It's Not a Border Crisis,' Says Ocasio-Cortez. 'It's an Imperialism Crisis... a Climate Crisis... a Trade Crisis.'

The New York Democrat also explained how the U.S. carceral system and foreign policy relate to the nation's immigration system.

March 31, 2021 Jessica Corbett COMMON DREAMS


South American immigrants arriving illegally from Mexico disembark from an inflatable boat on the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande river at the border city of Roma on March 28, 2021., (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Image)


Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to social media Tuesday night with a detailed reminder of the root causes of Central Americans and other migrants seeking asylum at the United States' southern border.

The New York Democrat is known for engaging with constituents and critics alike on social media. One Instagram user asked the congresswoman: "Why are you not addressing the border crisis and the kids in cages like you used to?" She responded in a series of what are called "stories," which disappear from the platform after 24 hours—though recordings of her comments are now circulating elsewhere online.

"Are you for real?" Ocasio-Cortez said, visibly frustrated by the claim. "So let's talk about this because so much of our national conversation, which is not a conversation, about immigration is driven by people who could not care less about immigrants."

"So often, people wanna say, 'Why aren't you talking about the border crisis?' or 'Why aren't you talking about it in this way?' Well, we're talking about it, they just don't like how we're talking about it," she continued. "Because it's not a border crisis. It's an imperialism crisis. It's a climate crisis. It's a trade crisis."

"And also, it's a carceral crisis," Ocasio-Cortez added, "because as I have already said, even during this term and this president, our immigration system is based and designed on our carceral system."

The congresswoman, an outspoken opponent of former President Donald Trump's immigration policies, put out the videos as the Biden administration is struggling to process asylum-seekers at the southern border—particularly children, who are generally not being deported under a public health law invoked by both administrations to limit access to the United States during the coronavirus pandemic.

President Joe Biden has been criticized this month for restricting journalists from entering facilities for the children. As the Associated Press reports:

The Biden administration for the first time Tuesday allowed journalists inside its main border detention facility for migrant children, revealing a severely overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 people, including children and families, were crammed into a space intended for 250 and the youngest were kept in a large play pen with mats on the floor for sleeping.

...The children were being housed by the hundreds in eight "pods" formed by plastic dividers, each about 3,200 square feet (297 square meters) in size. Many of the pods had more than 500 children in them.

Ocasio-Cortez is not alone in pushing for a more comprehensive conversation about immigration. In a Sunday appearance on CNN, fellow "Squad" member Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y. ) not only called for providing better resources, safety, and housing to those currently seeking asylum but also advocated for the U.S. government helping to "rebuild Central America in the same ways that we have destroyed it."

On Instagram Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez similarly said that "number one, our solutions need to be rooted in foreign policy, because our interventionist history in foreign policy and history over decades of destabilizing regions drive people to migrate—but people don't wanna have that conversation."

"Secondly, let's talk about the climate crisis, because the U.S. has disproportionately contributed to the total amount of emissions that is causing a planetary climate crisis right now," she said, while emphasizing that the Global South is disproportionately bearing the brunt of the consequences, including droughts, floods, and wildfires.

"Then we have the issues of trade, which economically contribute to... some of these conditions that add fuel to the fire," Ocasio-Cortez explained, before challenging the way that some political figures, reporters, and others are discussing the rising number of people—including children—seeking to enter the country.

She asserted that "anyone who's using the term 'surge' around you, consciously, is trying to invoke a militaristic frame and that's a problem, because... this is not a surge. These are children, and they are not insurgents, and we are not being invaded—which, by the way, is a white supremacist idea."

Ocasio-Cortez was among those who responded with alarm last month when the Biden administration announced it was reopening a controversial detention center for unaccompanied children. She tweeted that "this is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay—no matter the administration or party."

"Our immigration system is built on a carceral framework," she said, calling for boldly "reimagining our relationship to each other and challenging common assumptions we take for granted."

The Department of Homeland Security "shouldn't exist" and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has "gotta go," Ocasio-Cortez said, pushing for a ban on for-profit detention and creating a special status for climate refugees—which experts warn will become increasingly necessary as humanity activity continues to heat the planet.

Jessica Corbett is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow her on Twitter: @corbett_jessica.

IN THE MIDDLE EAST BIDEN DISAPPOINTS

US says ex-Egypt PM had diplomatic immunity from lawsuit: Report

Egyptian-American Mohamed Soltan filed a US lawsuit against Hazem el-Beblawi alleging involvement in torture in Egypt.

Former Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi had served as Egypt's representative to the International Monetary Fund [File: Amr Nabil/AP Photo]

5 Apr 2021

The Biden administration has said a lawsuit seeking to hold former Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi accountable for alleged involvement in torture against an Egyptian-American activist should be thrown out because he held diplomatic immunity, the Washington Post newspaper reported on Monday.

In a submission to the US District Court in Washington, DC, shared by the Washington Post, lawyers for the US Justice Department said “El Beblawi held diplomatic status at the time when the suit was commenced” and the court should dismiss “claims falling with the scope of his immunity”.

El-Beblawi had served as Egypt’s representative to the International Monetary Fund, but quit and left the US in late October, the Washington Post reported.

The department said in its court filing that it was not making any judgements on the merits of the case itself.

Egyptian-American rights activist Mohamed Soltan, a former political prisoner in Egypt, filed a lawsuit against el-Beblawi in US District Court last year, accusing the ex-prime minister of ordering his arrest, torture and attempted assassination.

Soltan was arrested during a brutal crackdown in Cairo in 2013.

In a statement shared on Twitter on Monday, Soltan said he was “deeply disappointed” with the Biden administration’s position, saying it had “erred in its interpretation of the law, policy and moral judgement”.

“And in doing so, it has further endangered my life here in the US, and the lives and wellbeing of my family in Egypt. We will allow the court to resolve the immunity issue, as my case is still viable, active and timely. This matter is not over,” Soltan said.


Soltan, the son of a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood which Egypt has banned, was arrested in August 2013 after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led the military overthrow of elected President Mohamed Morsi.

Soltan was released in 2015 following a 15-month hunger strike and deported to the US after renouncing his Egyptian citizenship.

Since taking office, US President Joe Biden has faced growing calls to speak out against human rights abuses in Egypt, a longtime US ally in the Middle East and take a different approach to the bilateral relationship than his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

Trump had praised el-Sisi, calling him his “favourite dictator”.

Rights groups have for years criticised the Egyptian government for cracking down on dissenting voices, including journalists, human rights activists and perceived political opponents. About 60,000 people are believed to be detained in the country.


In recent months, Egyptian human rights advocates in the US – including Soltan – have accused Egypt of going after their loved ones to pressure them into silence, spurring demands for Biden to speak out.

In July of last year, while he was on the presidential campaign trail, Biden tweeted: “No more blank checks for Trump’s ‘favorite dictator'”.

But his administration in February authorised the sale of $200m in weapons to Egypt, saying the country “continues to be an important strategic partner in the Middle East”.

Biden administration officials pledged to press Cairo on human rights, however.

Last month, in a rare public display of criticism of Egypt at the United Nations human rights agency, the US was among 31 signatories calling on the el-Sisi government to end its campaign against civil society groups and activists, and lift curbs on freedoms of expression and assembly.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Japan Airlines to retire 777 planes with Pratt & Whitney engines

Japan Airlines’ move comes a year earlier than planned and on the heels of incidents on some flights.

PRATT & WHITNEY IS THE PREFERRED ENGINE MAKER IN CANADA

Japan Airlines said it would use its long haul planes on its domestic routes to maintain flight frequencies [File: Stringer/Reuters]

6 Apr 2021

Japan Airlines Co Ltd (JAL) said it had retired its fleet of 13 Boeing Co 777s with Pratt & Whitney engines a year earlier than planned, having suspended operations in February after an engine on a United Airlines plane shed debris.

“JAL has decided to accelerate the retirement of all P&W equipped Boeing 777 by March 2021, which (was) originally planned by March 2022,” the Japanese airline said on Monday in a notice on its website.

JAL said it would use newer Airbus SE A350s on domestic routes to Osaka’s Itami Airport and use planes that normally serve international destinations for other domestic routes to help maintain flight frequencies.

Flying demand industry-wide is currently lower than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Japanese carrier had an incident of its own with the PW4000 engines in December when a malfunction forced a Tokyo-bound JAL 777 to return to Naha airport.

The engines are found on only a small number of older 777s operated by JAL, United Airlines Holdings Inc, ANA Holdings Inc, Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, Asiana Airlines Inc and Jin Air Co Ltd.
Immediate inspection

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in February ordered the immediate inspection of 777 planes with PW4000 engines before further flights after the National Transportation Safety Board found a cracked fan blade on the United flight was consistent with metal fatigue.

When metal fatigues, a crack can grow progressively longer each time it is stressed as the engine starts up. Such cracks can linger for years before they lead to failure.

A United Airlines flight was forced to return to Denver International Airport in February when a fan blade in its starboard engine broke off [File: Hayden Smith/@speedbird5280 via Reuters]The action was prompted by the violent failure of a fan blade on one of two engines mounted on a United Airlines plane, a Boeing Co 777-200. After the 40.5-inch (103-centimetre) blade snapped, it tore off another blade and the front structure of the engine, pelting a suburban neighbourhood with metal and other debris.

No one was hurt on the ground and the plane landed safely.

A spokeswoman for Pratt, owned by Raytheon Technologies Corp, in February, said fan blades would need to be shipped to its repair station in East Hartford, Connecticut, for inspection, including those from airlines in Japan and South Korea.

Analysts had said airlines might speed up the retirement of the planes as a result of the need for additional checks.

In March 2019, the FAA issued a directive on the same engines following a similar failure on a United jet flying from San Francisco to Hawaii on February 13, 2018.

It required that the fan blades be inspected before reaching a total of 7,000 flights. Once those were completed, operators had to repeat the inspections within the next 1,000 flights, according to the earlier directive.

Race to the bottom: Yellen makes case for global minimum tax rate

The US Treasury secretary says a global minimum corporate tax rate will ensure firms pay their fair share — but RIGHT WING critics say it’s not that simple.

YES IT IS IT'S CALLED THE TOBIN TAX

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday that a minimum global corporate tax rate will help ensure that everyone pays their share in funding public projects, but critics of the proposal argue that the burden of higher taxes will fall mostly on workers and only drive away corporations and investment [File: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg]

By Radmilla Suleymanova
5 Apr 2021

A global minimum corporate tax rate can help ensure everyone pays their fair share and will prevent companies from fleeing to countries with lower corporate tax rates, United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday.

“Competitiveness is about more than how US-headquartered companies fare against other companies in global merger and acquisition bids,” Yellen told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in her first official remarks as treasury secretary

Speaking ahead of this week’s virtual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, Yellen touched more broadly on the US’s role in the post-pandemic global economic recovery.

Yellen’s remarks in favour of a global corporate tax rate come on the heels of President Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan, which was unveiled last week.

Biden plans to pay the bill by hiking taxes on American companies from 21 percent to 28 percent – still well below the 35 percent they were in 2017, when then-President Donald Trump slashed them.

American firms currently pay roughly 13 percent on offshore earnings, and Biden is seeking to raise the global minimum tax rate to 21 percent.

“We are working with G20 nations to agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom,” Yellen said, referring to the phenomenon of firms fleeing high-tax-rate economies to set up shop in low-tax economies.

Critics of the proposal say the race to the bottom will harm workers, who will feel the most pain if corporations are taxed more. 

GOSH THE RIGHT WING BUSINESS LOBBY IS SUDDENLY CONCERED ABOUT THE AMERICAN WORKER WHOSE MINIMUM WAGE IS $7.25 AN HOUR

“It is hard to see how raising the corporate income tax, the burden of which will be ultimately shouldered by workers and shareholders, will do to help with inequality,” Veronique de Rugy, senior research fellow at the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia, told Al Jazeera.

“Also, raising corporate costs will lead to less investment in fixed assets and that helps no one considering the private sector is the driver of ownership in infrastructure and investment in infrastructure,” she added.

Biden’s proposal would raise the amount of money collected from corporations by 38 percent, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning think-tank based in Washington, DC.

Cato’s director of tax policy studies warned that raising the tax rate in the US will cause American corporations to move their profits and investments abroad and slash costs.

“If we get Amazon or General Electric to pay more taxes, they will end up paying their workers less,” Chris Edwards told Al Jazeera. “It’s kind of a cat-and-mouse game – [the Biden administration] wants to raise the corporate tax rate that will move investments out of the country and then they are trying to bring in rules to prevent that.”
‘It infringes on all of our sovereignty’

Yellen emphasised that the coronavirus has deepened inequalities within and among countries. In the US, millions of Americans lost their jobs and many small businesses were forced to close permanently. Women, people of colour and low-wage workers are still feeling the most economic pain in the pandemic-induced crisis.

“We’re in a deep hole,” Yellen said Monday, adding that the true US unemployment rate is close to 9 percent – versus the March rate of 6 percent showed in Bureau of Labor Statistics data that didn’t include people who have given up looking for work.

The Biden administration is set on returning to a strong system of multilateralism, engaging in global markets and protecting and enforcing a rules-based system. A stable world economy that fights poverty and promotes inclusion benefits the US.

But too many middle- and low-income countries lack the financing to support their economies and are constrained in their abilities to buy coronavirus vaccines.

Yellen warned that this could lead to entrenched poverty and inequality that reverses decades of progress. Low-income countries risk falling behind and may not access the vaccines they need at least until 2023, and, in some cases, 2024, she said Monday.


“We need to help lessen the economic pain in low-income countries,” Yellen stressed, commending the IMF’s plan to expand special drawing rights (SDRs) — a sort of artificial currency that can be traded in for hard currency — by $650bn to give developing countries the liquidity they need to buy vaccines and keep economies afloat.

But opponents of the proposed global minimum tax rate say it won’t help low-income countries that would benefit from corporations doing business there.

“I think having the global minimum tax would be unfair to poor countries,” Edwards of the Cato Institute said. “It infringes on all of our sovereignty.”

Australia owns the mine, which holds minerals useful for electronics, aerospace and climate-friendly products, but locals say extraction threatens their lives.

AUSTRALIAN MINERS ALSO THREATENING PRISTINE ROCKIES IN ALBERTA

Election posters for Kirstine Davidsen and Kornelia Ane Benjaminsen from the Siumut party in Nuuk, Greenland [Emil Helms/EPA]

By 

Regin Winther Poulsen

5 Apr 2021

|

Updated: 

18 hours ago

Greenlanders are bracing for a snap election that is being viewed as a referendum on a controversial mine that has not yet opened.

Kvanefjeld, the rare-earth mineral project near Narsaq in southern Greenland, has divided the political system for more than a decade, and is of significant importance to the global mining industry.

KEEP READING

US auto group warns of chip shortage, asks government for help

Japan Airlines to retire 777 planes with Pratt & Whitney engines

New IMF reserves could fund vaccines in poor nations: Rockefeller

Top Senate Republican slams corporate activism over Georgia law

The small town Narsaq in the south of Greenland [Martin Zwick/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images]

Greenland Minerals, an Australian company, owns the site and China’s Shenghe Resources is its largest shareholder.

According to the company, Kvanefjeld has “the potential to become the most significant Western world producer of rare earths”.

On Tuesday, Greenlanders will vote for their national parliament, the Inatsisartut, and municipal representatives.

The decision to greenlight the mine was one of the reasons snap elections were called and has dominated the campaign period.

In late November, Prime Minister Kim Kielsen, who paved the way for Greenland Minerals’ preliminary approval, lost the leadership of his social democratic party, Siumut (Forward), to a former minister in his government, Erik Jensen.

But when Jensen then expressed doubts about the mine, one of the coalition parties, the Demokraatit party (Democrats), left the government, and Kielsen lost his majority.

The biggest opposition party, Inuit Ataqatigiit (Community of the People), has promised to not give a mining licence to Greenland Minerals.

Even though the pro-separatist party is not against all mining, its Member of Parliament Sofia Geisler said they are opposed to extracting processes involving uranium and thorium, two radioactive by-products.

The Siumut party has governed the island, home to about 56,000 people, for all but one term since autonomy in 1979. But according to recent polls, Inuit Ataqatigiit will win the election and become the biggest party in Greenland.

Siumut has argued that the mine is vital for Greenland’s economy and its future ability to become independent from Denmark. The mining company promises that Greenland will receive 1.5bn DKK ($240m) annually for the 37 years they plan to operate the mine.

“More than 90 percent of our economy is based on fishing,” said Siumut leader Jensen. “We have to develop other industries in order to become more independent.”

Greenland has the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of rare earth metals, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The rare-earth minerals in the mountain that Greenland Minerals wants can be used in the production of electronics, aerospace, and – as pro-miners like to point out – electric cars and other climate-friendly products.

The mountain also contains large amounts of uranium that can be used for nuclear power plants.

The Australian mining company has promised more than 700 jobs in the mine, and that about half of those jobs will be occupied by locals in the beginning – opportunities for some of the 6,500 people who live in the Kujalleq municipality, home to the Kuannersuit mountain and the mine project.

The municipality has experienced a sharp decline in population over the last decades, and in Narsaq, the village closest to the potential mine, more than 10 percent were unemployed in 2019.

A taxi drives past a bus shed with election campaign posters for Greenland’s legislative elections in Nuuk, Greenland. The autonomous Danish territory of Greenland votes on April 6, 2021, in legislative elections, wrapping up a campaign focused on a disputed mining project as the Arctic island confronts first-hand the effects of global warming [Christian Klindt Soelbeck/AFP]

But promises of employment have done little to soothe fears among some locals.

“No one will buy meat from a lamb that lived next to a uranium mine,” said Piitaq Lund, a 31-year-old farmer whose 550 sheep roam the area close to the mountain.

The region is the only part of the country that has a climate suitable for farming.

Worried that the mine will see an exodus of families, Lund decided to run for a seat in the municipal council for Inuit Ataqatigiit, to have a say against the mine project.

Ellen Frederiksen, a 61-year old teacher, lives alongside Lund in Qassiarsuk, a small sheep farming village near the mountain of 30 people.

She worries about the uranium dust from the mine and fears a dam will hold the toxic waste.

“We are leaving them [future generations] the problem of making sure that the dam doesn’t overflow or break,” she said. “I just think it is extremely ill-considered.”

Minik Rosing, a Greenlandic geologist at the University of Copenhagen, said he understood locals’ concerns.

“What if the dam doesn’t hold for the thousands of years it has to?” he said. “It’s difficult to conclude scientifically if the mine is a bad or good idea … But the worries are legitimate.”

Jensen claims it is important to extract the minerals because they can be used in the fight against climate change.

Rosing does not buy this argument, however, because the rare-earth minerals are not a scarce resource.

“Geologists often say that rare-earth minerals are neither rare, nor earth. They’re all over the place,” he said. “It’s not like you are morally accountable for climate change if you don’t take advantage of these minerals.”

Looking to Tuesday’s vote, although Inuit Ataqatigiit has strong support, Siumut is the oldest party with deep traditions in many parts of the country.

There are 31 members and seven parties in the parliament.

Whoever manages to make a coalition of at least 16 MPs gets to be in government.

Jensine Berthelsen, political editor at Sermitsiaq, a daily newspaper in Greenland, said that Inuit Ataqatigiit might have problems finding government partners because of its strong stance against the mine.

“It’s going to be tough negotiations because of the mountain,” she told Al Jazeera.

Johnson & Johnson has taken over production of its vaccine at a Emergent BioSolutions facility in Baltimore, which was previously manufacturing J&J and AstraZeneca doses.

By 

Josh Wingrove and Jordan Fabian

Bloomberg

5 Apr 2021

President Joe Biden’s administration is working with AstraZeneca Plc to find new manufacturing capacity in the U.S. after the company agreed to abandon a Baltimore Covid-19 vaccine plant that will focus exclusively on making doses for Johnson & Johnson.

The talks are the latest development after an error at the Emergent BioSolutions Inc. facility — in which ingredients for the two companies’ vaccines were mixed up — led to a batch of 15 million doses worth of drug substance being spoiled.

J&J announced Saturday that it had taken over production of its vaccine at the Emergent facility, which was manufacturing J&J and AstraZeneca doses. The Department of Health and Human Services worked with AstraZeneca to shift production from the plant.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine hasn’t been authorized for U.S. use yet the government has ordered 300 million of its shots, some of which have already been made. The U.S. loaned 4.2 million of its first doses to Canada and Mexico, which have cleared use of the vaccine.

The manufacturing move was made “to ensure that Johnson & Johnson is the only drug that is being produced at this site, given that the issue was about the cross-contamination of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing Monday. “We’re working with AstraZeneca to immediately identify other facilities to continue their domestic manufacture of AstraZeneca drug substance and several options.”

J&J’s single-dose vaccine has been authorized in the U.S., “hence the importance of Johnson & Johnson production continuing to be expedited,” Psaki said.

Timeline Intact

The Baltimore plant hasn’t been authorized for production of J&J’s vaccine, meaning that none of the doses administered and distributed in the U.S. so far were manufactured there or affected by the error. The U.S. still has enough doses to meet its goal of having vaccine supply for all U.S. adults by the end of May, Psaki said.

“We were not betting on these to vaccinate the American public,” she said.

J&J said in a statement Saturday that it “is adding dedicated leaders for operations and quality, and significantly increasing the number of manufacturing, quality and technical operations personnel to work with the company specialists already at Emergent.”

At a briefing Monday, White House Covid adviser Andy Slavitt stressed the importance of that influx of people, along with the plant now producing only one vaccine’s drug substance instead of two. HHS supports both actions, he said.

Moving AstraZeneca from the facility will “eliminate the potential for any cross-contamination,” Slavitt said. “This was a decision that HHS made with Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca in complete collaboration, and so AstraZeneca also agreed that this was the right course.”

The decision “says absolutely nothing about our belief one way or the other” as to whether AstraZeneca’s vaccine will eventually be authorized in the U.S., he said. Slavitt said the AstraZeneca vaccine will go through the Food and Drug Administration authorization process “as soon as an application is submitted.”

AstraZeneca has been confronted with growing concerns in the U.K. and Europe over its vaccine, which is the backbone of the U.K.’s successful inoculation campaign. Many countries around the world were relying on AstraZeneca to drive their immunization programs and some are reconsidering.

The U.K. over the weekend confirmed seven people had died from rare blood clots after receiving AstraZeneca’s vaccine and Australia is also investigating a case of clotting, raising questions about the safety of the widely used vaccine. More than 18 million doses have been administered in the U.K. and the regulator there insists the shot is safe.

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

 

New IMF reserves could fund vaccines in poor nations: Rockefeller

G20 is expected this week to back $650bn in new IMF allocations to help countries cope with COVID pandemic.

Vaccination rates and economic development are diverging widely across the world [File: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters]

6 Apr 2021

Moves to bolster the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) emergency reserves could provide the $44bn needed to vaccinate 70 percent of the population in lower- and middle-income countries by the end of 2022, at no added cost to rich countries, according to a new Rockefeller Foundation report due to be released on Tuesday.

Finance officials from the Group of 20 top economies are expected to back a $650bn new allocation of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) this week to help countries cope with the pandemic and its economic effects.

SDRs are supplementary foreign exchange reserves used by the IMF to make emergency loans. Countries facing balance of payments shortfalls can exchange their SDRs with other IMF member countries for commonly traded currencies to meet short-term needs.

Vaccination rates and economic development are diverging widely across the globe, according to the IMF and other experts.

The Rockefeller report says rich countries could reallocate their new SDRs to quickly close the funding gap and get more people vaccinated around the world, preventing virus mutations that could stall a global economic recovery.

Africa’s needs

The World Bank estimates that Africa alone would need about $12bn for COVID-19 vaccines to attain sufficient levels of inoculations to interrupt virus transmission, according to a new paper by the lender and the IMF.

The paper, published on Monday, argued for an extension of the Group of 20’s debt service moratorium through to the end of the year, citing the continued high liquidity needs of developing countries and their deteriorating ability to sustain their debts.

The World Bank estimates that Africa would need about $12bn for COVID-19 vaccines to attain sufficient levels of inoculations to interrupt virus transmission [File: Ebrahim Hamid/AFP]

But it said additional resources would be needed, noting that the amount of money Africa needed was about the same as the total amount of official debt service payments already deferred by 45 of the poorest countries participating in the G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI).

The Rockefeller report noted that high- and upper-middle-income countries accounted for 86 percent of COVID-19 shots administered worldwide as of the end of March. It said advanced economies should aim to reallocate at least $100bn in SDRs to fund the vaccination drive and other measures needed to help poor and middle-income countries.

Donor countries could pledge new SDRs to the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust, which provides loans to 63 low-income countries, but could also provide them to 16 approved institutions, including the World Bank, which could make them more widely available via low- or no-interest loans.

Another option would be for those institutions to use re-allocated SDRs to back the issuance of bonds earmarked specifically for pandemic response and the vaccination drive, the report said.

SOURCE: REUTERS 

News | Today's latest from Al Jazeera

When is Ramadan 2021?

By 

Alia Chughtai

6 Apr 2021

The first day of fasting for the holy month of Ramadan, which is determined by the sighting of the new moon, is likely to be Tuesday April 13.

To declare the beginning of Ramadan, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim-majority countries depend on the testimonies of local moon sighters.

BECAUSE THE FULL MOON LAST'S THREE DAYS 13,14,15 AND COULD BE DECLARED ON ANY OF THOSE DAY

News | Today's latest from Al Jazeera

A cold civil war is being waged in America

Republicans who failed to overturn the 2020 presidential election are now trying to prevent future electoral defeats through voter suppression.


David A Love
29 Mar 2021

Protesters gather outside of the Georgia State Capitol to protest new legislations that would place tougher restrictions on voting in Georgia, in Atlanta, March 4, 2021 

[Dustin Chambers/Reuters]


In the US, the right-wing voter suppression efforts reached a level not seen since the era of segregation, when white supremacists in the South had passed laws to deny Black Americans the right to vote and threatened everyone who dared to resist with violence.

The nation is now divided between people who want a multiracial democracy in which every American is allowed and encouraged to vote and those who yearn for an anti-democratic system in which an extremist white minority has unchecked control over everyone else. The latter group is represented by the Republican Party, which is brazenly waging a cold civil war by pushing for unprecedented voter suppression measures targeting minority and marginalised communities.

In response to the Democratic Party’s victory in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections, Republican-controlled state legislatures have proposed 253 bills in 43 states that aim to prevent millions of Americans, and especially Americans of colour, from voting in federal and state elections.

In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp signed a law on March 25 that will, among other things, curtail early voting, shorten the length of runoff elections – such as the two Georgia Senate runoff elections in the past election cycle that allowed the Democrats to control the Senate – and make it a crime to provide food or water to people waiting in line to vote. In predominantly Black and Brown Georgia communities, voters waited in line for up to eight hours in the 2020 elections, so these new measures could leave thousands of them unable or unwilling to vote in future elections.

The law also makes producing a photo ID mandatory for absentee voting and gives the Republican-controlled state legislature more control over the administration of elections. According to critics, by expanding the state legislature’s influence over the election process, and making it easier for them to remove state and local election officials refusing to collaborate with them, the law makes it easier for the Republicans to overturn legitimate election results that are not favourable to their party and agenda.

Similarly, Florida Republicans are pushing for perplexing voting restrictions, which are trying to fix “problems” that do not exist. Senate Bill 90, the main vehicle for Republican-led voter suppression in the state, for example, proposes to ban the use of ballot drop boxes, to prohibit anyone other than an immediate family member from helping a voter return a mail-in ballot, and to make a request for a mail-in ballot valid for only one election cycle instead of two. Republicans claim all these measures are necessary to prevent election fraud, even though they themselves admit that none of these has ever caused any significant irregularities in voting in past elections. If this bill becomes law, however, it is clear that it would disfranchise many Black and other minority voters, and give the Republicans an advantage.


In Wisconsin, whose prior voter suppression measures have impacted Black and student voters in urban areas, the Republicans are floating a bill that would change requirements for indefinitely confined voters, institute stricter voter ID laws, and bar election funding from private organisations, among a variety of other things.

In Texas, once again under the guise of protecting “election integrity”, bills have been proposed to increase the use of “poll watchers” – something that raises the spectre of state-sanctioned voter intimidation. These bills also aim to limit mail-in and curbside voting, restrict officials from offering unsolicited ballots and require people with disabilities to produce a note from a doctor or a government agency to vote absentee – measures that would disproportionately affect voters who are more likely to vote against the Republicans.

In Arizona, a Republican lawmaker, Shawnna Bolick, introduced a bill that grants the legislature the ability to revoke the secretary of state’s certification of the presidential election results at any time before the inauguration of a new president. Democratic lawmakers said if the Republican legislature passes the bill, they will work to defeat it by public referendum. The state already has laws in place that restrict minority communities’ ability to vote. The Democrats already took two voting provisions – a policy that requires an entire ballot to be thrown out if the ballot was cast at the wrong precinct, and a state law that bans the collection of ballots by third parties, sometimes called “ballot harvesting” – to the Supreme Court claiming that they discriminate against racial minorities in the state.

Iowa, too, enacted a law to preserve “election integrity” and combat election fraud, despite no widespread election fraud being witnessed in the state in recent history. The law reduces the early voting period from 29 days to 20 days, closes polling sites at 8pm rather than 9pm, and requires that mail-in ballots are received by Election Day, rather than postmarked by that day. And voters who do not vote in a single election are purged from the voter roll if they fail to reregister or report a change of address.

Only federal intervention can stem this tide of voter suppression and thwart the efforts of numerous states to undermine the electoral process and democracy.


The Democrats in Congress are already pushing for a federal voting rights bill that would expand federal control of local election rules.

The For the People Act aims to introduce universal same-day and automatic voter registration, ease voter ID requirements and expand voting by mail and early voting. The act would also end the gerrymandering of congressional districts, and reform campaign finance and government ethics laws. Another bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act – named after the late civil rights leader and member of Congress – will restore the Voting Rights Act and combat voter suppression and racially discriminatory election laws. “We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we’ve seen since the Jim Crow era. This is Jim Crow in new clothes,” said the recently elected Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, while urging his colleagues to pass this legislation.

Endangering the passage of this crucial bill are the antiquated, undemocratic rules and structures of the US Senate, which amplify the power of rural, less populous and former slaveholding states.

Specifically, a senate rule called the filibuster, which requires 60 votes rather than a simple majority to pass legislation, is being used by the Republicans to block Democratic efforts to prevent state-level voter suppression. In the past, this rule was used by white supremacist lawmakers to uphold slavery and racial segregation, deny the rights of Black Americans and block anti-lynching laws. Now it is the most efficient tool they have to stop the Biden administration from passing the For The People Act. Democrats must change this rule if they have any chance of implementing a pro-democracy, pro-voting rights agenda. President Joe Biden recently lambasted the filibuster and depicted it as a relic of the Jim Crow era in the once-segregated South. Yet it is still not clear whether he will be able to annul this rule.

Republicans are intent on holding on to power at all costs, like the Afrikaners in apartheid South Africa. The former party of Abraham Lincoln and emancipation has decided that the best way of dealing with the country’s changing demographics and the growing rejection of their core policies is to deny basic citizenship rights to large swaths of the population. And they are not even trying to hide the fact that they only want a specific subset of Americans, who support them and their discriminatory policies, to have a say on the country’s future.

Earlier this month, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, criticised Democratic efforts to expand access to voting by baselessly claiming that such moves would provide voting rights to “illegal aliens” and “child molesters”. He then revealed the real reason behind his objection: If that happens, he said “[the Democrats] will win and maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate and of the state legislatures for the next century.”

Around the same time, in a Supreme Court hearing on Arizona voting restrictions, a lawyer representing the Arizona Republican Party explained why the suppression measures are necessary. “Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats,” said lawyer Michael Carvin. “Politics is a zero-sum game. And every extra vote they get through unlawful interpretation of Section 2 hurts us, it’s the difference between winning an election 50-49 and losing an election 51 to 50.”


America travelled down this dangerous path before.

There were hopes for the establishment of multiracial democracy in America in the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. In 1868, only three years after the end of the Civil war, South Carolina became the first US state to have a majority-Black state legislature. By 1877, when Reconstruction ended, it is estimated that as many as 2,000 Black men were holding public office across the country. But the country did not remain on this promising path for too long.

White supremacists swiftly retook control of the South through the anti-Black domestic terror, lynchings and assassinations of Black political leaders, and voter suppression laws including poll taxes and literacy tests. In some states, in order to vote, Black people had to answer ridiculous questions like how many bubbles were on a bar of soap or how many jelly beans were in a jar. Black people were denied the right to vote in the South until the civil rights movement led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Now, the US is repeating the mistakes of history. A right-wing mob tried to take over the US Capitol and deny the winner of a legitimate and just election the presidency. They failed, but now their lawmaker allies are trying to overturn the will of the people through legislation and deny millions of Americans the right to vote. The future of America is at stake.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.


David A Love
Philadelphia-based freelance journalist, commentator and media studies professor