fear of contracting Covid-19" and hindered access to long-acting reversible contraception, such as contraceptive injections, implants or intrauterine devices, are among the barriers to reproductive health imposed by the pandemic, the report noted.

Tele-health is also a huge topic in the abortion sector.

On March 30, the British government introduced temporary measures that allow women to take abortion pills for early medical termination at home, provided that they follow a tele-health or physical consultation with a registered medical practitioner.

Prior to that decision, the U.K. allowed medical abortions — which involve the administration of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, or surgical abortions — generally only up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Ireland has implemented similar provisions, allowing remote consultations in most cases for women seeking early medical abortions, while France has extended access to home medical abortions for women up to nine weeks pregnant, up from seven weeks as previously allowed.

By contrast, in the Netherlands, the Court of the Hague rejected an application to allow access to medical abortions without visiting an abortion clinic.

Meanwhile, Germany, which requires mandatory counseling before abortions, has allowed this preliminary step to take place over the phone or by video, following pressure from pro-choice groups.

But Christiane von Rauch, a member of Doctors for Choice Germany, said this measure still leaves some access problems unaddressed, including shortages of personal protective gear in surgeries and clinics.

"Lack of PPE is a major issue cited by almost all respondents," agreed the EPF and IPPF EN report.

The immediate challenge aside, the lasting impact of Covid-19 on global access to abortions could be mixed, experts say.

“The anti-abortion movement, at least in the U.S., is really trying to capitalize on the pandemic to essentially make abortion illegal in several states,” Grossman said, referring to moves by Texas and some other Republican-governed states to issue bans on abortions during the outbreak on grounds they're non-essential medical procedures.

"They've used the restrictions on what kind of businesses can continue to operate to say that abortion services are not essential health care and services need to stop," he added.

In Europe, advocates continue to call on governments to improve access, raising particular concern around countries such as Poland, where restrictive abortion laws have been compounded by border closures — a major hurdle given that Polish women used to go to Slovakia or Germany for the procedure.

Now, women are not just cut off from travel; they also can’t count on Polish facilities, as they lack both doctors and necessary equipment.

Another country noted in the report is Romania, where the EPF and IPPF EN noted that "the decision to suspend non-emergency procedures is in practice hindering women’s reproductive freedom."

In response to criticism, Romanian Health Minister Nelu Tătaru has said he takes women’s rights issues seriously and that each case had to be analyzed by the doctor, according to local media. It's not clear, however, if the situation has improved in the meantime, as the country continues to be under a state of emergency until May 14.

On the other side, the introduction of emergency measures means there's also a potential "switch" moment for reproductive health care in Western European countries such as the U.K., Purdy says.

"It's hard to roll that back once that door is open," he said. "And if they allow it there, then you can imagine it might start to happen in other places."

"The advent of medical abortion [and] abortion pills is changing how women look at their options in a major way," he added. "Keeping women fully informed of how those pills can be used is going to change a lot in the abortion space."

Carmen Paun and Zosia Wanat contributed reporting.

Global financial institutions go green

Sustainable finance is winning more supporters, and skeptics.



By RYAN HEATH
05/22/2020

Welcome to POLITICO’s new Sustainable Finance Spotlight — an extension of the Global Translations newsletter. Each week we track major issues facing the globe. Sign up here.

The world’s biggest multilateral financial institutions and sovereign wealth fund are joining America’s biggest lenders in ramping up their sustainability focus.

The trillion dollar International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now attaching green conditions to its government rescues, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has blacklisted the Canadian oil and gas sectors, and the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is putting nearly half its annual investment into green energy. The moves flesh out a long-term sustainable finance shift that until now has existed mostly on paper — such as a joint 2019 call by development banks to collectively finance $175 billion in “global climate action investments” by 2025.


One of those banks, the European Investment Bank (EIB) — the world’s largest development bank by assets — has ruled out new investments in fossil fuel projects, instead making loans to projects in fields like sustainable steel.

Five of the six largest banks in the United States have announced they won't finance fossil fuel development, either, drawing the ire of Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette. “I do not think banks should be redlining our oil and gas investment across the country," Brouillette told Axios this week. His language — comparing fossil fuel restrictions to housing discrimination against communities of color — sparked a firestorm.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told POLITICO that she now considers “disclosure of climate related risks” a basic requirement for governments working with the IMF. For the fund to hand over cash, governments will now need to look at phasing out “harmful energy subsidies” and creating incentives for a “low-carbon transition,” she said.

Georgieva takes a broad view of sustainable finance, and worries her environmental sustainability efforts are undercut by rising bankruptcies, inequality, and new government debt that will saddle younger generations. “Inequality holds economies back. It is actually unhealthy for everyone. Life can be better if we build more solidarity in our communities and within countries,” Georgieva said.


Georgieva isn’t alone in cross-examining the claims of those who wrap themselves in the mantle of sustainability.

Market analysts are beginning to poke holes in the work of companies and stock funds promoting themselves as green and socially inclusive. Vincent Deluard of INTL FCStone sent out a client note this week warning that investing based on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) objectives may have severe side effects: "ESG investors are winning their unintended war on people."

Deluard wrote that companies with strong environmental and social policies tend to have one thing going for them, other than being well governed: “The average company in the ESG basket has 20 percent fewer employees,” he said, compared to the median Russell 3,000 company.

That, Deluard said, means ESG funds may have unintentionally “punished employee-heavy sectors, such as airlines, retailers, and cruise lines,” accelerating “the disappearance of jobs for  Capital CEO Erika Karp, a long-time proponent of impact investing, also casts doubt on the foundations of this year’s ESG investing trend. “There is no such thing” as ESG investing, Karp said, but “there is ESG analysis.” Within that, “the G is first among equnormal people.” It also raises the question of whether ESG fund managers are using the label as a trendy cover for traditional growth-oriented investing.

Deluard noted dryly that there aren't any gender pay gaps or strikes with robots and algorithms.

Cornerstoneals, the G comes first,” she continued, because “a well-governed company is looking at environmental and social issues,” otherwise it isn’t well governed.


Karp said many ESG funds today “rely on poor-quality data” and include companies that align with goals that are “uninvestable,” such as the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Instead, Karp advocates looking at what a company does to increase access: “If you want women’s empowerment, for example, you need access to water, to education, etc.”

SUSTAINABLE FINANCE SNAPSHOTS

Asset managers mobilize for clean air: Asset managers convened by the World Economic Forum argue now is the time to invest in systems that will make the temporary dip in air pollution levels produced by the world’s Covid-19 lockdown permanent.

Blackrock's EU contract under investigation: Emily O’Reilly, the EU ombudsman, has opened an inquiry into the European Commission’s decision to award BlackRock a contract to study how to integrate environmental, social and governance objectives into EU banking rules.

ECB proposes bank must monitor climate risks: The Frankfurt-based supervisory authority has a new guide directing banks to consider climate risks, including internal stress-testing. “We need to start taking action for risks that will surely come to us in the future,” the ECB’s Patrick Amis told reporters Wednesday.

FILED UNDER:
GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS,
SUSTAINABILITY SPOTLIGHT

Gedeon Operation: Guaido - Silvercorp - Trump Trio



Operation Gideon was fueled by major axes: drug trafficking, the Venezuelan extreme right and the U.S. and Colombian governments | Photo: Twitter/@jorgepsuv
Previous
Next
Published 21 May 2020 (15 hours 9 minutes ago)

Evidence presented by the Vice President for Communications Jorge Rodríguez proves the participation of opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido in the invasion attempt of May 3

The opposition lawmaker Juan Guaidó, along with the criminal organization Los Pachencas and the Miami-based Silvercorp enterprise, is linked to early May's armed raid on Venezuela's soil, according to the evidence presented by Vice President for Communications on Thursday.

RELATED:
Venezuela Reveals Proof of Guaido’s Involvement in Foiled Plot

odriguez showed the video statements of U.S. mercenary Luke Denman, who confirmed Guaidó's participation in the operation. Denman explained that the idea of hiring Silvercorp was conceived by the opposition lawmaker, over the conception that the owner of this enterprise, Jordan Goudreau, had close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump.

#ENVIVO | @jorgerpsuv : tenemos audios de Clíver Alcalá en los que se evidencia parte de la conspiración que realizaban contra el Gobierno de @NicolasMaduro https://t.co/tqMKHfl0b4 pic.twitter.com/RE2LNdC0lu— teleSUR TV (@teleSURtv) May 21, 2020

In a conversation between Cliver Alcalá and Deputy Hernán Alemán presented by Rodriguez, it is pointed out that Jordan Goudreau was managing the "Venezuela Chapter."

"The idea of hiring Silvercorp worked as a scapegoat, for in case of failure, we had to blame someone outside politics. Otherwise, the U.S. administration would provide the air force for the operation," Denman confessed. "When it comes to bad calls blame is on Guaido, I think he disoriented a bunch of people."

Even when the government of Colombia claims to have nothing to do with the Operation Gideon, Rodriguez pointed them of providing safe routes for the mercenaries, implemented by Los Pachencas, a group related to drug trafficking with operations in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta area and the entire northern coast of the South American nation. According to a map shown in the conference, in all those places, there have been events related to the attacks on Venezuela

Venezuelan President Maduro: "Mike Pompeo Stop Your Arrogance"

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro | Photo: teleSUR

Published 7 May 2020

Maduro said during an interview with teleSUR: "I have advised Mike Pompeo: stop your arrogance and recognize that you don't have what it takes to take our government down. We are millions and we have a project, and you just can't stop that"

The President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, said this Thursday that the armed incursion against the South American nation, which occurred on May 3, was a covert operation ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

RELATED:
Mercenary Confesses Failed Plot Was to Bring President Maduro to US

In an exclusive interview for teleSUR, the head of state reiterated that Trump was aware of this operation since he is informed about international issues and Venezuela is a focal issue of first interest, "it is one of Donald Trump's obsessions".

The armed incursion "is a covert operation ordered by Donald Trump, outsourced to Silvercorp (...) supported by Iván Duque (President of Colombia), and with a contract signed by Juan Guaidó (...) that aimed to assassinate the President, " said the Venezuelan leader.

The president also criticized that U.S. authorities waited 48 hours after the armed incursion to give a statement on the events, saying that Trump's reaction "is incredible and nervous, which initiates a set of strangely late responses."

#LIVE | President @maduro_en: I have advised Mike Pompeo: "stop your arrogance and recognize that you don't have what it takes to take our government down. We are millions and we have a project, and you just can't stop that" https://t.co/AHw8gMqXux pic.twitter.com/WDFjrLOElE— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) May 7, 2020

The Role of Guaido

President Maduro spoke about the contract that began the armed incursion and that has the signature of the former U.S. military and Silvercorp director, Jordan Goudreau, as well as the opposition political consultant Juan José (JJ) Rendón, and opposition lawmakers Sergio Vergara and Juan Guaidó.

In an interview with CNN, JJ Rendón acknowledged having signed the contract and that it aimed to undermine the integrity of the president and several members of the Venezuelan government.

"Juan José Rendón is a political adviser to drug traffickers, extreme right-wing politicians, he has made a fortune stealing, he would not bear an independent investigation. In Venezuela, he has a red code arrest warrant and he is the main adviser to Guaidó," he said.

Maduro reaffirmed that the U.S. attempt at imposing a president on Venezuela unconstitutionally was a complete failure, and emphasized that Guaidó "is a thief, a criminal" for hiring individuals to assassinate a political adversary.

"There is the contract, it is evident, so we are in the presence of moral degradation of the Venezuelan opposition (...) That experiment with a person of such vileness as Juan Guaidó failed them (...) he is a thief, a criminal who is capable of signing a contract to kill his political adversary. It is a failure,
someone will have to admit it, "said the president.

On the other hand, he emphasized that the South American nation has a civic, police, and military defense system to guarantee peace in the country, called the Bolivarian Shield, which remains active. "Our country is ready to fight, that is what they do not want to understand in Washington," he stressed.

.@maduro_en: "Guiado's signature in this contract with the U.S. mercenaries to try to overthrow us is undeniable. Also his adviser JJ Rendon has admitted he did sign. Rendon is an arrogant bandit, he is so full of himself and thinks he smarter than everyone. But he failed." pic.twitter.com/uhmD5OE852— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) May 7, 2020

Talks with the U.S. are in "Mute"

The head of state reported that they currently do not maintain communication with U.S. authorities, despite having tried to establish a dialogue through different channels.

"Not at this time. There have always been communication links, but after May 3 they were cut ... we have used three different routes that we have with three different officials from the Donald Trump government and they are completely silent."

Trudeau Rolls out His Trumpian COVID-19 Latin America Policy

By: Arnold August
Published 7 May 2020

Meanwhile, Venezuela's government puts its human and material resources at the service of its population.

Firstly, let us look at the COVID-19 issue. Under the auspices of Canada, the countries of Peru, Colombia, and Brazil are evaluating the impact of the pandemic on the Americas. As a corollary, the Trudeau Government claims, the impact on Venezuela must be examined. Perhaps we can help.


This chart, adding Ecuador to the countries referenced by Champagne, is based on the reputable Swiss-based scientific agency CDC. It sheds light on the situation. Ecuador is included along with the Champagne list, as they are all Lima Group member states.


This group of countries, of which Trudeau was a key founding member back in 2017 and its current top leader, has set the explicit goal of overthrowing the Maduro government. The facts show that it is Venezuela that serves as an example in Latin America.

Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador are right-wing dictatorships and thus, by their very nature, incapable or not interested in adopting a humane policy to fight the pandemic.

On the other hand, Venezuela has a Bolivarian Revolutionary government. It is animated by the need to fight COVID-19 and put all its meager resources, both human and physical, at the service of its population.

The resources would be far less meager if it were not for the crippling sanctions imposed by the US and Canada against Venezuela. Facts, such as the chart shows, are stubborn things.

Secondly, it is important to point out that Canada and the other Lima group countries cited in the Canadian governmental tweet (plus Ecuador) have no interest in the well-being of the peoples of Latin America.

For these countries and U.S. President Donald Trump, COVID-19 is just a tool. It serves as a weapon, not only to maintain the pre-COVID-19 tempo of the American attempt to recolonize the region with the full collaboration of its allies but to increase this aggressive momentum right in the middle of the pandemic, cynical as that is.

So, what is behind the concern of the Canadian Foreign Minister’s tweet? He mentions the “humanitarian” needs of Venezuelans as the “Venezuela crisis.”


Just finished a call with counterparts from Peru @GMeza_Cuadra, Colombia @claudiablumc & Brazil @ernestofaraujo. We discussed the #COVID19 pandemic, the impact on the Americas, notably the Venezuela crisis and the humanitarian needs of Venezuelans. @Jguaido pic.twitter.com/k4X0KQAY9a— François-Philippe Champagne (FPC) ���� (@FP_Champagne) May 4, 2020

The tweet, as we noted above, also tags @Jguaido, the so-called Trump/Trudeau interim president. The Canadian government tweet was dated May 4.

During the early morning of May 3, a group of heavily armed mainly Colombian mercenaries, accompanied by armed US marines, attempted a maritime incursion into Venezuela.

The avowed goal, as these two 2-minute videos show, was to overthrow the legitimate Maduro government, confirming the Maduro government’s view.

However, the attempted coup failed miserably. The invaders were stopped and arrested or killed by the Venezuelan Civic Military-Union and local fishermen.

The Trudeau government surely knew about it as the news appeared on May 4 on Canadian state television. Besides, in my May 4 newsletter, I invited my more than 3,500 subscribers to write to Trudeau and Champagne.

In the tweet below, Orlando Viera-Blanco, the Trump/Trudeau “fake ambassador” to Canada, triumphantly announced what he thought would be the imminent entry into Caracas of Guaidó as the president and not as interim president. Note the telling exclamation mark after “soon”!”

Thanks Minister! We are moving forward with the appropriate arranges to have a call between President @jguaido and yourself soon! /Merci Ministre! Nous allons de l'avant avec les dispositions appropriées pour avoir bientôt un appel entre le président @jguaido et vous-même! La https://t.co/z84w494EKg— Orlando Viera-Blanco (@ovierablanco) May 5, 2020

There is a precedent for this. On April 29, a week before the attempted invasion, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: The Trudeau government, which is in lockstep with the U.S. on Latin American policy, surely noted that U.S. foreign policy statement.

However, the coup was foiled even before it got o the ground. The Trudeau government is strangely comfortable with these activities, as can be demonstrated by the intimate ties with the Guaidó representative in Canada.

In any case, the Canadian government is re-tuning its plans against Venezuela to match the same Trump COVID-19 policy.

Just like Trump, Trudeau now has to deal with yet another failed coup attempt. Besides, how does Trudeau explain that the Lima Group, of which he is a key member, is supposedly in favor of “a peaceful solution” in Venezuela, rather than military intervention?

And yet, the May 3rd action was a forceful and illegal military incursion on the soil of a sovereign nation. This is an ongoing story.

COVID-19: Seeds of Revolution Grown on Capitalism’s Corpse?

By: Gilbert Mercier

People protest working conditions outside an Amazon fulfillment center warehouse on May 1, 2020, in the Staten Island borough of New York City. | Photo: AFP
Published 10 May 2020

It is hard to forecast what a post-COVID-19 world will be like, but the deck of cards has been reshuffled.

As the global COVID-19 crisis builds up its incredible momentum, for which an apex is still months to come, the mainstream media and so-called policymakers are dazed and confused, lost in graphs of exponential case counts and body counts; shipments of masks and respirators; and the assembly of makeshift hospitals. Everywhere the morgues are filling up and the crematoriums are burning the cadavers at full tilt.


While the palpable fear of death looms everywhere, the 2,020 members of the billionaire class, and their worldwide political surrogates, have an eye on other graphs: not going up like the graphs of the deaths, but plunging in an even more dramatic configuration.

It is, of course, the COVID-19 induced crash of all financial markets and the precipitous dive of oil price. It is the Great COVID-19 Depression.

While the so-called Masters of the Universe billionaire class are scared like deer in a headlight, they haven’t come to the realization that their complex edifice built on the brutal exploitation of people and resources was as flimsy as a castle made of sand. It is not even a tide that is undoing global capitalism, it is a giant tsunami coming ashore everywhere at the same time. Its name is COVID-19.

Those who call themselves political leaders should pay close attention. If they think they can bring back the world order the way it was before the pandemic, they are cruelly mistaken. Like it or not, COVID-19 marks the beginning of a new era in the human adventure on the Earth. Things will never again be the same. Therefore, we must seriously think, not only about crisis scenarios but also their aftermaths.

Several worst-case scenarios are worth exploring. The first one, and some early signs indicate it is a possibility, would be the implosion of globalization and the rise of populist fascist states. In the second one, which would be even worse, the billionaire class and their political surrogates would gang up to impose a draconian authoritarian world order on the entire human population.

End of globalization and rise of small ethnic fascist states

This trend has already started within the European Union, and it is threatening to be more damaging to the EU than Brexit. As soon as the pandemic exploded in Italy, the borders within the union started to shut down. This now concerns all European countries, and it is likely to stay this way for months. To the Italian government’s dismay, China, Russia, and Cuba were more proactive in helping Italy than France, Germany, and the other EU countries. It is as if the Trumpian my-country-first doctrine gained ground across Europe overnight. Lockdown quickly meant a shutdown of national borders.

An example of this, which was perfectly despicable, was when the Czech Republic hijacked an airplane shipment from China, full of masks, on their way to Italy. It is even worse in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban is taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to do a power grab and indefinitely rule by decree. In this time of extreme global crisis, the temptation for the want-to-be neofascist strongmen has become too strong to resist. Besides, neoliberal governments like the Macron administration in France are applying coercive and authoritarian methods on their population. Therefore, who will notice it if Orban pushes things a step further?

Authoritarian billionaire class global world order

This would be the more nightmarish case scenario. One cannot discount that this option of a global corporate COVID-19 coup may come to the malevolent minds of some of the Masters of the Universe who meet in Davos every year or, even worse, the very secretive Bilderberg group. Despite the fact that the global economy is in ruins, the policymakers who work for the billionaire class will want to maintain control. They may think that the fear of the pandemic, which has made people accept oppressive measures, can be maintained indefinitely through the media they control. One can easily imagine that only a fraction of the population might regain complete freedom of movement and assembly. Meanwhile, the old, the average worker bee, and the dissenters could be confined at a whim. Besides, who needs pesky humans in capitalist production lines when they can be replaced by the docile robotic of AI?

Some people are evil enough to think along those lines. The problem with this assumption, however, providing anybody is thinking about it, is that their cherished supposed free-market economy has already collapsed. Presently the hottest commodities worldwide are masks and pulmonary respirators. The masks, of course, are still largely made in China. They are so valuable that they are put under heavily armed military escort. Operatives from the CIA travel to China with briefcases full of cash to outbid, on airport tarmacs, precious cargos already purchased by France. Israel’s Mossad has been involved in trafficking large quantities of test kits. The nationalistic fight for survival has become raw and nasty, but again capitalism was always bloodthirsty, ugly, and mean. Hopefully, for the sake of humanity, the systemic damage is too grave to fix. COVID-19 might have triggered capitalism’s end game.

Oppression and starvation — not ideologies — bring revolutions

As the COVID-19 crisis devastates the financial markets and global economy, the smarter neoliberal governments are trying to mitigate potentially unpredictable social unrest phenomena by the tricks aristocrats have used during feudalism. Like the lord of the castle, who threw a few gold and silver coins to the starving peasants during famines after bad crops, the lords of today’s capitalism put in effect “quantitative easing,” which is a euphemism for printing a massive amount of money. In the United States, the US$2.2 trillion bailout is mainly for Wall Street and large corporations like Boeing. The citizens of the US will get the crumbs, in the form of a US$1,200 check from Uncle Sam. In European countries, the give away to citizens is much bigger: the unemployment benefits to people who were laid off will reach 80 percent of their pre-COVID-19 wages.

Nonetheless, millions of people are already unemployed. In the US, nearly 10 million people filed for unemployment since March 16. Millions who were already in precarious situations must rely on food banks to eat. This is a recipe for disaster from the perspective of governments trying to keep a lid on some serious social turmoil. In effect, a careful study of the revolutionary process in world history shows that what embarks a population into the violence of a revolution is misery and despair, not lofty ideologies. Practically, it is the combination of oppression and starvation that pushes people beyond their limits. It is a collective breaking that comes once you have nothing, and therefore nothing to lose. Food shortages created by disruption of the food chain or hoarding could do this.

Authoritarian governments are, unfortunately for them, using the stick rather than the carrot to deal with the pandemic. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered police and military to kill citizens who defy the COVID-19 lockdown. The strongman bluntly told police to “shoot them dead.” In India, Modi‘s police and military have been beating people, mostly Muslims, with sticks and dousing them with chlorine. In Kenya, similarly brutal population controls are enforced. In the case of India, a country of 1.3 billion people, which has a health-care system in shambles, millions could die. At that point, the most brutal police and military tactics won’t succeed at keeping the lid on. It is likely to blow. Revolutions are about a vastly superior number of people and the sheer power of their anger. A police and military force of 250,000, for example, even if loyal to its government, cannot prevail against millions. Starvation and oppression will eventually bring fearless collective rage. That is the essence of revolution.

Countries become sovereign, self-sufficient with direct democracy

Very few countries have tackled the unfolding pandemic crisis with speed, thorough planning, rationality, and a minimum of infringement on civil liberties. Only four can be named: Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, and South Korea. Leaving aside Germany and South Korea, which are much larger economies, the crisis management in Iceland and New Zealand has been rather remarkable. Iceland, in particular, has tested its small population more than any other country in the world.

That island of 350,000 people could become, in the near future, a model for real democracy. They have learned from the 2008 financial crash and changed their ways. A real democracy has to be from the bottom up and must also keep the national interest sector out of the hands of corporate imperialism. A real bottom-up democracy puts a cap on wealth concentration, spends money raised by fair taxation, and provides its citizens with free education and free universal health care. In 2018, the Gilets Jaunes movement in France was demanding a constitutional reform that would allow referendums by citizen initiative. If our world post-COVID-19 becomes more fragmented, and countries become more sovereign and independent of mega-corporate entities or global institutions like the IMF and World Bank, then democracy could be reinvented. This being said, the mitigation of global problems like the climate crisis and the mass migration it will provoke, affecting nearly a billion people in coastal areas, will have to be addressed by decisive international cooperation.

 

Birth of globalization for the people by the people

There is only one international body that is not fully at the service of global corporate imperialism, even though it has, in recent years, been ineffective at best and nefarious at worst. This organization, which has become a perversion of good intentions, is the United Nations. For it to become a positive force in the necessary mitigation of conflicts between countries and tackling the massive challenges facing humanity, it would have to be rebuilt from the ground up. A dismantlement of the Security Council would be a sine qua non. Furthermore, the delegate(s) from each country should be elected democratically. But let’s face it: at this juncture, the five countries that permanently sit on the Security Council because of their nuclear and military might are unlikely to relinquish their privileges.

It is hard to forecast what a post-COVID-19 world will be like, but the deck of cards has been reshuffled. Global corporate capitalism was sick, in all possible ways: a voracious sociopath bent on growth and without empathy, morals, and foresight. Right now it has a fever, it is coughing, and it has lost its sense of taste and smell. Truly, it is on life support.

Gilbert Mercier is the author of The Orwellian Empire.

May Day 2020: Canada & Chile

Guests Magdalena Diaz, a member of the May 1 Coalition and Paz Jurado of Apoyamos Chile solidarity group joined us on May Day 2020 to discuss the most pressing issues for workers in both Chile and Canada as police repression takes place on the streets of Santiago.

Biden Condemns Pro Palestinian BDS Movement, Angers Activists

Left-wing activists in the #US rejected assertions by #JoeBiden who said criticism of #srael too often drifts towards anti-Semitism 

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been outspoken in its opposition to Israel's policies towards Palestinians | Photo: BDS

Published 21 May 2020

by Gilbert Mercier

Biden said the movement "singles out Israel - home to millions of Jews - and too often veers into anti-Semitism while letting Palestinians off the hook for their choices."

Left-wing activists in the U.S. rejected assertions by the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden, who said criticism of Israel too often drifts towards anti-Semitism before he declared his opposition to the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement (BDS).


RELATED:
Jewish Settler Convicted in Brutal Murder of Palestinian Family

"Criticism of Israel's policy is not anti-Semitism," Biden said during a phone call with donors earlier this week. "But too often that criticism from the left morphs into anti-Semitism."

The call was part of a virtual fundraiser hosted by Dan Shapiro, a former ambassador to Israel, and Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University.

Biden was asked how to respond to anti-Semitism among progressive activists in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

"We have to condemn it, and I've gotten in trouble for doing that," the former vice president said. "Whatever the source, right, left, or center."

The Biden campaign later released a policy paper saying it "firmly rejects" the BDS movement, a nonviolent initiative launched by Palestinians in 2005 to pressure Israel to comply with international law and defend Palestinian human rights.

Joe Biden “firmly” rejects the BDS movement, shamefully opposing the global nonviolent struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice & equality. Cutting US military aid to Israel is vital to the progressive agenda of #HealthcareNotWarfare and social, racial, climate & gender justice. pic.twitter.com/JtMHYocXnU— BDS movement (@BDSmovement) May 20, 2020

Biden said the movement "singles out Israel - home to millions of Jews - and too often veers into anti-Semitism while letting Palestinians off the hook for their choices".

Leaders of the BDS movement replied that Democratic voters should be endorsing the movement instead of rejecting it.

"By rejecting BDS, Joe Biden endorses U.S. complicity in Israel's decades-old regime of occupation, colonialism, and apartheid, and supports depriving Palestinians of our fundamental human rights," the group said.

Biden has struggled to unite a Democratic Party deeply divided between moderates and younger progressives who gravitated towards Biden's rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, who has withdrawn from the election.

The progressive wing has been outspoken in its opposition to Israel's policies towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, particularly under right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

#Trudeau blasts #BDS movement pic.twitter.com/LvKoOwAPvQ— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) April 2, 2019

GIANT HOSPITAL CORPORATION TAKES ADVANTAGE OF CORONAVIRUS TO FIGHT NURSES’ UNION DRIVE

Nurses cheer after community leaders spoke in support of the nurses union during a rally in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, in March 2020. Photo: Christine Rucker

THE INTERCEPT May 6 2020,

THE LARGEST HOSPITAL corporation in America, HCA Healthcare, is using the coronavirus pandemic to delay and undermine a union election for 1,600 nurses in North Carolina.

After nurses filed in March to hold an election, HCA Healthcare petitioned the National Labor Relations Board, or the NLRB, to delay the vote because of the pandemic. In the meantime, it hired professional union busters costing $400 an hour to conduct meetings inside Mission Hospital in Asheville, urging nurses to oppose joining a union.

And while the corporation stands to rake in $4.7 billion in CARES Act benefits, the number of coronavirus cases in North Carolina is steadily growing, and nurses say they had to fight for basic personal protective equipment, or PPE.

“Instead of HCA using those resources and money and effort to prepare for Covid-19 and have proper PPE, they chose to put it into union busting instead,” said Sarah Kuhl, a registered nurse with Mission’s oncology research department.

“I feel like that put us significantly behind to being adequately prepared for Covid-19,” Kuhl said.

HCA Healthcare has 184 facilities in the United States and the United Kingdom. HCA CEO Sam Hazen makes $27 million annually — 478 times the median HCA employee, and the company paid out over $600 million in dividends to shareholders last year. Of HCA’s $51.3 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2019, over $21 billion of that came from the government in payments from Medicare and Medicaid. In 2000, the corporation pleaded guilty in the case of the largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history and paid $1.7 billion in fines. U.S. Senator Rick Scott, R-Fla., was CEO at the time.

In February 2019, HCA turned its sights to North Carolina. The for-profit, multinational conglomerate purchased the nonprofit Mission Hospital for $1.5 billion. Since being absorbed into HCA, Mission has been plagued by widespread complaints over cuts in staff, poor communication, and lack of access to basic supplies and PPE. The nurses filed for an election in March, with 70 percent of them signing union authorization cards, to join National Nurses United — which has 150,000 members and currently represents nurses at 19 HCA facilities across the country.

Since being absorbed into HCA, Mission has been plagued by complaints over cuts in staff and lack of access to basic supplies and PPE.


Only 37 out of HCA’s 184 hospitals have a union presence. The majority of HCA facilities are located in states with low union density like Florida and Tennessee, where the corporation is headquartered. In North Carolina, just 2.3 percent of the workers are union members.

“Our campaign is an enormous thing for North Carolina and the South,” said emergency room nurse Trish Stevenson. “This would set an enormous precedent for change, and it could happen nationwide for nurses. Health care is in dire need of a shift away from profit-driven corporations.”

HCA’s attorneys are now arguing before the NLRB that the vote should be further delayed, claiming in filings submitted to the NLRB that “[HCA] submits the election should not be scheduled prior to or during the time it and its healthcare professionals, including Registered Nurses, are dealing with the surge of Covid-19 patients and caring for those patients.”

But the megafirm has still found the time and money to wage an aggressive anti-union campaign inside the hospital, demanding nurses leave their shifts to meet one-on-one with consultants from the Crossroads Group. HCA declined a request for comment from The Intercept.

ON MARCH 15, nurse Jill Rabideau was pulled away from her patients on the pulmonary step-down unit to join a group of other health care workers for a “Labor Relations” session led by a union-busting consultant.

“It was an hour and 15 minutes of listening to an angry little man in a room that probably had 15 other nurses that were pulled off their units,” Rabideau said. “That was very frustrating to me, but particularly when everybody had all these Covid questions.”

Kuhl attended a meeting with anti-union consultants on March 13. “If you are coming in there without a whole lot of knowledge about unions and you don’t do any more research, then it can be misleading,” said Kuhl. “A lot of things we heard is that you won’t be able to talk to your manager anymore,” Kuhl said. “We heard you won’t get wage increases until the contract is signed, which is not true.”

“We couldn’t afford to let staff go to attend the meeting, but they were demanding it.”


Department of Labor disclosures show consultants from the Crossroads Group were hired at $400 an hour. The Crossroads Group is active in the union-busting space, routinely appearing in Department of Labor filings. In 2003, the NLRB found that firm’s founder Michael Penn had violated federal labor law when he threatened employees would lose their benefits at Jensen Enterprises if they voted in a union, and again in 2010 when he threatened to sue a pro-union employee at DHL for “defamation.” The Crossroads Group did not respond to a request for comment.

On March 24, Stevenson was working in the emergency room when she was asked to cover for another nurse so her colleague could attend a one-on-one meeting with a consultant.

Facing an upsurge in Covid-19 patients, Stevenson recalled, “We couldn’t afford to let staff go to attend the meeting, but they were demanding it.”

“They were just demanding that we cover nurses on their assignment, even though it’s inappropriate because we just couldn’t afford to let staff go at that time.”

Nurses throughout the hospital were already reeling from staff cuts, an exodus of experienced RNs, and rising nurse-to-patient ratios in the wake of HCA’s takeover of Mission — problems that are all exacerbated by the pandemic.

“We’re already in a state of red and then we’re being faced with a pandemic that is just further going to compromise us,” Stevenson said. “My worry is we just won’t be able to respond at all to the pandemic.”

HCA ALSO GIVES its affiliated physician groups ample legal and accounting support in applying for the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program loans, HCA documents show. The CARES Act explicitly requires that recipients of PPP loans stay neutral in union organizing campaigns.

Former NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman told The Intercept that the arrangement raises concerns.

The situation “demonstrates the tensions and hypocrisy of a hospital chain taking advantage of the provisions of the law but at the same time — exploiting the law to take advantage of the nurses,” said Liebman.

“The neutrality language is very important so that companies or lawyers that are benefiting from these loans aren’t using them to fight unionization,” said Liebman.

HCA has disclosed that it will accrue over $4.7 billion in benefits from the CARES Act, from direct payments to hospitals, accelerated Medicare payments, payroll tax deferrals, and other benefits. On an April 21 earnings call, HCA CEO Sam Hazen told Wall Street analysts “Fortunately, I see HCA Healthcare as uniquely positioned to help define the new normal and capitalize on new opportunities.”

John Logan, a labor historian at San Francisco State University, noted the irony of HCA’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“[Nurses] really are organizing to have a voice over life and death issues,” said Logan. Speaking generally of anti-union campaigns in the health care space, Logan said, “Hospital administrators still think that it’s appropriate to bring in outside consulting firms that cost millions of dollars.” Hospital anti-union campaigns can cost well over $1 million, a report from the Economic Policy Institute found last year.

“I think in some ways there’s been an intensification of anti-union campaigns because employers believe they can get away with things right now that they wouldn’t in normal circumstances” Logan said.

WITH A FOR-PROFIT megacorporation newly in charge of their hospital, nurses had witnessed working conditions and patient care standards deteriorate rapidly. When the pandemic hit, union nurses acted quickly, demanding safe policies for PPE and transparency about the hospital’s plan for Covid-19 response.

“Some members of the community are thinking, ‘Why are [nurses] trying to organize a union during this pandemic?’” said Kuhl. “Organizing a union during this pandemic is more important than it was before Covid-19 existed. If we don’t get the things that we need to care for the patients who will be affected by Covid-19, either directly or indirectly, the outcome is going to be bad.”

“That’s why even though we don’t have a union yet, we did the PPE petition,” said Kuhl. “It was vital. Time was of the essence that we do that to ensure safety for our patients during this pandemic.”

Before the nurses submitted a petition for PPE on April 2 during the pandemic, said 35-year nurse Kelly Tyler, management “came through one day and gathered up all the masks, even if you were wearing a mask, they asked you to take it off. You had to go through the house supervisor to get a mask for patient care.”

After the petition was delivered, noted Tyler, HCA “made masks mandatory in patient care areas,” a victory for union nurses. “Maybe it’s not out of the goodness of HCA’s heart that they are doing this, maybe it is from the union and our demands,” Tyler said.

Kuhl put it more bluntly.

“There was zero transparency about how much PPE we had,” said Kuhl. “We weren’t getting information about how many Covid patients we had. None of that was information that we were privy to until we used collective action to get that information. That was a direct result of the union.”

Despite the delayed vote, Rabideau is confident of victory when the election is finally held. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and its uncertain aftermath, Mission nurses say that the cost of losing would be too high.

“[Nurses should] not always be the ones giving up to make corporations thrive because the price is not acceptable,” Rabideau said. “The actual cost is at the expense of our patients. … Nurses are not OK with that. I can say that unequivocally. We didn’t become nurses to make a shareholder wealthy.”