#and then there is just a growing unwillingness to cooperate from the citizens

[tsuyu-season]

Like... please guys take this pandemic and the rising numbers in our country seriously...

I’m going to give a image ID, translation and some context at the same time, because not everyone here speaks Dutch.

Anyway, here is a screenshot from twitter taken around 11 o’clock on 14 December 2020 and the tweet + 3 reactions are about an hour old. I’ve cencored the names, tags and profile pics from all those reacting, although they would deserve some of the heat, but privacy laws are also a thing.

First we have a tweet by Xander van der Wulp, who is one of the main reporters on all things Dutch government for the NOS, the national dutch news reporting platform (tv, radio, website, app) that is government funded, but independent (and multiple other news reporting sites, apps, tv programms, etc. exist).

Xander tweets: “Break [note: as in news breakthrough]: Tonight at 19h a speech by Prime Minister Rutte about the covid-19 measures from the little Tower [note: the Dutch Prime minister’s office].

Then there are 3 tweets in reaction to this announcement. The identities of the reactors are concealed.

Reactor 1: Oh god.... (this was not translated and yes when we say this in Dutch we mean the same thing)

Reactor 2: Will your performance still continue? [note: I’m not sure why this is directed to this reporter only, I think this person might have meant to ask a friend or performer this question. As far as I know this reporter was not putting on a performance.]

Reactor 3: Better quickly go to the barber!

I end my translation efforts here, please let me know if I made any mistakes!

Dutch government: So, the numbers of new infections are rising really hard. We’re gonna have to do something to stop this and to show it’s serious we’re having a meeting on Sunday. Dutch commentators: Will this be where the government finally takes the controversial step of also closing the non-essential shops? The one they didn’t dare to take until now? Germans shopping in the Netherlands: I hope not, those shops are already closed in our country. Where else will we go? Dutch government: Tonight there will be an announcement re: coronavirus on a day we usually don’t. Some random idiot on Twitter: Oh better go to the barber quick b4 it’s too late lol.

[bigyack-com]

Coronavirus Worsens U.S.-China Ties and Bolsters Hawks in Washington

BEIJING — Tariffs and the trade war. Espionage and Huawei. Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea. Now a spiraling epidemic has become the latest and potentially most divisive issue driving apart the United States and China. For the fiercest critics of China within the Trump administration, the global panic over the new coronavirus has provided a new opening to denounce the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, which they say cannot be trusted to disclose what it knows or properly manage the outbreak. But if the hard-liners were hoping for a united, anti-China message coming from Washington, that goal has been undermined by their own leader. President Trump has publicly commended President Xi Jinping’s handling of the crisis and even called for greater commercial ties, including the sale of jet engines to China. “Look,’’ Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, “I know this: President Xi loves the people of China, he loves his country, and he’s doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation.” It has become a staple of the Trump administration: sending mixed messages that reflect a good-cop-bad-cop tactic, a real internal disagreement over policy or simply the caprice of the president. But overall, the most hawkish voices on China have managed to dominate the conversation, lashing out at Beijing as it reels from one challenge after another — a trade war with Washington, protests in Hong Kong and now the struggle to contain the coronavirus. Mr. Trump’s conciliatory comments this week might be an effort to defuse tensions and keep the U.S. economy and stock market humming as he faces re-election. That approach is backed by a pro-trade faction led by Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin that advocates close ties between the world’s two largest economies. Whether it is because of the assertiveness of the hard-liners, the ambiguities fueled by the competing messages or Beijing’s policies, the relationship between the United States and China has become so strained and unpredictable that even the need for a united effort to address a global health crisis has not overcome the suspicions that have increasingly taken root on both sides. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the administration’s most vocal China critic, on Tuesday took the country to task for a failure to be open and transparent when the coronavirus hit, saying, “It took us too long to get the medical experts into country. We wish that could have happened more quickly.” The China hawks say privately that they see the virus weakening the party’s legitimacy and further separating the two countries. “You are starting to walk back a couple of decades of diplomatic relations,” said Carl Minzner, a professor of Chinese law and politics at Fordham University. The growing friction, he said, “has its own immutable logic that is dragging both countries backward.” New flash points emerge by the day. On Wednesday, China announced that it was expelling three Wall Street Journal reporters in what it said was retaliation for a headline on an opinion essay. The expulsions occurred a day after the U.S. State Department announced that it would treat China’s main state news media organizations operating in the United States as arms of the Chinese government. All three reporters had worked on topics deemed sensitive by Chinese officials. Updated Feb. 10, 2020 What is a Coronavirus? It is a novel virus named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people, and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to more dangerous conditions like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. How contagious is the virus? According to preliminary research, it seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS, and is possibly transmitted through the air. Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures. How worried should I be? While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat. Who is working to contain the virus? World Health Organization officials have praised China’s aggressive response to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets. This week, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived in Beijing to offer assistance. What if I’m traveling? The United States and Australia are temporarily denying entry to noncitizens who recently traveled to China and several airlines have canceled flights. How do I keep myself and others safe? Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick. The coronavirus epidemic has coincided with recent aggressive moves by Washington that have left many officials in China fuming over what they view as an effort to weaken the Communist Party’s leadership. Those have included criminal cases filed against Chinese military personnel over the 2017 hacking of Equifax, and accusations that Chinese agencies appeared involved in efforts to get hold of research at Harvard University and Boston University. The United States has also leveled accusations of racketeering against Huawei, the telecommunications company whose equipment, officials in Washington have repeatedly warned, could be used by the Chinese government for eavesdropping efforts on a global scale. The Trump administration’s most hawkish officials have seized on the coronavirus epidemic to bolster their arguments that the United States needs to make a more fundamental break with China. Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said it was “a wake up call” to avoid relying on Chinese production of medicines and other medical supplies. The commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said the public health crisis could even lure back manufacturing jobs to the United States. Allies of the administration in Congress, and even some officials speaking privately, have repeated the fringe theory — dismissed by scientists — that Chinese laboratories, not a wholesale food market in Wuhan, might have been the true source of the epidemic and that it started earlier than Beijing has said. The officials assert that China at a minimum had obfuscated the fact that the epidemic began sooner than acknowledged and was then covered up. In China, officials see such statements and actions as evidence of mounting anti-Chinese sentiment, even racism. They also accused the United States of stoking international panic when it withdrew diplomats from a consulate in Wuhan and evacuated its citizens. Although other countries have since followed suit, China’s foreign ministry accused Washington of setting a bad example. “It is a political decision in the final analysis,” said Jia Qingguo, an associate dean at Peking University’s School of International Relations. “It’s time for international cooperation,” he said, “but these people just try to sow hatred, to try to split people up for their own political purposes.” There have been a few signs of cooperation during the crisis. The U.S. State Department said it had delivered 18 tons of donated medical supplies to China and announced that it was prepared to give $100 million to China and other nations. And Beijing, for its part, has not fully unleashed anti-American vitriol. “Unlike with the Hong Kong protests or trade war, the Chinese government has not blamed the United States for the ongoing crisis, and has even cracked down on online commentary calling the virus a U.S.-made biological weapon,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a professor of government at Cornell University. From the start, the Trump administration has been divided between a pro-trade faction that favors strong business relations with China and a national security faction that promotes the idea of “decoupling” the two economies. Despite starting a damaging trade war with China, Mr. Trump has tended to side with the pro-trade faction led by Mr. Mnuchin. Senior officials advocating aggressive policies regularly criticize the trade proponents in private. They blame Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, for blocking efforts to impose sanctions on Chinese officials for the mass detentions of Muslims. They also say pro-business officials are too eager to allow American companies to sell components to Chinese enterprises, especially in the high-tech sector. Since the two nations reached a truce to the trade war in December, China hawks in the Trump administration have seen an opening to push through tougher actions and policies, ones that were criticized earlier by Mr. Mnuchin and his allies for potentially jeopardizing the trade talks. Mr. Pompeo has delivered scathing remarks about the dangers posed by China. He told the National Governors Association on Feb. 8 that China was seeking to exert overt and covert influence from state capitals all the way down to community school boards. He followed that with another speech at the Munich Security Conference this past weekend, declaring that “the West is winning.” On trips this month to Europe, Central Asia and Africa, Mr. Pompeo has told governments to beware of China. His Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, retorted in Munich that the West should “eschew the subconscious belief in the superiority of its civilizations and abandon its prejudices and anxieties regarding China.” The actions and rhetoric coming during the coronavirus epidemic have made the sting even sharper in China. Chinese officials bristled when the State Department raised its travel alert for China to the highest level — “do not travel.” Meanwhile, American officials fumed over China’s unwillingness to allow in teams of international health experts, doctors and scientists. In early January, the United States pressed Chinese officials to allow into Wuhan experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. China ignored the request. Mr. Trump himself pressed the issue in a phone call with Mr. Xi on Feb. 6, administration officials said. Only last Friday did the Chinese government relent and allow two American experts to join an international team. Administration officials say China continues to hide significant facts about the epidemic, its origins and its scale. One official said it was important to get American experts to the outbreak’s epicenter to collect reliable data on things like transmission and morbidity rates. There are already signs that the mutual recriminations could profoundly affect international cooperation — from trade to security to scientific research — as well as popular opinion in both countries. “The level of trust in the relationship is now cratering,” said Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Issues like global pandemics and other issues that fundamentally impact the security of both countries,” he said, “are going to be very difficult to work through given the levels of distrust and disharmony on both sides.” Steven Lee Myers reported from Beijing, and Edward Wong from Washington. Claire Fu contributed research from Beijing. Read the full article

[cfijerusalem]

WILL US CUT FUNDS TO PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY?

A group of Republican Senators, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC,) proposed to cut off all U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority in new legislation presented on Tuesday. The bill is called the “Taylor Force Act,” after an American citizen who was murdered in a terror attack in Israel in March 2016.

Taylor Force was killed on March 9, 2015 in a terror attack in Jaffa.

“Americans want to help the Palestinians, but not if that money ends up supporting terrorism,” Graham explained. He said that if the Palestinian Authority stopped the policy of financing convicted terrorists and their families, he would support the renewal of assistance to the Palestinians. “The victims of this policy of financing terrorists are Israeli citizens, American citizens, and also young Palestinians,” he added.

Graham said he believes the bill would soon receive support from some Democratic Senators as well. “If this comes to the floor, it will pass with support from both parties, and then the bill will be signed by the President. I’ve spoken to Democratic colleagues - it’s a matter of time before they endorse.”

In reply to a question from Haaretz about the position of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israeli lobby, to the proposed legislation, Graham said that AIPAC wants to see some modifications to his bill and that his office was discussing the issue with the lobby group. In the past, Israeli officials, especially from the military and the security establishment, warned U.S. lawmakers against any cuts to American funding of the Palestinian Authority, since the Israeli security agencies rely on cooperation with their Palestinian counterparts to combat terrorism in the West Bank.

Graham said that he was open to discussing changes to his bill with AIPAC, but that he and his colleagues including Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Tom Cotton (R-AK) - will not budge on the main principle of the bill, “that American funding should not go to institutional support for terrorism.” Graham said, “This is an opportunity for our friends in AIPAC to join the effort,” and mentioned that the legislation was brought up during the meeting last month between U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO,) who supports the legislation and was present at the press conference, told Haaretz that “this is not about causing the Palestinian Authority to collapse - this is about causing them to change their ways. This outrageous support of terrorism has to stop. I hope they see the message we are sending here and stop what they’re doing. It’s important the American taxpayer money won’t be used for purposes that most Americans find absolutely appalling. The bill states that once they change the policy, the money will be sent again.”

TRUMP CONDEMNS ANTI-SEMITISM

President Trump said on Tuesday that the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States since his inauguration was “horrible” and “painful,” reacting publicly for the first time to mounting threats targeting Jewish people and institutions after he drew criticism for being slow to condemn them.

During a visit to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, Mr. Trump said he was reminded of the need to combat hatred “in all of its very ugly forms.” He spoke one day after 11 bomb threats were phoned in to Jewish community centers around the country and a Jewish cemetery in University City, Mo., was vandalized.

“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible, and are painful, and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate ...prejudice and evil,” Mr. Trump said.

The statement came after weeks of private complaints from leaders of major Jewish organizations to members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about the President’s seeming unwillingness to speak out forcefully against anti-Semitic acts. His failure to do so stoked concern among some Jewish leaders.

WHY DO CHRISTIANS LOVE ISRAEL?

An Israel Today writer said, “After Israel was miraculously restored from oblivion in the last century, Jews began to return from every nation to their ancient homeland. But they weren’t the only ones rushing to set foot on that storied land. Christians began flocking to the “Holy Land” as well.

The author continued, “At first, we came as tourists to visit the ancient churches and to walk where Jesus walked. Then God awakened us to see this re-born nation was a fulfillment of Bible prophecy, and we came as wide-eyed pilgrims. But as the years passed, God showed us something else. We saw in this restoration His everlasting love and compassion for His people who had suffered so much for so long. Often at the hands of those who called themselves Christians. And we began to understand and love the people as much as the land. And we came as friends.

Over the last 40 years or so, a number of ministries have arisen to help Christians bless the nation in many ways. From bringing Christians around the world to march in streets of Jerusalem waving banners of encouragement, to providing much needed physical and prayer support, to standing up for the nation in political forums, to encouraging tourism, and even more recently, bringing volunteers to help harvest crops.

Through it all, I believe God has been trying to show Jewish Israel (and us) how much He loves the descendants of Abraham, and how He has never forsaken them, even though it may have looked like it for a time. Isaiah anticipated this time of restoration when he wrote: “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In an outburst of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you, says the LORD your Redeemer.” (Isaiah 54:7, 8)

In considering all this I realized this Christian attraction for Israel is not diminishing, but growing ever stronger. So you have to wonder– where is it all going? Is it, as many believe, just going to go away when we fly away in a secret rapture before the reign of antichrist? If so, I’d think that would reveal a deep shallowness in our recommitment to the Jews to “never leave you again,” as most of Christianity did during the Holocaust.

Or...does God have something else in mind for Israel and all the members of Messiah’s Body ready to receive it? I believe He does! And I believe He put it all in the Bible in advance so we’d know what was coming. It was just hidden. But as Yeshua told us, “Nothing is hidden, except to be revealed” (Mark 4:22).

That’s why I’m convinced by the Bible prophesies that there will be a miraculous migration of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of believers streaming into the land one day. But this time we will not be coming as tourists, or as pilgrims, or even as “Christians.” We will come, I believe, as mishpachah (Hebrew for “family”), the redeemed of the Lord. How many times have we sung in our churches this prophecy by Isaiah, understanding it pertained to all of us who are in Messiah?

“Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads” (Isaiah 51:11a).

Where did we think Zion was? In Heaven? No, Isaiah was prophesying of a worldwide ingathering of God’s scattered children returning to Israel.

Some believe Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled by the recent Jewish return to Israel. But Isaiah clearly defined these happy souls as “the redeemed (or ransomed) of the Lord.” And as Scripture tells us, it is only those in Messiah who have been redeemed...”from the Law” and “your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers” (Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 1:18). The Jewish nation has yet to experience that spiritual redemption.

Remember, also, how the high priest, Caiaphas, in plotting to kill Yeshua declared it was better that this man should die “so that the whole nation not perish?” John then commented that Caiaphas had unwittingly prophesied the truth that one man has to die for the sins of the Jewish nation. But then John added: “And not just for the nation only, but in order that he might also gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:52).

Who are these “children of God scattered abroad?” Clearly Yeshua was speaking about the “Gentiles” who would hear the Gospel and become sons of God. The ones he “purchased for God with his blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9)

“Israel, you are not alone!” - Christians celebrating Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem

It’s been two thousand years since the Gospel net was cast forth from Jerusalem upon the nation’s shores. But God said a day would come when that net would be full. And then something new would begin. As Paul put it – “A partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” Then God would turn and display the same mercy to Jews as He showed us. And “thus all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25, 26).

All the signs indicate that time has come. And for me, nothing testifies louder to it than to see the depth of love an ever growing number of God-fearing “Christians” have for Israel and her people. So get ready. I believe a tsunami of God’s children will soon be gathered from the nations to be united with their Jewish brethren in Messiah to become “one flock with one shepherd” (John 10:16).

As the prophet wrote: “My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd...and they will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived” (Ezekiel 37:24, 25). (Article by Brian Hennessy)

“They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow, and sighing, shall flee away... I, even I, am he who comforts you” (Isaiah 51:11b-12a).

In Messiah,

Lonnie C. Mings

Christian Friends of Israel - Jerusalem email: prayer@cfijerusalem.org

[mastcomm]

Coronavirus Worsens U.S.-China Ties and Bolsters Hawks in Washington

BEIJING — Tariffs and the trade war. Espionage and Huawei. Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Now a spiraling epidemic has become the latest and potentially most divisive issue driving apart the United States and China. For the fiercest critics of China within the Trump administration, the global panic over the new coronavirus has provided a new opening to denounce the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, which they say cannot be trusted to disclose what it knows or properly manage the outbreak.

But if the hard-liners were hoping for a united, anti-China message coming from Washington, that goal has been undermined by their own leader. President Trump has publicly commended President Xi Jinping’s handling of the crisis and even called for greater commercial ties, including the sale of jet engines to China.

“Look,’’ Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, “I know this: President Xi loves the people of China, he loves his country, and he’s doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation.”

It has become a staple of the Trump administration: sending mixed messages that reflect a good-cop-bad-cop tactic, a real internal disagreement over policy or simply the caprice of the president. But overall, the most hawkish voices on China have managed to dominate the conversation, lashing out at Beijing as it reels from one challenge after another — a trade war with Washington, protests in Hong Kong and now the struggle to contain the coronavirus.

Mr. Trump’s conciliatory comments this week might be an effort to defuse tensions and keep the U.S. economy and stock market humming as he faces re-election. That approach is backed by a pro-trade faction led by Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin that advocates close ties between the world’s two largest economies.

Whether it is because of the assertiveness of the hard-liners, the ambiguities fueled by the competing messages or Beijing’s policies, the relationship between the United States and China has become so strained and unpredictable that even the need for a united effort to address a global health crisis has not overcome the suspicions that have increasingly taken root on both sides.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the administration’s most vocal China critic, on Tuesday took the country to task for a failure to be open and transparent when the coronavirus hit, saying, “It took us too long to get the medical experts into country. We wish that could have happened more quickly.”

The China hawks say privately that they see the virus weakening the party’s legitimacy and further separating the two countries.

“You are starting to walk back a couple of decades of diplomatic relations,” said Carl Minzner, a professor of Chinese law and politics at Fordham University. The growing friction, he said, “has its own immutable logic that is dragging both countries backward.”

New flash points emerge by the day. On Wednesday, China announced that it was expelling three Wall Street Journal reporters in what it said was retaliation for a headline on an opinion essay. The expulsions occurred a day after the U.S. State Department announced that it would treat China’s main state news media organizations operating in the United States as arms of the Chinese government. All three reporters had worked on topics deemed sensitive by Chinese officials.

Updated Feb. 10, 2020

What is a Coronavirus? It is a novel virus named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people, and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to more dangerous conditions like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

How contagious is the virus? According to preliminary research, it seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS, and is possibly transmitted through the air. Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures.

How worried should I be? While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat.

Who is working to contain the virus? World Health Organization officials have praised China’s aggressive response to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets. This week, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived in Beijing to offer assistance.

What if I’m traveling? The United States and Australia are temporarily denying entry to noncitizens who recently traveled to China and several airlines have canceled flights.

How do I keep myself and others safe? Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick.

The coronavirus epidemic has coincided with recent aggressive moves by Washington that have left many officials in China fuming over what they view as an effort to weaken the Communist Party’s leadership.

Those have included criminal cases filed against Chinese military personnel over the 2017 hacking of Equifax, and accusations that Chinese agencies appeared involved in efforts to get hold of research at Harvard University and Boston University.

The United States has also leveled accusations of racketeering against Huawei, the telecommunications company whose equipment, officials in Washington have repeatedly warned, could be used by the Chinese government for eavesdropping efforts on a global scale.

The Trump administration’s most hawkish officials have seized on the coronavirus epidemic to bolster their arguments that the United States needs to make a more fundamental break with China.

Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said it was “a wake up call” to avoid relying on Chinese production of medicines and other medical supplies. The commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said the public health crisis could even lure back manufacturing jobs to the United States.

Allies of the administration in Congress, and even some officials speaking privately, have repeated the fringe theory — dismissed by scientists — that Chinese laboratories, not a wholesale food market in Wuhan, might have been the true source of the epidemic and that it started earlier than Beijing has said.

The officials assert that China at a minimum had obfuscated the fact that the epidemic began sooner than acknowledged and was then covered up.

In China, officials see such statements and actions as evidence of mounting anti-Chinese sentiment, even racism. They also accused the United States of stoking international panic when it withdrew diplomats from a consulate in Wuhan and evacuated its citizens.

Although other countries have since followed suit, China’s foreign ministry accused Washington of setting a bad example.

“It is a political decision in the final analysis,” said Jia Qingguo, an associate dean at Peking University’s School of International Relations.

“It’s time for international cooperation,” he said, “but these people just try to sow hatred, to try to split people up for their own political purposes.”

There have been a few signs of cooperation during the crisis. The U.S. State Department said it had delivered 18 tons of donated medical supplies to China and announced that it was prepared to give $100 million to China and other nations. And Beijing, for its part, has not fully unleashed anti-American vitriol.

“Unlike with the Hong Kong protests or trade war, the Chinese government has not blamed the United States for the ongoing crisis, and has even cracked down on online commentary calling the virus a U.S.-made biological weapon,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a professor of government at Cornell University.

From the start, the Trump administration has been divided between a pro-trade faction that favors strong business relations with China and a national security faction that promotes the idea of “decoupling” the two economies.

Despite starting a damaging trade war with China, Mr. Trump has tended to side with the pro-trade faction led by Mr. Mnuchin.

Senior officials advocating aggressive policies regularly criticize the trade proponents in private. They blame Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, for blocking efforts to impose sanctions on Chinese officials for the mass detentions of Muslims. They also say pro-business officials are too eager to allow American companies to sell components to Chinese enterprises, especially in the high-tech sector.

Since the two nations reached a truce to the trade war in December, China hawks in the Trump administration have seen an opening to push through tougher actions and policies, ones that were criticized earlier by Mr. Mnuchin and his allies for potentially jeopardizing the trade talks.

Mr. Pompeo has delivered scathing remarks about the dangers posed by China. He told the National Governors Association on Feb. 8 that China was seeking to exert overt and covert influence from state capitals all the way down to community school boards.

He followed that with another speech at the Munich Security Conference this past weekend, declaring that “the West is winning.” On trips this month to Europe, Central Asia and Africa, Mr. Pompeo has told governments to beware of China.

His Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, retorted in Munich that the West should “eschew the subconscious belief in the superiority of its civilizations and abandon its prejudices and anxieties regarding China.”

The actions and rhetoric coming during the coronavirus epidemic have made the sting even sharper in China.

Chinese officials bristled when the State Department raised its travel alert for China to the highest level — “do not travel.”

Meanwhile, American officials fumed over China’s unwillingness to allow in teams of international health experts, doctors and scientists.

In early January, the United States pressed Chinese officials to allow into Wuhan experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. China ignored the request.

Mr. Trump himself pressed the issue in a phone call with Mr. Xi on Feb. 6, administration officials said. Only last Friday did the Chinese government relent and allow two American experts to join an international team.

Administration officials say China continues to hide significant facts about the epidemic, its origins and its scale. One official said it was important to get American experts to the outbreak’s epicenter to collect reliable data on things like transmission and morbidity rates.

There are already signs that the mutual recriminations could profoundly affect international cooperation — from trade to security to scientific research — as well as popular opinion in both countries.

“The level of trust in the relationship is now cratering,” said Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“Issues like global pandemics and other issues that fundamentally impact the security of both countries,” he said, “are going to be very difficult to work through given the levels of distrust and disharmony on both sides.”

Steven Lee Myers reported from Beijing, and Edward Wong from Washington. Claire Fu contributed research from Beijing.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/business/coronavirus-worsens-u-s-china-ties-and-bolsters-hawks-in-washington/

[investmart007]

HAVANA | Raul Castro retires as Cuban president, outlines future

New Post has been published on https://goo.gl/i4LpDZ

HAVANA | Raul Castro retires as Cuban president, outlines future

HAVANA | April 19, 2018 (AP)(STL.News)— Raul Castro turned over Cuba’s presidency Thursday to a 57-year-old successor he said would hold power until 2031, a plan that would place the state the Castro brothers founded and ruled for 60 years in the hands of a Communist Party official little known to most on the island.

Castro’s 90-minute valedictory speech offered his first clear vision for the nation’s future power structure under new President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez. Castro said he foresees the white-haired electronics engineer serving two five-year terms as leader of the Cuban government, and taking the helm of the Communist Party, the country’s ultimate authority, when Castro leaves the powerful position in 2021.

“From that point on, I will be just another soldier defending this revolution,” Castro said. The 86-year-old general broke frequently from his prepared remarks to joke and banter with officials on the dais in the National Assembly, saying he looked forward to having more time to travel the country.

In his own half-hour speech to the nation, Diaz-Canel pledged to preserve Cuba’s communist system while gradually reforming the economy and making the government more responsive to the people.

“There’s no space here for a transition that ignores or destroys the legacy of so many years of struggle,” Diaz-Canel said. “For us, it’s totally clear that only the Communist Party of Cuba, the guiding force of society and the state, guarantees the unity of the nation of Cuba.”

Diaz-Canel said he would work to implement a long-term plan laid out by the National Assembly and communist party that would continue allowing the limited growth of private enterprises like restaurants and taxis, while leaving the economy’s most important sectors such as energy, mining, telecommunications, medical services and rum- and cigar-production in the hands of the state.

“The people have given this assembly the mandate to provide continuity to the Cuban Revolution during a crucial, historic moment that will be defined by all that we achieve in the advance of the modernization of our social and economic model,” Diaz-Canel said.

Cubans said they expected their new president to deliver improvements to the island’s economy, which remains stagnant and dominated by inefficient, unproductive state-run enterprises that are unable to provide salaries high enough to cover basic needs. The average monthly pay for state workers is roughly $30 a month, forcing many to steal from their workplaces and depend on remittances from relatives abroad.

“I hope that Diaz-Canel brings prosperity,” said Richard Perez, a souvenir salesman in Old Havana. “I want to see changes, above all economic changes allowing people to have their own businesses, without the state in charge of so many things.”

But in Miami, Cuban-Americans said they didn’t expect much from Diaz-Canel.

“It’s a cosmetic change,” said Wilfredo Allen, a 66-year-old lawyer who left Cuba two years after the Castros’ 1959 revolution. “The reality is that Raul Castro is still controlling the Communist Party. We are very far from having a democratic Cuba.”

After formally taking over from his older brother Fidel in 2008, Raul Castro launched a series of reforms that led to a rapid expansion of Cuba’s private sector and burgeoning use of cellphones and the internet.

Cuba today has a vibrant real estate market and one of the world’s fastest-growing airports. Tourism numbers have more than doubled since Castro and President Barack Obama re-established diplomatic relations in 2015, making Cuba a destination for nearly 5 million visitors a year, despite a plunge in relations under the Trump administration.

Castro’s moves to open the economy even further have largely been frozen or reversed as soon as they began to generate conspicuous displays of wealth by the new entrepreneurial class in a country officially dedicated to equality among its citizens. Foreign investment remains anemic and the island’s infrastructure is falling deeper into disrepair. The election of President Donald Trump dashed dreams of detente with the U.S., and after two decades of getting Venezuelan subsidies totaling more than $6 billion a year, Cuba’s patron has collapsed economically, with no replacement in the wings.

Castro’s inability or unwillingness to fix Cuba’s structural problems with deep and wide-ranging reforms has many wondering how a successor without Castro’s founding-father credentials will manage the country over the next five or 10 years.

“I want the country to advance,” said Susel Calzado, a 61-year-old economics professor. “We already have a plan laid out.”

Most Cubans have known their new president as an uncharismatic figure who until recently maintained a public profile so low it was virtually nonexistent. Castro’s declaration Thursday that he saw Diaz-Canel in power for more than a decade was likely to resolve much of the uncertainty about the power the new president would wield inside the Cuban system.

“The same thing we’re doing with him, he’ll have to do with his successor,” Castro said. “When his 10 years of service as president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers are over, he’ll have three years as first secretary in order to facilitate the transition. This will help us avoid mistakes by his successor, until (Diaz-Canel) retires to take care of the grandchildren he will have then, if he doesn’t have them already, or his great-grandchildren.”

Cuban state media said Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Diaz-Canel and thanked Castro for the many years of cooperation between the two countries, while Chinese President Xi Jinping also reaffirmed his country’s friendship with Cuba and expressed interest in deeper ties.

At the U.S. State Department, spokeswoman Heather Nauert expressed disappointment at the handover, saying Cuban citizens “had no real power to affect the outcome” of what she called the “undemocratic transition” that brought Diaz-Canal to the presidency.

Vice President Mike Pence tweeted at Castro that the U.S. won’t rest until Cuba “has free & fair elections, political prisoners are released & the people of Cuba are finally free!” Diaz-Canel said his government would be willing to talk with the United States but rejected all demands for changes in the Cuban system.

With Castro watching from the audience, Diaz-Canel made clear that for the moment he would defer to the man who founded the Cuban communist system along with his brother Fidel. He said he would retain Castro’s cabinet through at least July, when the National Assembly meets again.

“I confirm to this assembly that Raul Castro, as first secretary of the Communist Party, will lead the decisions about the future of the country,” Diaz-Canel said. “Cuba needs him, providing ideas and proposals for the revolutionary cause, orienting and alerting us about any error or deficiency, teaching us, and always ready to confront imperialism.”

Diaz-Canel first gained prominence in central Villa Clara province as the top Communist Party official, a post equivalent to governor. People there describe him as a hard-working, modest-living technocrat dedicated to improving public services. He became higher education minister in 2009 before moving into the vice presidency.

In a video of a Communist Party meeting that inexplicably leaked to the public last year, Diaz-Canel expressed a series of orthodox positions that included somberly pledging to shutter some independent media and labeling some European embassies as outposts of foreign subversion.

But he has also defended academics and bloggers who became targets of hard-liners, leading some to describe him a potential advocate for greater openness in a system intolerant of virtually any criticism or dissent. International observers and Cubans alike will be scrutinizing every move he makes in coming days and weeks.

As in Cuba’s legislative elections, all of the leaders selected Wednesday were picked by a government-appointed commission. Ballots offered only the option of approval or disapproval and candidates generally receive more than 95 percent of the votes in their favor. Diaz-Canel was approved by 604 votes in the 605-member assembly. It was unclear if he had abstained or someone else had declined to endorse him.

The assembly also approved another six vice presidents of the Council of State, Cuba’s highest government body. Only one, 85-year-old Ramiro Valdez, was among the revolutionaries who fought with the Castros in the late 1950s in the eastern Sierra Maestra mountains.

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN and ANDREA RODRIGUEZ by  Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (U.S)

[trotsky-is-hotsky-blog]

Short Essay 1: Initial Reflections on Why Inequality Is & What Can Be Done

Inequality is increasing. Why is it increasing? Well I'm here to help unpack that question a bit. Just a bit though. Because I'm 19 years old and I don't really know shit and this topic is a fu--ing huge one. Still, I'll do my best to discuss the problem, Lenin's very famous solution, why that failed, and why I think inequality is here to stay, but can be fought incrementally. Anyway, let's get to unpacking. 

At this present moment in time, almost every American knows what the One Percent is: the elite group of private citizens which control the vast majority of the wealth in our country. In 2014, Oxfam famously declared that the wealthiest 1% controlled 46% of the wealth. Well, it should come as no surprise that this phenomenon is present in every other country as well. Partly bolstered by mercurial colonial and neocolonial relationships, wealthy countries displace poorer ones and within each group of countries, wealthy individuals displace the poor. The global One Percent retains so much monetary authority that their "mean wealth exceeds 100 times median wealth in many countries and can approach 1000 times the median in the most unequal nations."(Yates, 2016) What is more, the wealth is essentially never redistributed from the same One Percenters, decade after decade. The concentration is compounded by the fact that the wealthy tend to bequeath their riches to heirs, while the 99 percent continues to reproduce exponentially.

The problem, then, is quite clear. The ultra-rich have utilized the free market to gain an immense, irrevocable upper hand against the world's poor. Extreme inequality has been devastating for those living near and beneath the poverty line. As the elite consolidate wealth and the lower class continues to grow, more families become impoverished and, just as the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor. Extreme inequality affects those above the poverty line, too. This is the case in Kaplan's story about Emmie, whose household made 53,000 dollars in 2012 and still struggled every week despite having above-average income.

When confronting these issues head on, one realizes that inequality is by no means new. In fact it has likely been an integral part of human society for thousands of years. However, for the purposes of unpacking this question in three to four pages, let's observe inequality in the past 100 years. In his Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, Lenin discusses the application of Communism as a radical, zero-sum approach to ending inequality. Of course, to Lenin this means eliminating all capitalist practices to which he attributes the restraints of inequality. Lenin makes two key assumptions that found my criticism of his approach: 1) that inequality is innate in the system of capitalism, and 2) that Communism only works if it is implemented universally. The biggest criticism of Lenin is that the necessary overthrow of global capitalism is the foundation of his theses, which demonstrates a severe underestimation of humanity's proclivity towards private ownership and self-interest. He states: "a closer union of the proletarians and the working masses of all nations and countries. . . alone will guarantee victory over capitalism, without which the abolition of national oppression and inequality is impossible." (Lenin, 1920) Lenin's absolute terms of action are ultimately the downfall of his theses; the points put forward seem to ignore cultural, geographical, and economic variation throughout the world that are not compatible with such an overthrow.

Lenin champions what he calls internationalism (the cooperation of workers across border divisions), but contradicts the idea in his writing with nationalistic overtones. Each contention in the theses calls for unconditional faith in and subscription to the Soviet system. He calls for formal alliances through policy, which connotes bloc behavior during wartime, rather than his notion of internationalism. Where Lenin's proposal excels is in his recognition of colonies and former colonies as victims of severe inequality due to capitalism. Countries handed the short-end of capitalism through colonial force are oft overlooked as simply weak states who cannot compete with larger ones. Lenin's call upon the colonized is brilliant, but he nearly negates this by referring to the countries and nationalities as "backwards" and nonetheless calling for their submission to the Soviet system. One can see why this is problematic.

We know from our U.S. history books what happened to Lenin's solution to global inequality, and we continue to enjoy luxury stand mixers from Williams Sonoma while the Americans who build them struggle to stay afloat. Due to the massive inertia that capitalism has gained within the global system and humans' unwillingness to deviate from it, inequality is here to stay. But that is not to say that all is lost. While inequality may be certain, we can lessen the disparity between the One Percent and the 99 percent. Measures simply need to be taken on an institutional level to counteract the trend of the same rich individuals staying rich. One of the most obvious responses, as put forward by both Stiglitz and Yates, is to implement stringent tax codes that require more accurate reports of income. Yates specifically advocates a progressive wealth tax to mend inequality on a global scale. Moreover, addressing inequality in other areas such as environmental degradation and resource management would boost some countries and likewise promote income and job growth (the present lack of which contradicts upward mobility) in others.

Of course, these ideas are far easier said than done. Nevertheless, Yates optimistically points out that many groups actively protest inequality and advocate for racial equality and a fifteen dollar minimum wage (Yates 2016). He claims (and I agree) that these protests are the seed of change to lessen inequality and combat poverty from the ground up. Though it will not lead to a united overthrow of the capitalist system, it is a damn good place to start working.

Reference List

 Kaplan, J. (2015). Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

 Lenin, V. (1870-1924). The Lenin Anthology. R. C. Tucker (Ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

 Stiglitz, J. (2015). The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc

 Yates, M. D. (November, 2016). Measure of Global Inequality. Monthly Review, 68 (06).  Retrieved from https://monthlyreview.org/2016/11/01/measuring-global-inequality/