Commentary: ‘When Texas freezes over’; Arctic conditions in U.S. show climate change is here

Mar 21st, 2021 · 

By Vasudha Deshpande and Mark Reynolds
Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Sometimes it seems like certain politicians won’t support climate action until hell—or Texas—freezes over. Well after last week, the climate threat is clear as can be, and it’s time for Congress to act.

On February 13, a winter storm began sweeping across the U.S. Within days, the frigid conditions and ensuing infrastructure challenges led to dozens of deaths, massive power outages, and millions without clean water. Texas came within minutes of catastrophic failures that would have caused months-long blackouts.

My (Vasudha’s) cousin who lives in Plano, Texas, with his family went through a power outage. This is a story, narrated by his daughter Roma –

Roma’s house

I woke up finding out that our house has no electricity. To be honest, I wasn’t that worried at first. I thought that the power outage would only last for 30 minutes to an hour. Boy was I wrong. So, no power in the house means no heat. If there’s no heat, it means that my family and I are stuck freezing to death. Also, it’s even worse at night. Another issue was internet connection. I remembered that my grandparents were planning on calling. They live in India, so calls there cost money for us. Now, the power outage happened, and we’re trying to save our phone battery. Calling my grandparents was one of the things we had to not do to save battery. The whole ordeal was like a survival game. It allowed us to make sure that we can adapt, improvise, and overcome.

So, why is this all happening? Typically, a strong jet stream keeps Arctic air locked over the poles. But as we see more variability in our climate and Arctic air warms, the jet stream weakens, gets wavy, and allows frigid air to dip down into lower latitudes.

“The large, persistent, southward dip in the jet stream responsible for this cold invasion is likely to happen more frequently in a warming climate,” climate scientist Jennifer Francis told national climate reporters. She notes that “warmer-than-normal spells” will happen more frequently, too.

As this pattern persists, we will continue to deal with challenges like power outages and unsafe or limited drinking water — life-threatening conditions in the wake of extreme weather itself. (And contrary to some claims, the outages were not due to an over-reliance on renewable energy. Not only wind turbines froze, but so did instruments, gas pipelines, coal piles, and natural gas compressors.)

Mark Reynolds

There’s plenty to be said about modernizing America’s power grid, improving battery storage, and so on, to be better prepared for future extreme temperatures. But the root challenge is the same: we’re feeling the impact of climate change here and now, and we’re running out of time to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the problem. We must therefore use all the tools at our disposal to curtail those emissions.

One of the most effective tools is an ambitious price on carbon that will speed up the transition to a low- or zero-carbon economy. A carbon tax can quickly slash our emissions and save lives—plus, when designed right, it can actually pay people and benefit American business. Endorsements from the scientific community, businesses, economists, and more show that this is the consensus solution.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recently released a new report naming a carbon tax as one of the solutions to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently announced its support of a “market-based approach to accelerate emissions reductions” — in other words, a price on carbon. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is a longtime supporter of this approach, advocating not just for a carbon tax but for revenue to be returned to Americans in cash.

Vasudha Deshpande

One example of this approach is the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, which garnered 85 cosponsors by the end of the last Congress. We urge Senator McConnell to support a carbon pricing policy in the current Congress. We thank Darkness Brewing of
Bellevue, No. KY Justice and Peace Committee, Joseph Chillo, President of Thomas More University, and Zach Wieber of Icon Solar for endorsing the bill.

The extreme weather ravaging our nation should serve as a warning that our climate could one day be unbearable if we fail to take the actions necessary to rein in climate change. An effective price on carbon with money given to households can put us on the path to preserving a livable world.

Vasudha Deshpande is a volunteer with the Northern Kentucky chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Mark Reynolds is the executive director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

 WHITE PRIVELEGE AND EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTISM IN ACTION

    I CALL THEM ARMAGEDDONISTS, THEY WANT THE END TIMES

Around 700 people gathered on Saturday in Kelowna to protest against the government’s COVID-19 restrictions and health orders. 

They were calling it a freedom rally.

PRO CHOICE ABOUT THEIR BODIES, BUT DENY WOMEN THE SAME RIGHT

STOP IT YOU ARE KILLING ME

Bitcoin mining can be a 'bridge' to a renewable energy future by supporting green projects, a leading North American miner says

NO FUCKING WAY IT'S A USELESS CHIP IN CASINO CAPITALI$M

© Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters Bitcoin mining is hugely energy intensive, requiring vast amounts of computing power Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

Bitcoin can be at the heart of the transition towards renewable energy, Foundry boss Mike Colyer said.

He said bitcoin mining can help renewable projects manage oversupply and support more investment.

Many remain unconvinced, with Bank of America attacking bitcoin's energy use this week.

Bitcoin mining can help the development of renewable energy technologies by allowing a quicker return on green investments, according to the head of one of North America's biggest crypto miners.

Mike Colyer, chief executive of Foundry, a sister company of major bitcoin player Grayscale, told Insider he thinks bitcoin can be "a bridge between our current energy production and this future world of renewable energy production."

His argument is the boom in green-energy creation has led to oversupply in many areas, which can be difficult to manage and costly for renewables firms.

Colyer said locating bitcoin mines near renewable energy projects can help deal with this oversupply, in turn helping the development of green technology.

"It allows for a faster payback on those solar projects or wind projects, which means more of them can be built faster in regions where before it was not attractive, because they would produce too much energy for the grid in that area," he said.

TRYING TO SAY THEY CAN EVER BE GREEN  WHILE BEING PROFIT DRIVEN IS A FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THEIR OWN PLATFORMS POTENTIAL FOR P2P AND FINTECH TO ACTUALLY CREATE A INFORMATION ENERGY CREDIT SYSTEM

 

Other miners have echoed this argument, although the secretive nature of the industry means it is difficult to gauge the rate of change.

And many remain unconvinced. As the bitcoin price has soared this year, arguments over its intense energy use have heated up, with climate concerns making some investors wary of the world's biggest cryptocurrency.

Bank of America analysts on Wednesday said in a note that bitcoin is "not good news for the environment," estimating that it uses almost the same amount of electricity as the Netherlands.

"Bitcoin's estimated energy consumption has grown over 200% in the past two years, creating large environmental risks," the analysts, including commodities strategist Francisco Blanch, wrote. They noted that most mining is done in China, where coal is dominant.

Bitcoin is "mined" when computers are hooked up to the cryptocurrency's network to verify transactions. As a reward for this work, which involves solving puzzles, miners can sometimes receive small amounts of bitcoin.

Huge amounts of computing power are now dedicated to mining bitcoin, with more drawn in as the price skyrockets.

Yet Colyer said bitcoin mining is increasingly using renewable energy as green power becomes cheaper. His mining company Foundry is owned by Grayscale-owner Digital Currency Group, and also provides equipment financing and advice.

"The bitcoin algorithm is relentless in its drive for efficiency and cost reduction," he said. "It's built in, there's no stopping it. Every miner in the world is constantly looking for ways to take cost out of the production of bitcoin. And the most cost-effective energy [in North America] is renewable energy."

A report from Cambridge University in September last year estimated 39% of proof-of-work mining is powered by renewable energy, primarily hydroelectric.

Michel Rauchs, an affiliate of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, told Insider it is difficult to come up with an accurate assessment of how "green" bitcoin is.

He said within China the renewable share of mining changes throughout the year due to "seasonal migration patterns" that see miners move towards hydroelectric plants during the wet season. "So it really depends at what point of time... you're looking at this," he said.

The Bank of America analysts argued bitcoin's energy consumption is only going to worsen due to the system's structure, which makes mining more difficult over time.

"The rising complexity of the system creates ultimately a vicious environmental cycle of rising prices, rising hashpower, rising energy consumption and, ultimately, rising CO2 emissions," they wrote.

Colyer said Foundry is working on a number of ways to make mining greener. "We're focused on the newer technology, like immersion mining where the machines are actually put in a coolant and they don't use air cooling... We work with the flare gas guys that are chasing the flare gas emissions."

However, many investors are worried about how long it might take to make bitcoin green.

Bank of America said: "As renewable energy production increases over the next 20 years, quantum computers reduce energy usage, and new, more efficient crypto assets continue to emerge, the cryptocurrency space could eventually find ways to reduce its carbon footprint.

"But a rapid surge in adoption of bitcoin presents a major risk, and thus drives bitcoin's low environmental score."

Read the original article on Business Insider

The GameStop saga didn't revolutionize the stock market - it just proved how out of touch Wall Street has become for the average American

insider@insider.com (Paul Constant) 

3/20/2021

© Provided by Business Insider GameStop's stock prices have been

 erratic since the January squeeze. Spencer Platt/Getty

Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures and a frequent cohost of the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast with Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein.

In the latest episode, they spoke with California congressman Ro Khanna about Robinhood and the GameStop squeeze.

Khanna says the stock-buying craze should serve as a stark reminder of "the over-financialization of our economy."

It feels like a fever dream now, but for one week in late January all anyone in the media could talk about was Gamestop's skyrocketing stock prices.

In case you've already driven the episode out of your memory, here's a brief recap: A Wall Street hedge fund had placed a big bet that America's biggest chain video game retailer was on the verge of failure, and users from a subreddit called WallStreetBets rushed in to buy stock and force the hedge fund to cover their positions, thereby costing the fund billions of dollars in the process and driving the stock price up in what's called a "squeeze."

After GameStop share prices started climbing, stock trading apps that many Redditors used to buy stocks, including Robinhood, suddenly disabled the capacity of users to buy additional shares of GameStop and other so-called "meme stocks" for on-the-skids companies like AMC and BlackBerry that had gained new prestige thanks to WallStreetBets.

Before Robinhood throttled the stock-buying craze, the internet was full of pundits claiming that the little guy was finally striking back against Wall Street, that the age of hedge funds had come to an end, and that a new economic order was dawning. But now that GameStop's share price has declined considerably (though it remains quite erratic,) those hot takes all seem like empty hyperbole. Hedge funds made fistfuls of money off the GameStop stock fad, and the stock-trading revolution didn't materialize. The rich got richer - and everyone else, by and large, either lost money or coasted along.

In this week's episode of "Pitchfork Economics," Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein talk with Representative Ro Khanna, who represents California's Silicon Valley, to discuss the true lessons of GameStop mania.

Robinhood's motives

Khanna has some harsh words for Robinhood's decision to disable its users capability to buy certain meme stocks without any explanation. "Even if you don't think there's any nefarious motive - my sense is it was a liquidity issue and they didn't have the money required to meet the clearinghouse collateral requirements - you wonder why they didn't have to have disclosure," Khanna said.

"They had no disclosure to their investors. They took no provisions to have loans or other capital available if they ever ran into that situation," Khanna continued, adding that Robinhood also was selling customer data to a market maker called Citadel Securities, which then likely profited from the use of that information.

"It does create questions about whether these conflicts of interest should really exist," Khanna said, "and whether people should be allowed to trade on your data when you have a relationship with someone who has a different financial interest than the investors trading on the site."

Robinhood, then, seems to be built on two separate models of exploitation. Not only does it serve as a low-friction entry point to the rigged casino of Wall Street, where the house always wins and the little day trader always loses, but it also apparently has the privacy issues of a Facebook or a Tiktok, in which users may not realize that their every move is being scrutinized, packaged, and sold to the highest bidder. Both types of exploitation have thrived under decades of deregulation, and they're likely to only get worse without some form of government intervention.

On a broader scale, Khanna calls the GameStop craze a potent reminder "of the over-financialization of our economy."

Some 55% of Americans aren't invested in the stock market at all, "The fact that so much attention is being paid to this gambling as opposed to investing in building things - battery storage plants or electric vehicle plants - should make us pause about what's going on in our economic system and why," Khanna said.

Wall Street's disconnect

The past year, in which the stock market climbed ever higher throughout the pandemic, even while more and more Americans lost their jobs and financial stability, offers even more proof that Wall Street has become unmoored from the average American's experience.

Financial success has less and less to do with the creation of solutions to everyday problems and more and more to do with stripping value and leveraging profits away from existing assets. To flip Mitt Romney's 2012 leaked fundraiser speech on its head, rather than making products and services with real-world value, finance has become about taking assets away from the average American.

Or, as Hanauer asked late in the episode, "Why in the world would you want to make it more lucrative for a highly talented person to rub money together to make more money, rather than go crack some medical problem, or invent some gizmo that could actually increase human welfare?"

It's a fundamental economic question, and one that will only become more pressing as hedge funds and tech startups continue to run amok. Is the point of capitalism for a select few to make as much money as possible, no matter who gets hurt in the process?

 

Or should the forces of capitalism be directed through regulation toward building concrete benefits for all society?  THAT WOULD BE SOCIALISM 

The next time these two dueling economic philosophies come into conflict, much more than a chain retailer's flagging stock price might be at stake.

     AND THEY WILL DO THIS RATHER RAPIDLY DO SO BECAUSE           OF CAPITALIST ACCELERATIONISM 

SAID EVERY SOCIAL DEMOCRAT EVER 

 

U.S. Weighs Global Climate Impact Benchmark for Wall Street
Jessica Shankleman, Saleha Mohsin and Jennifer A. Dlouhy 

3/20/2021

(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration is considering ways to push the global finance industry to consistently account for carbon dioxide emissions and green investments, according to people familiar with the matter.

© Bloomberg Photovoltaic panels at the Calexico Solar Farm II in this aerial photograph taken over Calexico, California, U.S. on Friday, Sept. 11, 2020. As the threat of blackouts continues to plague California, officials are pointing to battery storage as a key to preventing future power shortfalls. But the Golden State is going to need a lot more batteries to weather the next climate-driven crisis—let alone to achieve its goal of a carbon-free grid.

The Treasury Department and U.S. regulators are in the early stages of working on measures to improve companies’ environmental impact disclosure, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. The moves seek to address carbon leakage -- where producers move to regions with less restrictive pollution rules -- and climate-related metrics for Environmental, Social and Governance-based investing, the people said.


Part of the effort would include recommendations being crafted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for companies to report their environmental impact, according to one person.

The intent is to boost demand for assets that tackle climate change, while preventing companies from making claims that could be considered “greenwashing,” or overstating the significance of emissions reductions and sustainability efforts, the people said. They asked not to be identified because Treasury’s discussions are not public.

There are already several industry-driven initiatives to establish a set of rules for green finance. But experts warn that without strong oversight the industry could settle on looser standards that allow firms to continue supporting carbon-intensive activities while using cheap offsets to claim they’re doing what’s needed to slow global warming.

The U.S. government looks forward to exchanging views with the European Union on a coming carbon border adjustment plan, set to be made public in June, according to an emailed statement from the State Department.

The Biden administration’s work with global partners on climate change “will include exploring and developing market and regulatory approaches to address greenhouse gas emissions in the global trading system,” the State Department said. “As appropriate, and consistent with domestic approaches to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, this includes consideration of carbon border adjustments.”

A Treasury spokesperson declined to comment. An SEC spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The SEC announced Monday that it would solicit public comment on potential changes to policies governing climate disclosure, including whether it should set different standards for various industries and whether investors should have a say in what specific corporations have to reveal.

Gary Gensler, Biden’s nominee to lead the SEC, who’s currently awaiting Senate confirmation, would be responsible for implementing any changes to companies’ disclosure requirements.

Read more: SEC Signals Tougher Rules for Corporate Climate Disclosures

Wall Street banks such as Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have pledged to achieve net-zero emissions. That requires a focus on cutting emissions first, before using offsets to neutralize any pollution that still remains. Doing so usually requires costly structural changes.

President Joe Biden is pushing for the U.S. to take more aggressive climate action. He’s expected to announce a 2030 pollution reduction goal next month that will align with efforts to keep average global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial levels, according to two people familiar with the matter.

That’s the most-ambitious target under the Paris Agreement. The U.S. government is convening a summit with the world’s top carbon emitters on April 22, with hopes of driving more ambitious emissions-reductions and climate-finance commitments.

Related: Yellen Gets a Shot to Put Treasury Clout Into Climate Fight

Since taking office, Biden has sought to convince other world leaders that the U.S. is firmly back in the global fight against climate change, after it pulled back under President Donald Trump. Hashing out definitions of green financing will be a key part of discussions at international climate talks scheduled for November in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Biden administration’s green finance framework should start to take shape by June, when leaders of the Group of Seven countries are due to meet in southwest England, the people said. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government also wants carbon leakage to be on the agenda.

“Raising ambition as we go to Glasgow is so critical,” U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said earlier this month at CERAWeek by IHS Markit.

In Glasgow, “we will meet with the nations that met in Paris to hold the earth’s temperature hopefully to no larger than a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase,” Kerry said. “Our hope is that by keeping 1.5 degrees alive in the next 10 years, we lay the groundwork for the exciting venture of transitioning to clean energy.”

The U.S. and Europe could have an identical set of rules that determine what counts as green investment, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told Kerry in Paris this month. The EU is due to propose a regulation on the so-called taxonomy in April.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said she will create a “climate hub” within Treasury to address Biden’s “whole-of-government” approach toward climate change. The hub will be overseen by a senior adviser who is expected to report directly to Yellen, one of the people said.

A Treasury climate “czar” hasn’t been announced. Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Federal Reserve official who served in the Treasury Department during the Obama administration, was under consideration for the post, Bloomberg News reported last month.

(Updates with State Department comment in 6th paragraph.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

KARMA IS A BITCH

Trump's Mar-a-Lago partially closed due to COVID outbreak
3/20/2021

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, has been partially closed after staff members tested positive for the coronavirus.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

That's according to several people, including one familiar with club operations, who said Mar-a-Lago had “partially closed” a section of the club and quarantined some of its workers “out of an abundance of caution.” The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation by name.

An email sent to members said that service had been temporarily suspended in the club’s dining room and at its beach club because some staff members had recently tested positive. It said the club had undertaken “all appropriate response measures,” including sanitizing affected areas," and that banquet and event services remain open.

“The health and safety of our members and staff is our highest priority,” it read.

The Florida Department of Health did not immediately respond to a phone call and email.

Trump moved to Mar-a-Lago after leaving Washington in January, and has spent the weeks since then laying low, golfing, dining with friends, meeting with Republican party leaders and plotting his political future as he considers running again in 2024.

Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19 last fall and has since been vaccinated against the virus.

Mar-a-Lago was the site of his first known exposure more than a year ago. A senior Brazilian official tested positive last year after spending time at Mar-a-Lago, where he posed for a photo next to Trump and attended a family birthday party.

The Trump White House was hit with several subsequent outbreaks after it flouted virus precautions by resisting mask-wearing and continuing to hold large events.

The club in Palm Beach has been a flurry of activity in recent weeks, hosting events and fundraisers, including one to benefit rescue dogs. Trump unexpectedly dropped by the event last week.

In January, Palm Beach County issued a warning to Mar-a-Lago’s management after a New Year’s Eve party that violated an ordinance requiring employees and guests to wear masks. Video of the party posted online by Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., showed that few of the 500 guests wore masks as they crowded the dance floor while rapper Vanilla Ice, Beach Boys co-founder Mike Love and singer Taylor Dayne performed. The club was told future violations would result in fines of $15,000.

The former president was not present at the party. ___

Spencer reported from Fort Lauderdale. Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

Jill Colvin And Terry Spencer, The Associated Press

Finnish astrophotographer spends 1,000 hours over 12 years creating mosaic of the Milky Waymosaic of the Milky Way

By Eoin McSweeney, CNN 

3/21/2021

Capturing panoramas of the Milky Way, the galaxy in which we reside, might seem like a daunting task considering it is, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, about 100,000 light-years across.

© Courtesy JP Metsavainio An photo of the Sharpless 132 nebula which makes up a small part of JP Metsavainio's Milky Way mosaic completed on March 16 after 12 years of work.

But Finnish astrophotographer JP Metsavainio has spent almost 12 years stitching together 234 frames to create a mosaic of 125 degrees of sky. The panorama, which shows 20 million stars, captures the space between the Taurus and Cygnus constellations and was completed on March 16.

"Astronomical photography is one of the most difficult forms of nature photography," Metsavainio, a professional artist, told CNN Friday. "My mosaic image is generally very deep, meaning that it shows extremely dim targets and formations in gas clouds of our home galaxy, the Milky Way."

Each image in the mosaic is an independent artwork and available to see on Metsavainio's blog. He claims an image like this has never existed before, which is one of the reasons he decided to dedicate thousands of hours to the project.

Clear, dark skies away from the light pollution of cities are vital to astrophotography, the photography of astronomical objects, an activity that happens worldwide. Patience is also key, as it can take hours or even days to capture just one photo over a long exposure.

Metsavainio used a range of modified camera lenses and telescopes at his observatory in northern Finland, near the Arctic Circle. He first uses image processing software to adjust levels and color before stitching the separate panels together on Adobe PhotoShop, using stars as indicators to match the correct frames.

The astrophotographer said his favorite images are of supernova remnants, a phenomenon that forms after a star explodes. Several of them are visible in his panorama and the Cygnus Shell, a particularly dim supernova remnant which can be seen as a pale blue ring near the North America nebula, took the astrophotographer 100 hours alone to create.

His blog has had 750,000 visitors since the photo was published, up from an average of about 1,000 a day.

"The reason I keep doing my slow work is basically an endless curiosity, I love to see and show how wonderful our world really is," he told CNN. "This is lonely and slow work but every time I see the results, I'm as thrilled as the first time."

Alongside Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, Metsavainio participated in a live virtual broadcast in September hosted by the Science Museum of London. At the time he was publishing a 3-D book about cosmic clouds with the musician and Astronomy Magazine editor David J Eicher.

A devoted lover of the night sky, Metsavainio plans to continue his work but with a different lens.

"I have shot the night sky with relatively short focal length optics for the last few years," said Metsavainio. "In the future, I'll go back to a longer focal length instrument."

© Courtesy JP Metsavainio Another photo of the Sharpless 132 

nebula which makes up a small part of JP Metsavainio's Milky Way mosaic

© Studio Timo Heikkala Oy JP Metsavainio, the Finnish 

astrophotographer who created the stunning mosaic of the Milky Way.

Europe presses Turkey to rethink ditching violence-on-women pact

By Jonathan Spicer 

3/21/2021

© Reuters/UMIT BEKTAS Protest against Turkey's withdrawal from Istanbul Convention

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - European leaders criticised what they called Turkey's baffling and concerning decision to pull out of an international accord designed to protect women from violence, and urged President Tayyip Erdogan to reconsider.

Erdogan's government on Saturday withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, which it signed onto in 2011 after it was forged in Turkey's biggest city. Turkey said domestic laws, not outside fixes, would protect women's rights.

The Council of Europe accord pledged to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence and promote equality. Killings of women have surged in Turkey in recent years and thousands of women protested on Saturday against the government's move in Istanbul and other cities.

Germany, France and the European Union responded with dismay - marking the second time in four days Europe's leaders have criticised Ankara over rights issues, after a Turkish prosecutor moved to close down a pro-Kurdish political party.

"We cannot but regret deeply and express incomprehension towards the decision of the Turkish government," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said late on Saturday.

It "risks compromising the protection and fundamental rights of women and girls in Turkey (and) sends a dangerous message across the world," he said. "We therefore cannot but urge Turkey to reverse its decision."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen - who spoke with Erdogan a day before Turkey ditched the pact - tweeted on Sunday: "Women deserve a strong legal framework to protect them," and she called on all signatories to ratify it.

The convention had split Erdogan's ruling AK Party (AKP) and even his family. Officials floated pulling out last year amid a dispute over how to curb domestic violence in Turkey, where femicide has tripled in 10 years according to one monitoring group.

But many conservatives in Turkey and in Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AKP say the pact undermines family structures, encouraging violence. Some are also hostile to its stance against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

Paris said Turkey's withdrawal marked a new regression in respect for human rights, while Berlin said neither culture, religion nor tradition could "serve as an excuse for ignoring violence against women".

The diplomatic strain comes after Europe and the United States this past week said the move to close down parliament's third-largest party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), undermined democracy in Turkey.

In their video call on Friday, Erdogan, Von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel discussed a dispute, which has cooled, over offshore resources in the eastern Mediterranean.

An EU summit this week will address relations with Ankara.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Brazil coronavirus: No vaccines, 

no leadership, no end in sight. 

How nation has become a global threat

by Matt Rivers, CNN

3/21/2021

LONG READ 

The temperature read 95 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday, but the humidity made it feel worse. Amid the stifling late summer Rio de Janeiro heat, Silvia Silva Santos steadied her 77-year-old mother as they walked toward the clinic gate.

© Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images Medical staff transport 

a patient on a stretcher at a field hospital as coronavirus cases

 soar on March 11, 2021 in Santo Andre, Brazil.

© Provided by CNN Brazil Covid-19 crisis overwhelmed ICU 

vaccine shortage Rivers 

"We've already come here twice but she hasn't managed to get a vaccine," said Silva Santos. "She just stands in line and then there's no more vaccines and we have to leave."

At the gate, Silva Santos asked the guard if she could get her mother a vaccine. Keenly aware of CNN cameras watching, he quickly ushered her in.

About five minutes later, the pair came back out, bad news written on their faces.

"I think this is very wrong," said Silva Santos, clearly angry and frustrated. "Now we'll have to find out again when they'll have vaccines and you never know when."

That frustration rippled through the elderly crowd as person after person was denied a first dose of a vaccine, after the state of Rio de Janeiro suspended its vaccination campaign because it had run out of vaccine supplies.

"This is a disaster, a total disaster," a woman told CNN after being denied her vaccine. "Who is to blame for all this? I think our leaders, our politicians suck."


The growing perfect storm

The Covid-19 crisis in Brazil has never been worse. Nearly every Brazilian state has an ICU occupancy of 80% or higher, according to a CNN analysis of state data. As of Friday, 16 of 26 states were at or above 90%, meaning those health systems have collapsed or are at imminent risk of doing so.

The seven-day averages of both new cases and new deaths are higher than they have ever been.

In the last 10 days, about a quarter of all coronavirus deaths worldwide have been recorded in Brazil, according to CNN analysis.

"They are clear signs that we are in a phase of very critical acceleration of the epidemic and it is unprecedented," said Jesem Orellana, a Brazilian epidemiologist.

If vaccines are the ultimate way out from this global pandemic, Brazil has a long way to go to seeing this through.

As of Friday, less than 10 million people in the country of about 220 million had received at least one dose, according to federal health data. Only 1.57% of the population had been fully vaccinated.

That is the result of a slow rollout program that has been plagued by delays. During the announcement of its distribution plan in early February, the government promised some 46 million vaccine doses to be available in March. It's been repeatedly forced to lower that number, now estimating only 26 million by month's end.

In-country production of what the governments says will eventually be hundreds of millions of doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine only just got off the ground. The first 500,000 doses were delivered and celebrated by top Ministry of Health officials in Rio de Janeiro this week, despite being months behind schedule.

"[There are] no vaccines in an amount that would really make an impact right now," said Natalia Pasternak, a Brazilian microbiologist, who said it won't be until well into the second half of the year before enough vaccines are available to make a substantive impact on the epidemic.

If vaccines are to remain in short supply for the foreseeable future, the only remaining ways to control the epidemic's exponential growth in Brazil are the methods the world has heard ad nauseam -- social distancing, no large crowds, restricted movements and good hygiene.

But in many places throughout Brazil, that is just not happening. In bustling Rio de Janeiro, it is easy to find maskless crowds walking the streets, conversing in close quarters.

Though the city's famed beaches are closed this weekend, restaurants and bars can still be open until 9 p.m., many likely to be filled to capacity.

Many states have imposed much harsher restrictions including nighttime curfews, but local leaders are fighting against federal leadership, or a lack thereof, determined to keep things open.

President Jair Bolsonaro, a Covid-19 skeptic who has mocked the efficacy of vaccines and hasn't publicly taken one himself, announced Thursday that he would be taking legal action against certain states in the country's Supreme Court, claiming the only person who can decree curfews is him -- something he has promised never to do.

Despite thousands of people dying from the virus each day, he claims the real threat is from the economic harm virus-prompted restrictions can impose.

Millions of his supporters are following his lead, openly flaunting local regulations of social distancing and mask wearing.

All of this would be concerning enough on its own, but it is exacerbated by a deeply concerning reality -- the spread of Covid-19 variants.

'People don't realize how much worse P.1 is'

The P.1 variant was first discovered in Japan. Health authorities detected the viral mutation in multiple travelers that were returning from Amazonas state, an isolated region in Brazil's north replete with rainforest.

CNN reported from the region in late January, where a brutal second wave of Covid-19 was decimating the city of Manaus.

Nearly two months later, more and more research points to the P.1 variant as a crucial factor not only in the Manaus outbreak but in the nationwide crisis Brazil faces today.

A study from Brazil's top medical research foundation, Fiocruz, from early March found that of eight Brazilian states studied, Covid-19 variants including P.1 were prevalent in at least 50% of new cases.

The variant is widely agreed to be more easily transmissible, up to 2.2 times so according to a recent study. That is more transmissible than the widely discussed B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the United Kingdom, which is up to 1.7 times more transmissible, according to a December study.

That same study also found that people are 25% to 65% more likely to evade existing protective immunity from previous non-P.1 infections.

Finally, there remain concerns the different vaccines might not be as effective against the P.1 variant.

Though a recent study from the UK did find that the "existing vaccines may protect against the Brazilian coronavirus variant," CNN spoke to several epidemiologists who remain concerned.

"The world has not awoken the dire potential reality that P1 variant could represent," said Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist. "People don't realize how much worse P1 is."


Brazil is becoming a global hazard

Amidst Brazil's unmitigated viral spread lies two additional, distinct threats.

One, the easier export of the existing P.1 variant abroad. It's already in at least two dozen countries and counting and international travel to and from Brazil is still open to for most countries.

Two, if the P.1 variant was created here, so can others.

"The pandemic being out of control in Brazil caused the variant," said Pasternak, the Brazilian microbiologist. "And it's going to cause more variants. It's going to cause more mutations because this is what happens when you let the virus replicate freely."

Under the laws of viral evolution, new variants are created to try and allow the virus to spread more easily. Along the way, more dangerous iterations can be created.

"More variants mean that there is a greater probability that one of these variants can really escape all vaccines, for instance," said Pasternak. "It's rare, but it could happen."

That, she says, makes Brazil a global hazard, not just to its neighboring countries but to others around the world.

"All of this together should raise the alarms in every country around the world that we must help Brazil contain P1, lest we all suffer the same fate of the collapsing Brazilian hospital system," said Dr. Feigl-Ding.

With a lack of a vaccines and a government unwilling to take the steps necessary to prevent that from happening, it is unclear how things get better in Brazil anytime soon.

Peru government, transport unions make deal to end strike

The Peruvian government and transport unions, striking since Monday over fuel price increases, have reached an agreement to end the protests, authorities announced Saturday

© Diego Ramos A blockade on the road linking the Peruvian

 cities of Puno and Arequipa on March 17, 2021

"After a long day of dialogue, leaders of the transport unions reached an agreement with the government and signed an act benefitting the sector and are committed to lifting their strike," the Ministry of Transport said on Twitter.

As part of the agreement, state-owned Petroperu will reduce the price of diesel and fuel will be subsidized by a special fund protecting against price volatility.

The unions agreed to clear roadblocks, including barricades made of rocks, burning tires and tree trunks, which had snarled traffic on main roads in several regions.

Police on Friday broke up several protests and roadblocks, resulting in 71 arrests.

The strike had forced police to deliver medical oxygen tanks meant for coronavirus patients by helicopter. Local media also said the roadblocks caused delays for some people going to vaccination appointments at hospitals.

According to the unions, a gallon (3.8 liters) of diesel had jumped in price to $4.00 in December from $2.90.

The protests came just weeks before April 11 presidential and parliamentary elections.

In neighboring Ecuador, an end to fuel subsidies in 2019 triggered the country's worst unrest in decades, with 10 dead and more than 1,300 injured in anti-government protests led by poor and indigenous communities.

AFP 

3/20/2021

ljc/mls/acb/mdl

Protesters march in Spain demanding rapper's release

lèse-majesté & lèse-poli

cia 

Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday rallied in cities across Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona, calling for the release of a controversial rapper, jailed in mid-February for tweets criticising the royal family and the security forces.

© OSCAR DEL POZO The march in Madrid on Saturday passed off peacefully before the crowds dispersed at the request of the police

© J. Martin Known for his hard-left views, rapper Pablo Hasel was handed a nine-month sentence over tweets glorifying terrorism and videos inciting violence

Shouting slogans such as "Freedom for Pablo Hasel" and "We are the anti-fascists", several hundreds of people took to the streets in the Spanish capital in an unregistered demonstration, according to an AFP reporter.

© OSCAR DEL POZO Rallies were also planned in other Spanish cities such as Barcelona and Palma de Majorca

AFP

3/20/2021 

The march passed off peacefully before the crowds dispersed at the request of the police.

In Barcelona, the main focal point of protests last month, around 100 people marched, waving banners demanding "complete amnesty for Pablo Hasel".

Here, too, the march remained peaceful, in contrast to the demonstrations last month when protesters and police clashed violently.

Rallies were also planned in other Spanish cities such as Palma de Majorca on Saturday.

Known for his hard-left views, Hasel was handed a nine-month sentence over tweets glorifying terrorism and videos inciting violence.

The court ruling said freedom of expression could not be used "as a 'blank cheque' to praise the perpetrators of terrorism".

The rapper was also fined about 30,000 euros ($36,000) for insults, libel and slander for tweets likening former king Juan Carlos I to a mafia boss and accusing police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants.

So far, more than 100 people were arrested in the protests, and scores more injured in the clashes, among them many police officers and a young woman who lost an eye after being hit by a foam round fired by police.

The clashes have also sparked a political row that has exacerbated a divide within Spain's leftwing coalition, which groups the Socialists of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the hard-left Podemos.

While the Socialists have firmly opposed the violence, Podemos' leadership has backed the protesters.

The party emerged from the anti-austerity "Indignados" protest movement that occupied squares across Spain in 2011. Their position is that the Hasel case exposes Spain's "democratic shortcoming

Striking Myanmar rail workers move out as protests continue
3/20/2021

MANDALAY, Myanmar — Residents of Myanmar’s second-biggest city helped striking railway workers move out of their state-supplied housing Saturday after the authorities said they would have to leave if they kept supporting the protest movement against last month’s military coup.

© Provided by The Canadian Press
Mandalay residents carried the workers' furniture and other household items to trucks, van and pickup trucks.

The state railway workers last month went on strike as key and early supporters of the civil disobedience movement against the Feb. 1 coup that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The military regime has sought to force them back to work through intimidation, which included a nighttime, gun-firing patrol last month through their housing area in Mandalay and a raid in the railway workers' housing area in Yangon.

Protests against the coup continued Saturday in cities and town across the country, including in Mandalay and Yangon.

The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in Myanmar after five decades of military rule. In the face of persistent strikes and protests against the takeover, the junta has responded with an increasingly violent crackdown and efforts to severely limit the information reaching the outside world.

Internet access has been severely restricted, private newspapers have been barred from publishing, and protesters, journalists and politicians have been arrested in large numbers.

The independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has verified 235 deaths and has said the actual total — including ones where verification has been difficult —“is likely much higher.” It said it has confirmed that 2,330 people have been arrested or charged since the coup, with 1,980 still detained or remaining charged.

In addition to using lethal force to try to break up demonstrations, the security forces have been carrying out a campaign of harassment, stealing from homes they raid, said the group, which also charged that security forces have used people they arrested as human shields as they sought to break up demonstrations.

Numerous reports on social media, including videos, have shown security forces vandalizing cars parked on the street.

The U.N. agencies UNICEF and UNESCO, along with the private humanitarian group Save the Children, on Friday issued a statement criticizing the occupation of education facilities across Myanmar by security forces as a serious violation of children’s rights.

It said security forces have reportedly occupied more than 60 schools and university campuses in 13 states and regions.

“It will exacerbate the learning crisis for almost 12 million children and youth in Myanmar, which was already under tremendous pressure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing widespread school closures,” said the statement. "Save the Children, UNESCO and UNICEF call on security forces to vacate occupied premises immediately and ensure that schools and educational facilities are not used by military or security personnel.

“Schools must be not used by security forces under any circumstances," it declared.

Calls for international action to halt the violence continue to mount.

"The junta can’t defeat the people of Myanmar united in peaceful opposition,” Tom Andrews, the U.N.’s independent expert on human rights for Myanmar, wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Desperate, it launches ruthless attacks to provoke a violent response to try and justify even more violence. It’s not working. The world must respond by cutting their access to money & weapons. Now.”

Unexpectedly strong statements were issued Friday by two of Myanmar’s fellow countries in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged a halt to violence and asked other regional leaders to hold a summit on the crisis.

Widodo’s move came after ASEAN foreign ministers held a March 2 meeting that reached no consensus on the crisis.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin issued a statement supporting Widodo’s call for as ASEAN summit, saying he was “appalled by the persistent use of lethal violence against unarmed civilians which has resulted in a high number of deaths and injuries, as well as suffering across the nation.”

The Associate

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

COINBASE SETTLES $6.5M WITH CFTC FOR FALSE REPORTING AND WASH TRADING

MARCH 20, 2021, RICK STEVES

Reporting firms such as Crypto Facilities Ltd., which publishes the CME Bitcoin Real Time Index, and CoinMarketCap OpCo, LLC, used the misleading trading data from Coinbase for price discovery and potentially resulted in a perceived volume and level of liquidity of digital assets, including Bitcoin, that was false, misleading, or inaccurate.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has settled charges against Coinbase Inc. for “reckless false, misleading, or inaccurate reporting” as well as “wash trading by a former employee on Coinbase’s GDAX platform”.

The digital asset exchange operator will pay a civil monetary penalty of $6.5 million in order to settle the charges.

Vincent McGonagle, Acting Director of Enforcement of the CFTC, commented: “Reporting false, misleading, or inaccurate transaction information undermines the integrity of digital asset pricing. This enforcement action sends the message that the Commission will act to safeguard the integrity and transparency of such information.”

The CFTC alleged that Coinbase delivered false, misleading, or inaccurate reports concerning transactions in digital assets on the GDAX trading platform between January 2015 and September 2018.

Coinbase automated trading programs, Hedger and Replicator, generated orders that at times matched with one another. The GDAX Trading Rules failed to disclose that Coinbase was operating more than one trading program and trading through multiple accounts.

As Hedger and Replicator matched orders with one another in certain trading pairs and then provided the information for these transactions on its website and to reporting services, Coinbase misled the market.

Reporting firms such as Crypto Facilities Ltd., which publishes the CME Bitcoin Real Time Index, and CoinMarketCap OpCo, LLC, used the misleading trading data from Coinbase for price discovery and potentially resulted in a perceived volume and level of liquidity of digital assets, including Bitcoin, that was false, misleading, or inaccurate.

The CFTC order also charged Coinbase for being “vicariously liable as a principal” for a former employee’s conduct. Over a six-week period—August through September 2016, the former employee used a manipulative or deceptive device by intentionally placing buy and sell orders in the Litecoin/Bitcoin trading pair on GDAX that matched each other as wash trades.

This practice, also known as “wash trading”, misleads the market in regard to liquidity and trading interest in Litecoin.

Parov Stelar at Sziget 2018 (Full Show)

 - Live Parov Stelar

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Tracklist Live at Sziget Festival 2018:

00:00:00​ Intro

00:04:29​ Hit Me Like A Drum

00:08:17​ Clap Your Hands

00:12:18​ Josephine

00:16:08​ Cuba Libre

00:20:51​ Catgroove

00:24:57​ Berlin Shuffle / Django's Revenge

00:32:07​ Speed Demon

00:41:17​ Mama Talking

00:44:28​ The Burning Spider

00:49:14​ Invisible Girl

00:54:12​ Grandpa's Groove

00:59:01​ Mojo Radio Gang

01:05:18​ All Night

-------------------------

01:12:12​ Nosferatu

01:16:20​ Booty Swing

01:21:20​ Step Two

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'Shadow Pandemic': Domestic abuse reports soar amid COVID


Earlier this month, the World Health Organization reported that an estimated 641 million women had faced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner over the course of their lifetime. Another 95 million were subjected to sexual violence from a non-partner, meaning that 1 in 3 women face such treatment at least once in their lives.

Advocates say COVID-19 has made life riskier for domestic violence victims

While the data, collected between 2000 and 2018, is shocking, the scale of the problem amid the coronavirus pandemic may be even larger, women's organizations in Europe and the UN told ABC News.

That’s because over the past year, women around the world have had to stay at home with their potential abusers, unable to seek help in some cases, in what the U.N. has described as a “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence.

Data is still incomplete, but advocates in several countries have reported dramatic increases in requests for domestic abuse services. In the U.S., the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice reported an 8.1% increase in incidents after lockdown orders.

And advocates and others have developed creative ways to empower women to report abusers and seek help amid the trying circumstances of the pandemic.
‘Shadow pandemic’

At one point in April last year, an Agence France-Presse database suggested that over 3.9 billion people, around half of the global population, had been asked to stay at home to combat the spread of COVID-19 either through mandatory lockdowns or voluntary restrictions.

While global infection rates reduced towards the end of summer, the coronavirus “second wave” saw a number of countries, particularly in Europe, re-enter lockdowns to halt the spread.

According to Anita Bhatia, the deputy executive director of UN Women, those circumstances have played a role in increasing the rates of domestic abuse globally.

“What the pandemic simply did was to create conditions for abuse that are ideal for abusers because it forced people into lockdown,” she told ABC News in a recent interview. “It provided institutional cover for people not being able to leave the house. And so it just was, if you will, the perfect set of circumstances for a perpetrator of abuse.”

With reports emerging last April of increasing rates of violence against women around the world, the UN called the situation a “shadow pandemic.” Yet by September, only 1 in 8 countries had measures in place to protect women from the economic and social impacts of the pandemic, they said, including to tackle violence against women and girls.

Experts on domestic abuse say that the stay-at-home orders ushered in by the pandemic have exacerbated the problem. By having movement so heavily restricted, abusers have had more opportunities to exert control, and the economic crisis has placed an even greater strain on abusive relationships, they say.

A preliminary overview from the EU on the issue of intimate partner violence during the pandemic published this month said that the full scale of the problem is not yet calculable, but “no government can deny the gravity and urgency of the situation in the light of the wave of violence we saw in 2020.”

The British Charity Refuge, the U.K.’s largest provider of specialist domestic abuse services, received an average of 63% more calls and contacts this year, while the French women’s organizations received 70% more calls

© Francois Mori/AP, FILE Posters of women victims of domestic 

violence are pictured at the Saint Michel fountain, Nov. 25, 2020, in Paris.

Two women in England and Wales are killed each week by a current or former partner, according to Refuge, the police receive a call about domestic abuse related call every 30 seconds. Those stats, Lisa King, Refuge’s Director of Communications, told ABC News, are “horrific.” She described the national lockdowns seen at various points across the U.K. as a “bit of a perpetrator’s playground.”

“Women are controlled financially, sexually, psychologically and increasingly technologically as well,” she told ABC News. “A huge, huge issue that has definitely been compounded by the pandemic. We would not say that COVID had caused domestic abuse, but it's certainly exacerbated pre-existing behaviors. And those who certainly experienced domestic abuse will most likely have experienced it more frequently and more severely.”

In France, the National Federation of Women’s Solidarity, which manages a major domestic abuse hotline, saw their shelters completely fill up during the first lockdown. They were forced to open more shelters for women seeking to escape abuse as callouts escalated. After the first lockdown, there were many cases of women and their children experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, Françoise Brié, the organization’s director, told ABC News.

“When you are just like in jail with your perpetrator, it’s more difficult for you to find help,” Brié said. “It’s more easy for the perpetrator to control your activity.”

During the second national lockdown in France, which was less severe, women were “able to go to work, their children are going to school, so it was less difficult for them to reach the calling centers, or the shelters,” she said.

Economic loss and unemployment have exacerbated the issue, Joanna Gzyra, director of communications at the Center for Women’s Rights in Warsaw (CWR) told ABC News.

© Alessandra Tarantino/AP, FILE A woman show a banner reading "alive, free and without debts" during a demonstration on the occasion of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in Rome, Nov. 25, 2020.

"Most abusers are good manipulators, so they are often pleading for forgiveness and promising to do better in the future,” she told ABC News, noting that a problem like job loss is an issue even in the best of times. "It causes tension even in most stable relations. In an abusive relationship, such a problem is a pretext, for an illegitimate behavior. The victim often justifies the abuser, because he is really stressed but would never do it otherwise."
Creativity in crisis

The novelty of the extent of the domestic abuse crisis has led people to develop creative ways to report suspected abuse.

In Poland, Krystyna Paszko, a high school student, won a prize this year from the European Union for setting up a fake cosmetic website which allows women to report domestic abuse in a discreet way. When the user places a skin care item into their online basket, a series of coded questions are prompted from psychologists specializing in crisis intervention. They ask, for instance, how long the problem has been going on for, whether it is impacted by alcohol, if the problem also affects your children. Lawyers are also involved, and based on the responses, the authorities will be called to check in.

“I thought I would help one person, maybe two,” she told ABC News. “I am also shocked there was a need for me to create [the website] and that it wasn’t a government initiative, and that so many people need it… it was because of the increase in domestic violence cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic, because of that I decided to face this problem and try to help these people.”

To date, her Facebook page -- named “Chamomiles and Pansies” -- has helped around 350 women report cases of abuse, Paszko told ABC News.

Paszko was inspired after reading reports in France of inventive ways of reporting domestic violence. This month, the French feminist campaign #NousToutes (equivalent of #MeToo in France) will distribute 615,000 bread bags to bakeries around the country. The bags are plastered with information on hotlines to call, as well as educational messages to help identify what domestic abuse actually is. Their reasoning is that the country's bakeries are some of the most accessible places for vulnerable women, even for the isolated amongst them, in France go out to get bread – and they hope the initiative will raise awareness.

And in the U.K. the government has supported the “Ask for Ani” campaign, a domestic abuse codeword that will signal to pharmacies that you are a victim.

“There's a lot of creativity unleashed in times of crisis,” Bhatia said. “And we need to see as many creative initiatives as possible because the standard ways of reporting just don't cut it.”

Similarly, more governments have addressed the issue in coronavirus daily briefings, something unheard of in the past.

“I think that's been a real turning point, in the kind of that that the public and women's understanding of what domestic abuse is,” King said. “You can only do something about a problem if you know what it is and you're experiencing it. So that's helped. And then government, too, has not been able to turn a blind eye to the problem.”

Forced to stay at home, more women have come to recognize the relationships they are in as abusive, according to Brié.

“We also noticed that some women said that they understood at the beginning of the pandemic that they were victims of violence, because they were confronted to the perpetrator every day,” she said. “They didn’t speak about it before.”

Despite this awareness and creative new ways to report violence under trying conditions, there seem to be troubling signs that the reported increase in violence may outlast lockdowns.

“I wish I could say that those countries which have opened up actually have seen declines in violence,” Bhatia said. “We are tracking the data… We see that the levels of violence against women remain fairly consistent. They go up in lockdown, but conversely, they do not necessarily go down when countries open up.”