Asphalt is a Major Summertime Source of Reactive Air Pollutants in Cities

2 September 2020

by: Shannon Kelleher

Asphalt rarely figures into urban air quality management plans, although it is a significant source of air pollutants in urban areas. | Steven Geringer

Asphalt rarely figures into urban air quality management plans, although it is a significant source of air pollutants in urban areas. | Steven Geringer

Emissions from asphalt produce greater quantities of small particles with public health effects under summertime conditions in California's South Coast Air Basin than on-road gasoline and diesel motor vehicles combined, according to a new study published in the September 2 issue of Science Advances.

Peeyush Khare, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University and colleagues found that the emissions, called secondary organic aerosols, are at their worst during hot, sunny weather, indicating that asphalt releases more secondary organic aerosol precursors into the air in the summer months. Secondary organic aerosols make up a large portion of fine particle pollution in the air, which has been shown to trigger lung and heart problems.

"We were surprised by how substantially solar exposure increased emissions from asphalt and changed their chemical composition, including large increases even after 46 hours of prolonged heating, which suggested both temperature-dependent and solar exposure-dependent emissions pathways," said Drew Gentner, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University and an author of the study.

The findings point to asphalt as a significant contributor to some types of air pollution — although one that generally flies under the radar. The asphalt industry states that emissions after application at ambient temperature are negligible due to the manufacturing process, and emissions from asphalt binder (which holds the material together) are not typically included in pollution inventories since the emissions themselves, factors that impact their emissions, and changes in their emissions over time are not well understood. While scientists and policy-makers use inventories to keep track of emissions from other products, such as paint, emissions from asphalt are not part of the product formulation itself and also result from interactions between the material and the environment, making them trickier to account for.

"The emissions we observed from asphalt were primarily intermediate- and semi-volatile organic compounds, which are larger molecules that emit over longer timescales, and have historically been more challenging to measure, and fall largely outside of regulatory frameworks compared to smaller volatile organic compounds such as benzene," said Gentner. "The importance of intermediate- and semi-volatile organic compound emissions from motor vehicles, for secondary organic aerosol formation, only became apparent within the last 15 years or so."

Intermediate and semi-volatile organic compounds, which form secondary organic aerosols, are types of volatile organic compounds or VOCs. As stricter air pollution controls have caused car and truck emissions to decline, the relative importance of VOCs found in solvents and chemicals from other sources, including home cleaning agents, personal care products, pesticides, and printing inks, has increased. A 2018 study published in Science found that such volatile chemical products now account for half of all fossil fuel VOC emissions produced by industrialized cities.

Khare and his colleagues decided to investigate emissions from asphalt, which they had identified as a source of interest during previous research. They chose California's South Coast Air Basin, which covers much of the Greater Los Angeles Area where about 18 million people live, as their study site since California maintains detailed emissions inventories and the region has evolved as a key case study site for megacity air pollution research.

The researchers heated commonly used road asphalt to a range of temperatures between 40°Celsius and 200°Celsius (104°Fahrenheit and 392°Fahrenheit) in a temperature-controlled tube furnace. They observed that asphalt emissions doubled when the temperature increased from 40°Celsius to 60°Celsius (104°Fahrenheit to 140°Fahrenheit) — temperatures the material typically reaches in the summertime — then climbed by an average of 70% per 20°Celsius (68°Fahrenheit) increase.

Since asphalt is mainly used outdoors, the researchers tested the impact of sunlight on asphalt-related emissions, subjecting the samples to UVA and UVB wavelengths of light within the same tube chamber. Artificial sunlight led to an almost 300% increase in total emissions, with sulfur-containing compounds skyrocketing by 700%.

In addition to collecting lab-based results, the researchers gathered three nighttime air samples at a site where road asphalt had been freshly applied, finding that the distribution of smaller compounds in emissions was consistent with those observed at 140°C after several hours of heating in the lab. The relative abundances of large compounds matched those at lab tests between 80° and 120°C. They also collected daytime samples at another roadway site, finding that emissions decreased after the first day after application but were sustained at similar levels two and three days later.

"A goal of this research is to help improve our understanding of the mix of urban sources of intermediate- and semi-volatile organic compounds, and ultimately emissions inventories," said Gentner. "This is important as the field tries to constrain the full, diverse range of non-combustion-related sources that are increasingly important for urban air quality, including volatile chemical products, which are also known to produce large quantities of secondary organic aerosols in urban areas."

The researchers suggest future studies may employ different methods to more fully capture the extent of the emissions released from a broader range of asphalt products over longer periods of time and under different conditions

Signs of life detected under rubble a month after Beirut blast, says rescuer

Reuters Sep 03, 2020 •

A view shows the damage at the site of the blast in Beirut's port area, Lebanon August 7, 2020. PHOTO BY HANNAH MCKAY /Reuters

BEIRUT — Lebanese rescue workers detected signs of life on Thursday in the rubble of a building in a residential area of Beirut that had collapsed after a huge Aug. 4 explosion at the nearby port, a rescue worker said.

He was speaking after the state news agency reported a team with a rescue dog had detected movement under a destroyed building in the Gemmayze area of Beirut, one of the worst hit by the blast.


“These (signs of breathing and pulse) along with the temperature sensor means there is a possibility of life,” rescue worker Eddy Bitar told reporters at the scene.

Rescue workers in bright jackets clambered over the building that had collapsed in the blast, which killed about 190 people and injured 6,000 others.

The rescue team were setting up flood lights at the site as the sun set. One rescue worker carried a rescue dog onto the mound of smashed masonry.

Bitar said a civil defense unit had been called in to help with extra equipment to conduct the search.

Local media said any search and rescue effort, if it became clear that someone was still alive, was likely to take hours.

(Reporting by Beirut bureau; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Beirut: Pulse signal prompts search for blast survivor

Rescuers in Beirut have detected signals which could indicate a survivor under the rubble, a month after the massive blast ripped through the city. Even if their hopes are confirmed, the search is expected to take hours.


Beirut officials scrambled Thursday to investigate possible signs of life under the rubble caused by last month's immense port explosion, amid a surge of hope that someone might still be alive after the deadly incident.

Special sensory equipment was brought to the Gemmayze area of the city to investigate reports of a pulse signal, possibly indicating a survivor. A rescue team set up floodlights at the site as the sun set, with one rescue worker carrying a rescue dog onto the pile of debris.

Francesco Lermonda, a Chilean volunteer, said their equipment identifies breathing and heartbeats from humans, not animals. He said it was rare, but not unheard of, for someone to survive in those conditions for a month.

Every few minutes, the Chilean team would ask people surrounding the operation to turn off their cell phones and stay quiet so that it would not interfere with the sounds being detected by their instruments.

"These [signs of breathing and pulse] along with the temperature sensor means there is a possibility of life," said rescue worker Eddy Bitar at the scene.



Reporting from the scene, DW's Razan Salman said people gathered nearby "are waiting impatiently for a glimmer of hope to shimmer from the devastated area."

Read more: Will protests after Beirut blast bring reform to Lebanon?

Youssef Malah, a civil defense worker, said the rescue teams would continue searching throughout the night, but noted that the work was extremely sensitive.

"Ninety-nine percent there isn't anything, but even if there is less than 1% hope, we should keep on looking," Malah told the Associated Press.

Search dog detects possible life in Beirut rubble a month after blast

By Laura Italiano September 3, 2020 

The aftermath of the Beirut explosionJoseph Eid/Getty Images

A search-and-rescue dog detected a child’s heartbeat beneath the rubble of Beirut — a month after a massive explosion turned much of the city to ruins.

Rescue teams are gingerly sifting through the collapsed concrete in the upscale East Beirut neighborhood of Gemmayze, according to multiple reports.

“They detected a signal from a potential heartbeat for a second time – they are going in,” tweeted the BBC’s Claiure Reed shortly after noon New York time.

She also tweeted video of workers lowering a rescue worker into the rubble.

A team from Chile had been making the rounds in the neighborhood when their rescue dog alerted at one of the collapsed buildings, Beirut-based journalist Luna Safwan tweeted.

“It seems to be a small kid inside the building,” Chilean rescue worker Eddy Bitar of “Live, Love, Lebanon” told Al Jazeera. “We’ll do whatever it takes,” he said.

“This was an abandoned house but maybe some refugee or some worker was illegally inside,” he said.

The rescue dog — a five-year-old pooch named Flash” — had alerted at the building while walking by on Wednesday evening, he said.

“Yesterday when our dog just smelled that there was something under the debris we make sure in the early morning to bring all the equipment,” he said.

“We found that there was two possible corpse” in the rubble, he said. “One of them might be alive. We’re just making sure no one is in the house,” he said at 1:30 p.m New York time.

Reed said whispers of “Is it true? Could someone be alive??” wafted through a crowd that had gathered there.

Finding someone alive would be a miracle, Liz Sly, the bureau chief there for the Washington Post, tweeted Thursday.

“Rescue teams are digging. Let there be a miracle.”

Gemmayze is just a few blocks from the port where the Aug. 4 explosion at a chemicals storage warehouse killed 181 people.

Trump won't join a WHO-organized coronavirus vaccine development effort. That could leave the US in the lurch if domestic candidates fail.
Susie Neilson

President Donald Trump. REUTERS/Leah Millis

The Trump administration said the US wouldn't participate in COVAX, an international WHO-backed effort to develop and distribute coronavirus vaccines. 

Trump has pledged to withdraw the US from WHO entirely, calling the group's pandemic response "China-centric."

Health experts are concerned that the US's absence from COVAX could impede the country's access to vaccines developed in other countries.

When the World Health Organization announced COVAX last week — a major international effort to develop, manufacture, and distribute coronavirus vaccines — 172 countries had already signed on.

One was conspicuously absent: the US.

The US, historically a global leader in fighting infectious diseases like HIV and smallpox, has distanced itself from WHO since the pandemic began. In May, President Donald Trump announced the US would pull its funding and membership from the organization, an agency of the United Nations specializing in international public-health issues. Trump called WHO's coronavirus response "China-centric."

White House spokesman Judd Deere told Reuters on Tuesday that the US wouldn't join COVAX because the WHO is "corrupt." Instead, the Trump administration's focus is on funding vaccine research and development on its own, then striking deals to buy the resulting shots. In the US so far, vaccine candidates developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, Moderna, and a Pfizer-BioNTech partnership have reached phase-three trials.


But COVAX is the only global initiative working with multiple countries to develop, manufacture, and distribute a coronavirus vaccine — and to make sure it reaches vulnerable populations, like the elderly and healthcare workers. The project's larger goal is to have 2 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021. That effort, which involves both governments and manufacturers, also aims to help wealthier countries distribute vaccines to poorer ones, thereby discouraging vaccine hoarding and ensuring all countries get access to a vaccine.

A lack of US collaboration undermines these goals, according to public-health experts.

"The US has always been a leader in global health, going back to smallpox eradication, or polio eradication, or HIV," Bill Gates, who's helping to fund the GAVI Alliance, one of the organizations that's leading COVAX, told Business Insider in July. "Without the US, the coalition to stop the disease globally just doesn't come together."

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Fabrice COFFRINI/Getty Images

The US also needs the international community, experts say. Opting out of COVAX is a risky gamble, since it could limit the US's access to vaccine candidates developed by other countries and manufacturing facilities abroad. If domestic vaccine candidates fail, in other words, the US could be out of luck.


Plus, even if the US does make a successful vaccine on its own, some experts think that by staying out of COVAX, the country might hurt its own economy by not helping other countries get their populations properly protected and back to work.

"It's a double edged sword," Jennifer Huang Bouey, an epidemiologist and senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, told Business Insider. "It hurts the US, and it also probably hurts COVAX."
The US is betting on new, less-established types of vaccines

Globally, vaccine developers are testing at least eight different types of vaccine. The most established kind involves injections of weakened or inactivated virus to generate an immune response.

The two strongest candidates in this traditional vein so far are from Chinese companies SinoPharm and SinoVac. (China also hasn't signed on to COVAX, but gave the WHO a "positive signal" this week, according to Reuters.)


By refusing to participate in COVAX, Buoey said, the US "basically let go of the most traditional, most mature technology — that's a risk."

The US's two strongest candidates so far, from Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration, are mRNA vaccines, a type that's never been approved by the FDA before. These vaccines use a technology called messenger RNA to create doses using only a virus' genetic code.

A volunteer receives an injection of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the NIH and Moderna on July 27 in Binghamton, New York. AP Photo/Hans Pennink

If successful, mRNA vaccines could be easier to produce and more effective than traditional ones, since they may prompt a stronger immune response and don't need to be incubated the way traditional vaccines do. But that's a big if — there's still a possibility the mRNA vaccines will trigger inadequate immune responses or come with harmful side effects.
The US could lose access to international manufacturing

A big question authorities around the world are still tackling is how a vaccine will be manufactured and distributed after it's proven to be safe and effective. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) — a foundation that funds vaccine research and is one of COVAX's main backers — announced in June that it had identified enough vaccine manufacturers to produce 4 billion doses in a year.


The US's refusal to participate in COVAX means it could lack access to that infrastructure, though the country is working to expand its own manufacturing capacity.

"It's really just US versus all these other countries," Buoey said. "The US will be left on its own."

Fujifilm received a $265 million grant to help expand US vaccine-manufacturing capacity. Reuters

The US's absence could limit COVAX's potential manufacturing capacity as well — the initiative could distribute more vaccines if it had early access to successful candidates and facilities in the US.
The US's economy and reputation could suffer

Even if the US does create a successful vaccine, it could suffer economic repercussions if it hoards all the doses to itself, or if its supply chain can't effectively distribute extra doses worldwide.

That's because countries without a vaccine would continue to struggle with the economic impacts of COVID-19, and their economic fates are intertwined with the US's.

"We will continue to suffer the economic consequences — lost US jobs — if the pandemic rages unabated in allies and trading partners," Thomas J. Bollyky, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Washington Post.

Then there are larger, long-term questions about the US's global reputation as a public-health leader, Buoey said, if the country stays out of international collaboration efforts.

"Even during the height of the Cold War, US and Soviet Union scientists were working collaboratively with WHO on eradicating polio in 1950s to 1980s," she said. "Right now, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, the US is really changing the track."


Hilary Brueck contributed reporting.

A Lawless Attorney General Hits New Lows
In a CNN interview, William Barr showed total willingness to bend, break, or deny the law on behalf of his boss.

By Joan WalshTwitter
TODAY 11:07 AM


Attorney General William Barr. (Charlie Riedel / AP Photo)

It’s tough to choose the worst thing Attorney General William Barr said in a shocking Wednesday interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. He claimed that Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the back by Kenosha police last month, was armed; he was not. He appeared to back up Donald Trump’s demented claim that thugs in black boarded planes headed to Washington bent on mayhem, and then dissolved in “I don’t know what the president was specifically referring to.” When Blitzer asked if Trump’s outrageous suggestion that North Carolina supporters vote twice—ostensibly to check whether voting by mail made it possible—was illegal, Barr repeatedly averred, insisting, “I don’t know what the law in the particular state says.”

I do, and I don’t have a law degree. In none of our 50 states, nor the District of Columbia, is it legal to vote or attempt to vote twice. (That’s actually federal law.) You’re welcome.

To his credit, Blitzer debunked all of those false claims and more. When Barr insisted voting by mail and other reforms make voter fraud rampant, Blitzer asked how many instances of voter fraud had he prosecuted in his 10 years as attorney general; Barr had to admit “I don’t know.” He wouldn’t rule out sending federal agents to polling places in November “if there was a specific investigative danger.” But even acting Homeland Security director Chad Wolf, no paragon of independence or integrity, said last month he has no authority to deploy federal law enforcement officers that way.

A sinister arrogance, the smirking sense that he’s above the law, pervaded Barr’s replies. As well as brazen racism. Like Trump, he refused to admit the country, or law enforcement particularly, suffers from “systemic racism.” Cops don’t treat black men differently from white men because of “discrimination,” he insisted. “If anything’s been baked in, it’s a bias toward non-discrimination.” Citing a comment the Rev. Jesse Jackson made 30 years ago about how even he sometimes feared young black men, Barr seemed to make the case that the disparity in their treatment by police stems from their own criminality, not police bias. Never mind that research shows that whether they’re obeying the law or breaking it, black men are much more likely than white men to suffer violence and abuse at the hands of police.

None of this should be shocking: Barr has been Trump’s toady, and not America’s lawyer, since his first hours on the job. From lying about the conclusions of Robert Mueller’s investigation to personally supervising the crackdown on peaceful protest in June, just so Trump could get a photo op with an upside-down Bible, Barr has been Trump’s Roy Cohn. Just last week, his Department of Justice took initial steps to investigate whether the Democratic governors of just four states—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—violated the civil rights of nursing home residents with their handling of Covid. Of course, nursing home residents, tragically, have borne the brunt of the disease in most states (along with prisoners, whose rights Barr seems strangely uninterested in representing). Two prominent disability rights lawyers pronounced the investigation “transparently political and plainly not undertaken in good faith” in Slate.

Though it’s hard to identify Barr’s worst moment in the Blitzer interview, his apparent willingness to back up Trump’s lies about voter fraud, and to use federal agents to investigate false claims on Election Day and after, was the most alarming. If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can prevail in November despite Trump and Barr’s attempts to thwart them, and to thwart democracy, I’d really like to see President Biden put Vice President Harris in charge of assembling some kind of Trump-Barr Crimes Commission (backed by Attorney General Sally Yates or Preet Bharara). There must be accountability for all the lawbreaking in this administration, including by the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Until then, we can’t get numb to Barr’s repeated willingness to bend, break, or deny the law on behalf of his boss. This election is going to require us to vote in record-breaking numbers. Use your outrage—“good outrage,” to paraphrase the late John Lewis—to get in “good trouble”: organizing energetically to put an end to the lawless Trump-Barr era.




Joan WalshTWITTER

Joan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America.

People not wearing face coverings could be forced to prove they have medical reason

A senior SNP MP said bus drivers and shop workers are exasperated by a "growing minority" of people who are refusing to wear a face covering despite having no medical excuse

Scottish people may soon have to prove they're exempt from wearing a mask in public (Image: Getty Images)

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People should be forced to prove they're exempt from wearing a face covering to protect against coronavirus in public, an MP has said.

Under current guidance from the Government, people do not have to provide any medical reason as to why they are not wearing a mask as required in shops and on public transport.

Senior SNP MP Christine Grahame has demanded that people should have proof of medical exemption and heftier fines should be issued for people caught maskless without an excuse.

At First Minister's Questions on Wednesday in Scotland, Grahame said: "Bus drivers, store managers, shop assistants and the public often feel helpless and exasperated by the flouting of the use of face coverings by a growing minority, in my view.

MP Christine Grahame claims a growing minority of people are refusing to wear a face covering for no reason (Image: Getty Images)

"Is the Scottish Government considering upping the ante by requiring individuals, if asked, albeit discreetly, evidence of their exemptions – I'm not suggesting GP notes by any means – together with stiffer fines?

"Both of which would deter non compliance, assist the police and provide that added protection for the travelling and shopping public and release shop managers, shop assistants and bus drivers from the pressure that's sometimes put upon them to do something."

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon replied that the rules around medical exemption must be approached sensitively but the wider guidance will always be kept under review.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says the government will consider changing how the mask mandate is enforced (Image: Getty Images)
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"The police have got to continue to act with discretion, as they have been doing," she said.

"In response to Christine Grahame's question about amending the enforcement regime, in a general sense we will keep that under review.

"We have changed the areas of enforcement on previous occasions and we will always consider doing that if we think that is necessary. Fixed penalty fines for non compliance will be something we consider.

People with certain health conditions and disabilities are exempt from wearing a face covering (Image: Getty Images)

"I think in terms of face coverings, people who have health reasons for not wearing one we have to continue to act sensitively to that. I know Christine Grahame does agree with that.

"Fundamentally we will have enforcement regimes in place, but all of us have a duty to do the right things for the right reasons."

She said the vast majority of people are complying with face covering requirements and anyone without a good reason should "really think about it" as a way to protect the rest of the community.

Ms Sturgeon says the vast majority of Scottish people are complying with the face mask rule (Image: AFP via Getty Images)


People with certain medical conditions or disabilities are exempt from wearing a face covering as are those communicating with a hearing-impaired person who lip-reads.

Official Scottish Government guidance states: "Those exempt under the guidance and regulations do not have to prove their exemption and should not be made to wear a face covering or denied access to public transport or shops.

"We ask for people to be aware of the exemptions and to treat each other with kindness."

Should people wear a face mask during exercise: What should clinicians advise?

Posted on June 12, 2020 by BJSM

Many community-based measures to control the spread of the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) are implemented, including social distancing, hand hygiene and wearing non-medical face masks in public areas. This recommendation is based on the concept of ‘source control’ to prevent droplets produced by the person wearing the mask from spreading to other people or onto surfaces. It is much easier to reduce droplet spread by blocking larger droplets as they come out of a person’s mouth, that it is to block them as they have dissipated and become much smaller1.

Compulsory wearing of face masks is observed in some countries, e.g. South Africa, Taiwan, Japan, and the Czech Republic, and coincides with a reduction in rates of transmission1. However, adhering to these measures becomes more challenging and confusing during an outdoor exercise session. Infection control remains an important consideration, but wearing a mask comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort in mind. Selecting an appropriate face-covering becomes an act of balancing benefits versus possible adverse events. Most people will be able to exercise safely wearing a face covering, but points to consider include:

Viral transmission from infected but asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic individuals is possible.2,3,4 Due to the increased rate and force associated with breathing during exercise, the risk of aerolisation and the spread of virus-containing droplets could theoretically be higher than when at rest.

Reserve filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) (e.g. N95/FFP1/FFP2) for specific work environments such as front-line healthcare workers. These should not be used by the public and also not for exercise purposes.

Airflow-restricting masks can increase the rate of perceived exertion and decrease performance during resistance training.5,6 Not much is known about the effect during aerobic activity. Surgical masks may increase perceptions of dyspnoea, but negative effects on aerobic performance have not been demonstrated.7

While there is no evidence showing the effects of cloth masks or buffs, they could potentially increase the breathing effort and cause accumulation of CO2. Wearing a mask may, in fact, simulate the physiological effect of altitude training, albeit on a smaller scale8. This is unlikely to be an issue for most people but could present a problem at higher intensities of exercise, particularly for those with underlying health concerns. It would be prudent for people with existing heart or lung conditions to exercise at a lower intensity than usual while wearing a mask, to prevent any adverse events. People must be cognisant of their breathing during exercise and somewhat slow down or take a break if they feel that their work rate is too high or if experiencing dizziness or light-headedness.

A more breathable material will aid in comfort but may have the cost of less effective viral source control. Two layers of material are considered sufficient to balance efficacy and comfort. Not having a tight seal around the sides of your face also allows for better air movement, but will subsequently increase the risk of droplet spread.

Due to the accumulation of moisture from our exhaled breath, cloth masks or buffs are likely to get wet during exercise. Breathing through dry cloth is easier as opposed to damp cloth. Hot and humid conditions can worsen the effect of strenuous breathing. Moisture-wicking material, such as polyester, is a good option but may cause skin irritation in sensitive individuals. Consider taking a second mask/buff along during exercise sessions for replacement of the damp one. This can be tricky as one should try to avoid touching your face. Therefore an attempt to maintain good hand hygiene before and after touching your face is advised and can be achieved by taking along travel-sized sanitisers in your pocket.
Theoretically, wet material may facilitate viral transmission. However, cloth masks are recommended for source control and are likely insufficient to prevent transmission of viral particles to the wearer even when dry.
Ensure that your face covering is comfortable and secure before leaving the house, to limit the need to readjust it and touch your face.
Although everything regarding COVID-19 is not clear yet, the rule not to exercise when suffering from febrile illness remains, due to the cardiorespiratory complications that may occur.9-10

Summary:
A face-covering is an effective way to prevent viral transmission in a community context, provided that compliance is high11.
This must be accompanied by social distancing during exercise and effective hand hygiene when you return home.
Remove the mask correctly after workouts by untying it from behind. Avoid touching the front area of the cover, particularly the inner layer.
After removing the mask, or in case of inadvertent touching it, wash or sanitise your hands.
Remember to wash your mask/buff regularly, preferably iron it dry, and do not re-use masks designed for single use.
Do not exercise with febrile illness.

Authors and Affiliations:

Jessica Hamuy Blancoa [MBBCh, DA (SA)]

Dina C (Christa) Janse van Rensburga, b [MD (PhD), MMed, MSc, MBChB, FACSM, FFIMS]

aSection Sports Medicine & Sport Exercise Medicine Lifestyle Institute (SEMLI), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

bInternational Netball Federation, Manchester, UK Medical Board Member, UK

Email: christa.jansevanrensburg@up.ac.za

ORCID IDs

Jessica Hamuy Blanco – ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8035-1438

Dina C (Christa) Janse Van Rensburg – ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1058-6992

Twitter:

Jessica Hamuy Blanco – @JHamuyBlanco

Dina C (Christa) Janse Van Rensburg – @ChristaJVR

References:
Greenhalgh T. Face coverings for the public: Laying straw men to rest. J Eval Clin Pract. 2020.
Rothe C, et al. Transmission of 2019-ncov infection from an asymptomatic contact in germany. The New England journal of medicine. 2020; 382(10):970-1.
Pan X, et al. Asymptomatic cases in a family cluster with sars-cov-2 infection. The Lancet. Infectious diseases. 2020; 20(4):410-1.
Kimball A, et al. Asymptomatic and presymptomatic sars-cov-2 infections in residents of a long-term care skilled nursing facility. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report. 2020; 69(13):377-81.
Motoyama YL, et al. Airflow-restricting mask reduces acute performance in resistance exercise. Sports (Basel, Switzerland). 2016; 4(4):46.
Andre TL, et al. Restrictive breathing mask reduces repetitions to failure during a session of lower-body resistance exercise. J Strength Cond Res. 2018; 32(8):2103-8. Person E, et al. [effect of a surgical mask on six minute walking distance]. Rev Mal Respir. 2018; 35(3):264-8.
Burtscher M, et al. Effects of intermittent hypoxia on running economy. Int J Sports Med. 2010; 31(9).
Phelan D, et al. A game plan for the resumption of sport and exercise after coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) infection. JAMA Cardiology. 2020.
Al-Qahtani AA. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2): Emergence, history, basic and clinical aspects. Saudi J Biol Sci. 2020.
Howard J, et al. Face masks against covid-19: An evidence review. 2020.

Iceland Has Very Good News About Coronavirus Immunity

Ferdinando Giugliano, Bloomberg News

Tourists visit The Sun Voyager (Solfar), a sculpture by Jon Gunnar Arnason, in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Monday, July 20, 2020. Foreigners returned to Iceland on Monday after a hiatus imposed by the Covid-19 outbreak, in a welcome sign for an island nation whose economy is reliant on tourism. , Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The emergence of a handful of people reinfected by SARS-Cov-2 — including individuals in Hong Kong, Italy and the U.S. — has sparked panic over the future course of the pandemic.

It’s not difficult to see why. One of the great hopes in tackling the new coronavirus is that partial herd immunity can slow its spread, as the number of cases continues to rise globally. A vaccine — seen as the real game changer in the fight against the pathogen — also relies on inducing some form of long-lasting antibody reaction in inoculated individuals.

But what if immunity wanes, plunging humanity into a never-ending cycle of relapses? This is the stuff of nightmares.

Fortunately, things may not be so bad. For now, there are very few cases of confirmed reinfections, suggesting they may be rare. Some doctors also believe that most relapses will be milder than the first infection. (That happened in the Hong Kong reinfection, although not in the U.S. case.) This weakening of the virus’s impact will depend on our body learning to fight it, for example via the development of suitable so-called T-cells.

A crucial question to gauge the risk of reinfection is how many individuals develop antibodies and how long they last. Some experts worry that only those who suffer the worst Covid-19 cases produce an immune response that’s both sizeable enough and protracted enough to build up adequate antibodies. If this is true, the lucky ones who escape the worst symptoms — including most kids and young adults — will be more vulnerable to reinfection. 

A study on the pandemic in Iceland published in the New England Journal of Medicine offers some evidence to dispel such fears. The researchers have looked at serum samples from 30,576 individuals, using six different types of antibody testing (since different techniques often produce conflicting results).

The paper’s central findings are that, out of 1,797 tested people who’d recovered from Covid, 91.1% produced detectable levels of antibodies. Moreover, these levels hadn’t declined four months after the diagnosis. The immune response was higher among older individuals — who are at greater risk of developing a more dangerous form of the coronavirus — and among those who presented the worst symptoms.

But the broader immune response is potentially good news for the efficacy of any vaccine and appears to confirm that reinfections, at least shortly after the first illness, may indeed be rare.

While it’s also theoretically good news for herd immunity, that doesn’t mean we’re anywhere near achieving that happy state. It is thought that about 70% of a population would need to have antibodies to effectively stop the spread of the virus. The study estimates that less than 1% of the Icelandic population came in contact with SARS-CoV-2. This is even lower than the corresponding estimates for Spain, the U.K. and Italy, and shows how far many countries are from group immunity.

It is also too early so say whether these antibody findings will hold over a longer time period. It’s possible that immunity will fade as time goes by, leaving us more exposed to the virus. But, for now, there’s no reason to fear the worst. The development of vaccines is happening at breakneck speed, and available evidence shows the human body is indeed developing some form of protection. In a year of overwhelmingly grim news, this is very welcome.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Ferdinando Giugliano writes columns and editorials on European economics for Bloomberg View. He is also an economics columnist for La Repubblica and was a member of the editorial board of the Financial Times.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet in Donald Trump’s disinformation campaign

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 BY RICK SNEDEKER
PATHEOS 

Blatant deception and disinformation, by now, has become baked into the Trump administration.

But something along that inflamed vein that occurred yesterday somehow seemed different as we race headlong into the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election.

It seemed insidiously different. It crossed a bright line.

Caricature of U.S. President Donald Trump. (Christoph Scholz, Flikr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

What happened was that Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff, circulated a tweet of a video ostensibly showing Joe Biden sleeping during a recent television interview.


“Sleepy Joe,” ya know, a dismissive slur President Trump repeats ad nauseum, trying, without evidence, to slime his presidential rival as “low energy,” mentally vacuous and unfit to lead.

As far as anyone can tell in the real world, Biden is none of those things.

But when a friend of New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni first saw the slickly produced video, he was taken aback.

“Can this possibly be real?” the friend emailed Bruni.

No, in fact, it couldn’t.

Bruni reports that the whole film was a fraud — taking video from a long-ago interview with singer Harry Belafonte and stitching it together with a clip of Biden nodding off.

There was no Biden interview. Never happened. The clip of him was shot at totally different time and place, perhaps during a campaign rest break. In 2020, the Trump campaign is just willing to violate every standard of honesty and decency to try and gain a political edge on their rival, despite the president’s sweaty embrace of fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity, which has new moral issues of its own (i.e., Jerry Falwell Jr.).

Scum is a fair descriptor for anyone who does this sort of thing to get elected (or for any reason) — dirty tricks that the GOP is deservedly famous for. Remember Richard Nixon’s soulless campaign of lies before he was ousted for Watergate crimes?


The enormous implausibility of the new video was immediately apparent to Bruni when he watched it:

“I was pretty sure at first sight that I was looking at a fake, because Biden’s near motionlessness suggested that someone had captured a few seconds in which his eyelids were lowered and his head tilted forward just so. The sound effect of his snoring was suspiciously loud, as if grafted on after the fact. One top of which, Biden wouldn’t be alone during a television interview. There’d be at least one aide nearby, offscreen. That aide wouldn’t stand by idly as Biden slipped into public slumber. He or she would rouse him right away, even throw something at him if necessary.”

Unfortunately, More than two million people watched the fake video before Twitter ultimately shut it down for subterfuge. Scavino alone has more than 900,000 Twitter followers on his personal account. These are facts well know to Trump himself and the other people without scruples who run his political apparatus; you can get away with a lot of dirty dealing because of the time lag before the attacks on public integrity are noticed and, if the rest of the country is lucky, are ultimately removed from the web.


So, even if they’re made to disappear, their effect lingers.

What really disturbs me about this kind of bald-faced dishonesty that seeks to damage people’s ability to make fact-based, reasoned decisions about candidates, is that there doesn’t seem to be a damned thing any honorable person can do about it.

America’s vaunted free-speech ethos, which is on steroids in political campaigns, was originally created with the understanding (now increasingly shown to be nonsense) that the best disinfectant of dastardly speech is more speech. No. The best disinfectant would be laws making the willful dissemination of gratuitous and damaging disinformation illegal under any circumstance, with consequences strong enough to be deterrent.

I get nauseous when people say, “The American people are smart enough to know what’s what and to make reasoned decisions.”

Yeah. Like tens of millions of those “smart” Americans electing inarguably the most awful president and worse human being ever to sit in the Oval Office. A president who is now fomenting political violence across the country just because he thinks it will help his re-election chances.


Sure. Why try to mitigate dishonest speech that propagates dangerous unrest in the nation for reasons that don’t actually exist? Certainly more speech will solve that.

Right.

Because of this new fraudulent Trump video sliming Biden we can trust even less of what we see and hear in the country, and that was already at the vanishing point. Don’t forget that video technology exists now that can very convincingly seem to show someone saying things that they never said. I’ve seen some examples (it’s called “deep fake” technology), and it’s insidious and destructive portent is chilling. If you’re skeptical, watch this embedded video below and you no longer will be.

Don’t forget that the Trump administration’s purposeful assault on truth and veracity is exactly the same propaganda playbook Hitler used in grabbing absolute power and hijacking Nazi Germany for total war in the 1930s.

The tactic was that if you say a damn lie often enough for long enough, it begins to seem more and more like truth.

But the strategy was to create a chaotic environment of such uncertainty that people begin to doubt what they actually, irrefutably know — and then turn to their “Dear Leader” for truth.

That’s where we’re at in America at the moment.

That’s why a presumably very smart and well-informed friend of Frank Bruni momentarily wasn’t altogether sure whether the doctored video of Biden was real or not.

This stuff is very dangerous for a democratic republic, and for reason.

I mention it here in a nonreligious blog because this misrepresentation of reality in service to fantasy is what religious indoctrination is all about.

BELARUS UPDATES 

 Russia Is Using the Media to Wage War in Belarus. Sound Familiar?

Eli Lake, Bloomberg News

Not a prominent image on Belarusian state media. , Photographer: Misha Friedman/Getty Images Europe

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- If you believe the message from the Kremlin, Russia currently has no plans to send police or military forces into neighboring Belarus. But it has sent in some reinforcements — to the news media, as part of a strategy that should stand as a warning to democracies around the world.

Of course, President Vladimir Putin mused last week, Russia may eventually need to intervene in Belarus militarily. But as his spokesman put it this week: “At present we see that the situation is under control.”

Putin is trying to convey the impression that he is just a concerned neighbor in a crisis that has exploded in national unrest since Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko declared victory in a stolen election last month. Russia, Putin wants the world to believe, is holding back.

This perception is deceiving. In reality, Russia is waging a kind of stealth intervention in Belarus, the first part of which is taking place in the media. Belarusian state television has replaced Belarusian journalists with those from the Kremlin-financed RT network, which Lukashenko confirmed this week in an interview. “You understand how important you were to us during this difficult period,” he told an RT correspondent. “And what you demonstrated technically, your IT specialists, and journalists, and correspondents, and so on ... and your manager. This is worth a lot.”

An early warning about the Russian takeover of Belarusian state television came from George Barros, who works for the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. Barros wrote on Aug. 20 about new montage videos that depicted the U.S. and NATO as fomenting unrest in Belarus, as well as slick propaganda videos being released through Belarus’ interior ministry. State TV was engaged in an effort to “humanize Belarusian officials,” he told me in an interview, while portraying protesters “as threatening the families and lives of security personnel.”

This is the opposite of what was happening in Belarus. The state began arresting thousands of protesters indiscriminately after the disputed election last month. The BBC has reported that some of those detained said they were tortured in jail.

Russia’s assistance to Lukashenko did not end there, either. Barros and his colleague Mason Clark have also tracked three flights in mid-August of government-owned passenger jets from Moscow to Minsk. The first such plane, they say, belonged to the FSB, the Russian Federal Security Service.

There is no direct evidence that FSB officers were on those flights. But Barros says there is circumstantial evidence that the FSB is advising Lukashenko on how to disperse the protests. After that first flight on Aug. 18, for example, the Belarusian security services ended a policy of mass arrests, which fueled unrest, and began a strategy of targeted detentions of organizers and opposition leaders.

In an interview with reporters this week, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun said there was little doubt that Russia was “exercising some level of influence” in Belarus, and said that publicly available flight tracking data showed that “elite aircraft from the FSB intelligence service has flown into Minsk on more than a couple of occasions.”

What all this means for the future of Belarus is not good. If Lukashenko is able to retain power, he will have to reverse any policies or stances that sought or promoted greater independence from Moscow. What will happen to his opposition to an economic and political union between Belarus and Russia? Will he still tout his anti-Russian bonafides, as he did during the presidential campaign, when Belarusian law enforcement agencies arrested 33 Russian mercenaries?

More broadly, Putin’s offensive in Belarus is yet more evidence that Russia considers the media landscape a battlefield for its own brand of hybrid warfare. Sometimes, the war requires actual troops, as in 2014 in Ukraine. Other times, the goal is to sow chaos and mistrust in democracy. This time, in Belarus, it appears that Russia is trying to quell a democratic uprising without firing a single shot.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

A distorted Muscovite picture
The information war over Belarus hots up
Russia rules the airwaves but not social media

Europe Sep 5th 2020 edition

Sep 5th 2020

MINSK

It was the cables that gave them away. As foreign and local journalists in Belarus scrambled to report on the latest crackdown on peaceful protesters, one film crew was always in prime position. Its members were untouched whenever police hounded other journalists, stripping them of their accreditation and deporting them. The camera cables that stretched past several unmarked police minibuses led to the source of their protection: a white and green van belonging to Russia Today.

Russia’s “green men”, unbadged soldiers sent to Ukraine after its revolution in 2014, are yet to make an appearance in Belarus. But the Kremlin’s propaganda warriors have already occupied its airwaves. Their invasion was solicited by Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s embattled dictator, who has lost any claims to legitimacy first by rigging the recent presidential election, then by unleashing terror against the large numbers of his people who protested.


Shocked by the violence of the security services, workers in state-owned factories, who were once Mr Lukashenko’s most solid backers, went on strike. Journalists for state television, normally obedient servants of the regime, walked out of their studios in protest. Desperate to look more in control, Mr Lukashenko appealed to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for help.

Mr Putin cannot afford to let Mr Lukashenko be overthrown by popular protests. He does not want to set a dangerous precedent. The attempt to kill Russia’s main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, shows just how nervous the Kremlin is feeling. But Mr Putin has little desire to incur new Western sanctions by sending soldiers to save Mr Lukashenko. (Sanctions may be forthcoming anyway, following Germany’s confirmation on September 2nd that Mr Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent similar to ones used in other Russian-sponsored assassinations, to which only state operatives could have access.) Helping Belarus improve its propaganda is more deniable and less provocative than sending troops.

The change in programming wrought by Russia is glaring. Before the information takeover, Belarusian state tv offered a largely ineffective diet of Soviet and second world war mythology—more Belarus Yesterday than Russia Today. The newly arrived propagandists from Moscow have wheeled out an arsenal of aggression and divisiveness. Breathless news reports have started to warn of the havoc caused by protests in France and Syria. Coverage also seeks to discredit and sneer at the local protests as creations of the West. Selective editing depicts them as feebly supported yet violent—and doomed to failure. A new legion of experts warns of the dangers of a split in Belarusian society.

Mr Lukashenko, who has spent the past two years rallying Belarusians around the flag and feeding his army and security services a yarn about Russia’s threat to the country’s sovereignty, has abruptly changed his tune. He talks these days about one fatherland stretching from Brest, a city in Belarus’s west, to Vladivostok in Russia’s far east. “We now have no other choice but to fasten our boat to the eastern shore,” one senior and somewhat disoriented government official says, landlocked Belarus being conspicuously lacking in shores.


But sprucing up state television’s news reports in this way may not have the intended effect. The change is so sudden and so obvious that it risks further alienating citizens who have experienced a national awakening in the past few weeks. The rush of Russian-made propaganda might persuade some wavering Belarusians against taking to the streets, but it seems unlikely to change the minds of the hundreds of thousands who are already there.

The Belarusians who brave police violence do not watch state television, but rely instead on social media and messenger groups, such as Nekhta (Someone), a Telegram channel run by young Belarusians from neighbouring Poland. It has quickly clocked up over a billion page views. Being told by Russia that they are mere extras in a Western plot will make the protesters all the more determined to prove themselves leading actors in an historic drama. ■

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "A distorted picture"

Belarusian leader reshuffles security chiefs in face of mass protests

Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko promoted hardline loyalists to top posts in his security apparatus on Thursday in an effort to strengthen his grip on the former Soviet republic after weeks of mass protests and strikes.


Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko meets with newly appointed head of the KGB security service Ivan Tertel, newly appointed secretary of the security council Valery Vakulchik and acting head of the state control committee Vasily Gerasimov in Minsk, Belarus September 3, 2020. Nikolai Petrov/BelTA/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. MANDATORY CREDIT.

Lukashenko, facing the biggest challenge to his 26-year rule, accompanied the reshuffle with instructions to act tough in the face of what he has repeatedly alleged is foreign aggression. “Belarus finds itself confronting an external aggressor one-to-one,” he told the new security chiefs.

“Therefore I ask you to take this to the people. They shouldn’t condemn me for any sort of softness. There’s no softness here. The country is working, although many, especially our neighbours, would like us to collapse.”

Retaining the loyalty of the security forces, who have helped him crack down hard on dissent, is vital to Lukashenko as he tries to crush protests that show no sign of abating after nearly four weeks.

RELATED COVERAGE

Russia's PM: Belarus should not allow external pressure - Interfax

U.S. troops to start extended exercises in Lithuania amid tensions over Belarus

Lukashenko removed Andrei Ravkov, head of the security council which coordinates the work of all the agencies, and replaced him with Valery Vakulchik, previously head of the KGB security police.

Vakulchik was replaced by Ivan Tertel, formerly head of the state control committee which investigates economic crime. In that role, Tertel had led a criminal investigation against banker Viktor Babariko which led to the latter being banned from running against Lukashenko in last month’s election.

Another loyalist, Vasily Gerasimov, was named acting head of the control committee, and Anatoly Sivak, the mayor of Minsk, was promoted to deputy prime minister.

TORTURE REPORTS

Lukashenko has provided no evidence that foreign powers are behind the protests. The opposition has denied this, and NATO has also denied his allegations that it is massing forces near the Belarusian border.

Belarus is a close ally of Moscow, which sees it as a vital strategic buffer between Russia and NATO. President Vladimir Putin said last week the Kremlin had set up a reserve police force at Lukashenko’s request but it would be deployed only if necessary.

Human rights experts from the United Nations said this week they had received reports of hundreds of cases of torture, beatings and mistreatment of Belarusian protesters by police.

The government has denied abusing detainees and has said its security forces have acted appropriately against demonstrators.

Separately, two former TV presenters were arrested in the capital Minsk on Wednesday night, relatives and local media said.

Broadcaster Euroradio said Denis Dudinsky was detained by uniformed officers who dragged him into a black minibus near his house.

A second former TV anchor, Dmitry Kokhno, was also arrested and driven away, according to his wife Nadezhda. She wrote on Instagram that he was held in jail overnight and would appear in court on Thursday.

“I thank God our son didn’t see it (the arrest),” she said, alongside a black and white photo of her husband with the small boy.

Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Tom Balmforth; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Mark Heinrich



SHADOW GOVERNMENT
The Trump Administration Has Gone AWOL on Belarus
The Belarusian people may yet achieve the end of the Lukashenko era, but it will be in spite of the United States’ silence.
BY DANIEL B. BAER | SEPTEMBER 3, 2020, 6:30 AM
A woman holds a forbidden Belarusian flag during a protest rally in Minsk on Aug. 14. SERGEI GAPON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES


During the Republican National Convention last week, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got a lot of attention for using public resources to travel to Israel to give a convention speech he could have delivered from his living room. The abuse of his position for party politics was an untoward, unprofessional, and unethical contravention of longstanding norms, if not the law. Yet in the long run, less important than what Pompeo did last week is what he didn’t do: stand with the courageous people of Belarus.

The last month has been a seismic political moment in Belarus, replete with dramatic scenes recalling other historic European flashpoints—Prague in 1968, Gdansk in 1980. Stunning mass protests erupted in the wake of the flagrantly rigged Aug. 9 elections in which incumbent Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko—in power for a quarter century and known as “Europe’s last dictator”—claimed victory despite widespread fraud and a likely loss to opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Having stepped up in July after her husband was denied registration as a candidate and arrested by the regime, she proved a capable if unlikely politician, and she managed to consolidate the opposition and draw huge crowds at rallies in the weeks before the election. After Lukashenko declared himself the winner, Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania, fearing for her safety.


The official U.S. reaction to the rigged election and resulting protests has been weak, but the U.S. diplomatic response is even more disappointing. On the day after the election, Pompeo issued the obligatory statement professing to be “deeply concerned” about the vote that was “neither free nor fair”—an understated reaction. Two days later, on Aug. 12, he addressed the Czech parliament in Prague in a 14.5-minute speech called: “Securing Freedom in the Heart of Europe.” In his speech, Pompeo mentioned China, the Chinese government, and the Chinese Communist Party 20 times; he never once said the word “Belarus.” There has been no formal statement from the White House. Once more, we have to wonder whether President Donald Trump is more worried about ruffling feathers in Moscow than he is about advancing democratic values and U.S. national security interests.
Putin sensed the United States and Europe were not coordinated, and decided to move forward with his own agenda.

It’s a missed opportunity. A different president, whether Republican or Democratic, would have had long calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. There would have been a clear, timely, and public rejection of the election as a farce and a call for Lukashenko to negotiate with protesters and the opposition. The secretary of state would be working the phones and conducting shuttle diplomacy, working with the Europeans to present a united position that Lukashenko must be given an off-ramp, while communicating with the Russians that the U.S. and European position is not a matter of geopolitics but of commitment to the rights and freedoms of the Belarusian people, and all the while reaffirming publicly that the future of Belarus is for Belarusians to decide.

Instead, Pompeo and Trump have been missing in action. And while the Europeans have moved forward with a number of laudable steps—including allocating financial resources to support victims of the regime’s crackdown and independent media—when Washington is absent, there is no opportunity for U.S. leadership and no opportunity for a coordinated and cooperative U.S.-European approach.

Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun deserves credit for his effort at picking up the ball fumbled by Trump and Pompeo and doing his best to run with it. He traveled to Vilnius and Vienna in the last 10 days to meet European colleagues and opposition candidate Tsikhanouskaya, and to support the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in its efforts to mediate a negotiated solution to the political crisis. Biegun is a skilled diplomat, and has said the right things, including at an emergency meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council last weekend, when he called for an end to the crackdown on protestors, the release of political prisoners, and new elections in which the people of Belarus are “provided the self-determination to choose their own leaders through a truly free and fair election under independent observation.” Unfortunately, Biegun cannot do this on his own—this level of statecraft requires the “oomph” that can only come from the White House and the secretary of state. Pompeo’s belated statement this week that the United States might sanction those responsible for human rights abuses in the election’s wake is welcome, but falls short of a real strategy.
We should not accept the Trump administration’s failure as the Belarusian people’s fate.

And that’s heartbreaking, because Biegun’s efforts are a reminder of what could be—and of the opportunity that the United States, and with it the West, may be missing. Much has been made of Putin’s role in all this; since the early days after the election, some have been predicting that Putin would rush in with troops to reinforce Lukashenko. But Putin’s initial statement—like Pompeo’s—was tepid. The Russians are certainly active covertly on the ground in Minsk, but, at least until this week, Putin appeared to be holding back. Lukashenko has skillfully played the West and Moscow against each other in recent decades, cozying up to one in order to entice concessions from the other; this has not endeared him to Putin. Putin sees Lukashenko as a loser who makes other autocrats, like himself, look bad by association. And no one in the region has a more acute paranoia about popular discontent than Putin. He has seen the crowds of hundreds of thousands in the streets of Minsk in the wake of the election. He knows that Lukashenko lost the election, and that if he remains in office, he remains as a corpse. In the short term, that might be ok for Putin—he has experience turning corpses into puppets—but he knows that a political corpse must sooner or later be replaced. It’s clear that Putin wasn’t immediately ready to take action to secure Lukashenko’s grip on power. It’s unclear what alternatives Putin might have seen as acceptable.

It’s possible that in the weeks after the election, Putin would have been open to some sort of negotiated solution that provided a face-saving exit for Lukashenko and a new chapter for the Belarusian people. Perhaps he would still be open to such an outcome now. But his latest move—using a birthday call last Sunday to invite Lukashenko to Moscow—seems to suggest that he is moving out of his “wait and see” phase. If so, the explanation is not that protests have ended—on Sept. 1, high school and university students were beset by Lukashenko’s thuggish security forces with dramatic violence—but may be that Putin sensed the United States and Europe were not coordinated, and decided to move forward with his own agenda.


READ MORE


Time Is Running Out in Belarus


Putin is signaling he wants a clear resolution—but he may not mind which side wins.
ARGUMENT | VLADISLAV DAVIDZON


Lukashenko Unleashed Changes in Belarus That Are Out of His Control


Whatever happens in the ongoing protests, the country’s society is increasingly less governable for a dictator.
ARGUMENT | TOMASZ GRZYWACZEWSKI


Is Belarus Putin’s Next Target?


As protests rock another post-Soviet state, the Kremlin could be in an annexationist mood.
IT'S DEBATABLE | EMMA ASHFORD, MATTHEW KROENIG

There may still be time, but given Trump and Pompeo’s manifest failures on so many issues, there may not be hope. Diplomatic wins on behalf of freedom are hard enough to come by when political leaders and skilled diplomats work in concert—but they are nigh impossible when those at the top are incompetent and unprincipled. As with so much else in the Trump administration, it is not just that they do so much that is bad—the abuse of public office, the attacks on institutions, the rampant corruption—it is also that they miss so many chances to do good. We may never know how big of an opportunity was lost. But we will know that the United States failed to do what it could for 10 million people who deserve—in Pompeo’s own words—“freedom in the heart of Europe.”

This is not to say that we should accept the Trump administration’s failure as the Belarusian people’s fate. For Americans wondering what political courage they might be called upon to muster in the face of an authoritarian sabotaging elections, the people defiantly protesting in Belarus because they are unwilling to play the fools for Lukashenko’s farce have been an inspiring example. As for Americans, they cannot say that they believe in universal values like freedom and human dignity and not hear the call of the Belarusian people, and cannot be champions of those values without making an effort to answer it. The Belarusian people may yet achieve the end of the Lukashenko era, but it will be in spite of the United States’ silence, rather than in harmony with its commitment to freedom.


\Daniel Baer is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from 2013 to 2017. Twitter: @danbbaer

AVA DUVERNAY INTERVIEWS ANGELA DAVIS ON THIS MOMENT—AND WHAT CAME BEFORE

The scholar and activist has spent more than 50 years working for social justice. This summer, society started to catch up.


BY AVA DUVERNAYAugust 26, 2020

IN THE MOMENT
Angela Davis, at her residence in Oakland, July 2020. Poncho by Pyer Moss.Photograph by Deana Lawson.

AVA DuVERNAY: I was reading an interview in which you talked about something that’s been on my mind quite a bit lately. It’s about this time we are in that I’ll just call a racial reckoning. Do you feel that we could have encountered this moment in as robust a manner as we’ve felt it this summer without the COVID crisis having been the foundation? Could one have occurred with this much force without the other?

ANGELA DAVIS: This moment is a conjuncture between the COVID-19 crisis and the increasing awareness of the structural nature of racism. Moments like this do arise. They’re totally unpredictable, and we cannot base our organizing on the idea that we can usher in such a moment. What we can do is take advantage of the moment. When George Floyd was lynched, and we were all witnesses to that—we all watched as this white policeman held his knee on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds—I think that many people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, who had not necessarily understood the way in which history is present in our lives today, who had said, “Well, I never owned slaves, so what does slavery have to do with me?” suddenly began to get it. That there was work that should have happened in the immediate aftermath of slavery that could have prevented us from arriving at this moment. But it did not happen. And here we are. And now we have to begin.

The protests offered people an opportunity to join in this collective demand to bring about deep change, radical change. Defund the police, abolish policing as we know it now. These are the same arguments that we’ve been making for such a long time about the prison system and the whole criminal justice system. It was as if all of these decades of work by so many people, who received no credit at all, came to fruition.


You understood the dangers of American policing, the criminalization of Black, native, and brown people, 50 years ago. Your activism and your scholarship has always been inclusive of class and race and gender and sexuality. It seems we’re at a critical mass where a majority of people are finally able to hear and to understand the concepts that you’ve been talking about for decades. Is that satisfying or exhausting after all this time?


I don’t think about it as an experience that I’m having as an individual. I think about it as a collective experience, because I would not have made those arguments or engaged in those kinds of activisms if there were not other people doing it. One of the things that some of us said over and over again is that we’re doing this work. Don’t expect to receive public credit for it. It’s not to be acknowledged that we do this work. We do this work because we want to change the world. If we don’t do the work continuously and passionately, even as it appears as if no one is listening, if we don’t help to create the conditions of possibility for change, then a moment like this will arrive and we can do nothing about it. As Bobby Seale said, we will not be able to “seize the time.” This is a perfect example of our being able to seize this moment and turn it into something that’s radical and transformative.


I love that. I know that there’s a lot of energy around how to keep the attention. But what you’re saying is it needs to be happening in isolation of any outside forces. So that when the right time comes, there’s a preparation that had already been in process. Don’t think so much about sustaining the moment. Just always be prepared for the moment when it comes, because it will.

Exactly. I’m also thinking about your contributions. So many people have seen your work, your films: 13th and the film on the Central Park Five.

THIS IS HOW THE WORLD CHANGES...AS A RESULT OF THE PRESSURE ORDINARY PEOPLE EXERT ON THE EXISTING STATE OF AFFAIRS.

When They See Us! I can’t believe you know about it. I’m excited.


Oh, my God. I’ve not only seen it, but I’ve encouraged other people to look at it. I saw that really moving conversation between the actors and the actual figures. All of that helps to create fertile ground. I don’t think that we would be where we are today without your work and the work of other artists. In my mind, it’s art that can begin to make us feel what we don’t necessarily yet understand.

You’ve just made my life saying that. Thank you is not enough. There is a lot of talk about the symbols of slavery, of colonialism. Statues being taken down, bridges being renamed, buildings being renamed. Does it feel like performance, or do you think that there’s substance to these actions?

I don’t think there’s a simple answer. It is important to point to the material manifestations of the history that we are grappling with now. And those statues are our reminders that the history of the United States of America is a history of racism. So it’s natural that people would try to bring down those symbols.

If it’s true that names are being changed, statues are being removed, it should also be true that the institutions are looking inward and figuring out how to radically transform themselves. That’s the real work. Sometimes we assume the most important work is the dramatic work—the street demonstrations. I like the term that John Berger used: Demonstrations are “rehearsals for revolution.” When we come together with so many people, we become aware of our capacity to bring about change. But it’s rare that the actual demonstration itself brings about the change. We have to work in other ways.

I always love talking to you because you drop nine references in the conversation. You give me a reading list after from your citations. John Berger. Writing that down. One of the things that you’ve talked about that I hold on to is about diversity and inclusion. In many industries, especially the entertainment industry where I work, those are buzzwords. But I see them in the way that you taught me during our conversation for 13th. These are reform tactics, not change tactics. The diversity and inclusion office of the studio, of the university, of whatever organization, is not the quick fix.

Absolutely. Virtually every institution seized upon that term, “diversity.” And I always ask, “Well, where is justice here?” Are you simply going to ask those who have been marginalized or subjugated to come inside of the institution and participate in the same process that led precisely to their marginalization? Diversity and inclusion without substantive change, without radical change, accomplishes nothing.

“Justice” is the key word. How do we begin to transform the institutions themselves? How do we change this society? We don’t want to be participants in the exploitation of capitalism. We don’t want to be participants in the marginalization of immigrants. And so there has to be a way to think about the connection among all of these issues and how we can begin to imagine a very different kind of society. That is what “defund the police” means. That is what “abolish the police” means.

How can we apply that to the educational system?


Capitalism has to be a part of the conversation: global capitalism. And it’s part of the conversation about education, because what we’ve witnessed is increasing privatization, and the emergence of a kind of hybrid: the charter schools. Privatization is why the hospitals were so unprepared [for COVID-19], because they function in accordance with the dictates of capital. They don’t want to have extra beds because then that means that they aren’t generating the profit. And why is it that they’re asking children to go back to school? It’s because of the economy. We’re in a depression now, so they’re willing to sacrifice the lives of so many people in order to keep global capitalism functioning.

I know that’s a macro issue, but I think we cannot truly understand what is happening in the family where the parents are essential workers and are compelled to go to work and have no childcare. Not only should there be free education, but there should be free childcare and there should be free health care as well. All of these issues are coming to a head. This is, as you said, a racial reckoning. A reexamination of the role that racism has played in the creation of the United States of America. But I think we have to talk about capitalism. Capitalism has always been racial capitalism. Wherever we see capitalism, we see the influence and the exploitation of racism.

We haven’t been talking a lot about that period of Occupy. I think that when we look at how social movements develop, Occupy gave us new vocabularies. We began to talk about the 1 percent and the 99 percent. And I think that has something to do with the protests today. We should be very explicit about the fact that global capitalism is in large part responsible for mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex, as it is responsible for the migrations that are happening around the world. Immigrants are forced to leave their homelands because the system of global capitalism has made it impossible to live human lives. That is why they come to the U.S., that is why they come to Europe, seeking better lives.

How does it feel for a woman born into segregation to see this moment? What lessons have you gleaned about struggle?

That’s a really big question. Perhaps I can answer it by saying that we have to have a kind of optimism. One way or another I’ve been involved in movements from the time I was very, very young, and I can remember that my mother never failed to emphasize that as bad as things were in our segregated world, change was possible. That the world would change. I learned how to live under those circumstances while also inhabiting an imagined world, recognizing that one day things would be different. I’m really fortunate that my mother was an activist who had experience in movements against racism, the movement to defend, for example, the Scottsboro Nine.

I’ve always recognized my own role as an activist as helping to create conditions of possibility for change. And that means to expand and deepen public consciousness of the nature of racism, of heteropatriarchy, pollution of the planet, and their relationship to global capitalism. This is the work that I’ve always done, and I’ve always known that it would make a difference. Not my work as an individual, but my work with communities who have struggled. I believe that this is how the world changes. It always changes as a result of the pressure that masses of people, ordinary people, exert on the existing state of affairs. I feel very fortunate that I am still alive today to witness this.

And I’m so glad that someone like John Lewis was able to experience this and see this before he passed away, because oftentimes we don’t get to actually witness the fruits of our labor. They may materialize, but it may be 50 years later, it may be 100 years later. But I’ve always emphasized that we have to do the work as if change were possible and as if this change were to happen sooner rather than later. It may not; we may not get to witness it. But if we don’t do the work, no one will ever witness it.




Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker whose work includes the Oscar-nominated Selma and acclaimed Netflix limited series When They See Us.